Homeopathy Heals You Blog

HPATHY: FACIAL TICS: Are we all feeling a little sick lately? At a loss?
What with financial bankrupcy and the anniversary of 9/11 . . .
Our “focus” these days are on our EYES…
Click the link to read story about a boy with gestures and blinking eyes.

How often does the human eye blink?
The rate of blinking varies, but on average the eye blinks once every five seconds. That's equal to 17,000 times each day or 6.25 million times a year.
Source: Brandreth, Gyles. Your Vital Statistics, p. 26.

Noun 1. blink of an eye - a very short time (as the time it takes the eye to blink or the heart to beat); “if I had the chance I'd do it in a flash”

HUMOR: JON STEWART Highly recommended to lighten the soul through laughter which pokes fun at the truth.

Blinking, known less commonly as nictating, is the rapid closing and opening of the eyelid. It is an essential function of the eye that helps spread tears across and remove irritants from the surface of the cornea and conjunctiva. Blink speed can be affected by elements such as fatigue, eye injury, medication, and disease. A person blinks approximately once every two to ten seconds. The blinking rate is determined by the “blinking center”, but it can also be affected by external stimulus. When an animal (usually human) chooses to blink only one eye as a signal to another in a social setting (a form of body language), it is known as winking. However, some animals (for example, tortoises and hamsters) blink their eyes independently of each other.

Blinking provides moisture to the eye by irrigation using tears and a lubricant the eyes secrete. The eyelid provides suction across the eye from the tear duct to the entire eyeball to keep it from drying out.

Blinking also protects the eye from irritants. Eyelashes are hairs attached to the upper and lower eyelids that create a line of defense against dust and other elements to the eye. The eyelashes catch most of these irritants before they reach the eyeball.

Why We Blink: To oil, lube, and filter the eyes.

Blinking, as opposed to batting, our eyes automatically supplies two forms of moisture to our eyes, to keep them from drying out, and to keep foreign matter from entering and irritating our eyes. Eyelids themselves, our built-in “wind-shield wipers,” are merely folds of skin, controlled by muscles capable of expanding and contracting so rapidly, that blinking does not impair our vision. Mother Nature lined the rims of our eyelids with 20-30 sebaceous, oil-producing glands, which are located between our eyelashes, and are invisible to the naked eye. Blinking automatically coats the eyelid and eyelashes with the lubricant it secretes, to prevent them from drying out.

Blinking also protects the eye from dryness by irrigating, not by irritating, the eye, The eyelid, through suction, automatically draws the fluid we cry with from the well we refer to as the tear duct over the eyeball, to irrigate, and to moisturize the eye. The process is similar to the manner in which the farmer uses water to irrigate his crops during a dry spell.

Yet another benefit of blinking, is to shield the eye from foreign bodies. Our eyelashes, short, curved, hairs, attached to the eyelids, serve as dust-catchers, as the blinking reflex causes them automatically to lower, when exposed to harsh elements. Nature endowed the camel with extraordinarily long, curly, eyelashes, to protect his eyes from sudden sandstorms in the desert. Incidentally, the “camel eyelash” look is one many women attempt to duplicate by using an eyelash curler! Eyebrows, by the way, also serve their purpose, as they catch the run-off perspiration produces.


Medical causes of excessive eye blinking:

• Dry eyes
• Eye foreign body
• Lens infection
• Eyelid spasms (see Eyelid twitch)
• Some causes of eyelid spasms:
• Nervous system disorder
• Parkinson's disease
• Stroke
• Anxiety

Eyeblink conditioning (EBC) is a form of classical conditioning that has been used extensively to study neural structures and mechanisms that underlie learning and memory. The procedure is relatively simple and usually consists of pairing an auditory or visual stimulus with an eyeblink-eliciting unconditioned stimulus (US - can be a mild puff of air to the cornea or a mild shock). Naïve organisms initially produce a reflexive, unconditioned response (UR - blink or extension of nictitating membrane) that follows US onset. After many CS-US pairings, an association is formed such that a learned blink, or conditioned response (CR), occurs and precedes US onset. The magnitude of learning is generally gauged by the percentage of all paired CS-US trials that result in a CR. Under optimal conditions, well-trained animals produce a high percentage of CRs (> 90%). The conditions necessary for, and the physiological mechanisms that govern, eyeblink CR learning have been studied across many mammalian species, including mice, rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets, cats, and humans. Historically, rabbits have been the most popular research subjects.

Christian SONG: In a Blink of an eye that is when
I'll be closer to You than I've ever been
Time will fly, but until then
I'll embrace every moment I'm given
There's a reason I'm alive for a blink of an eye