Calm & Relaxed With Panoramic Vision

This is a short visual exercise in which you change your inner state by changing your vision. When expand our vision, it simulates a calm state, giving our nervous system a feeling of safety since we're just taking in scenery in a relaxed way (as opposed to focusing intensely).

The idea was inspired by Andrew Huberman, Ph.D. and colleagues' work on anxiety and vision at Huberman Lab, Stanford University.

Transcript

Hi there fellow human. Welcome to this panoramic vision practice. Your eyes are going to remain open for this and if you have outdoor scenery to look at that works well and inside is just fine too. So one thing to remember is that your eyes and head are going to remain still here and you'll see how your environment will come to you in a sense into your visual field. So settle in a bit so you're a little comfy and then gaze straight ahead and you could imagine the type of gaze that you have if you're looking at a beautiful sunset and you can see the whole horizon all the way to the outer edges. As you look forward you're not focusing on any one thing you kind of have soft eyes so they're kind of taking in the entire scene at once in a non focused way. Now imagine what the whole eyeball has vision so that you can see out of the corners of your eyes and out of the upper and lower parts of your eyes that it's all taking in the visual field around you and just feel that field growing and widening as you just let your eyes take it in let the environment come meet your eyes and your eyes meet the environment. And now notice if your system feels more settled if you have a calm state inside your whole body and you might notice that with practice you'll have that calm response more and more. Thanks for trying it out. Be well fellow human.