Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman "Eye Exercises for Improved Focus"
Summary
TLDRThis transcript explains how the human visual system is finely tuned to detect motion, emphasizing the importance of 'smooth pursuit,' the ability to track moving objects. It highlights how smooth pursuit exercises, such as following a ball's movement, can improve eye muscle strength and overall vision. The speaker also discusses techniques to train eye accommodation by focusing on objects at varying distances. These methods can enhance visual acuity and support brain-eye coordination. Regular practice, such as 5-10 minutes several times a week, is recommended to maintain healthy vision.
Takeaways
- 👁️ Smooth Pursuit is the ability to smoothly track moving objects with your eyes, which helps keep vision and extraocular muscles healthy.
- ⚽ Training Smooth Pursuit can involve tracking objects like a ball in various patterns (e.g., infinity symbol, sawtooth, changing speed).
- 💪 Regular smooth pursuit practice can strengthen eye muscles and improve motion tracking, preventing vision deterioration.
- 🎾 Engaging in real-world activities like watching sports or moving objects outside can naturally stimulate smooth pursuit and benefit your vision.
- 🧠 The brain relies on eye movements for processing visual information, so maintaining smooth pursuit systems supports brain-eye coordination.
- ⏱️ Practicing smooth pursuit for 5 to 10 minutes, three times a week, is recommended for maintaining healthy vision.
- 🔍 Accommodation exercises (shifting focus between near and far objects) can further train and enhance visual systems.
- 🏥 Near-far focusing exercises are used in vision therapy, including post-concussion recovery, to strengthen accommodation mechanisms.
- 🌳 To rest your eyes, look at distant horizons or engage in soft, panoramic vision to relax the visual system.
- 🔄 Incorporating a combination of smooth pursuit and accommodation training in your routine can help maintain strong visual function over time.
Q & A
What is 'Smooth Pursuit' in vision?
-Smooth Pursuit is our ability to track individual objects moving smoothly through space in various trajectories. It helps us follow motion in the environment and is essential for maintaining strong visual and eye-tracking abilities.
How can you train or improve your smooth pursuit system?
-You can train your smooth pursuit system by visually tracking a moving object, such as a ball, for 5-10 minutes, three times a week. The object should move in different patterns, like infinity symbols or sawtooth shapes, at varying speeds.
Why is smooth pursuit important for vision?
-Smooth Pursuit is important because it keeps the eye muscles conditioned and ensures the brain's motion-tracking systems remain coordinated. It allows the brain to process visual motion effectively, helping maintain overall visual health.
What happens if you don’t get enough smooth pursuit stimulation in your daily life?
-If you don’t get enough smooth pursuit stimulation, such as from watching objects move in real life, your vision can deteriorate over time. Focusing on small screens can limit the range of smooth pursuit, making the system weaker.
What are some real-world examples of smooth pursuit exercises?
-Examples of smooth pursuit exercises include watching a fast-moving hockey puck, following a tennis ball during a match, or observing birds in flight. These activities challenge the visual system to track moving objects naturally.
What other exercises can improve vision aside from smooth pursuit?
-Aside from smooth pursuit, you can practice accommodation exercises. These involve focusing on an object up close, then moving it further away and focusing again. This helps strengthen the eye’s ability to adjust focus at different distances.
How does practicing accommodation benefit your vision?
-Practicing accommodation improves your eyes’ ability to switch between focusing on near and far objects. This type of training helps maintain flexibility in the eye muscles and enhances visual acuity for tasks requiring depth perception.
How often should you practice smooth pursuit and accommodation exercises?
-It is recommended to practice smooth pursuit and accommodation exercises for about 5-10 minutes, three times a week, or every other day. These short but regular sessions are sufficient to maintain good visual function.
What is the ‘soft gaze’ or panoramic vision exercise?
-The soft gaze, or panoramic vision exercise, involves relaxing your eyes and letting them see the surroundings without focusing on any one object. This helps the eyes rest and resets their focus after intense visual tasks.
Why is maintaining strong eye muscles important for long-term vision?
-Maintaining strong eye muscles is important because it ensures the brain and eyes can coordinate well to track motion and focus on objects. Over time, neglecting these muscles can lead to weakened vision and reduced depth perception.
