NOTE: This post was made in late 2006. The comments following it were made in early 2007. In the time that has passed since these initial intraocular pressure observations were made (see comments below), we have come to understand this situation much, much better. This thread is interesting for background information, but please see the more recent posts on FitEyes.com if you want to really understand the relationship between stress, breathing, meditation and eye pressure. I have been in contact with a number of people who have tonometers and who have replicated some of these observations, and the patterns continue to hold. Basically, this seems to apply to all glaucoma patients. However, there are individual differences, especially among meditators and non-meditators.

This abstract simply triggers a discussion in the comments below. All the interesting info is in the comments.

Glaucoma Today published an article titled "An Update on Tonometry". It's interesting reading, and I highly recommend it.

Effects of Valsalva's manoeuvre on intraocular pressure

As I understand this study, the researchers had subjects with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) breathe through their right nostril only (by closing off their left nostril). There is a common breathing technique in Yoga know as "alternate nostril breathing" or Nadi Shodhana in sanskrit. The aim of alternating the open nostrils is to create balance in the physiology. The idea behind the method used in this study is to correct a (perceived) imbalance by breathing through the right nostril only.