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My Vision Tale, and Future Advice

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My Vision Tale, and Future Advice
#1
Hi all. I know I have been somewhat frustrated lately- but now I come here to tell a tale- to ask for facts and request genuine life advice for my eye health.

I come here reporting with what I consider quite low vision. I recall the days of somewhat superior vision a year ago (where I could at least see a little bit in front of me), vastly superior vision two years ago (where most things were clear and I didn't notice a serious problem), and almost crystal clear vision three years ago (probably 20/30, just short of perfect vision)

And now I am absolutely astounded and horrified that my vision has gotten this bad.

So what was the cause for this substantial and borderline massive drop in my vision? Well, I went through quite the depressive bout due to the job market- and in addition to all that, my computer usage increased drastically, due to going outside less from job searching.

So about a year ago when my vision drop had become pretty noticeable, and it had interfered with my enjoyment of life, I started to research ways I could improve vision, knowing that the odds of actually doing so were pretty slim and I have NO idea it would actually work.

First I came across the Bates method. Sadly, his methods were scattered, and there was no real consensus on what actually needs to be done. I still feel this way, what everyone says is too contradictory, and in the end, I don't even know if it would even work.

Everyone is saying different things- one person tells me to use my naked eye, another tells me to use reduced lenses. One person tells me to palm, another tells me that it doesn't matter so much. One person tells me to keep computer usage to a minimum, another tells me that I can use the computer as much as I want. All this confliction and separation in the vision improvement community makes me highly skeptical.

Unfortunately, when I initially tried to improve my eyes last year, I ended up massively straining them, and worsening my vision even more. I am fully aware of the bad habits I had picked up, like staring- but now it is too late, and the damage is done... To correct this I have tried literally everything- bouncing a ball in the park, swinging the eyes, focusing on movement of myself and others, going outside a lot more, and palming endlessly.

My arguments for improving vision:

1. Society is wrong about a lot of things. Persecution of peoples, animal treatment, poor Food Standards, etc. So it is not unreasonable to say that people might be wrong about glasses too. Heck, even doctors have been wrong- some used to promote smoking in the 1950s as perfectly healthy.

2. It makes sense that eyes would be poor if we don't use our eyes like hunter/gatherers in the past. We as a species are indoors FAR more than our ancestors.

3. The Glasses Nerd Stereotype: I have carefully and thoroughly examined who has glasses and who does not- both in real life and in the media. My findings were that in general- smarter and nerdier people were the ones with glasses. From what I gathered, the computer scientists and librarians were far more likely to have glasses than the basketball players and the construction workers. This is what really made me attempt eyesight improvement to begin with.

My arguments against improving vision:

1. Other life problems are genetic- such as male pattern baldness. Thus, perhaps myopia really is from genetics also.

2. Millions of people around the world wear glasses, and despite societal problems, medical science isn't always incorrect. Despite corrupt practices in the medical industry, doctors do have a vast knowledge on the human body in certain respects.

3. Most importantly, at the end of the day, sadly, there is no real evidence in improving vision. At best, there is only evidence in prevention of myopia, not curing it. Worst of all, improvement attempts can actually worsen vision if done improperly. And worse yet, all of it might be a waste of time- there is no way of knowing.
[/b]But sadly, at the end of the day, the bottom line is this: Every attempt I have made to improve my eyes only ended up worsening them- and there is NO way for me to know if any of this works. I wish I could be proven wrong. Now, sadly, I will have to give in to society, and hopefully not fall into a depressive state as a result. It is terrible- do any of you have any idea how it feels to have completely wasted your time, and actually worsened your eyesight in the process?

So tonight or tomorrow, sadly, I will begrudgingly get contact lenses, because I wouldn't be caught dead in glasses. Thankfully, contact lenses exist, so at least I can mask the shame and not become entirely socially anxious as a result. But still, I DO blame society for my eyes being in this state, because deep down, I believe that it is our modern ways that cause myopia.
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#2
About the part that there's no consensus on what should be done, you should just choose a way of doing things you like and stick to it. Bates has actually written a book Perfect Sight Without Glasses and published a magazine Better Eyesight, both which you read on central-fixation.com for free. True, people have added loads of modifications to his methods over the past few years, but if you're looking for something without all that fluffy stuff about reduced lenses, I'd say his own writings are the best option. As for not having enough evidence that vision can be improved, you can try palming for 15 minutes or so and see if there's any difference in your vision after that. Be sure to sit in a comfortable position and keep your neck straight and centered above your entire body.

