Eyes exercise

History and development

In 1961, Beijing Education Bureau conducted a general investigation concerning vision of students in primary and secondary schools. The result of the investigation showed that number of students suffering from myopia was increasing when they were getting older. The investigation also found out 10% of the primary school students, 20% of the junior school students and 30% of the senior school students were shortsighted. Owing to this astonishing result, Beijing Education Bureau started to look for some solutions to help students protect their vision or even improve it.

In that time, Liu Shiming, one of the heads from Peking University Health Science Center, had invented an exercise with eight sections to protect human vision. Therefore, the Beijing Education Bureau adopted Liu's invention as the original eyes exercise. In 1963, Beijing Education Bureau attempt to use exercise in some primary and secondary schools and then widely introduced it in Beijing.

Following the example of Beijing Education Bureau, other Chinese countries also introduced eyes exercise in primary and secondary schools. As the eyes exercise were widely practiced all over China, the second version of eyes exercise with five sections came out. In 1972, the section of eyes exercise is reduced to four and this fourth-section eyes exercise had been used until 2008.

In 2008, Beijing Municipal Commission of Education and Beijing Municipal Commission of Health worked together to improve the version created in 1972 and introduced a new version.

The first session

Close your eyes and press Cuanzhu acupoint which is located at inner end of brows with other fingers relaxed and placed on the forehead. Massage the area once per beat and do 32 times in total rhymically.

The second session

Put both of your index fingers on the Jingming acupoint which refers to the area between inner eye corners and the nose, with other fingers making a fist. Massage the acupoint up and down once per beat, and do it 32 times.

The third session

Press your index fingers on Sibai acupoint which is situated approximately 2 cm (0.75 inch) below your eyes, with other fingers making a fist. Follow the beats and rub the acupoint once per beat.

The fourth session

Press your thumbs of both hands on the temple which refers to the side of the head behind the eyes and in front of the ear. First rub the temple like drawing circles. After four times, hold your thumbs still and use the second joint of your index fingers to rub against your eye sockets for four times.

The fifth session

Put both your index fingers and middle fingers on the Fengchi acupoint which is believed to be 10 cm (around 4 inches) parallel to the earlobe on the back of the head. Follow the instructions and knead the area once per beat.

The sixth session

Use thumbs and index fingers of both hands to massage the center of earlobe, with the other three fingers curved naturally. Meanwhile, do the catch-earth movement using all toes of both feet to the beats of music.

Functions and effect

Through doing eyes exercise by massaging acupoint, not only our eyes have timely rest from daily work and academic assignments, but it also helps to accelerate the blood circulation and bring nutrition to nerve. Doing eye exercises regularly contributes to protection of eyesight and prevention of short-sighted cases, especially among the children and teenagers.

Disputes

In year 2007, internet celebrity and science writer Fang Zhouzi had brought the idea that "eyes exercise is useless" forward.

In 2012, a user of Sina published a Weibo that said "eyes exercise has been harming Chinese youngsters for 49 years. Doing eyes exercise will not improve poor eyesight. Many students are doing this exercise with dirty hands that leads to severe eye diseases."

Experts have opposite opinions toward this issue. Some experts say that eyes exercise can improve eyesight is an assumption to absolute. However, its preventive and health-caring function should not be denied The reason that the myopia rate of Chinese adolescents is high is mainly due to the heavy burden of study and over-use of electronic products. That so many tall buildings in the city causing very narrow visual field, which may also give rise to this problem. Hence, preventing youngsters from myopia need efforts from all parties instead of placing hope only on the eyes exercise.

In fact, eyes exercise did have some refinement to solve the problem of "doing exercise with dirty hands". In order to avoid germs on hand entering into eyes and mouth and infecting diseases, the new version has deleted those parts which involves touching the face with hand.

Possible solutions

Till now, there is still no official or scientific data to show to what extent eyes exercise can help protect eyes. A possible solution could be that relevant departments of Chinese Government carry out rigorous comparative research with multi-centers and substantial samples. Overall and scientific statistics are in high demand to conduct further researches on effectiveness of eyes exercise.