Outlines
👁️ Enhancing Vision Through Smooth Pursuit
The human visual system is highly attuned to motion, both self-generated and external. One key component is 'smooth pursuit,' which allows us to track moving objects. This can be trained by visually following objects like balls in various patterns (e.g., infinity symbols, sawtooth patterns). Such exercises help maintain the strength of the eye muscles and the brain's neural circuits that manage eye movements. Smooth pursuit is essential for overall visual health and can deteriorate if limited to small screens. Engaging in real-world activities like watching live sports or outdoor scenes is ideal for improving and maintaining this ability.
🎯 Practicing Accommodation for Better Focus
Accommodation exercises, which involve focusing on objects at different distances, can also improve vision. The practice entails looking at something up close, then moving it farther away and refocusing. This method is often used in post-concussion recovery to repair balance, motor, and cognitive functions. By alternating between focusing on near and far objects, the eye muscles are trained to maintain flexibility. The effectiveness of these exercises may vary depending on individual factors like inter-pupillary distance, but regular practice helps maintain visual sharpness. It’s crucial to give the eyes time to rest afterward, such as by looking at distant horizons or engaging in panoramic vision.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Smooth Pursuit
💡Accommodation
💡Extraocular Muscles
💡Neural Circuits
💡Visual Angle
💡Horizon Viewing
💡Pattern Vision
💡Panoramic Vision
💡Vergence Eye Movement
💡Inter Pupillary Distance
Highlights
Our visual system is highly tuned to both self-generated motion and the motion of things around us.
Smooth Pursuit is the ability to track individual objects moving smoothly through space.
You can improve vision by training smooth pursuit with stimuli like moving objects in different patterns.
Training Smooth Pursuit helps keep the extraocular muscles conditioned and strong.
Our brain's neural circuits adapt to changes in smooth pursuit motion, improving visual tracking.
Smooth Pursuit practice can help prevent vision deterioration caused by excessive screen time and near-field focus.
Engaging in real-world activities like watching sports or tracking moving objects can enhance smooth pursuit ability.
Spending 5 to 10 minutes, three times a week on smooth pursuit exercises can be highly beneficial for vision.
Accommodation training, like shifting focus between near and far objects, is another effective way to improve vision.
Accommodation exercises are similar to visual training used in post-concussion therapy to repair visual and cognitive functions.
Practicing near-far focus for 2-3 minutes helps strengthen the eye’s accommodation mechanisms.
Accommodation exercises also help in maintaining visual acuity by working extraocular muscles and focus systems.
Relaxing the eyes with panoramic vision after training sessions promotes eye health.
Younger individuals can build a stronger visual system with regular smooth pursuit and accommodation exercises.
Maintaining a strong visual system through regular exercises can help preserve vision as one ages.
Transcripts
now our visual system is exquisitly
tuned to motion not just our
self-generated motion but the motion of
things around us and one of the things
that it does is something called Smooth
Pursuit smooth Pursuit is our ability to
track individual objects moving as the
name suggests smoothly through
space in various
trajectories you can actually train or
improve your vision by by looking at
smooth Pursuit stimula and that sounds
really boring you can actually take a
few minutes each day or maybe if you
don't do it each day you could do every
third day or so and actually just
visually track a ball sometimes it's
moving in in kind of an infinity symbol
sometimes it's more of a Sawtooth
sometimes it's changing speed sometimes
the uh the Quee that you're following
the little Target is um dilating and
Contracting this is going to keep the
muscles I want to be clear this is going
to keep the extra ular muscles
conditioned and strong and allow you to
have a healthy smooth Pursuit system
remember the brain follows the eye it
follows the movements of the eye it has
to deal with that and the neural
circuits within the brain have to cope
with changes in smooth Pursuit so if
you're doing a lot of reading up close
you're not viewing Horizons you're not
getting a lot of smooth Pursuit type
stimulation from your
life or you're just getting it within
the confines of a little box on your
phone like your your smooth Pursuit is
over you know millimeters or what we we
we always talk in terms of visual angle
but the amount of degrees of visual
angle but if you're just looking at
smooth pursuit in this little tiny box
on your phone or on your computer screen
and you're not looking at objects in
your environment like swooping birds and
things like that which I'm guessing many
of you are not spending your time doing
well these mechanisms for smooth Pursuit
will get worse over time your vision
will get worse and so while I prefer
that people get out into the real world
and experience smooth Pursuit tracking
