I have considered the LASIK for couple of years but I am still not very sure of it. I came to know Bates Method about two years ago but never put into practice. Until recently, I came across this website and read all your posts, which gave me lots of courage and I decided to do the methods. The book I am using now is Paul's Pathway to Normal Vision. I tried to put the link of the book here but the system did not allow me to do that. So if you want the book, send me the email and I will send you the ebook.
Current condition(i think): -4.0 in both eyes. I am very motivated to start doing exercises and this is what I am going to do for the following couples of weeks.
1. Since I have to work, I decide to wear glasses only during the day. I used to wear the glasses of a prescription of -4.0 in both. Now I decided to wear a prescription of -3.0 in both.
2. Do the Eye relaxation for 30 mins in the morning in bed.
3. Do the sunning and Eye relaxation for 40 mins at noon.
4. Do the Eye relaxation for 45 mins in the morning in bed.
5. Do eye relaxation as much as I can (I will try to relax 5-10 mins every one hour during my work).
I will record my progress very week. If you have suggestions for me , please kindly let me know. I am very willing to share my experience with you.
Sounds like you are on the right track. The only thing I'd add is to take your glasses off at work if you don't really need them, like maybe when eating lunch at your desk and relaxing, or for a 5-minue break from the computer, or when going for a walk to another building. Just play with it, and notice if your eyes feel differently when you take your glasses off, then put them back on. Welcome!
Nancy Wrote:Sounds like you are on the right track. The only thing I'd add is to take your glasses off at work if you don't really need them, like maybe when eating lunch at your desk and relaxing, or for a 5-minue break from the computer, or when going for a walk to another building. Just play with it, and notice if your eyes feel differently when you take your glasses off, then put them back on. Welcome!
Thank you, Nancy! I really want to take off my glasses all the time. But I have a confusion here. When I look at the computer without the glasses, I am tending to squint my eyes more to see clearly. What should I do with this?
I'm not trying to be a smart-aleck here: don't squint! Yes, I realize it's easier said than done, and it's great that you're aware of it. A lot of vision improvement is letting go of bad habits, "inhibiting" them in the Alexander Technique sense, then incorporating the good habits, like looking in an easy relaxed way, blinking softly. Don't add yet another strain to stop the squint. Play with it, see how easily you can look without your glasses. How close does something have to be before you stop squinting to try to see it? How much strain can you let go of? You are learning very important information about yourself.
Nancy Wrote:I'm not trying to be a smart-aleck here: don't squint! Yes, I realize it's easier said than done, and it's great that you're aware of it. A lot of vision improvement is letting go of bad habits, "inhibiting" them in the Alexander Technique sense, then incorporating the good habits, like looking in an easy relaxed way, blinking softly. Don't add yet another strain to stop the squint. Play with it, see how easily you can look without your glasses. How close does something have to be before you stop squinting to try to see it? How much strain can you let go of? You are learning very important information about yourself.
Hey Nancy, I have been practicing palming, and only palming, for two days now. This is what I did for palming. First, I lay on the couch and closed my eye, and then palm my eyes. Second, I kept palming for three mins. During those three mins, I did nothing but resting, not thinking the dark point as well. Third, after three mins, i gently opened my eye and looked at the white ceiling. After 30s, I closed my eye and restarted the entire process. My question is, is this the right process?
My feelings is that i feel i can see l little better but very little. I felt pain in my eyeball and there was tears in my eye, which force me to blink. Also I have a head in the daytime when i wore glasses. Is that normal?
This is not rocket science. If you have a headache, you're straining. Figure out what you're doing and stop it to stop the headache.
The purpose of palming is to relax your eyes. Tearing is normal, a sign of strain being released. Don't fall into the trap of "testing" your vision when you stop palming and open your eyes. Just appreciate the relaxation, the improved light and vivid colors, whatever. If you don't feel like you're getting any benefit from palming, don't do it.
Nancy Wrote:This is not rocket science. If you have a headache, you're straining. Figure out what you're doing and stop it to stop the headache.
The purpose of palming is to relax your eyes. Tearing is normal, a sign of strain being released. Don't fall into the trap of "testing" your vision when you stop palming and open your eyes. Just appreciate the relaxation, the improved light and vivid colors, whatever. If you don't feel like you're getting any benefit from palming, don't do it.
Thank you, Nancy! Can you give some advice what I should do when there are tears and pains in my ears? Every time when it happens, i have a strong feeling to blink. I dont know whethter it is good or bad.
