Palming

Palming

In Mumbai, I was staying at Br. Rajesh Kothari’s house. While talking about health and yoga in general, I learnt about “Palming”.

Palming is a technique of eye relaxation discovered by Dr. William H. Bates. Actually Dr. Bates has developed a full practical science of eyesight improvement, with some of his propositions rejected to date by mainstream ophthalmology. But that is not relevant, because Palming works, at least for me.

In the past 6-9 months, I have been feeling excessive strain in the eyes. This usually happens in evenings. It happens if I have worked on the computer for the whole day and it is more aggressive if I am spending time on my MacBook in the evenings (such as now). Reducing time spent on computer and good sleep helps. Reducing brightness of screen also helps – this was a bit difficult as I like bright places and screens, but actually reducing brightness helps. Palming helps when everything else is unavoidable.

Palming is very simple. It is done by closing eyes and putting palms over the eyes such that light is avoided completely (or as much as possible). The palms are put in such a way that there is no pressure on the eyeballs, the heels of palms rest on cheekbones and the fingers on the forehead. Actually there is a great degree of freedom in choice of how to cover one’s eyes and one has to find what fits best.

I have used Palming only 4 times now. It worked 3 out of 4 and it did not work when I did it lying down. Recently, I read it should be done sitting. I do it only for 5-10 minutes and it works magic. It brings down eye stress and thereby mental tension considerably. It is a versatile exercise in a way because it can be done anywhere and anytime; the efficacy would of course depend on how involved and focused one is in the activity.

I think most people suffer from eye stress these days and this is worth a try. A more clear explanation of the technique can be found here.

PS: Actually a number of books have been published on Bates’ method by Shri Aurbindo Ashram’s publications and are widely available. Dr. Bates have quite a number of propositions that stand in contrast to the current ophthalmology. I don’t remember all but some of these are around how eyestrain is actually caused, how corrective lenses are unnecessary and how fine print reading can improve eyesight. From a purely physical eyeball movement point of view, his theories do appear simply logical.