/ Eye movement Start the routine

Smooth pursuit · 20 patterns

Eye movement routine

Follow the amber dot with your eyes while your head stays still. Each pattern traces one path from the 20-pattern chart, in the direction its arrows point, and the routine pauses for a slow blink between patterns.

01Up and down
Rep 1 of 1

01

Mode
Speed
Reps each
1
Guide

All 20 at Medium, 1 rep each: about 7 min

Space start or pause · ← → change pattern · tap the field to pause

The 20 patterns

Same order and directions as the chart. Pick one to jump to it.

How to do it

  • Sit about an arm's length from the screen, or go full screen for a wider sweep.
  • Keep your head still and let only your eyes move. Resting your chin on your hand makes any head movement easy to notice.
  • Keep the dot's dark centre sharp. If you lose it or it starts to jump, drop to Slow.
  • Move smoothly and gently. The dot eases into every corner and turn so your eyes never have to snap.
  • The chart says to take off glasses or contact lenses first, so frames don't limit how far you look. If the dot is too blurry without them, keep them on.
  • Start with one or two reps and build up over days as your eyes adapt.
  • Stop if you feel dizzy or sick, get a headache or eye pain, or see double.

What moves your eyes

Six muscles turn each eye, driven by three cranial nerves.

DirectionMusclesNerve
Out, away from the noseLateral rectusVI abducens
In, toward the noseMedial rectusIII oculomotor
UpSuperior rectus, inferior obliqueIII oculomotor
DownInferior rectus, superior obliqueIII, IV trochlear

Straight lines work one pair at a time. Diagonals, circles and spirals blend them, so all six share the load.

Following the moving dot is smooth pursuit, which keeps up well to roughly 30 degrees per second. Medium stays far below that at arm's length. The jump back to the start of an open path is a saccade, the quick movement your eyes use to change targets.

What it can and can't do

It won't change your prescription

The American Academy of Ophthalmology states that eye exercises don't correct nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism or presbyopia.

It doesn't replace looking into the distance

For screen strain, the usual advice is 20-20-20: every 20 minutes, look at something about 6 metres away for 20 seconds and blink fully. This routine moves your eyes, but they stay focused at screen distance the whole time.

Clinical eye-teaming therapy is different

Convergence insufficiency, where the eyes struggle to stay aligned for close work, responds to office-based vergence and accommodative therapy in randomised trials. That therapy is prescribed and supervised by an optometrist or orthoptist and uses different exercises.

When to see someone

Get checked promptly for a sudden change in vision, new flashes or floaters, eye pain, or double vision that doesn't settle.

Sources

  1. Can I improve eye vision naturally through exercises? American Academy of Ophthalmology
  2. Vision training not proven to make vision sharper, American Academy of Ophthalmology
  3. Randomized clinical trial of treatments for symptomatic convergence insufficiency in children, CITT Study Group, 2008
  4. Home- and office-based vergence and accommodative therapies for convergence insufficiency, American Academy of Ophthalmology report, 2021