Okay slightly silly question because everyone here will probably answer strain, I'm not questioning this but I'm more curious about the other sides of it. Okay so many kids develop myopia from a young age like myself, normally this continues to get worse until the 20s where it normally levels out for a few years. Why is this?
Another question I have is how to simply stop your eyes from getting worse? Forget about improving hem for now, how do you just stop their deteriation? I assume this will tie in with my first question.
Last question on a more personal level, when watching tv with my reduced glasses I experience stinging sometimes in my eyes especially when I close them, it soon subsides. This may be due to a lack of blinking or staring, I try to never zone out stare as I put it, as I know this causes terrible strain. Is this a sign that I should return to my stronger glasses? After all I have very little time these days to really make a proper go at vision improvement so really I just want to prevent any further deteriation. I'm asking this because I have felt I have been seeing worse out of my weaker glasses these day although it could just be due to the darker days.
Sorry for the drawn out post, hope some of you can help me as always
Lately I have found that blinking more frequently stops you from staring. Shifting the attention to different points every second or so helps as well. I think the leveling out is when people reach a "comfort" zone of sorts. I have only been doing this for about a week, but I do understand that obsessing (a very common myopic personality trait) about whether you are doing it right or not or about how you are doing it doesn't seem to help much. If you don't have much time for formal practice, I would suggest simply practicing swinging, central fixation, relaxing and allowing while you are traveling or walking somewhere- this way its easy to get the days practice of 1-2 hours without actually having to sit down a formally practice. One nice thing about vision training is that you see all the time, so it easy to practice anywhere and anytime. Once I make more progress I would be glad to give more tips if they help. Personally I found davids articles on picking out small points and the bits about shifting and "programming" helpful. I also got a better idea of what I was doing by reading some of the better eyesight magazine articles.
There is one thing I am sure of at this point however, I think myopes tend to complicate the action of vision so much that it starts to fail- people with normal vision never even think about it because as the other senses vision is passive. This is the direction I am trying to move my practice in.
1) why settle for anything less than improvement? (this is not a flippant or sarcastic question.) the time contraints within which you find yourself make it difficult to work on your eyes.... really? how many hours a day do you need? I would suggest that you really don't need much time that is dedicated solely to vision improvement. The improvment of your vision is something that can be worked into everything you do.... (much like zen.) If you allow it to be so, vision improvement goes hand in hand with everything you do.
2) if you truly have as a goal stopping the deterioration, there are other methods of vision therapy out there.... but, honestly, Bates had it right... settle for nothing less than perfect vision...
jiminos Wrote:1) why settle for anything less than improvement? (this is not a flippant or sarcastic question.) the time contraints within which you find yourself make it difficult to work on your eyes.... really? how many hours a day do you need? I would suggest that you really don't need much time that is dedicated solely to vision improvement. The improvment of your vision is something that can be worked into everything you do.... (much like zen.) If you allow it to be so, vision improvement goes hand in hand with everything you do.
Well sure, if you're not constantly doing things which work against vision improvement. Things such as wearing glasses, squinting, or hunching forward. However, with her level of nearsightedness and her lifestyle, she has to do at least one of those things for several hours a day. With that being the case, her question is very reasonable.
originally, i had posted a very long response to Daniel. I decided to remove it. I think that if the original poster wants to be glasses free bad enough, she will find away. my response was reasonable. i stand by what i posted. a person can find ways to incorporate Bates into virtually all portions of the day, and all activities.... if they want it bad enough.
Daniel, i think if the original poster feels my post was out of line, perhaps she can speak for herself. if she believes i was out of line with my response, i will gladly apologize.... to her.
Thanks for the responses and on one quick note, I was accidentally named as a girl by one of the posters who has since apologised (didn't even notice before tbh), I am in fact male
Although I understand your responses nobody has really answered my questions, really just questioned the route I planned to take and the truth is vision improvement will be a big task for me with my lifestyle, so I'm trying to break it down in to smaller steps. If you read some if my other post jim you may notice some of my plans for the future.
So if anyone can answer my questions I would be very appreciative
first, i apologize for not catching that you are a guy. my mistake.
second.... let me try to answer your questions.... can the progress of myopia be stopped or slowed? yes. i believe so. if one accepts the premise that the use of minus lenses leads to needing even stronger minus lenses (vicious cycle).... then, it may be worth looking at the the idea of using minus lenses that are only mildly weaker than your current prescription. you still need to see and be safe, so you don't want things to be to blurry, but a little blurry still gives your eyes the opportunity to work on accommodating... i think that if you continue with the various Bates methods of relaxation, it certainly cannot hurt, and it may help, even if you are wearing your glasses. relaxation, in any amount, is good. so even if you cannot go completely without, go without when you can. look at it as giving your eyes "mini-vacations" throughout the day.
again, it may not reverse your myopia. but, i think it is safe to say that it definitely will not hurt.
continue working on good vision habits to the best of your ability. take care of your eyes as best you can. when time and circumstances allow, Bates will be here waiting for you. Vision improvement is your journey. travel it as you must, and as fits you best. i first learned of Bates in my late 20's. it wasn't until i was in my 50's that i was able to apply it.
Thx jim, that's helpful and I agree, if anyone else can answer some of my other questions such why myopia seems to stop in the 20s, stop progressing that is... I would appreciate it.
