The Hindu Business Line : Relax your eyes

I am 36, and a vegetarian. My job involves working long hours on a computer. In the last three years, my eyes feel strained by lunchtime (I wear spectacles — 0.75 in both eyes) and worsen by evening. The redness stays in my eyes the whole week and gets better only over the weekend. I do some yoga and jogging every morning, but the situation is only exacerbated. I have consulted several doctors who advised OTC eye-drops but nothing seems to work. What should I do?

Anand

Staring at the VDT (video display terminal) all day causes eyestrain. Here are some measures you can take:

Take breaks every one-two hours from your computer screen. It means literally turning your back to it. Get yourself a glass of water or do some off-screen work. Working from a printout is recommended. Staring at a paper is more eye-friendly than at the screen. Those letters and numbers are small bulbs shining into your eyes.

Midday and at night, soak a hanky in cold tea or rose water and place it over your eyes for 15 minutes. When it warms up, soak and cool it again.

Do this exercise daily: Rub your hands until warm. Then place your palms gently on your closed eyes. Breathe deeply. For 20 minutes, visualise the colour black.

Consciously blink your eyes 300 times daily. This cleanses and moistens the eyes, prevents strain as well as the eye number from increasing.

Make sure you get eight hours sleep. Sleep is the time eyes re-hydrate themselves.

Instead of jogging, do half-hour stationary cycling. Cycling improves the circulation of the fluid in your eyes.

I am 45. I used to have a regular bowel movement. Despite my regular food habits — afternoon chapattis, night rice — for the last two months, I’m having hard stools and incomplete cleansing. In the office, I am forced to go to the toilet after the 11 a.m. tea and again in the evening. I am disturbed. I’ve been eating a guava and a pear and it has helped only to some extent. Please advise.

R. Kausalya

You may be straining for a proper bowel movement, this is a concern. Avoid strain as it can lead to painful hemorrhoids, fissures, raise your blood pressure and cause stress. Over the years, the body tends to become a tad dry. So, if three glasses of water hydrated it at age 20, it needs about eight glasses of water at age 40. Often, due to this dryness, one suffers from these symptoms. To battle hard stools and constipation, you need the fibre-fluid combination. Continue having a guava and pear and increase your water intake to 10 glasses. Water softens stools. Other tips:

Start the morning with a glass of jeera water. Boil a teaspoon of it in water, strain, add honey and drink it hot. You can also chew the jeera as it is excellent for digestion. After this, have your tea/coffee.

Due to lack of exercise, the stomach muscles often grow lax and don’t contract sufficiently. Walk for half an hour. Then, lie on the floor-mat on your back, feet flat down, knees bent in an inverted V. Place your hands behind your head and raise your shoulders off the floor. Return to floor. Do these stomach crunches 20 times daily. Exercise only after a gap of two hours after a meal.

After dinner, have three Triphala tablets to help your morning elimination.

These steps should regularise your bowel movement and banish hard stools. However, if the latter still persist:

Check with your doctor whether your medication is causing constipation. This could be iron tablets, calcium supplements, diuretics in blood pressure pills, antacids containing calcium or aluminium, antihistamines, tranquillisers.

On a Saturday night, have a tablespoon of castor oil and follow it with warm water. On Sunday morning, your stomach will be thoroughly cleansed. However, this should not be done often as your colon and metabolism could get lazy.

Cut out all extracted oils — peanut, coconut, sesame, etc. Extracted oils form a film in the stomach and prevent the digestion of carbs and proteins. This toxifies and jams the intestines and colon. Oils locked in their original natural form — corn, coconuts, peanuts, sesame seeds — cause no problems as the body’s intelligence is designed to tackle whole foods.