3 Easy Eye Exercises To Improve Vision & Reduce Anxiety, From An Optometrist  

Your vision and brain health are more connected than you think. Just ask board-certified optometrist Bryce Appelbaum, O.D., FCOVD: ​​"If one has trouble focusing their eyes, they're going to have that much more trouble focusing their mind," he says on this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast. 

Essentially, "tromboning" means focusing in and out on a certain object (sort of like how a trombone slides forward and backward). Not only does this practice help strengthen your eye muscles—it's like "pushups" for the focusing system, Appelbaum says—but it also heightens your sense of peripheral awareness, which is great for quelling anxiety.  

"When we feel claustrophobic and we feel our body's reaction to stress and we tense up, a lot can be done with relaxing focus, opening up periphery, and shifting how we are taking in that experience," he adds. Think about it: With anxiety, many of us experience "tunnel vision" and lose peripheral awareness. When you have the ability to zoom out, it can almost "trick" your brain into relieving that anxiety. 

Palming is actually a yogic exercise that has been around for hundreds of years, says Appelbaum. The key is to relax the muscles around the eyes, which reduces eye strain and provides an instant sense of comfort. To start, "rub your hands together to create a lot of heat. Then, ideally near a desk, close your eyes, put your hands over your eyes, block out any of the light that's there, and the warmth and the relaxation almost acts like a meditation for the eyes," he says. 

Your eyes contain teeny-tiny muscles, and you can help strengthen them, just as you might perform bicep curls to work your arm muscles. "Our muscles get tense, and life is tense. So often vision and adaptations that occur are in response to this stress," Appelbaum notes.