This is Part 6* of the 7-Part Gentle Rewilding series!
We’ve been tamed, y’all. Modern life molds and changes our bodies, minds and spirits. Much of our modern domestication is just fine: I’m glad we use forks and don’t spit inside and don’t drink milk straight out of the carton (oh wait, I do that). But some of our taming is worth questioning and unwinding. This series is an exploration of ways of reconnecting to our human design with gentle rewilding.
* Find Part 1 – Gentle Rewilding & Feet here.
* Find Part 2 – Gentle Rewilding: Hands here.
* Find Part 3 – Gentle Rewilding: Spine here.
* Find Part 4 – Gentle Rewilding: Shoulders here.
* Find Part 5 – Gentle Rewilding: Hips here.
Close your eyes for a moment and then open them. Without moving your head, look up down and to the sides. Then look at your hand close to your face and look out the window to the furthest thing you can see.
Pretty cool, that your little eyeball can move around in the socket AND adjust to seeing things near you and far away. No matter how not so good (or excellent) your vision is, it really is a wonder.
When we think of muscles, we tend to think of big visible ones like biceps and quads and glutes but the eyes have muscles, too. There is a collection of small muscles that move your eyeball, your eye lid and its lens to allow you to do everything from watch clouds moving in an autumn sky, look askance at your partner and read this post.
All parts of us thrive with a variety of movement – including our eyes. There are seven muscles that move your eyeball in different directions and move your eyelid up and down. The extrinsic or extraocular muscles control the movement of the eyes themselves. The intrinsic eye muscles focus the eye, and control the iris to allow light to enter it. The extrinsic muscles are around the eye and are voluntary (yes, you can control your eye rolling!). The intrinsic muscles are inside the eye and are involuntary.
One of the intrinsic eye muscles is the ciliary muscle and it’s one that you cannot choose to relax. As biomechanist Katy Bowman says, “[The ciliary muscles] tighten or relax based on what you’re looking at. The only way to relax the muscles [is to change] the shape of your lens [and the only way to do that is to change] what you’re looking at.”
The ciliary muscle focuses the lens inside your eye – a process called “accommodation” – and the muscle is most relaxed when looking at something in the distance. To see something closer, means that the ciliary muscles must work harder to focus. As physicist Paul Davidovits explains, “there is, however, a limit to the focusing power of the crystalline lens. With the maximum contraction of the ciliary muscle, a normal eye of a young adult can focus on objects about 15 cm from the eye. Closer objects [than that] appear blurred.”
You can try this out for yourself by holding your hand close to your face and slowly moving it away until it comes into focus. The closest place you can see clearly will depend on your particular eyes, of course, but wherever it is for you, your ciliary muscles are working hard to let you see it.
In recent years, there has been a startling rise in myopia or nearsightedness, especially in children. Jane Brody wrote in the New York Times in 2021:
Susceptibility to myopia is determined by genetics and environment. Children with one or both nearsighted parents are more likely to become myopic. However, while genes take many centuries to change, the prevalence of myopia in the United States increased from 25 percent in the early 1970s to nearly 42 percent just three decades later. And the rise in myopia is not limited to highly developed countries. The World Health Organization estimates that half the world’s population may be myopic by 2050.
The incidence of myopia in Chinese children is even more dramatic. The National Institute of Health reported in 2018 that “20% to 50% of the students in primary school, 35% to 60% of the students in middle school, and 50% to 75% of the students in college are myopic in China.” And that was before the pandemic when so many were inside and on screens almost all day.
Millions and millions of overworked ciliary muscles!
This surprising rise in myopia is due at least in part to children spending more time on screens and indoors than previous generations. Being outside allows your eyes to focus on a wide range of distances giving them both work and rest. More specifically, research is showing that around 13-14 hours of outdoor time a week is correlated to a decrease in myopia. (Source: Katy Bowman and The American Academy of Opthalmology.)
Clearly, our eyes could use some rewilding! In addition to spending more time outside, here are 4 exercises to expand the range of motion for your eyes and to give them some much-needed rest.
Gently Rewilding Your Eyes: 4 Exercises and Rests
Palming and Cupping
Palming is calming to the eyes. Cupping is similar but make space under your hands so your eyes can open and soak in the warmth and dark.
Many of us move through the day with perpetually tired eyes. Every hour or so, gently place your palms over your closed eyelids and let them rest. Breathe deeply and feel the warmth and darkness as your eyes stop working. Without pressing too hard, just breath and palm your eyes until they feel relaxed (perhaps a minute or so, more if you like). Remove your hands slowly and let your eyes adjust to light again.
A variation on this is cupping your eyes: cup your hands over your eyes with your fingers close together to make two dark “eye caves” that keep out all the light (this is easiest to do in a dimly lit space). Open your eyes and let them take in the warmth and darkness for a minute or so. When they feel relaxed, close your eyes and remove your hands, then slowly open your eyes again.
Look Far Away Every Day
As mentioned, outdoor time is ideal for eye health, in part because it allows your eyes to look at all different distances. Even if you’re inside, a couple times a day, find a window and look out as far as you can see. Look for the farthest thing in your field of vision and see what details you can see: the texture of the clouds, the movement in the leaves of a distant tree, the traffic moving on a far away highway.
Move Eyes (Not Head)
For many of us, when we want to look at something, we turn our head, but that neglects the extrinsic muscles that move your eyeballs. Gently move your eyes without moving your head. (See Kit Cat Klock above!) Without straining, let your eyes move around an imaginary clock from 12 to 3 to 6 to 9 to 12 and then counterclockwise. Again, gently and without forcing, look up and down, side to side, and along diagonals.
Transition Light Gradually & Look in the Dark
Artificial light is ubiquitous, and it can be easy – especially in winter – to go from full darkness to full light in the morning and vice versa at night. Instead, play with transitioning gradually from full light to less light as you move toward sleep. In the morning, start with gentle or indirect light and move toward full light. As part of the transition, experiment with looking in the dark: go outside and look up at stars (now that’s looking far away!) or when you wake up, open your eyes before turning on any light and let them bask in the low light.
When I was little, my Grampa used to joke that he wasn’t napping, he was “resting his eyes.” Even though he was goofing with us, he was onto something. We use our eyes so much that we can often take them for granted. With gratitude for how hard they work, give them some gentle rewilding and plenty of rest.