Curing dry eye with exercise?

For long time I felt my eyes were getting drier... It started maybe 15 years ago with small symptoms, like red eye on airplanes or itchy eyes in the morning, and it was getting worse. About 5 years ago, I went to the doctor when the eyes were really itchy and he said that one of the 3 types of eye glands (the one that segregates an oil to avoid that the tears evaporate) wasn't working. Eventually he said it had no cure and I would just have to use eye drops the rest of my life. And these were kind of fancy ones. I know that they can be much much more expensive but these were about $10 for a week if I had used them as often as he said... Sure, the drops worked great but after few months I decided to try to work the eye out of them. So, I started with the cheapest ones and yeah, certainly they were not the same. I had to use them much more often (the others, with 4 times a day was enough). Somehow it looked like it was going pretty bad so I used the good drops again, once or twice, and then, somehow, my eyes were fine. For good. No need for more drops for weeks. Sure, eventually I was back on drops, but I did the same and again fine. This time much faster recovery. Some thoughts:

1. The glands are obviously not dead or gone. Otherwise I couldn't recover I guess. But they do have some trouble....  
2. I do have a bit of rosacea. Really mild. Doctor isn't even sure. But his initial theory is that the rosacea ("bacteria"?) affected the glands. So, he did give  me antibiotics but didn't help. But assuming it is true, it could be that the glands are able to keep it away sometimes, but some just lose. Why?
3. A theory is that we do have good bacteria in the eye (this seems to actually be proven) and some of that bacteria fights the bad one. But bad things happen, some imbalance in the body, and the bad ones take over unless they get some help. Antibiotics may actually not help as they harm also the good ones. Kind of gut bacteria theory.
4. The other is that I am not drinking enough water. This is something that I am trying to check/correlate to, but haven't been constant doing, so, can't prove it yet.
5. Another thought is some kind of eye strain. I think this is actually proven in my case. I do have some series of eye exercises that I can do when things get bad and do improve the vision instantaneously. Basically, when the symptoms are there (things like dry eyes which translate in blur vision), I close one eye and I blink the other. You have to do that without pressure. Just close the eye lead, and you got to search for that point where you feel like relieve, almost like when you stretch your leg and suddenly yields. Like a warm feeling. It takes few minutes to get to that point and you may feel even like chills. Actually when you start sometimes it feels that you can't even do it. That the eye that is supposed to be opening and closing can barely open. But then boom. Blinking with a slight push at the end seems to help too. So, with that in mind, I looked for some exercises. I never did any of these but may be in the same direction... (?)

Anyhow, adding a drop of the bad ones every few weeks and doing 5 seem to keep the problem away. I got to try #4. But now I go in 16hr flights and do not get red eyes! Although to be fair, I try to keep the laptop away (I do watch movies, though).