Exercise Program for Glaucoma
• Peripheral Exercise: 20 minutes daily.
• Palming: 6 minutes at a time, three times daily, with at least 5 minutes between sessions for 30 minutes a day.
• Sunning: 20 minutes daily.
• Headlines (from the section on astigmatism): 10 minutes.
• Block the Strong Eye (tape the medium-sized piece of paper onto the bridge of your nose so that it blocks the central vision of your strong eye; now read with your weaker eye while waving your hand in the periphery of your stronger eye): 10 minutes.
• Physical Exercises for Glaucoma: 20 minutes daily.
Note: While working on your eyes, also address your emotional state and create a good emotional environment for yourself. And remember to work on your eyes throughout the day. Find time here and there to always work on healing your vision.
Physical Exercises for Glaucoma
Good thoughts and good prayer can be healing. Visualize that blood is circulating to your retina, making it soft and nurturing your optic disk. Also visualize that the fluid in its clear form is flowing in the area between the cornea and the macula. Visualize that good blood circulation is nourishing your optic disk and retina. Visualize the blood coming from the back, and from your neck to the back of the head, and nourishing your optic disk. Visualize that blood is flowing into your eye and draining from it. Then visualize that the aqueous humor is flowing into the front area of your eye from the lens to the cornea, nourishing both, and draining into the area of your nose. It’s amazing how powerful the body is and how much it does all at once. It’s not power that belongs to you but to nature, and you are a wonderful guest of nature’s within your own body. There is a connection between that power and of all universal powers around you; this connection gives that power a tremendous amount of strength.
The power that brings rain from the sky and wind to the earth, the power that is mysterious to all of us and runs the whole universe, is the same power that moves your blood and your fluids. It does so constantly. The more you acknowledge its power and its strength, the better it will work for you. There is a connection between your mind and soul and the natural functions of your body. When you have glaucoma, physical exercises are important to prevent the pressure from mounting and growing in your eyes and, in fact, will reduce it. Other exercises will be important to preserve your vision. All of them will be a pleasure to do. When you work on your body, you work for the purpose of having fun with it, and it is a pleasure to do the work. When you have that feeling, it’s going to be wonderful to heal your glaucoma and to overcome it. It will create a better connection between you and your internal forces, and it will help you to tune in to the forces of the universe. It’s probably the best antidepressant you can ever have.
Special Instructions for Palming with Glaucoma
You should only palm for up to ten minutes at a time. Then wait at least five minutes before palming again. You can do this many times a day. But if you palm too long all in one session, you can experience an increase in pressure. If, for example, you have closed-angle glaucoma and you palm for a half an hour all at once, you can have an increase in pressure of 4 mercury points.
Exercises for Glaucoma
Sunning is one of the best eye exercises you can do for glaucoma because it temporarily reduces your pressure. It also contracts the pupils and creates better fluid flow within your eyes. So, for the time that you do it, your pressure is being reduced. And the reduction of pressure will last if you could also release the tension in your neck. This exercise will help you do that.
If you are a typical glaucoma patient, if such a thing exists, most likely you have a very tight neck. Tension of the neck, to a great extent, is a result of mental stress as well as physical stress, but not in all cases. Nevertheless, I have found that many people who have a tendency for glaucoma exacerbate that tendency with either injury or tension in the neck.
It’s important for you to know that you need to work on your neck, first spiritually, then mentally. It’s good to write about your thoughts and feelings in a journal. Then meet with a good friend or maybe with a psychotherapist who can help you. Hopefully, with holistic inclinations, you will see your whole life and all phenomena as one unified experience.
Sometimes, it’s important for you to take a good vacation or to do things that can improve your life. For example, let yourself be drawn into having a relationship if you don’t have one, or into finding a way to get out of your shell of loneliness if you are lonely. And, if you have a relationship, allow yourself to examine it and to find out if you really spend enough time with your partner; allow yourself to develop good communication skills with your partner in order to bring smoothness into your life. It’s important to do the work that will help you to feel that you are doing well emotionally and that you’re advancing yourself spiritually. Then, you just may find yourself in a whole new place of physical self-improvement with these exercises. Often, the exercises will bring back emotional phenomena, which you’ll want to deal with whenever they come, in order to reach a place of neutrality and tranquility.
These days, many people do not understand the value of neutrality. Somebody wrote me a postcard that said, “Meir, never tell me to relax. My tension is the only thing that holds me together.” That’s why many people function with tremendous amounts of tension and think it’s good: because they always have it. Life is much happier with less tension. In a place of relaxation, you feel security and love in the universe.
Now, while facing the sun with your eyes closed, hold your head steady and stroke your cheekbones, massaging around your eyes and nose. Massaging the areas around your eyes is very helpful for relaxation. Quite often, the tension of the eyes leads to squinting, as I’ve mentioned throughout this book. That is a tension that you want to undo. When you take away squinting, you take away pressure, and when you take away pressure, the eye becomes healthy.
