Eye muscles, Psychotherapy, and Yoga: Surprising Connections

Dr. Karel Ne_por (Swaroop Murti)

Introduction

There are about 600 muscles in the human body, some of them large, some very tiny, but not less important. The movements of the eyes are possible because of six ribbon-like slender muscles around each eyeball (see picture 1).

Picture 1.

The eye muscles and psychotherapy

Yoga exercises of the eyes are easy enough even for beginners, and their gentle, patient and long-term practice are considered beneficial to eyesight.
Nevertheless eye muscles are also closely related to mental activity:
1. During dreaming, the eye muscles move rapidly behind the closed eyelids (REM or Rapid Eye Movement stage of sleep), which is associated with visual dream imagery.
2. According to E. Jacobson , relaxation of the eye muscles leads to cessation of visual thoughts.
3. The most recent example is the story of Francine Shapiro who in the middle of preparation of her thesis about English literature learned that she had cancer. She changed the direction of her life and studied psychology. Once, when bothered by intruding, unpleasant and persistent thoughts, she discovered that the thoughts disappear permanently when she moves her eyeballs. The intruding and obsessive thoughts are not only the problems of cancer patients, but also of the people with posttraumatic stress disorder who remember again and again their traumatic experience with no resolution. Dr. Shapiro developed on this basis a sophisticated psychotherapeutic system called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) which is successfully used in many countries .

Eye muscles and Yoga

Yoga exercises of the eyes: Readers interested in the use of these exercises in eye problems, can find detailed information elsewhere . People interested in experimenting with these practices to disrupt intrusive images and memories, may practice e. g. sideways viewing, up and down viewing or rotational viewing with the eyes open or closed according to preference and situation.
Tratak: Both internal and external tratak more or less immobilise the eye muscles and probably may serve similarly well in disrupting unpleasant memories.
Visualisation of a psychic symbol, yantra or a deity: Even here the eye muscles are fully employed and cannot be engaged in other activities. Besides this, other factors such as faith, trust and hope, may enhance the positive effect.
Dynamic awareness: Other yogic practices use moving awareness of various parts of the body (yoga nidra) or the awareness may move up and down along the spine (e. g. ajapa japa), which may also block repetitive images.

Breaking the vicious circle, not suppression

One can object that disrupting the intrusive painful memories by eye movement is merely the form of suppression. It certainly should not be used in this way. One has to face his/her darker inner self in an accepting and relaxed manner. EMDR and similar yogic techniques make this easier. The repetitive, obsessive and painful images, which do not bring anything new, loose their emotional component. In this way the energy of a person is released and can be used in a new, creative manner. Beside this, practices such as ajapa japa enhance the self-awareness during antar mauna (e.g. it is possible to practice ajapa japa for 10 breath cycles and antar mauna for another 10 cycles and so on). It can by done also while lying, and I often use it (beside mantras and yoga nidra) when feel in trouble.