Star-gazer or navel-gazer?
It's not either/ or, but patterns and tendencies - explore the activities at the end of this blog to see yours.
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Up, down and around. We each survey the world we live in, but don't all look the same. In the course of our day to day sidewalk lives, en route from points A to B, we each reveal characteristic eye movements as unique to us as our accents, and often just as invisible.
How we behave with our eyes, especially when we're not looking at anything in particular, reflects our distinctive blends of nature (including neurobiology and personality)1a,1b and nurture (including cultural background and gender)2a, 2b. The proportions of time we spend with our gaze pointed down at the ground, up at the sky, or at eye-level, also varies in relation to our mood, motivation, and level of hunger, to name a few factors 3.
Where do your eyes go when you feel great? When you feel not so great? Chances are your answer includes "verticality." How, and how often, we look down, and up, and stay there for a second or two, is influenced by our psychological and physical state at a given moment.3 And influence is reciprocal: Our vertical visuals shape the health of our minds and bodies.
Look up? Look down? Does it really make a difference?
Variations in eye angle don't have to be obtuse for them to radically influence what and who comes into our field of vision. When it comes to our optics, minute changes in eye orientation radically transform our perspective. Raising our eyes' focus by millimeters alters our viewpoint by miles. Lowering them translates into a complete shift in vista.
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Ultimately, the advantages of raising our gaze, psychological and physiological, could be the subject of an entire book. I will devote attention to the physical benefits of eyerising in later blogs. Here, I have selected 4 positives that are not always obvious.
When you look up:
1. The position and curvature of your eyeballs results in the reflection of more overhead light from your scleras (the whites of your eyes) than when your eyes are down. Even if you're not looking directly at anyone, with raised eyes, you are more likely to be seen, and more likely to notice being seen.
2. The periphery of your visual field expands because less light is blocked by your eyelids. Raising your gaze shifts the position of the pupil and reveals a subtle blinder. You are suddenly more attentive to what sits at the upper limits of your vision. This enables you to tune into social possibilities (e.g., cute person at party checking you out) and opportunities (e.g., spotting something you'd been looking for) with greater ease.
3.We survey our surroundings more effectively. Self-defense experts tell us to ‘chin and eyes up' especially when we walk alone. This is because looking above the horizon shows us what and who is at the upper edges of our visual field - optically, what is distant to us and may be coming closer. With our gaze slightly raised, we are more alert to movements out of the corners of our eyes (and, importantly, we assume visual postures of strength, security and confidence, looking less like victims and acting less like prey).
4. We experience enhanced reaction times. Soccer players, snowboarders, mountain bike racers and other athletes know the advantages of keeping their eyes up. In competition, it's good to look ahead rather than focus on the ground under foot. A raised gaze, especially at high speeds, enables you to better see what's ahead in order to prepare for it before you're on top of it. And even if we're not athletes, we can apply the wisdom of kinetic experts to our own comparably slow lives whenever we take moments to pay attention to what's up - as we walk, run, sit, play or drive a vehicle.
It's not about extreme behaviors - it's about proportion. ‘Eyes-above-the-horizon' doesn't mean that it's not good to look down. It doesn't mean that you scan continuously above the horizon. Simply, we bring our awareness to looking up, more often, and do it.
Sure we're all busy and can think of 1001 other issues and habits that need work, but exploring our eye habits doesn't have to take away from our lives. Indoors and out, alone or with others, increasing the split-seconds we spend with our eyes above the horizon, creates quiet change. Small adjustments to chronic eye patterns can shift our lives in ways unimagined.
Reply below, or email vitamineye@gmail.com
Activity Suggestions:
- Stop reading and take a bearing on the horizon. Look at it now, then just above it without moving your chin. Feel your eye muscles - they're not just pulling against gravity, but long-standing habit as well. How often do you do this?
- Gaze at the ceiling, looking back and forth to the count of five. What do you see that hadn't expected?
- Watch people out of the corners of your eyes - notice how well you see them, especially their eyes, when you raise your own just a little.
- Glance out the window at the sky - when was the last time you lingered observing star patterns, or skyscrapers? Let your eyes roam high to exercise far sightedness.
- Chew on tree tops and lick the edges of clouds with your eyes. Play with your vision.
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Here is a simple graphic that can show you how to keep track of your visual verticals. From time to time, when you're not looking at anything particular, take a reading, and become more visually aware.
_1 LOOKING AT SKY/ CEILING IMMEDIATELY ABOVE YOU
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|_2
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|_3
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|_4
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|_____5 HORIZON
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|_6
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|_7
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|_8
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|_9 LOOKING AT GROUND IMMEDIATELY BELOW YOU
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References:
1a. http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200310/the-eyes-and-mental-illness
1b. Kleinke, C.L. (1986). Gaze and eye contact: A research review. Psychological Bulletin, 100(1), 78-100.
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&id=5FC59ED5-F729-D4FD-E40C-41D42FE4EDB7&resultID=5&page=1&dbTab=pa
2a. http://jcc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/39/6/716
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.00030222b.
2b. http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca:8881/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=36033&local_base=GEN01-MCG02
3. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/pdf_extract/123/576/615
http://www.eyetec.net/group6/M27S1.htm