For every hour that you are on a computer, you are reversing any potential improvement of your myopia.
Today even adults that were farsighted are experiencing adult onset myopia. and younger people are wearing stronger minus prescriptions than ever before.
The use of computers has caused populations of people where myopia was rare to now be a population of myopes.
Bifocal, are you suggesting that to improve vision, everyone needs to stop using computers?
In my opinion, it is how one uses the eyes while using the computer, or while reading, that has the greatest effect. Of course, if one uses glasses while using the computer, then obviously, the vision improvement process will be slowed to some extent. But again, I don't think that the act of using a computer is the cause of vision problems.
In fact, I believe that Bates wrote something about how he disagreed with people who believed that reading books was bad for the vision and should be stopped altogether. He brought up the idea of using the eyes in spite of adversity: to read in moving vehicles, to read while lying down, to read fine print. Obviously, if you don't change any of your vision habits and strain your way through these activities, then your vision will get worse. But if you're aware of how you're using your eyes, and you make it a point of using them correctly, these should contribute to vision improvement, not take away from it. It's more to do with how you do things rather than what you do.
After seeing the accommodation laser study and the eye length increase during the process I now think reading is the cause of myopia.
It seems the repetitive long term reading will cause nearsightedness, and the plus lenses will increase the problem and aggravate it. That means reading fine print is not a good method. What do you think?
lfernand Wrote:After seeing the accommodation laser study and the eye length increase during the process I now think reading is the cause of myopia.
It seems the repetitive long term reading will cause nearsightedness, and the plus lenses will increase the problem and aggravate it. That means reading fine print is not a good method. What do you think?
i think that prolonged near work, not just reading, can be a cause of myopia. reading is not THE cause, but may be one possible cause. i think that it has been shown that minus lenses aggravate myopia and lead to progressively worse vision. i think that plus lenses are one method that has been used by some to aid in their recovery. i think that Bates showed that reading fine print helped many of his patients recover.
lfernand Wrote:After seeing the accommodation laser study and the eye length increase during the process I now think reading is the cause of myopia.
It seems the repetitive long term reading will cause nearsightedness, and the plus lenses will increase the problem and aggravate it. That means reading fine print is not a good method. What do you think?
i think that prolonged near work, not just reading, can be a cause of myopia. reading is not THE cause, but may be one possible cause. i think that it has been shown that minus lenses aggravate myopia and lead to progressively worse vision. i think that plus lenses are one method that has been used by some to aid in their recovery. i think that Bates showed that reading fine print helped many of his patients recover.
i think you may have rushed to judgment....
$.02.
be well,
jim
Where you read "plus" , I actually wanted to write "minus". English is not my main language and these mistakes tend to be more common on that situation.
You are right, near work, not reading is the cause.
We do have to make some judgment to choose what to do on our recovery, if eye elongation is the cause of the refractive error and if we have studies showing that at open environments people tend to have less myopia, and at closed environments we tend to become myopic (animals with visual environment restricted to nearby visual stimuli), and finally we have laser measures implying close focus to direct eye elongation, joining all these "facts" together, then we probably should avoid reading fine print. But I am not sure, its just a preventive measure.
Pikachu Wrote:Bifocal, are you suggesting that to improve vision, everyone needs to stop using computers?
In my opinion, it is how one uses the eyes while using the computer, or while reading, that has the greatest effect. Of course, if one uses glasses while using the computer, then obviously, the vision improvement process will be slowed to some extent. But again, I don't think that the act of using a computer is the cause of vision problems.
In fact, I believe that Bates wrote something about how he disagreed with people who believed that reading books was bad for the vision and should be stopped altogether. He brought up the idea of using the eyes in spite of adversity: to read in moving vehicles, to read while lying down, to read fine print. Obviously, if you don't change any of your vision habits and strain your way through these activities, then your vision will get worse. But if you're aware of how you're using your eyes, and you make it a point of using them correctly, these should contribute to vision improvement, not take away from it. It's more to do with how you do things rather than what you do.
Just my two cents.
I am saying that since computer use is a near point task,and near point tasks used in excess are a cause of myopia,that a myope should drastically reduce their computer time,and choose an occupation that does not require a lot of computer use.
Bifocal Wrote:I am saying that since computer use is a near point task,and near point tasks used in excess are a cause of myopia,that a myope should drastically reduce their computer time,and choose an occupation that does not require a lot of computer use.
In my experience this just doesn't hold true. I was able to restore my vision WHILE using my eyes at the near point for work, several hours each day. (I'm in IT, on computers much of the day) On top of that, I used them for a few hours of personal use at home, or wherever. During breaks at work, I would frequently practice with fine print, as close to my eyes as possible - sometimes up to my nose! I don't disagree that excessive near point work, when the eyes are used with strain and effort, develops all kinds of bad habits leading to poor vision. As Bates pointed out even in his time, it was, and it definitely still is, an epidemic. I knew many kids who developed strong myopia, and they were hardly bookworms, or computer junkies. I knew of kids who spent insane amounts of time in front of computer, and handheld games held at 10 inches or nearer, and they still have perfect sight now as young adults. I cannot help but agree with all that Pikachu said, it's more to do with the 'how' factor than the how much, or what you do.