I'm not a doctor, though I know a lot about the body and am trained in energy medicine, so take this in that light, not as a "diagnosis". It feels like a combination of releasing stress and rebalancing to me, your cranial or ocular muscles letting go of some tension. It could also be your increased awareness making you realize there is tension there you didn't notice before. You might consider a massage, asking the practitioner to focus on your head and neck. Also, if you want to blink, blink! See how softly you can blink (don't slam your eyelids shut), making it a game for yourself. I often feel tension in front of my ears, at the very top of the jaw, and just gently rub it. This is a very common place for people to hold tension, by the way, whether they have vision problems or not, and I've always thought it was from NOT saying what you really wanted to say, kind of clenching one's jaw shut. Anyway, listen to your body and give it what it needs.
Day3: After two days passed, I changed back to my -4.0 glasses because I got serious headache with -3.0 glasses. One thing I noticed that when i did palming last night, the previous pain and tears in eye were gone. I don't know why.
The book i followed is Paul's Pathway to Normal Vision, which has only palming. So I think I should finish other related books and make careful plan before I start again. I decided to complete Bates book first, The Cure of Imperfect Sight by Treatment Without Glasses.
If you have any suggestions, please put them here. I would like to hear and consider anything. Also I was considering whether i would be better if I can take some classes.
Thanks and good luck to everyone. I strongly believe we will succeed only if we persist with the right method.
arocarty Wrote:huskytech - could you be more specific as to the type and location of pain you experienced? The duration?
Ocular pain is eye pain coming from the outer structures of the eyes - like the corneal surface, eyelids, - can be stinging, burning, itching....
Orbital pain is pain that is more like a deep, dull ache that comes from behind the eye.
How long did it last? Did it start while u were palming? Or after you opened your eyes, without glasses on?
It's assumed you get regular eye exams, and have no history of eye problems, other than myopia -
arocarty- thank you.
I have no other eye problems except myopia. The pain is like the first one you described, ocular pain from corneal surface and eyelid. The pain starts when I carefully and slightly opened my eyes after palming for 3 or 5 mins without glasses. I also noticed that I had headache when not wearing glasses. Maybe I am too nervous about the entire process.
I have another thing. When i tired not to wear glasses in my work, i cannot see computer screen clearly. To see clearly, I have to be close to the screen, which made my neck hurt. Also, I have to blink more often to see clearly. Should I keep this or wear glasses? I am worried wearing glasses will cancel out my efforts.
husktech Wrote:I have no other eye problems except myopia. The pain is like the first one you described, ocular pain from corneal surface and eyelid. The pain starts when I carefully and slightly opened my eyes after palming for 3 or 5 mins without glasses. I also noticed that I had headache when not wearing glasses. Maybe I am too nervous about the entire process.
When did you start wearing glasses, and for how many years? Have you been dependent on them every minute of the waking day?
If you just close your eyes for the same durations, do you get the same effect when you open them? Are you keeping your eyes open, or closed when you palm? Are you putting any pressure on your eyeballs when covering them, or just cupping over them, leaving a tiny gap?
husktech Wrote:I have another thing. When i tired not to wear glasses in my work, i cannot see computer screen clearly. To see clearly, I have to be close to the screen, which made my neck hurt. Also, I have to blink more often to see clearly. Should I keep this or wear glasses? I am worried wearing glasses will cancel out my efforts.
Can you move the screen more toward you, rather than you leaning in towards it? (and up enough so you don't have to tilt your next but slightly downward) You don't have to see it perfectly clear, but well enough to not significantly disrupt your ability to do your job. Learning to relax at the nearpoint is very important, especially if you have no choice but to use your eyes at the nearpoint for a good portion of the day. Strain is caused by very similar things that effect distance vision - entrenched habits of staring - not shifting nearly enough, not blinking nearly enough, trying to see too large of an area all at once - rather than directing our attention to smaller details, and giving the visual system opportunity to process those details. Breathing is often shallower, our posture gets worse and worse, tension in the neck and shoulders, arms and even legs creeps in unknowingly... what we look at is so stationary, we imagine everything as stationary, our bodies get more and more stationary and stiff, our senses dulled. The illusions of normal sight get stifled.
You can change that, just be taking some very simple reasonable measures. Fix your posture, lift your ribcage, become more aware of regular breathing, (slouching closes the ribcage, shallowing breathing). Relax your body by providing it some kind of easy, rhythmic movement. A slight sway, back and forth, side to side (just a 1/2 inch is hardly noticeable, and people won't even notice, or think it's odd). When you sway notice the oppositional movement of the screen and letters, the peripheral. Don't rush through text such that you are not paying any attention to what it is your eyes are seeing, processing - letters have shape and detail, and the white spaces inside the letters, between the lines and letters appears whiter than the surrounding margins (the illusion of 'halos').
