I've been trying to reduce my prescription for years now and I've heard of many programs that claim they help but the Bates Method seems to be the only genuine way. I read about the eye exercises and I really want to start improving my eyesight but I just have no idea how. I can't get weaker glasses or contact lenses. My current prescription is around -6.00 for both eyes and I can't see much without my glasses so I need to wear them all the time unless sleeping etc. Should I do the eye exercises with my glasses off then put them back on again afterwards? And wear them for the rest of the day?
Does anyone have any advice they can please give me? Just a point in the right direction to get me started would be very much appreciated.
Do as much as you can safely without your glasses. Put them on top of your head, then put them back on your face when you really need to see more clearly. Get a pair that's 20/40 correction, since what you have now may be too strong and will keep you from improving. Read all the Bates material you can find. Yes, leave your glasses off for vision exercises, but take your time putting them back on, and again, if they're too strong they'll be undermining any improvement you're getting.
Thanks for your reply! The thing is I can't get 20/40 correction glasses. I tried asking several opticians, but they all said is "it doesn't help" and refused to make me 20/40 correction glasses. Will it seriously hinder my progress if all I use are either my 'normal' glasses, pinhole glasses (where can they fit in?) and no glasses?
By the way, how long does it normally take to achieve 20/20 vision? I know it differs from person to person, but is there an average amount of time?
Next time, don't tell them you want lower glasses.
Just to go a store and say "i want a pair of glasses -5D "(or -4, or anything you want)
Tell them you are on a business trip or on vacations and your glasses where broken. If they ask.
Take cheap stuff. You don't need expensive since you may need new ones each month or week. If you want to spent money, donates them to a Bates Method foundation, community, site, etc.
If your glasses are -6D, you will never go under -6D if you wore them. Even for a minute each day. You must get weaker glasses or contacts or pinholes. I think pinholes work for people with -6 or -5 and lower degrees. Just check it since you have them.
Wearing glasses not lower that your current degrees is like opening a wound you want to left heal.
Yes, you guessed right. No glasses or pinholes is the best way.
Quote:By the way, how long does it normally take to achieve 20/20 vision?
Bee123 Wrote:By the way, how long does it normally take to achieve 20/20 vision? I know it differs from person to person, but is there an average amount of time?
Thanks again
It's true that 20/20 will come as soon as you have learned to relax your eyes and mind. How long does that take? Depends how much time you devote to the process / how quickly you understand the best way to relax. To give you an example my personal experience so far has been this:
5 months ago I gave up my glasses completely, 100%, cold turkey. (-4D left and -4.25D right with slightly weaker contacts).For 4 months I sort of 'dabbled' in the Bates Method exercises - meaning that I would palm or sway whenever I could remember to do it (but mostly I was lazy about this). The only thing I did consistently was remind myself to 'shift, shift, shift'.
My first breakthrough was seeing depth - and this came just from shifting all the time. That happened almost immediately.
Within the first 2 weeks some of my blur started to clear simply because I had started to pay attention to everything I was looking at (instead of being off in my mind I was present with my eyes). Movement became more obvious the more I would practice swaying and go for walks without my lenses.
By the 2nd month, I had started practicing relaxed breathing, seeing my environment as safe and secure rather than threatening or confusing. This part of the process was really important for me - helped me to stay centered, present, and aware, which didn't lead to clear flashes yet but certainly to a kind of 'fog' being lifted.
By the time the 5th month had rolled around - I had seen a marked improvement in my awareness, mental attitude and ability to relax just by casually utilizing the Bates Method. And noticing this, I got really motivated to devote some serious time to the process. That devotion has made all the difference.
I started practicing all versions of the Swing, followed David's advice on looking at details, used 3D images, adjusted my Blinking, my Shifting became more natural, and I committed to Palming which I do now whenever I feel my eyes are strained from the computer or whenever I just want a mental break. Plus I started coming to this Forum and to the blogs often and reading what everyone else had to say about their experience which has really broadened my understanding.
VOILA! clear flashes! some only a second long, some a bit longer, and some lasting hours (after a combination of exercises). I still don't have a Snellen so I can't tell you what my visual acuity is but I can tell you that I see details now that I never saw before - even with corrective lenses. When I wake up in the morning and first look out the window I actually question that my vision is so clear. The more excited I am about the process (it's impossible not to be!) the more motivated I am to not just 'practice' but to actually 'be' someone with improved vision.
The more you can go without your glasses, the better. One thing you realise with the Bates Method is that glasses totally distort the natural function of seeing. I'm with Nancy that it's best to keep your glasses on your head, not on your eyes most of the time. The other advice I would add is to spend more time in nature if you can - parks, etc. It's relaxing, full of depth and there's not the urge to test yourself by reading signs all the time.
