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Visit any school in Beijing and you might be struck by something slightly unusual: children sitting around in classrooms pressing each others' eyes and not in the bullying kind of way. It's a well-known acupressure technique, an eye exercise that usually lasts about five minutes, which functions to prevent people from becoming shortsighted by pressing acupuncture points in the head. And it's a tradition that has been going on for several decades now.
A look at the past
"Throughout my primary and middle school education, I was forced to do eye exercises," recalled Yu Li, 28, an IT professional. "Every day we had to do it as part of a campaign led by student leaders to ensure we were in an outstanding class," he said. Yu might have been forced to do these routines, but that does not mean he resented them. Instead he has some fond memories attached to the daily event. "Whenever we closed our eyes, I always kept one eye open to watch the girl I liked," Yu chuckled.
According to a report in the Health Times in 2005, the institutionalization of the eye exercise was born in the 1960s when the Beijing Municipal Commission of Education found the rate of shortsighted pupils in the capital rose to 10 percent. "The education authority believed there was a need to find ways to help pupils protect their eyesight," said Yan Yirou, a retired employee who was in charge of launching the first version of the exercise, the report says.
Inspiration behind the original version of the exercise came from Liu Shiming, a deceased sports teacher at Peking University Health Science Center. In 1958, Liu invented the exercise based on his understandings of Chinese massage and acupuncture with an aim to help him recover from the surgery he had to treat glaucoma. After the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976), Liu's exercise was refined by two Chinese traditional massage experts, and this version has been used for decades since. Then, in 2009 Jay Zhou, one of China's top pop stars, modeled how to accurately practice the latest version of the exercise.
Other kinds of eye exercises have also been invented. Lan Chengwei, a sports teacher in Sichuan Engineering Technical College, created an eye exercise that involves moving the eyeballs. For example, one movement of the exercise is to keep your eyes open whilst moving the eyeballs from both left to right and up and down. "Instead of pressing the muscles around the eyes, which is the technique used in the traditional exercise, my exercise puts pressure on the inner muscles of the eyes by moving the eyeballs," said Lan, who started researching how to protect the eyes when he was a university student in the 1980s.
Not so clear
Unfortunately decades of practicing the exercise has not proved that it is an efficient way to stop the eyesight of young people from deteriorating. China's population is increasingly suffering from eye problems. As a result, many have started to ask whether the exercise is actually really helpful.
According to Fang Zhouzi, a reknowned controversial academic fraud fighter, the propensity to become shortsighted or not is mainly based on genetics. "The exercises, which are based on ancient channels and theory, generally lack scientific proof," Fang told Global Times. "What is more, when doing the exercise, pupils usually do not wash their hands before, which may cause infections to the eyes," he added.
Meanwhile, for Wang Lining, who is the vice chief at the eye department of Beijing Tongren Hospital, the remedy for bad eye sight does not lie in simple exercises, but actually a change of lifestyle. "The most vital problem that causes the increase of shortsightedness is the heavy burden of study on young people, and it overwhelms the effectiveness the eye exercise can provide," said Wang.
However, others adopt a different stance. "Although there is no strict and scientific way to judge the functions of eye exercises, there is no doubt that the eye exercise will help decrease eyestrain," remarked Li Yijian, a 58-year-old Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, who specializes in acupuncture and massage. "The action of pressing acupuncture points and muscles on the head will improve the blood circulation around the eyes," he explained. He says that for those whose eyes feel sore, if you close your eyes and carefully press certain points for a couple of minutes, then your vision should at least temporarily improve.
And even if these exercises don't ultimately make a huge amount of difference to your sight, they can still be a relaxing break from staring at a computer screen. "I have recently started to do them again, as I think they can help remove bags and dark circles under my eyes," said Xu Yan, a 29-year-old website editor.
Get visual with these exercises
Step one: massaging Tianying acupuncture point
Use the inner part of your thumbs to softly press the top eyelid, while the rest of your hand supports the forehead. Repeat this movement for several minutes.
Step two: massaging Jingming acupuncture point
Use your thumbs to press and push the top edge of the nose near the corners of your eyes slowly and softly several times.
Step three: massaging Sibai acupuncture point
Press your forefingers on the points that are located on either side of your nose and one centimeter under your eyes. Keep pressing them in a circular motion for a few minutes.
Step four: massaging the temples
Clench your hand into a fist and use your thumb to softly press the temples and the clenched fingers to make a circle up and down the orbits of your eyes. Keep your thumbs on the temples while massaging the orbits. Repeat a few times.
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