Move your head from side to side. Then move your head up and down while moving from side to side. Your chin points up toward the sky and down toward your chest. You should move your head up and down four times, from the edge of your shoulder to the middle, and four times from the middle of your shoulder to the edge. This really helps to loosen up your neck and to create more space between the first vertebrae and the crown. After doing this forty times, palm for thirty seconds. Then you should do it another forty times, if you can relax while performing the exercise. Do not massage around the eyes here, because it’s not safe to do this when you move the head up and down. Just move your head up and down as you’re facing the sun with your eyes closed. Then palm again. Do this exercise a third time and then palm yet again for thirty seconds to a minute. Next, move your head from side to side and massage your eyebrows and cheekbones.
Now bend your knees and straighten them again. Try to bring your knees to the level of your abdomen or chest (this depends on how flexible your hips are) while moving the head from side to side. If balance is an issue, hold onto a wall or a chair as you do this exercise. Make sure that you don’t fall while doing it.
Now march in place and move your head from side to side while moving your legs from side to side in order to pump more blood into the head and loosen the neck. If you have good balance, then as you move your legs up and down and move your head from side to side, massage your hands. Especially massage the place in the palm that is between the thumb and the second finger. If it’s hard for you to do three things at once (moving your head from side to side all the way gently and steadily, moving your legs up and down, and massaging your palm, all at the same time), then you can do two things. Massage your hand and move your head from side to side, or move your head from side to side and just move your legs up and down. Those are things that can help you to bring more blood flow and to calm your nervous system; don’t strain to do them.
After massaging your palm, and while moving your legs up and down, just simply move your head from side to side twenty o
r thirty times; then go indoors and palm for eight minutes. When you relax from the palming, you will have time to loosen up your neck.
Before doing neck exercises, determine how well your neck moves from side to side. Once you have an idea of the range of motion available to you, begin these exercises so that, at first, you stay within your comfortable range of motion. Gradually, this range of motion should increase over time. Also, with all these neck exercises, you should strive for fifteen to twenty repetitions on each side for each exercise.
Now lie on your back, bend your knees, stretch your arms, and look at one hand; let’s say the right hand. Take the left hand and bring it all the way to the right and, in fact, surpass it. Stay there for one deep breath. Keep your head looking at the right while bringing the left hand all the way to the left. The shoulder will then stretch in two ways. For one, it will stretch in the back muscles, the trapezius and the rhomboids, in order to bring the arm forward. The second time, when you bring your arm back to where it was, the pectoral muscles of the chest will stretch, and the chest muscles as well as the back muscles are directly connected to neck muscles.
Then move your head to the opposite side and do exactly the same exercise with your right hand reaching to the left. You can let your legs move after your arm if that’s what your body needs to do to complete the stretch. Repeat the exercise thirty-five times. Then move your head from side to side; 90 percent of people feel that the neck is looser when they do this exercise. Then put your hands behind your head and lift up your head without the neck helping you. Do this six or seven times. See if you can let go of your neck and just let your hands do the work. Then put one hand on your forehead and move your head from side to side, with your hand on your forehead and your neck loosening.
Figure 6.3. (a) Bend your knees, stretch out your arms, and turn to face your left hand. (b) Reach your right arm across to and past the left hand.
Another great exercise for the neck is to walk backward. Do that for 400 or 500 yards a day, every day. Look over your shoulder from time to time, which is also a great exercise to stretch your neck. At the same time, it’s good for you to work with a friend, at least once a week, although a few times a week is even better. While you lie on the floor, your friend will put his or her legs on your shoulders to hold you in place, put one hand cupped under your chin and the other cupped at the occipital bone, and gently pull, stretching and elongating your neck.
Another wonderful exercise for the neck is to sit on a chair, put your chin on your chest, and then slowly bend down until you touch the floor. Then straighten up with your legs first, and then with your whole back. Now do the same thing from a standing position. Bend over, putting your chin on your chest, and slowly bend down, vertebra by vertebra. Put your hand on the floor and, only after you do, sit on the chair while still bending. Then, keeping your chin on your chest and your hands on the floor, you straighten.
Next, if you do not have a tendency for retinal detachment, which many people with glaucoma do not, you can also sit cross-legged and move your whole body in a rotating motion. Sit on the floor with your legs crossed. Put your hands on your knees. Now bend forward and rotate your whole body in a broad circular motion, bending at the waist, rotating all the way around one way and then the other, feeling your spine elongate and your neck stretch. Go both directions: left, then right. Now put both hands on the right leg and lean forward so that your forehead touches your right knee. Lean forward, then straighten back up. Do this five times. Then put both hands on your left knee. Bend forward so your forehead touches your left knee, then straighten back up. Do this five times. Now bend at the waist and rotate your whole body again.
Figure 6.4. (a) Also sit cross-legged and move your whole body in a rotating motion. (b) Let the head roll loosely as your body rotates. (c) Make big, full circles with your body.
