Why do eye doctors advise you to look at far away places when you want to rest your eyes?

Question

Why do eye doctors advise you to look at far away places when you want to rest your eyes?

Answer 1

Because when you do that, it puts them in the most relaxed position.  Try looking straight up for twenty seconds, and then compare how it feels just looking off into the distance.

Answer 2

The lens of your eye is completely relaxed and as flat as possible when viewing an object at 20 feet. There is no accomodation for close focusing happening anymore at that point.

So doing that is the natural state of the eye, because it isn't working to focus up close anymore.