Loading practices
Loading practices
Areas › Your body › Touch and bodywork
After that, try the small points: the spot between your eyebrows, your temples, the soft dip under each eye where the cheekbone begins. Press only as much as feels kind. Screens make this worse than it used to be, so if you have been staring at one since morning your eyes have been braced for hours. A minute of warmth from your own hands often changes more than you expect.
'when the bearer of good news came and placed the shirt on to Jacob's face, his eyesight returned' (Quran 12:96). Something soft laid over a face that had wept itself blind is where the relief lands in that story.
يوسف
فَلَمَّآ أَن جَآءَ ٱلۡبَشِيرُ أَلۡقَىٰهُ عَلَىٰ وَجۡهِهِۦ فَٱرۡتَدَّ بَصِيرࣰ اۖ قَالَ أَلَمۡ أَقُل لَّكُمۡ إِنِّيٓ أَعۡلَمُ مِنَ ٱللَّهِ مَا لَا تَعۡلَمُونَ
Then, when the bearer of good news came and placed the shirt on to Jacob’s face, his eyesight returned and he said, ‘Did I not tell you that I have knowledge from God that you do not have?’
Qur’an 12:96read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
Research on the orbitofrontal cortex shows that pleasant touch is represented there in terms of how rewarding it is, alongside taste and the sight of a face. Touch is handled as a feeling, not only as information about pressure and texture. That is a description of how the brain treats gentle contact rather than a trial of eye massage, so take it as background for why this feels like more than rubbing your face.
Rolls ET, Grabenhorst F. (2008). The orbitofrontal cortex and beyond: from affect to decision-making.. Progress in neurobiology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
The muscles around the eyes belong to the same system that tells the rest of you whether it is safe to settle.
If you have an eye condition or recent eye surgery, keep your hands off the eyeball itself and check with your doctor first.
If pain is the thing you live with, start the session with the stroking sequence rather than the conversation. Arms, forehead, crown, cheeks, slowly.
Not all of this is a matter of how you say you feel. Breathing, exercise and hands on work shift things that can be measured from outside: heart rhythm, stress hormones, muscle tone.
The same treatment in two different clinics can go two different ways, and the difference is often the people. Kind, unhurried staff who explain things get better results.