For your vision

A simple treat.  Do your eyes ever get tired after a spell of reading?  Any close work for an extended period can create fatigue, even eyestrain.  Computer work can be especially hard on the eyes.  One blogger reported that when she works too long on the computer, “I can’t see any more.  Everything is blurry, and it takes a few hours for my vision to return.”

Relief is at your fingertips, and is something you probably do spontaneously from time to time.  It’s called Palming.  Dr. William Bates taught it, and its roots appear to reach back to eastern healing traditions such as yoga and Tibetan medicine.  Meir Schneider, PhD, of the School for Self-Healing in San Francisco, puts palming at the center of his self-care recommendation.  Here’s how:

Palming.  Place your cupped hands over your eyes so that the heel of each hand rests on the cheekbone and the fingertips point up.  With your eyes closed, look at the darkness.  Breathe deeply and comfortably.  When you take your hands away, notice any colors that appear before you slowly open your eyes.

How long should you palm?  Usually individuals do this for a few breaths.  For certain needs, though, Schneider recommends palming 5, 10, even 30 minutes a day.  (Would you like to hear how one man answered this question?  Read the story below.)

Workshop
Come learn the basic principles of natural eye care at Improving Your Vision:  Inner and Outer, Saturday, March 9, 2-4 pm at the Stress Management Center of Marin, 1165 Magnolia Avenue, Larkspur.

Cost:  $20 ($10 for current Green Sangha members).  Advance registration strongly recommended.  Call (510) 532-6574, or write info@greensangha.org.

Instructor:  Stuart Moody, registered yoga teacher and president of Green Sangha

Zoe palmingYoung children need support in many ways.  Here, the grand-daughter of Melissa Moody, former Director of Education for the School for Self-Healing, enjoys a special board for palming.

One man’s experience with palming Greg Marsh, a Certified Natural Vision Teacher in Fort Collins, Colorado, and producer of the 6-CD program, Secrets of Regaining Your Vision Naturally (www.visionimprovementcenter.com), tells this story:

“Ophthalmologist William Bates concluded from his study and treatment of thousands of eyes that tight muscles actually contort the eyes and restrict circulation.  He found that palming helps those muscles relax and let go.  Even Dr. Bates was surprised at what one man in his late 60’s accomplished with palming.  This man had worn glasses for forty years for distance, and twenty years for reading.  He was also developing cataracts.  When he asked how long he could palm, Dr. Bates told him he could not overdo it.  At his next appointment the man reported ‘It was tedious, very tedious, but I did it.’  He had palmed from 4 am to midnight, eating nothing and drinking lots of water.  He could now see perfectly both in the distance and for reading, and his cataract had cleared up significantly.  Two years later there was no relapse.”

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About Stuart Moody

Stuart Moody is Board President of Green Sangha. He received a B.S. in Conservation of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley, and an M.A. in Counseling Psychology at USF. Stuart was Green Schoolyard Coordinator at Davidson Middle School in San Rafael and directs Green Sangha’s Rethinking Plastics campaign. From 1993 to 2012, Stuart taught dance and co-directed teacher training for Young Imaginations, an arts education agency based in San Rafael. He has taught yoga and meditation to thousands in the Bay Area, including 10 years at San Quentin State Prison. Recently moved to Tucson, he just completed a graduate certificate program in “Connecting Environmental Science and Decision Making” at the University of Arizona.