Taking My Eyes for a Walk
Image retrieved from http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHuman_eye_ with_blood_vessels.jpg
My apologies for the long . . . more like super long . . . delay between posts -- between moving back to the Phoenix area and getting involved with too many jobs at once, my focus has been a bit scattered lately. But I am excited to be among people who challenge me to expand and increase my knowledge and understanding of how the body works . . . and there is definitely a new piece to this understanding that I've been wanting to share with you!
I've known for years that our eyes are important for balance, both reflexively (the body has "righting reflexes" designed to keep us upright) and simply in sensing our body's position in space. But recently I've started to understand just how critical our eyes are, not just for balance, but for our neurological (and therefore overall) health. I've had several discussions with a colleague who is training with Z-Health in Tempe, AZ, an organization that utilizes neurological knowledge and training to improve movement and performance. Katy Bowman of Restorative Exercise fame also had a fascinating post on how the mechanical environment our eyes are in will result in physical changes to the lenses of the eyes . . . and therefore changes to our vision. Given that I wear glasses (and have for quite awhile) and the fact that lately I am spending way too much time reading a computer screen, my eye health is something that could (and should) be more of a priority for me.
There are many pieces to eye health that I could begin to share with you, but my own knowledge is still somewhat limited (though growing!) -- what I do know, however, is that just like any other muscles of our body, our eye muscles will adapt to how we use them. So, if we are constantly focusing on objects within 2 feet (like a book or computer screen), our muscles adapt to this distance, but they will become less capable of focusing on objects a quarter mile away. Anecdotally this makes sense for me -- my near-sighted eyes have continued to slowly worsen throughout my school-and-book-filled life -- and I spent many hours reading as a child before getting my first pair of glasses. As much as I love to read, I do wonder if all of those early years of using my eyes primarily for close objects actually led to my near-sightedness (this would be very sad, as I still have not read all the books on my bookshelf, nor all the books remaining in the world that are on my list!).
Though I am still at the beginning of making changes to how I use my eyes, one of the first changes I thought would be easier to implement was to be more conscious of where I am focusing my eyes during our evening walks. Let me describe to you how that has been going:
We begin to walk
After ten minutes, I realize I have no idea where I was looking for those ten minutes
I decide to focus on the furthest object I can see
After 30 seconds I realize I'm looking at the ground in front of me
I focus back on a distant object
After one minute I realize I'm looking at the license plates of the cars I'm walking by . . . that are less than 20 feet away
I focus back on a distant object
After 15 seconds I realize I'm looking at the sidewalk right next to me
I give up for the remainder of the walk
I'm only half-joking.
I have realized that my eyes rarely spend any time looking at objects in the distance, and when they do, they get very tired and quickly find something closer on which to train their focus. Clearly there is work to be done!
Read the blog post I linked to above, consider your own eye health situation, and then the next time you are taking a walk, consider this: are you taking your eyes for a walk as well?