Bee123 Wrote:Thanks for your reply! The thing is I can't get 20/40 correction glasses. I tried asking several opticians, but they all said is "it doesn't help" and refused to make me 20/40 correction glasses. Will it seriously hinder my progress if all I use are either my 'normal' glasses, pinhole glasses (where can they fit in?) and no glasses?
By the way, how long does it normally take to achieve 20/20 vision? I know it differs from person to person, but is there an average amount of time?
Thanks again
Maybe this could help: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.zennioptical.com/home.php?cat=20">http://www.zennioptical.com/home.php?cat=20</a><!-- m -->
Bee123 Wrote:... By the way, how long does it normally take to achieve 20/20 vision? I know it differs from person to person, but is there an average amount of time? Thanks again
I have yet to cure my own vision or anyone else's, but I have significantly improved my own control over my own vision and ability to see much more clearly (so-called 20/20 or better) into the distance and generally.
There is no average. No one has ever done the statistics. But if you want to try a gradual, incremental method, with some instances of clear flashing events, you could try imitating my Batesian methods and improvements. The approach is similar to using braces to straighten misaligned teeth, and could take from 1 to 2 years. The Bates methods and improvements gradually result in adjustments to your own posture, visual angles, and visual timing, but without any physical manipulation of your eyeballs or anything like actual braces.
However, the worst optometric assessment of my own vision was 20/200 left eye, 20/100 right eye during a military exam. But most of my prescriptions have been around 20/40 right eye and 20/80 left eye. I'm not sure what -6 equates to, but it's probably much worse than mine.
Also, if you were born in a hospital after 1956 or so, your experience with neonatal eye antibiotics is significantly different from mine, having been born prior to 1956.
Most of the cases in Dr. Bates' and his early followers' experience either had not received the neonatal eye antibiotics themselves, or their parents and other leaders had not.
The eye antibiotics disturb the initial unity of the visual system and its development.
But in any case, if one of your eyes has much worse vision or blur than the other eye, there is a real problem of getting the eyes working together so the visual system can become unified with the mind.
One way to begin working on that problem is to post dual Snellen and practice unifying them, creating an imaginary stereoscopic Snellen between them. (See my Biofeedback picasa site for more info.)
Other than that, you will improve your eyesight just by reading all of the ideas posted here, and of course by following the Bates methods. Everyone posting in these forums has terrific ideas and insights into natural vision improvement.
I am about the same prescription as yours and yes, it is absolutely possible for you to go around without glasses. It took only a firm decision and a speech to my husband. I told him: look I don't want to go crazy and I don't want to go blind so you have to support me going without my glasses from now on. There will be some dust left after I have cleaned and some dishes will have stuck on food. Who cares?! My health is so much more important on the long run... For work it was harder, though... It took me two weeks of trying before I was comfortable to move close enough to my laptop screen, but it happened! I don't recognize people most of the time, but those who matter, I have apologized to and told them sort of what I was doing. I started practising about 7 months ago and my visual acuity has improved about 9 times for the weaker eye!!! I wear my glasses for driving (I do drive a lot) and once in a while to look at someone else's computer screen at work for a few minutes. That's all! That is all I am allowing myself. No TV, no nothing, unless it is part of my exercise! I want to improve and not permanently cross over to high myopia which will carry the risk of all blindness causing illnesses like retinal detachment and such. I am very serious about it this time and I only follow the Bates Method and try to listen to some of the ideas on this forum with an open mind, but only if it doesn't contradict what Bates has said. And the Bates Method is hard to understand. Do not believe you understand it after just one read. That seems to be a mistake lots of people fall into... His magazines are also important, as the book was written before most of the articles have been published so there is much improvement that never made their way into a book, ever... If you are lucky, you won't even need to understand everything, but my mind needs to learn something new every week to keep going. This is an amazing process! At this stage, I believe a permanent cure is possible but it may take up to 5 years. Does that sound too long? Where were you 5 years ago? Wouldn't you have wished to have 20/20 vision today back then?
The next person that will say anything about 5 years would have to go and search for a medium to high resolution photo of Dr. Bates.
(Believe me, its not easy )
Just plaining the bad guy here, but numbers are truly irrelevant. It can take anywhere from about an hour or less or a life time. Thats true, but more and absolutely true is that it takes as long as you have to relax. You can have permanent 20/20 or better vision, possibly after the second try.
Yes, that means you can have 20/20 or better vision tomorrow.
So every single day, when you ask yourself when you will have reclaim your natural eyesight, you have to say, "Tomorrow."
Because you can have it tomorrow!
Put in on your Mind people!
I don;t care if you are unsure, if you have doubts, if you don't believe, if you see it like using The Force to see, or anyway you see it. You can have permanent, natural eyesight tomorrow!
The only obstacle is ourselves.
Pinhole glasses work for making our eyes better. While we wear them, they formulate the vision sharp because it reduces the diversity o angels from which light rays can enter the eyes. They block those rays which most donate to blur and that is known as blur circle. So, they act like a riddle and run off our eyes no special after we have taken them off.
