Respecting the Neck: The Eyes Have It
My passion for researching posture has taken me far and wide. I was in a village in Burkina Faso in western Africa when I first noticed how people there would track the conversation from speaker to speaker mainly by using their eyes, rather than by turning their heads. Along with their excellent body posture it contributed to a strikingly well-centered, dignified bearing.
This young man in Burkina Faso demonstrates the dignified bearing that comes with an appropriate amount of eye tracking.
Comparing what I saw in Burkina Faso with what I was used to seeing back home, I realized that in the US, and the wider industrialized world, we move our eyes a good deal less and our necks a good deal more. Why such a difference, I wondered, and what is its significance for our well-being?
In Paul Gauguin’s 1893 painting from one of his Tahiti trips, Woman Holding a Fruit, the unnamed subject shifts her gaze with her eyes, rather than by turning or twisting her neck. Public domain image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Babies and infants in all cultures track actively with their eyes, both when they are still, and when they turn or reach. One possibility why this changes for children of school age in the industrialized world is due to the amount of reading, writing, and screen time they experience. It seems we grow into a more restrictive, “ahead only” habit.
Infants in all cultures track very actively with their eyes, as my daughter Maya demonstrates here.
My son Nathan tracks with his eyes while reaching for a toy.
As adults, this trend can continue with desk jobs and other prolonged, forward-oriented activities, such as driving. Perhaps this is why, as we age, we develop a more fixed “tunnel vision,” which results in moving our necks rather than our eyes.
Computer and desk work are possible factors in reducing our range of eye movement. Original image courtesy Studio Republic on Unsplash.
Excessive dependence upon neck movement to reorient our visual field often contributes to soft tissue strain and wear and tear on the delicate discs and joints of the cervical vertebrae. Far better, then, to try to reduce this dependence and reintroduce eye tracking now and then.
Time spent in nature provides us a chance to practice our eye tracking. Follow that movement! Photo courtesy Nathan Anderson on Unsplash.
How can we reintroduce this ancient technique into our industrialized-world lives? I am a great advocate for getting out into nature whenever possible to literally expand our horizons. Time spent with young children, especially babies and toddlers, can give us an opportunity to mimic and mirror them — to their frequent delight!
This dancer in San Diego demonstrates beautiful eye tracking. Image courtesy Avnish Choudhary on Unsplash.
Many dance forms, including, but certainly not limited to, classical Indian Bharatnatyam and Kathak, also offer us ample opportunities to practice eye tracking, which lends our dance gestures and movements a depth of emotion. By allowing our eyes to track while on a walk or hike — perhaps while watching a darting squirrel or rabbit cross our path — or while watching a sports game from the stands, or while trying out a new dance style, we can provide ourselves a chance to relearn this method of respecting the neck and maintaining an especially dignified composure.
These elegant dancers in Trinidad and Tobago show the gravitas and depth that can come from skillfully-employed eye tracking. Image courtesy Isaiah McClean on Unsplash.
Esther, thank you. Inspiring
Esther, thank you. Inspiring. I immediately went to the mirror to practice. What I found is my peripheral vision is just not very good which makes me guess that this issue has a bit of a Catch 22 to it, we might be getting trained, as you suggest, with our schooling and computer work but then this must have a negative effect on our eye muscles and vision over time which might cause our peripheral vision to deteriorate. When this happens it would only increase the tendency to look by turning our whole head - an unending cycle. I am intrigued to improve my peripheral vision now. I think this must be something that would be good for the eyes as well as the neck! And, as you point out, the dignity this neck and eye positioning creates is really beautiful.
I briefly looked into The
I briefly looked into The Alexander Technique and this was a base tenant to is work. In a nutshell, "the body moves where the eyes go". As my meditation practice progressed, my understanding is this has to do with basic embodiment and awareness of our 6 senses. Yes, 6. Thoughts are the mind's sense, and the one that dominates western culture. If we remained in tune with nature and our bodies, a sound or sight or smell would capture our attention. Our eyes are now the second dominant sense organ - I'm guilty being so lost in thought I stop *seeing* what my eyes are inputting! How the body system was designed to work is a sense organ registers a stimulus, the eyes dart in that direction, the head follows the eyes, and finally the body follows the head. Like you say and show - we could learn a lot from an infant!
Really interesting and
Really interesting and stimulatig article and comments.
Yes, the activation order eyes-> head-> body is the same that my cat uses every time something stimulates her senses.
For the developing a better peripheral vision i was wondering about trying an exercise teached by Lee Morrison (Urban Combabtives London, an expert in self defence).
Keeping the hands at the level of your head and watching down in front of you, start to moving your fingers like leaves in the wind and open slowly your arms more and more till you can't perceive the movement of your fingers and repeat.
Lee says that a month of practice have enhanced hes capacity to perceive something in the peripheral area of vision.
You can give it a try and say us if it works.