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underused levator palpebrae superioris instead which opens the eyes wide After completing |
the exploratory activity below you should notice that your eyes look wider and friendlier for |
several hours |
Eye Activity Watching the Lower Lid |
Sit or stand in front of a mirror with your eyes as wide open as possible Ideally you should |
be able to see your entire iris and a bit of white border above and below it If you cant set |
this as the goal You should notice two tendencies Your lower lid will tremble and tighten |
revealing a tendency to revert to squinting Your eyebrows will raise on their own Your job |
is to keep your eyes wide and your brow fully lowered and limp for five full minutes You |
should notice that performing this activity is much easier when using a breath metronome |
Illustration A Orbicularis oculi muscle encircles the eye and controls squinting B Eyeball in the eye socket |
Eye movement is controlled by ocular muscles surrounding the eye Eye wideness is controlled by the levator |
palpebrae superioris above it |
A friend once said to me See these bags under my eyes never had these before spent |
two years partying staying out late smoking cigarettes doing drugs and drinking They |
developed abruptly And even after stopped partying so hard they never went away Most of |
us have creases under our eyes and had only seen them get worse with time so assumed |
that the change in my friends appearance was permanent But his comments did start me |
wondering about the underlying biological reason for changes in the skin around our eyes It |
took me years to realize that the problem is caused by muscular strain from excessive squinting |
and years more to confirm that it is completely reversible Chapter will show you how to |
massage the muscles of the eyes and forehead which is necessary to fully release the muscles |
Chapter Hold a Steady Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes |
and erase the dark circles But this chapter will help you change how you use the muscles |
surrounding your eyes during daily life which is arguably more important |
At first you may feel these eye exercises are driven by vanity which is uncomfortable for |
most of us but at a certain point you will realize that your real motive is inner bravery |
Reducing the appearance of eye strain is merely an aesthetic side effect of widening your eyes |
Far more important are the effects on emotional prosperity It is well documented that |
negative emotions generally cause squinting and that positive emotions cause eyewidening |
Squinting itself is never an emotionally neutral activity Squinting is the continual elicitation |
of the defensive blink response which evolved to protect the eye from damage Animals squint |
unconsciously when they feel the safety of their eyes is in jeopardy Imagine pushing your way |
through faceheight tree branches for instance You will feel your eyes instinctively narrow |
That is why most mammals squint when fighting or when they anticipate a fight erupting |
Heavy squinting is a form of trauma that maintains a defensive eyelid posture and disinhibits |
the blinking reflex Mammals that feel threatened blink hard and fast whereas mammals that |
feel safe blink very slowly Practicing a few slow blinks will help you widen your eyes and |
develop a calmer blinking pattern |
Eye Exercise Slow Blinking |
Blink ten times very slowly Blink another ten times as slowly as you can The calmer a |
mammal is the slower it blinks However most people have no awareness of or capacity for |
slow blinking until they practice it |
As you might have guessed the startle response and distressed breathing both heighten |
squinting They are all part of the same neurological circuit Allowing unconscious brain centers |
to maintain tension in the eyelids sends messages to other threat centers in the brain |
communicating that the current environment is potentially threatening to the eyes This is |
ironic because in todays world our eyes are rarely threatened In the ancestral past it was |
adaptive for anxiety and fear to potentiate squinting but today work and relationship stress |
are practically never indicative of impending damage to the eyes |
Your stress response also spikes when you widen your eyes during social situations If you |
were hooked up to a machine that measured your sympathetic nervous system activity |
it would spike every time you opened your eyes all the way Wide eyes give us a sensation of |
showing off and that in turn makes us breathe shallowly in an attempt not to be too forward |
or noticeable Exercise overrides this by asking you to pair paced breathing with widening the |
eyes Performing the exercises herein will make it so that your body becomes accustomed to |
having the eyes wide without breathing shallowly |
PROGRAM PEACE Self Care Exercises to Reprogram Your Mind and Body |
Illustration Man raising eyebrows B C Women with apparent strain in the orbicularis oculi |
Eye Exercise Wide Eyes with No Facade |
Do one or both of the following two things spend ten seconds gently rubbing your eyelids |
and upper cheeks to stimulate blood circulation or spend ten seconds squinting tightly |
Both actions will potentiate squinting |
Next spend five minutes within four feet of a mirror trying to make your eyes as wide as |
possible while keeping your brow relaxed Drop your social facade and just look into your |
own wide eyes It is okay if you look insane or demented After a couple of minutes you may |
feel you are staring into your soul You should feel comfortable looking at everyone this way |
This will reset your eyes to a wider aperture and diminish your overreactive superficially |
pleasing veneer Once you have the coordination you can achieve it without a mirror |
Consistent practice will lead to continued improvement |
Like rubbing the eyes and squinting them tightly crying also encourages squinting to linger |
When most people cry they look sad their eyes become puffy and they continue to squint for |
hours afterward However this is not a necessary part of crying Immediately after the next |
time you cry sit in front of a mirror breathing diaphragmatically and widen your eyes for five |
full minutes For the rest of the day your eyes will feel light carefree and wide instead of |
compressed and miserable The reason for this is that crying actually involves deep squinting |
and a full healthy contraction of the orbicularis oculi rather than the continuous partial |
contraction that usually takes place This sends blood to the muscles and makes them more |
responsive to efforts at widening As we will discuss in depth in later chapters one of the best |
ways to get a muscle to relax is to contract it to fatigue it and then give it a chance to rest fully |
This means that crying is good for you as long as you help yourself recover in a healthy |
emotionally uplifting way That fits with its functional purpose Humans are the only animals |
that cry and biologists have hypothesized that it might serve a communicative function that |
asks for help and elicits altruistic behavior from others It has also been characterized as a |
reliable signal of appeasement and vulnerability because by blurring our vision it handicaps |
aggressive or defensive actions think that more than anything else crying serves to fatigue |
the respiratory muscles and the facial muscles especially the ones involved in squinting and |
sneering enabling them a period of respite afterward |
Chapter Hold a Steady Upward Gaze with Wide Eyes |
Relaxing the orbicularis oculi will look and feel artificial at first A few weeks of concerted |
effort combined with diaphragmatic breathing will fix this making it your new default state |
When first attempted to stop squinting looked absurd appeared like a sickly drug addict |
that had been startled or like an uptight person trying too hard to appear calm At times felt |
my face was a leering death mask It took several weeks for the rings under my eyes and the |
general sleepless appearance to fade With time the cheeks and the areas under the eyes |
began to look less puffy lose their discoloration and appear healthier When you are alone |
shoot for a bugeyed look Soon it will pass for normal Once it does do it in public When |
you realize that your eyes remain wide open when speaking to others you know you have |
gotten the hang of it Once you do going back to squinting will feel like glaring |
Many military personnel and people suffering from PTSD have a tense look that is centered |
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