Improve your focus with these eye exercises
What's the story
Saccadic eye movements are essential for everyday activities like reading and sports, enabling the eyes to rapidly jump from one point to another.
Strengthening these movements can significantly improve visual tracking and overall eye health.
This article presents five exercises to strengthen saccadic eye movement, providing a simple routine for anyone looking to enhance their visual performance.
Focus shifts
Focus shifts for improved accuracy
Start by focusing on a finger a few inches from your face. Then, quickly shift your focus to an object approximately 10 feet away.
Repeat this process, alternating focus between these two points for one minute.
This exercise helps condition the eyes to rapidly adjust focus between near and distant objects, improving the speed and accuracy of saccadic movements.
Tracking
Tracking moving objects
Holding a small object like a pen or a pointer, move it slowly in different patterns (horizontal, vertical, circular) while keeping your head stationary and following the object with only your eyes.
This exercise helps in refining the smoothness of saccadic movements and improving coordination between both eyes, which is essential for activities involving tracking moving objects like driving or playing sports.
Newspaper drill
The newspaper drill
Use a newspaper or any large text document with columns for saccade practice.
Choose an article, and read it aloud, ensuring you only move your eyes and not your head.
Strive to progressively increase your reading speed without compromising comprehension.
This exercise not only improves reading speed but also specifically targets the accuracy of horizontal saccades.
Wall ball
Wall ball exercise
To do the wall ball exercise, stand 10 feet from a wall and throw a ball at it.
Concentrate on catching the ball with both hands as it comes back without moving your head.
This exercise improves dynamic visual acuity and peripheral vision awareness, both important for efficient saccadic movement.
It conditions the eyes to rapidly adapt and follow moving objects in sports.
Computer drills
Computer-based drills
There are numerous computer programs specifically designed to enhance saccadic eye movement through a series of drills.
These involve rapidly identifying symbols or shifting focus across the screen without moving your head.
They often come with progress tracking, which can be motivating for people who are serious about systematically improving their visual skills.