In my opinion, one of the negative byproducts of modern society is we expect quick and instantaneous cures for our problems. Something that takes a longer time like Bates just isn't the trend.

Anyways, hope you change your mind someday!
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#3
Ok let me clarify a few things here because I think a lot of people think about the Bates Method similar as you do:

First of all the Bates Method is not about using a specific exercise to see clear. As vst already said you should find a method that fits you and than you are going to get results with time.

The goal of the Bates method is to see with central fixation. If your sight is bad you are not using central fixation period. You can not see clear if you are not using the yellow spot on your retina. As you know the eyes are to long so from a physical perspective the light falls into another area on the retina that is not the yellow spot.

The yellow spot is very small so again from a physical perspective the eye can only see a small area very clear. That means that once the image is large the eye needs to shift from spot to spot and put a lot of small pictures together to one large clear image. This happens in the moment you are looking farther than a certain length from you eye (I think 40 cm). That means that you don't need to look into the distance necessarily because you can also use your eyechart and train with that.

You can use weaker glasses if you want but don't need to. The thing with weaker glasses is that you eyes need to perform more saccades than if they were using a full correction to see clear. You decide yourself what is best but I would personally use weaker glasses only if your myopia is higher than -4 Diopters.

I hope that helps a little and I hope that you are going to stay with us on this because the more relaxed you are the better you see and who doesn't want to be relaxed?
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#4
Well, forgive my ignorance on this front, but how should I relax my eyes? I understand the principle, basically we should never try to see, essentially, which also unfortunately means I've been doing things wrong.

This is SO much easier said than done though- so we basically need to allow to blur to sit? What if the blur is too much? How can we allow the blur to sit when we need to see to get by? Where does motion play a role in all this?

Forgive all the questions, the way Bates describes this is not very simple at all, and quite difficult to understand.
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#5
How old are you, Kabuto? What line of work are you in? You are talking about a job loss? Can you tell us more about that and what disturbing things happened to you over the last 3 years? I may be able to give you better advice if you tell us more.
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#6
(12-28-2015, 12:54 PM)Nadia Wrote: How old are you, Kabuto? What line of work are you in? You are talking about a job loss? Can you tell us more about that and what disturbing things happened to you over the last 3 years? I may be able to give you better advice if you tell us more.

Sure, why not... I'm 25.

So firstly, I had a pretty damn major heartbreak, I loved the girl beyond anything. She's more pitiful than dirt to me now, but that alone caused some major stress in the last few years.

Right around the same time, the job market hit me. I realized that my idealistic dreams from university weren't coming to fruition. I really just how dang difficult the world really is.

Lastly, the world's problems hit me. I realized just what a place of suffering this world is.

And JUST when I get over ALL of that, JUST when I get past the existential crisis and begin healing from all that depression, I have to be hit with this stupid vision problem. Worst of all, the exercises I had done made my vision worse, not better, because I did them wrong. I should have been able to leap free from my depression, not go spiraling into a new one all because of myopia. And now, myopia alone is depressing me. If my eyes were good, I would be infinitely happier.
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#7
(12-28-2015, 10:27 AM)Kabuto Wrote: Well, forgive my ignorance on this front, but how should I relax my eyes? I understand the principle, basically we should never try to see, essentially, which also unfortunately means I've been doing things wrong.

This is SO much easier said than done though- so we basically need to allow to blur to sit? What if the blur is too much? How can we allow the blur to sit when we need to see to get by? Where does motion play a role in all this?

Forgive all the questions, the way Bates describes this is not very simple at all, and quite difficult to understand.

I know right. This is the hard part for me as well. As for your comment on motion, I would read this:

http://www.iblindness.org/ebooks/perfect...-swinging/

There are some times when swinging works and things get clearer, but the strain is just too much. It's most likely subconscious like shallow breathing or having poor posture.
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#8
Kabuto I know what you mean and it is hard for shortsighted people to know how it feels. A few months ago I have seen clear for about two hours and it was an absolutely amazing relaxed feeling. It was the longest clear flash I have had and I didn't know back than what I did differently but with time I realised that I executed perfect central fixation.

