The study of radiation current path in cerebral cortex explains this point. The current emitted is in a rhythmic form, that is, brain waves, which have several forms. Beta waves are emitted when the visual field is patterned (that is, the eyes are usually open). When the visual field is balanced (that is, close your eyes), the brain waves become calm alpha.
The simple method of closing your eyes and resting is the basis of Bates' method. Dr Bates calls this method "palm massage". Close your eyes gently, cover your eyes with your palm and block any light and pressure that may act on your eyes-the lower part of your palm is gently placed on your cheekbones, and your fingers cover your forehead. When applying palm massage, you usually choose a sitting position, and your elbow should have a fulcrum, which can be placed on the table in front of you or on a thick cushion on your knee.
When you massage, you will feel completely relaxed, comfortable and warm. Choose a quiet and undisturbed time and place as far as possible, and try to consciously relieve inappropriate tension in the face, neck, shoulders and other body parts. You can listen to the radio if you like, or you can let your thoughts wander freely and forget all the unhappiness. If you have thoughts that make you feel stressed, put them aside and deal with them later.
Close your eyes for a few minutes. After practice and error, you can find out the exact time period that suits you best; Generally speaking, five minutes is more appropriate, and four minutes is the shortest limit. It is difficult to judge this time period artificially. It is very useful to use a silent cooking timer, an electronic watch or a pocket calculator with alarm clock function.
This palm massage should be repeated 3 ~ 5 times continuously as the basis of daily practice. When you massage repeatedly, you can have 1 ~ 2 times, not only to keep your mind in a state of caprice, but to try to make something clearly appear in your heart (imagine it with your heart). Psychological behavior is accompanied by the appearance of corresponding body movements, which is a powerful method. Therefore, if you imagine that you are speaking, or if you frame your thoughts as language rather than just abstract ideas, then your vocal organs will have tiny but completely measurable activities; If you imagine a series of fists clenched and then released, all the muscles involved in traction and tension will change partially. When you see things with your imagination, real eyes will have similar reactions, except for one case: when the relationship between eyes and thinking is closer than that between arm muscles and thinking, the changes between them will be more significant. The advantage of mindfulness is that there is no refractive defect in mental imagination, and you can form a model that the eyes can really imitate.
Visualization of mindfulness is also a valuable exercise for memory and imagination. When your imagination is analyzing, remembering, imagining or synthesizing the outdoor scenery, it will give you a special sense of pleasure. Keep your eyes on the details of things near and far at the same time, and change the focus of your eyes easily and quickly according to the attraction of different things to you. If you are nearsighted, pay special attention to distant scenery; If you are farsighted or presbyopic, pay special attention to what is close at hand.
You may wonder why sleeping at night does not have the effect of palm massage and mindfulness. My eyes were closed when I slept, and many images appeared in my dream. If you get enough sleep, your eyes will get a real rest and your eyesight will be improved, but for most people, sleep will aggravate the degree of visual fatigue. When dreaming, the eyes are in a state of rapid and arbitrary rotation, and memory and imagination are completely out of control. The most common situation is that the dream itself is easily interrupted. In this way, dreaming is related to the disorder of cerebral cortex, and the best condition for eye surgery is that the cerebral cortex is in a calm state. If your eyes are tired during sleep, the "long rotation" of Bates method is undoubtedly valuable to you.
Palm massage can be practiced at any irregular time. In just a few minutes, it can help you keep your eyes fresh and your mind relaxed. Maybe it will make you feel embarrassed to massage with two hands in some cases, so massage one eye with one hand, otherwise it may attract annoying eyes, so you just need to close your eyes and catnap. When watching TV, you can choose to do palm massage during advertising time.
When doing palm massage, the darkness in front of you is an index to measure your vision. Although Dr Bates suggested in his book that imagination should be more active in order to strengthen those perceived darkness, this practice would cause visual fatigue, so it was not advocated by other teachers. In fact, Dr Bates stopped advocating this practice for the rest of his life. Now we think that only by improving the uniformity and darkness of vision can we improve our vision in an all-round way. Nevertheless, when applying palm massage, it is still worth practicing temporary "dark vision", which is very effective in some cases. Take black things as the object of your mind, and you can think about them-black fur, black velvet, Indian ink and so on-and describe them in your mind continuously and quickly. We can make faster progress by associating the alphabet. Think of each letter as black, completely different, and go through the alphabet one by one. When you go to Z, compare the black of the letters in the visualization with the black of the background in the visual field. If the color of the letter is dark, imagine that it blends with the black of the background, so that the overall field of vision will become darker. You can repeat this whole process again and again to make the black background in your field of vision darker.
All the skills of Bates method are effective in some cases and ineffective in others. You need to figure out what suits you and what doesn't. Some people find the simplest method of palm massage difficult to use, but they have made progress through other methods, and then turn around and try this method again. Give each method a chance to practice before starting Bates method. If you find it doesn't suit you, please try another method and remember that you may come back and try again.