Vision Massage

To understand the eye-body relationship, we need to experience it aesthetically. Most of the time we are not aware of it; we feel the effects of seeing only later, in the form of eyestrain, eye fatigue, neck tension and other related problems. It is possible, however, to learn to feel immediately, when we strain our eyes or the muscles surrounding them, and to stop ourselves from doing so.

A good place to begin is with the muscles closest to the eyes and most directly affected by seeing-the facial muscles. A massage of the face, with particular attention to several specific places seems to have an especially good effect on vision.

It has only recently been discovered that these are the same points used by the Chinese in acupressure massage-a facial massage, particularly as a preparation for palming' should help relieve a lot of eye strain. One of the most important functions of palming is, in fact, relaxation of the muscles around the eyes.

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Massage of the whole face influences the circulation around the eyes. Rub your hands together until they are warm, and then massage your face with your fingertips, gently at first, and then more firmly as your muscles also begin to warm up.

The pressure at first should be just firm enough to let you feel whether a spot is tense, or painful, but not hard enough to make pain worse. Spend at least a couple of minutes on each separate area, noticing how your touch feels and what affect it has.

You may feel a deep tension, or pain, a superficial tightness, a pleasant sense of release, or numbness, which is also a sensation. Begin with the jaw, and continue over the other areas.

Massage the whole area from the point of the chin outward along the jawbone, in front of and behind the ears. You can open and close your jaws while doing this, to help stretch and relax the strong jaw muscles. This may make you feel like yawning, so yawn as much as you want-it is very relaxing for your face.

Now work up from the bridge of the nose outward along the cheekbones toward the temples. From the bridge of the nose, work out along the eyebrows, massaging above, below and directly on the brow.

Spend a little extra time on the point between the eyebrows; this area gathers a lot of tension from the act of seeing. To relieve this tension, massage in long firm strokes across the forehead and, very gently, with small circular motions, in the temple area.

Stroke lightly from the temples up into your scalp, imagining that you are drawing tension away from your eyes. After ten minutes, or so of massage, your face will be glowing and tingling from the increased blood flow.