Practice reading with fine print - a small sample is all you need, and you can carry something wallet-size that can be pulled out at any opportune moment. It helps to learn to relax at the nearpoint, there are many who are trying too much, too fast for distance vision improvement before they have even given themselves a chance to even improve at near, where it should be achievable, for most anyone.
Quote:Practice reading with fine print - a small sample is all you need, and you can carry something wallet-size that can be pulled out at any opportune moment. It helps to learn to relax at the nearpoint, there are many who are trying too much, too fast for distance vision improvement before they have even given themselves a chance to even improve at near, where it should be achievable, for most anyone.
What I've done is take many articles and the David's Method pages and placed them into MS Word, reduced it all to 3 point font, and printed it out. You can fit tons of pages of text into one page, front and back.
husktech Wrote:I have no other eye problems except myopia. The pain is like the first one you described, ocular pain from corneal surface and eyelid. The pain starts when I carefully and slightly opened my eyes after palming for 3 or 5 mins without glasses. I also noticed that I had headache when not wearing glasses. Maybe I am too nervous about the entire process.
When did you start wearing glasses, and for how many years? Have you been dependent on them every minute of the waking day?
If you just close your eyes for the same durations, do you get the same effect when you open them? Are you keeping your eyes open, or closed when you palm? Are you putting any pressure on your eyeballs when covering them, or just cupping over them, leaving a tiny gap?
husktech Wrote:I have another thing. When i tired not to wear glasses in my work, i cannot see computer screen clearly. To see clearly, I have to be close to the screen, which made my neck hurt. Also, I have to blink more often to see clearly. Should I keep this or wear glasses? I am worried wearing glasses will cancel out my efforts.
Can you move the screen more toward you, rather than you leaning in towards it? (and up enough so you don't have to tilt your next but slightly downward) You don't have to see it perfectly clear, but well enough to not significantly disrupt your ability to do your job. Learning to relax at the nearpoint is very important, especially if you have no choice but to use your eyes at the nearpoint for a good portion of the day. Strain is caused by very similar things that effect distance vision - entrenched habits of staring - not shifting nearly enough, not blinking nearly enough, trying to see too large of an area all at once - rather than directing our attention to smaller details, and giving the visual system opportunity to process those details. Breathing is often shallower, our posture gets worse and worse, tension in the neck and shoulders, arms and even legs creeps in unknowingly... what we look at is so stationary, we imagine everything as stationary, our bodies get more and more stationary and stiff, our senses dulled. The illusions of normal sight get stifled.
You can change that, just be taking some very simple reasonable measures. Fix your posture, lift your ribcage, become more aware of regular breathing, (slouching closes the ribcage, shallowing breathing). Relax your body by providing it some kind of easy, rhythmic movement. A slight sway, back and forth, side to side (just a 1/2 inch is hardly noticeable, and people won't even notice, or think it's odd). When you sway notice the oppositional movement of the screen and letters, the peripheral. Don't rush through text such that you are not paying any attention to what it is your eyes are seeing, processing - letters have shape and detail, and the white spaces inside the letters, between the lines and letters appears whiter than the surrounding margins (the illusion of 'halos').
Practice reading with fine print - a small sample is all you need, and you can carry something wallet-size that can be pulled out at any opportune moment. It helps to learn to relax at the nearpoint, there are many who are trying too much, too fast for distance vision improvement before they have even given themselves a chance to even improve at near, where it should be achievable, for most anyone.
Andrew
Sorry I haven't replied your post since I did not know what to say about my situation. I am trying to not wear glasses, which was giving me serious headache. Nancy told me it should be the strain and i have to let it go. i will followed the advice and answer your questions around next Monday.
Thank you so much for replying my post. Every time I wanted to give up, the posts of your guys inspired me again. Really appreciate!
I also had strong headaches and I think it was because I kept alternating between wearing and not wearing glasses during the day. I used to just lie on the floor for an hour or so after work because I was in too much pain and nauseated to try to drive my car. It is not the best situation when glasses are still worn often. My wonder drug nowadays is Excederin for headaches. The ingredients, perhaps it is the caffeine, works great for me. I just noticed that I can't live without these 3 C's--coffee, cola, chocolate. Not healthy food but sure helps me relax in my world.
