This relaxes the contracting pupil and ciliary muscles and can be an important practical antidote to eye strain, headaches and the other undesired side-effects of intense work using devices.  Our eyes are designed for a far more varied landscape than screens alone, and a periodic physical experience of that, even quite a short one, helps keep them working well.  

I believe this important guideline for the health of our eyes is a great metaphor to reflect on more broadly.  It was my dear friends at Mobius Executive Leadership who first introduced me some years ago to the simple invocation to “Seek Beauty”.  They encouraged participants in the CEO development courses where I was one of the Egon Zehnder faculty to go outside and find something beautiful and just spend time absorbing that beauty.  The executives often chose something from nature: a flower, a blade of grass, the clouds in the sky.  Whatever they chose, without exception they experienced that there was refreshment to be found in time spent in such contemplation.  Unexpectedly for many executives, it was easy to find that place within them that appreciated beauty.  And a simple reminder that there is a place in their soul for beauty, as well as for the more tangible aspects of business life, made them more aware of other inner qualities they could bring to their day-to-day work.  Once they opened to that place within them, they found fresh sources of energy and perspective for the work at hand, resources that did not feel available from an unrelenting focus on the task itself. 

It strikes me that in some ways this is like the balm our eyes find as we relax our focus away from the screen and contemplate the horizon.  It is a reminder to make space in our day-to-day work for the different parts of our personality, for the more creative and contemplative parts as well as the more action-oriented and problem-solving parts that are so often our initial “go to strengths”.  These parts of us that can appreciate the beauty in the line of an archway, in the petals of a flower, or the laughter of a co-worker are important parts of our inner landscape.  Intuitive or emotional in nature, they may not “speak” as loudly and as immediately to our day-to-day work tasks as the data- and logic-focused elements that are our familiar companions in helping achieve so much of what we do.  Yet making space for them allows us to open to a fuller, more complete version of who we are.  This is in some ways an exploration for us.  We may not always know immediately what additional value those parts will contribute to the matter in hand.  We may well decide that they do not have a lot to add in some contexts.  But at times they will contribute insights, empathy and even joy to situations that desperately need them because we have relied too much on rationality and related facts.  What we can be sure of is that periodically refocusing on beauty, even briefly, will mean that a bigger version of us is available to meet whatever challenges life puts before us.