Hi guys i'm new here and i need a little bit of help.
What i need help with is that i don't know if it is more effective to follow a premade routine of these exercises or to just do random exerises that you feel like doing and if it is better to follow a premade programme can anyone supply one?
And before i go anyone here that has had success what exercises did you do before your vision got better did you just do random ones each day or did you follow a routine and if you did can you please share.
All feedback will be appreciated.
P.S. I just have one more thing to say before i even heard of natural vision improvement while i was running suddenly my vision got a little better than back to normal is this a clear flash and if it is why did i get it when i had not even started doing these exercises?
For me, shifting and imagining a black period works well.
But the fact is that vision improvement is something that one should do himself. It is done internally and it can not be done externally.
So you yourself must realize what exercise is suitable for the moment.
Palming for example calms your eyes when you are tired and cannot focus to a single point, or shifting may cause your eye muscles to change length. Imagining a black period is something that you must do whenever you can, if you can of course. If you can't you must let it to happen, it will take time but it certainly will.
I personally think that the sensations on the forehead has a close relation to vision. If you strain too much you'll get headaches, if you strain a little you'll sense somekind of energy being flattened on your forehead, and when you get a clear flash, you'll feel great and your forehead somehow get released. You may feel an energy beam directed sharply outwards.
I agree with Elias. Bates method is not a set of excercises one would do routinely, say 20 min per day. It's about changing your wrong habits of vision, so you should remember at all times to use your eyes right, and not succumb back to use your eyes wrong.
So it doesn't make sense to look for "programmes". It suffices that you read the original Dr. Bates book (available here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.iblindness.org/books/bates/">http://www.iblindness.org/books/bates/</a><!-- m -->) and understand clearly the principles of how the method works. Then you'll understand that all excercises are just different sides of the same medal, they all have the same goal and can be done alternately as you please, but all day long.
The routine, "procedural" part of Bates method is sun (or other strong light) treatment, and palming when you find yourself strained again. I do shifting, swinging, central fixation and remembering black dot all day long, and also sun treatment a couple of times per day.
Regarding the sensations in your forehead and your head, it can be a good indicator of strain and relief from strain, but I'd warn you from paying too much attention to it. If you keep checking it all the time, you'll get your mind stuck on physical sensations and attempting to control them. That happened to me and retarded my progress for a month. My mistake was that I used to think too much about my eyes as physical organs.
You can do a routine, but don't do one that has you do this for 5 minutes, this for 5 minutes, this for 5 minutes, this for 10 minutes, and this for 5 minutes. Spend half an hour or longer on each thing, or do the same thing several times a day. Or even switching back and forth between two exercises is fine. Routines of several exercises are good for things like weight training that thrive on repetition and variety, but bad for learning processes like regaining normal vision. You would get little, if anything, out of it.
It actually doesn't really matter what you start with, or at least it isn't very predictable what's going to help you the most. But long periods of anything could potentially be something that helps you a lot, as long as you read about the particular exercise carefully and ask questions here to make sure you're doing the exercise right.
Yes, it was probably a clear flash. The Bates method is based on the premise that the visual system will naturally see clearly when your eyes are used properly, without strain. So it's really just an owner's manual for the eyes, for when people go completely off course and need it. A clear flash, or longer period of clear vision, is a sudden act where your eyes are no longer forced by your mind to strain and manage to see clearly as a result. It can happen in really any situation, and that it has already happened to you before starting the Bates method is a very good sign.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
Thanks for all the replys but can anyone explain central fixation and shifting & swinging to me? No matter how many times i read that book i cannot understand those three.Thanks for all answers or even telling me to re-read the book.
I had the same problems you are facing at the beginning. Let me see if I can explain to you the fundamentals:
Central Fixation: This is the relaxed state of the visual mind, your mind can only see a very small area BEST and it gets worse like a gradient from that point.
The smaller and tinier this point is, the higher the relaxation. This point is the point of your attention actually. Imagining a period makes you get the habit of paying more attention to your point of central fixation.
Shifting and Swinging: Because your eyes are strained you may find it difficult to realize what swinging is. When you shift from one letter to the other, as you must have this central-fixation all the time, even in the period, which you change your focus and shift, this makes the letters seem to move in the opposite direction. This act of moving smoothly in the opposite direction is called the swing, the more better you realize the swing the clearer you will see, and this is an indication of attaining Central Fixation.
As a final note: You must believe that seeing is not difficult. it is even more easier than straining. Straining is an act to prevent seeing. when you look at the chart, you must believe that there is nothing there to be afraid of. Don't be afraid to see. If you want to see, you will. And always start with the chart from the top were you stain much less. When one sees perfectly feels that the thing it sees is very near to him, no matter what the actual distance of that object is. Because when you see it, it is in your mind and it is very close!
