6 Eye Exercises for Creatives

If you’ve ever had a headache due to eye-strain then you’re familiar with the pain and how debilitating it can be. Did you know you there are eye exercises that can help?

In order to help keep the creativity flowing and your eyes shining brightly, we’ve put together a list of six helpful eye exercises. Luckily, these exercises don’t involve your eyeballs doing squats, bench pressing, or running around the block while you wait.

Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.

Practice “zooming” with your eyes

• Sit in a comfortable position.
• Stretch out one arm with your thumb up, in the hitchhiking position. (A note of caution: please do not do try this exercise while standing on the side of a road.)
• Bring both eyes to focus on your thumb. Then, bend the arm and slowly bring the thumb closer to you, focusing on the tip of your thumb until it is about 3 inches in front of your face or you bump into your nose.
• Slowly begin to move your thumb away from your face until your arm is fully outstretched (and we’re hitchhiking again!)
• Repeat this exercise three more times.

Blinking 

This helps clean and moisturize your eyes, which can help reduce the strain on your vision. There are many suggestions on the best way to do this so we’ve included a few ideas. Choose your favorite!

• Start by sitting in a comfortable position.
• Blink the eyes quickly 10 times. Close the eyes. Take a few relaxing breaths.
• Or, do a series of 10-20 slow blinks, as if you were falling asleep.
• To do this, close the eyes for a second or two, open the eyes, close the eyes for a second or two.

Make a figure eight with your eyes

Please share any videos of this here. We won’t laugh. I promise.

• Begin by envisioning a large figure eight on the floor, 10 feet in front of you.
• Slowly, trace the figure eight with your eyes. (A note of caution: not literally).
• Make a figure eight with your eyes moving in one direction and then slowly moving in the other direction.
• Continue for a couple of minutes on each side or until you’re escorted from the room.

Palming your eyes

This may help release tension and strain on the eyes and the brain.

• Sit comfortably in a chair. Rub your palms together until they feel warm.
• Close your eyes and cover them lightly with your cupped palms but avoid applying pressure to your eye(balls).
• Keep your fingers close together to keep any light from tempting your eyes to focus.
• Take a few long inhales and deep exhales. Once you see only blackness behind your closed lids, go ahead and remove the palms.
• You can repeat this process for up to 3 minutes.

Strengthen your eyes’ (near and far focusing)

This exercise may help strengthen the muscles in your eyes.

• For this one you can either sit in a chair or stand. Raise one hand and place your thumb about 10 inches in front of your face and focus on it. If your thumbs aren’t interested in being stared at, feel welcome to find another object that is about 10 inches from you. Focus on your thumbs (or object) for 10-15 seconds.
• Next, focus on an object that is 10–20 feet in front of you but don’t move your head! Focus on the this object for 10–15 seconds.
• After 10-15 seconds, turn your focus back to your thumb.
• You can practice this up to five times (which may or may not give you vertigo. I did mention I’m not a doctor right??)

Rest

Yep. Good old fashioned ‘shut eye’.

• Grab a pillow.
• Close the eyes.
• Do not open them again for a period of 10-480 minutes. (Snoring, is optional)

We hope these tips will give your overworked eyes some much needed rest. Share your tips for reducing eye strain in the comments below!