First, I want to let you know that this medical approved way to regularize
heartbeats and migraines, as well as a few more ailments, all about automatic
functions, did not concern itself particularly with dry eyes.
I learned bio-feedback about 25 years ago, to control migraines that resisted all medication.
The other students of all ages were there for different reasons but progressively
they made a class of mostly migraines sufferers.. Learning to relax an artery which is constricting the blood flow inside the cranium about 3 inches above the temple.
That is much harder that bringing back tears.
Nurses attach sensors on different parts of your body, a bit like being in
observation after an heart attack, and you go through several exercises including being on a treadmill for a long time, while you learn to control most of your body's automatic responses.
They can witness the changes on electronic screens. Once you have proven (mostly to yourself), that you can be effective in controlling your body, you learn to apply this to your specific need. There is not other ways to prove that you control pain, but to stop feeling pain. Although perspiration analysis could bring some clue, there is not time to do this in training. While you sort of "travel" inside your own body, you also increase the demand of well being.
This allow you to "connect" with the intern reason of your pain or problem,
and you may be able to reclaim a normal functioning of a specific area, lessening or removing the pain or the problem.
It took me almost 3 months, but I do not think it is a long time since I was doing it on my own, tentatively, without coaching. Also it is so dangerous for the sight when it becomes scarred and blurry.. Getting back my facial control and correcting a drooping half lip I was so ashamed of, did take me longer although it was only muscle retraining.
Now, it pleases me to find some left-over plastic wrap strips in my drawer, unused and gathering dust, since they have not been used for over 2 years. I keep them just for that grin it gives me. It could take you a couple of days up to a couple of months.
There is no need to get wired up like we did at the hospital course and to see progresses on screens.
The result is there, and you very soon feel it, like on the edge, but it
takes some time to see an actual tear form, but it will get moist. If you do not
stop at that point, you may be able to make it cry like movie stars do at will.
(Grin)
READY?
*/First exercise. Sitting./*
Bend you face down as looking to the floor. Put your elbows on your knees, feet parted. Hold your face lightly with your thumbs at the base of your ears and the other fingers spread on the forehead, little fingers lined up just above your eyebrows.
Try to close your eyes and reopen them. Choose which way you feel more comfortable and relaxed..
Picture in your mind, as if tears would be coming from the lower side of your eyeballs, near the temples.
If you feel anything, make a mental note of it in order to write it down when you finish, but do not move.
Now picture tears are coming down from the top and the inside corner.
Insist and stay that way, almost like you are trying to _pull_ the tears from the back of your eyeballs, down to the front.
If you felt nothing, do something else for a while and as soon as you can take the position _sitting again, do the exercise_ , this time try with your eyes open if they were closed before and vise versa.
If you feel anything at all, even a little pain in some part of the eyes. Stop and write it down. make sure you describe what you did, what you wanted to do (/like/ : rake the moisture to gather it..), what you felt, what you think you didn't do right. Do not express doubts.
Stop again and 15 minutes later, read your notes, Relax, Breath deeply. Sit and start concentrating on the outside corners and imagining the lower lids full of tears, squint a bit while half closing your eyes to bath them in it.
If you pull the imaginary tears with your will, some moisture may feel like it is coming, even if it is not (or so minimum as to be useless).
Stop, write down the details. While you write, without being aware of it, you become more and more acquainted with the way your eyes should create tears. You may even feel moisture while you write and relax. Your eyes are starting to get the message that you want them to do something they may have forgotten to do by themselves. They will recognize the wellness when it happens, even so slightly.
Keep at it. But do not abuse. Be gentle.
If you feel tired or if your eyes (the back of them, the muscles around them, even the muscles of your face or nose) feel somewhat tender or tired, STOP. Do whatever you are used to do without even thinking of yours eyes and the exercises.
When in between sessions, it must be complete relaxation and no thinking, as, (do not forget), it is thinking and your will that is addressing the problem at hand. You MUST learn to disconnect in order to be able to connect again and make demands.
You may even feel tired for a few days, but, in that case, it is the strength of the exercises you must reduce, not the sessions.
One session that is the most important is the one when you first wake-up. Bend you head down, the tears are all in the back of the eyeballs. be gentle and let them moist the front of your eyes gently without pulling just like seeping water in a plastic bag, it takes time to get it to obey gravity. be patient, gentle and it will happen. Move your eyes left and right, up and down and roll them a bit to equalize the moisture before you open your eyes.
You must develop for several months long, the habit of wetting your eyes before you open them after sleeping. If you do not feel them free to move inside your lids, then there is still something very wrong and you should, GENTLY, call the tears. get back in bed if you can, and (still with closed eyes) call the tears as you should know by now how to do that. Then get up again, only when you are relaxed, bent the head down and wait. It will work, Do not get tense!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
/Send me what you observed. Keep doing it until you get exercise 2./
/If you did not get any result, do not give up./
/Phone me, or email me to phone you./
/It must work!/
Do not forget that bio feedback training was not thinking of dry eyes when I studied it, but since it is applicable to everything your mind can concentrate on to first : fake result, then, by repeating, retrain the automatic function until the eye tearing relearn to do it by itself, (yes, it is as simple as that), What I can help you with is how to learn yourself to *make demands to some tiny part of you*, you have never even thought of before, unless you have been acting for film or TV, in a close-up demanding scene for a demanding director, (onions do not always bring believable tearing). It looks like it's pouring instead of rolling off one drop at the time at different speed. (I am not kidding!). (47 years in that biz!)
Learning to listen to you body (face included) is easy once you know, but only with very concentrated observation and repetition will you start to succeed.
________________________________________________
I already know that biofeedback is very successful in controlling hypertension,
I heard that neurofeedback can reduce the volume of tinnitus.
Those are my next goals and, believe me, I _need_ to succeed.
antoinette