of visual objects maybe is a good reason
to go go to a hockey game or you know
and try and keep your eye on the puck
which I can never seem to do move so
fast or I guess this is a good reason to
watch live sports if that's your thing
or watch a tennis match like a cat like
a kitten watching the ball go back and
forth whatever watching kids play it
doesn't really matter the the idea is
that you want to use the visual system
regularly for what it was designed for
and smooth Pursuit is a great way to
keep the visual and motion tracking
systems of the brain and the eye and the
extra muscles working in a really nice
coordinate fashion I would say 5 to 10
minutes three times a week will be great
if you care about your vision you can
train your vision in this way the other
one is to train
accommodation there are a lot of videos
out there I want to be clear on the
internet some of which um are from
clinicians some of which are not some of
which are from scientists some of which
are from other sources talking about
things you can do to make your vision
better to improve your vision most of
those are geared toward improving the
extraocular eye muscles but I did
consult with our chair of Opthalmology
at Stanford School of Medicine Jeff
Goldberg who's an MD and a PhD a
phenomenal scientist and a phenomenal
clinician and incidentally a phenomenal
chairman as well about what sorts of
things tools are actually beneficial for
pattern Vision in sight and he agreed
that a smooth Pursuit stimulus that kind
of training as well as or exercise as
well as near far so spending a few
minutes you might even just do this for
2 minutes of looking at something up
close that's going to activate these
accommodation mechanisms and then moving
it at arms length and focusing on it for
5 10 seconds maybe more maybe uh 15 or
20 seconds then slowly moving it into a
location and then out this is actually a
lot like the visual training that's done
post concussion to try and repair
actually repair some of the balance and
motor and visual and cognitive aspects
of the
brain spend two to three minutes doing
smooth Pursuit you could do this with a
pen if you wanted you could do this uh
someone else could hold a wand and you
could do that if you've got someone that
can do that for you practice
accommodation for a few minutes maybe
every other day just bringing something
in close you'll feel the strain of your
eyes doing that I can feel it right now
move it out you'll feel a relaxation
Point move it past that relaxation ation
point where you will have to do what's
called a virgin ey movement to maintain
focus on that location as it moves out
bring it back in at the point where you
actually have to go crosseyed this will
differ for different people depending on
how far apart your eyes are so-called
inter pupilary distance so for me I have
been teased before I have a very short
inter pupilary distance I'm not a
cyclops but I'm heading there some
people are more walleyed like a flounder
well depending on your inter pupilary
distance the point at which things get
blurry and crosseyed will vary but for
me you know as I get about oh gosh I
guess it's about 6 in from my nose it's
really hard I can't accommodate any
longer I move it out another inch and
everything's in nice Focus try and see
whether or not you can get things closer
now you don't want to get cross-eyed
remember what your parents told you or
my parents told me that if you cross
your eyes when you're young that they
can stay that way actually they won't
necessarily stay that way but your brain
can start losing information and the
ability to see binocular depth something
we'll talk about in a moment but for now
the protocol would be you know two two
to three maybe 5 minutes just practice
that practice accommodation and then be
sure to give your eyes some rest get
outside look at a horizon or do nothing
just kind of let your eyes go soft guess
what the yogis would call soft gaze just
kind of relax your eyelids not this not
eyes closed just relax panoramic Vision
try and see the walls around you without
moving your head exercise your eye
muscles exercise the accommodation
mechanisms of your eyes practice a
little bit of smooth Pursuit you don't
not to be neurotic about this but you if
you do this often enough meaning every
other day every third day or so you can
be the strange person on the plane or in
the classroom doing this you know that
people might chuckle or look at you
funny or or tease you but that's okay
because uh you'll be able to see when
they are um losing their Vision uh so
you'll get the last laugh um please
don't laugh at them but maybe you can
help them at that point you can hold the
pen for them um it's worth doing it's
really worth preserving your vision and
again if you're a young person this is
great because then you can actually
build an extra strong visual system
using all the tools that we're
describing
Посмотреть больше похожих видео
You'll never have a relaxed swing until you fix this!
10 Great Exercises to Improve Your Eyesight
Machine Vision Basics 01 - Why Machine Vision
Improve Your Timing By Breaking Visual Suppression
Transform Your Vision: 7-Minute Eye Exercises to Sharpen Focus and Reduce Your Prescription
Podcast: Protecting Our Vision
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)