Next (as long as you don’t have retinal detachment), get down on all fours and put the crown of your head on the floor. Rotate your head to the left and to the right, keeping your forehead in contact with the floor. Go right and left slowly, gently breathing in and out. Now, keeping the crown of your head in contact with the floor, rotate your head in a circular motion on the floor. You might just feel your scalp coming to life! Move the crown of your head on the floor, in a rotating motion, breathing deeply and slowly. If this hurts, simply modify the pressure on your head by using your hands to support your weight. Go back to sitting cross-legged again and move your body once more in a rotating motion, bending at the waist. Take your time and breathe. Really feel how relaxed your neck is becoming.
Figure 6.5. Rotate your head to the left and to the right several times and then in a circular motion on the floor.
Next you will want to sit down on the floor with your back against a wall and your knees bent in front of you. If for any reason (i.e., a very large belly) you have a hard time bending your knees, sit cross-legged instead. Otherwise, bend your knees. If you want, you can put a small pillow behind the middle of your back, underneath the shoulders, to make it more comfortable.
First move your head all the way to the left so that you are stretching your neck muscles as you breathe deeply. Tap your fingers on the stretched muscles on the opposite side of your neck. Massage the neck muscles with your thumb and fingers. Now turn your head in the other direction, stretching the other side of your neck, and do the same thing on the opposite side, tapping the stretched muscles with your fingers and then massaging that side of the neck with your thumb and fingers.
Figure 6.6. Tap your fingers on the stretched muscles on the opposite side of your neck.
After several repetitions on both sides, interlace your fingers underneath your knees and bend forward so your forehead touches your knees about twenty times, which loosens up the middle of your back.
Put your hands on your knees and push your legs to one side and then the other, using only the strength of your hands, not your legs. Push your knees to the left and then to the right. You will feel yourself starting to scoot forward and to slip down on the wall; that’s okay. Just pause and scoot yourself back up into the seated position with which you had started. Start over again from the beginning, turning your head from side to side. You may find that your neck is much looser now.
Figure 6.7. Turn your head from side to side.
Figure 6.8. Push your knees to the left and then to the right.
It’s also a very good idea to close your eyes and to put a warm towel over them. Moisten the towel with warm water or with herbal tea; Eye Bright tea, in particular, has been very effective for me.
Another thing that my clients like very much is the steam machine that my sister, who owns health spas, has donated to our school. Steam in a dark room can be very relaxing when you have your eyes closed.
These exercises are essential for reduction of tension. After doing these exercises every day for a period of time of around three months, measure your pressure and see if it has gone down. If so, you may be able to prevent the need to use eye drops, as long as your ophthalmologist does not oppose the idea; at the very least you may be able to reduce them gradually with supervision. Find a friendly ophthalmologist or optometrist who is willing to measure your pressure frequently, ideally twice a week, so you will know that you are on the right path.
Correcting Optic Neuritis
Optic neuritis is a condition caused by a temporary swelling from inflammation of the optic nerve. The worst-case scenario with optic neuritis is that less blood will flow to the optic nerve; because of poor blood flow, there will be ischemia of the nerve, a part of which could degenerate and wither.
In most cases optic neuritis comes and goes. Physicians believe they can help this condition with steroid treatments. Sometimes, the steroid treatments work, and the optic neuritis does not return frequently. At other times, however, the treatments create dependency.
When you suffer from optic neuritis, a very good thing is to spend a lot of time in a completely dark room. This gives
your whole body, as well as your eyes, a great chance to relax. By far the best solution for optic neuritis is a long session of palming. This is true whether the cause is the optic nerve itself or a systemic illness like multiple sclerosis that impacts many other nerves besides the optic nerve.
Imagine that you walk a lot and step on your legs in an imbalanced way. Consequently, you would develop swelling in your legs. Physicians would correctly tell you to rest your leg, maybe to put a brace or a bandage on your ankle or, perhaps, to use crutches. Any of the those would be intended to give your leg the rest it needs to heal so that it can return to its proper functioning. In many ways, the same approach is good for the optic nerve. You must rest your optic nerve for the inflammation of the nerve to disappear.
Staying in a dark room and covering your eyes with a light cloth for a day, or perhaps two days, and not walking much in daylight could be the best solution for optic neuritis. It’s also good to massage your neck and your back.
This is a very important piece of information for millions of people. No one gives you the suggestion to lie and rest in the dark. Hospital rooms are fully lit all the time for the purpose of security and control. Lack of darkness in hospital rooms can exacerbate a problem like this. Being at home in the most familiar surroundings can make a difference, especially with fresh air and loving palms over your closed eyes to give you a sense of nurturing. When you lie in the dark with your eyes closed, or when you sit in the dark and palm, you allow for complete replenishment of the optic nerve, which is more important than any medication you can possibly get.
Medication can help in extreme cases, but sometimes it produces terrible side effects. Sitting in the dark has helped the majority of my clients who have had different attacks of optic neuritis. I advise the clients with whom I work in person that only if this doesn’t work should medication become an option. Since you, the reader, are not working with me in person, I advise you to work with a physician who is not opposed to your self-healing practices. Be sure, as you follow my recommendations, to consult with a trusted physician, one who knows your condition well and to whom you have easy access during this process. This would determine the urgency, or not, for you to be put on medication.
Vision for Life Page 15