I am trying to get back to that but it is hard and I am sure you can relate to that. We can either relax our mind so it puts the eyes in central fixation or we can use central fixation to get our mind and eyes to rest. I think you are not interested in becoming a monk and practicing mindfulness for years so your mind gets to rest so I would practice central fixation.

Practicing is actually the wrong word here because it must be present all the time or you will become shortsighted again. The Bates book is sometimes a little bit hard to understand and it seems without a real goal sometimes but I am only using the Bates book.

So there are different ways of doing this but I would first of all get myself an eyechart. Look at it and just notice the blur. It doesn't matter how blurry the image is but if your vision is really bad you might want to use another larger object for this. So after you have looked at the object look to the side of it and see the object in your peripheral vision while looking to the side of it. It probably is clearer or maybe similar to when you look directly at it.

Now you can either sneak up to the object and notice how it gets clearer or (what I do) you can keep the object in your peripheral vision while going even further away from it but seeing the image in the same clarity as if you were looking closer to it. If done correctly you should either be not able to see the image in the same clarity while going away from it or if you can keep the image in the same clarity after looking further away from it your eyes should "jump" back. I hope this makes sense but that is what I am doing and it seems that this can activate your central vision pretty well Smile
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#9
Hi Kabuto,

Thanks for sharing! I agree with vst on the real books of Bates. What you need to understand is that this is a "mind cure" there are different types of people and personalities so the same approach will not work for everyone. Your frustrations after noticing the discrepancies/inconsistencies tells me that you are a more scientific-minded person and you won't be happy with the feel-good fluff that most people "inserted" into the method. This site itself is only "loosely" based on the Bates Method. I am more of a Bates purist myself, however, I do understand that people mean well on this forum and they are the only pioneers of the Bates Method now so I appreciate their work and love them dearly. I do come here from time to time for 'emotional' support and try to argue less. :-)

So you are 25 and let's say at 21 or 22 your vision was pretty good. I don't think you have done much growing since then, have you? You know the genetic theory is based on growth, so the eyeball is supposed to get more elongated as you get taller. So therefore do not concern yourself with the genetic dilemma. Clearly it is not in your case.

The problem sounds like mental strain in your case. A lot of mental strain. From the listlessness of depression, is that possible that you switched to something like anger? (To protect yourself?) Do me a favour and make a fist. Think about punching something out of self-defense and notice how you make it tighter. Is that possible that your nerves are sending muscle-tightening impulses to the muscles surrounding your eyeballs? Hence causing elongation, hence throwing your focus out of whack? :-)
Of course this you cannot control or may not even be able to diagnose yourself.
The Bates method is aimed at relieving all strain causing relaxation.
The eye trouble is only a symptom so don't worry about it.

Yes the world sucks, I get frustrated from time to time, too. A wonderful relationship has ended. I remind myself though that I can only make a change to myself. When you work on improving yourself, wonderful things will happen to you. for instance, there are tons of wonderful women out there. Improve yourself and maybe you will be attracting to yourself only the right kind of people, but first you must learn to love yourself the right way :-)

Yes, the instructions are not clear. YOu have finished University and that was not easy either, right? But for the most part, you knew what you had to do, what you had to read and work on. Life is the real University. Here, you not only have to learn, but you also must find the truth yourself. Therefore the Bates method is not for the faint-hearted :-)
It is not mainstream, yet. If you are up to the challenge, you will pretty much have to turn yourself into a super hero.

or not.

I know two people who became short-sighted in young adulthood as yourself, and all they had to do is carry on without glasses and the problem resolved itself.
A good friend, she became myopic at 18. She wore contacts for many years until it started to cause her constant eye infections. By then, I was nagging her for years to start the Bates Method. So finally she quit her contacts and glasses. She never really practiced. The only thing she did, since she is a runner, she slowly started to run without correction. This was enough for her to improve enough. She only uses glasses in very rare emergencies but she cannot believe how much better her mood is and she thanks me a lot, even though I did nothing for her! (If she practiced just a little, she would have her perfect eyesight even in those emergencies :-))
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#10
Kabuto, what was your prescription just before you started vision improvement?
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