Feast your eyes!

Feast your eyes! I love that expression. Just as we can joyously ingest an abundance of tastes and textures, flooding our blood system with feel good hormones, so too can our eyes take in a scene and make us feel bowled over with bliss. A perfect rose in the garden, a David Attenborough series on TV, a longed-for loved one appearing at Arrivals. To look after the health of our eyes we need to stay hydrated, ensure we eat properly, get them tested and get enough sleep. Amazingly we can also look after our health and that of those around us with our eyes. For the sake of our wellbeing we could watch interesting, uplifting and enriching TV and other media; we could notice the beauty in nature of the changing seasons or the course of the moon across the sky; we could look into the faces of our friends and loved ones as they tell us how they really feel; we could meet the eyes of a passing stranger or shop assistant to truly wish them the top of the morning; we could see the good in people not just their failings; with practice we could learn to observe when it’s best to keep our mouths shut.

Seeing properly is understanding and feeling and experiencing in full.

In Reflexology the eye reflex is at the inner base of the 2^nd and 3^rd toes. But it would pointless to work only this reflex and expect improvement in, for example, eye strain. If you put your fingertips either side of your spine at the top of your neck and move your eyes from side to side you will feel subtle movement here. This is because your body systems work exquisitely together. Eye movements and these muscles work together with the nervous system to relay messages to the brain that support balance as well as spatial awareness. Maybe this is why it feels so soothing to close our eyes when we tip our head back and rub our neck – it gives that whole system a mini-break. In yoga there are eye exercises that work all eye movements, similar to a whole body stretch routine at an exercise class.

My fellow therapists and I work holistically with our clients to support them with the bigger picture. Sometimes the answer we are looking for can only be seen when we step back.