Eye Gymnastics

Focus and attention

Peripheral awareness

Keep your eyes on the centre cross and notice shapes flashing at the edges of your vision.

  • 90 seconds
  • Medium

Sit about an arm’s length from the screen. Keep your head still and use only your eyes.

Peripheral vision is everything you see around the point you are looking at. It is less sharp than central vision but very good at detecting movement and changes, which helps you move safely and notice things around you. In this exercise you fix your eyes on a cross in the centre of the screen. Shapes briefly flash in different places towards the edges. Your task is to notice them without moving your eyes away from the cross.

Resisting the urge to look directly at each shape is the real challenge. Staying fixed on the centre while spreading your attention outwards trains peripheral awareness – the ability to take in information from the whole visual field. During close screen work our attention tends to narrow into a small tunnel, so this exercise is also a pleasant way to widen it again. It pairs well with the Schulte table and is part of the gamer program.

This is an awareness exercise, not a visual field test. It cannot detect glaucoma or other conditions that cause gradual loss of side vision, which often go unnoticed until late. For a rough screening use the peripheral vision test, and see an eye doctor for proper perimetry – especially if you have risk factors for glaucoma.

How to do it

  1. Sit centred in front of the screen; full-screen mode is recommended.
  2. Press start and fix your gaze on the cross in the middle.
  3. Keep your eyes on the cross while shapes flash towards the edges.
  4. Notice each shape with your side vision, without looking at it.
  5. If your eyes jump to a shape, calmly bring them back to the cross.
  6. Blink normally and rest your eyes when the timer ends.

What it helps with

  • Trains awareness of the whole visual field
  • Practises steady central fixation
  • Counters the narrow 'tunnel' attention of screen work
  • Useful as a calm warm-up for sport or gaming sessions

Tips

  • Sit close enough that the shapes appear well to the sides of your gaze.
  • Relax rather than straining to see the shapes.
  • Try each eye separately by covering the other with your palm.

Caution: This exercise is not a test for glaucoma or visual field loss. If you notice gaps, shadows or a curtain in your side vision, see an eye doctor promptly; a sudden shadow or curtain is an emergency.

Frequently asked questions

Can this exercise detect glaucoma?

No. Glaucoma is diagnosed with eye pressure measurement, optic nerve examination and formal visual field testing by an eye care professional.

Why is it so hard not to look at the shapes?

Our eyes reflexively move towards sudden changes in the periphery. Learning to suppress that reflex is part of the exercise.

Will it widen my field of vision?

It will not change the physical size of your visual field, but it can improve your awareness of what is already there.