Here is a formula I found that can help you calculate your diopter.
100 cm/diopter = (distance in centimeters you can see perfectly on a meterstick)/1
sry i cant make it look like a formula out of a math book because I don't know how to make the horizontal line underneath the numbers if you know what I'm talking about.
Thank you so much, I've always wanted to know of a way to calculate my diopter. I just used your formula for both eyes and it looks exactly like what it should be.
I just want to point out that diopters are used in two ways -
1 - as the focusing range of the eye, like as in a normal eye can accommodate to a 40D or 60D range or something like that.
2 - as a measurement of how much correction you need to correct to 20/20 vision as measured on a chart.
Usually people use it in the second way when talking about vision improvement. But it only means how strong glasses you need to see 20/20 with, not how bad your vision is without glasses. One person with a -3D prescription might read 20/60 without glasses and the other one maybe 20/500. It's a VERY weak relationship. So saying that your vision is -3, for example, means nothing at all.
These types of measurements with centimeters often seem to be close because we expect them to be. The truth is that people sometimes see better at 20 feet than 10 feet, and worse again at 30 feet, or something similar. This has to do with the psychological impact of perceived distance along with the focusing (and relaxing) of the mind that often occurs when you regard a smaller object.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
People tend to lock themselves on numbers and measurements of their vision and nothing seem to make them believe that vision is not immutable like they think. When you tell them that the vision acuity varies all the time (especially of a person who practices Bates), they nod their heads but then go and keep testing their eyes, quickly losing their faith in efficiency of the method. I remember that simpleton on this forum who did palming upfront for a whole day and then measured his vision and by seeing no "improvement" he concluded palming was not efficient.
It is one of the biggest (and common) mistakes I have made when I was beginning Bates is that I kept checking my eyes all the time. When I did an exercise, I looked impatiently for an improvement right away. It took me a while to realize that I need to care for permanent eye movement, permanent central fixation and permanent swing, and the clear flashes come by without any attention of mine. I learned to become an observer of my own vision, not a participant. (Isn't it so much like Zen?.. )
My sincere advice is to forget completely about testing your eyes and "measuring diopters" and avoid thinking about your current vision acuity at all. And avoid people who tell you to measure your vision.
I think it's perfectly fine to have some feedback from your techniques.
Let me convey something with an analogy:
Just imagine yourself 70 years old, and I told you that there is a technique that reverses the aging process. It must be performed for 3 hours each day for 4 months before you will notice yourself a bit younger.
Are you going to do this for 3 hours each day for 4 months? are you worried that you'll be wasting so much time just find out it doesn't work for you? (Most people are at first skeptical to hear about the Bates method) Will you be excited and looking into the mirror each day trying to find any signs of youth? I would be..
When people encounter the Bates method, they are very excited and curious to find hope. Naturally they attempt to find ways to measure improvement, to confirm to themselves that there IS hope for their poor eyesight and they aren't chasing a dead rabbit. I don't think you should tell them to blindly work the method and hope for improvement in a few months.....that just deters people. Remember that most of these people are very new to the techniques and the whole method, it's acceptable for them to seek any sort of evidence that this works. After that they can begin to lay more trust into it. Furthermore, I like to encourage them to test their eyesight to see whether the methods they currently use work for them, and which don't, to find the techniques that help relax the visual system. In the same way, measuring eyesight (simultaneous retinoscopy) is what led Bates to his ideas - he saw what reduced patient's refractive error and what didn't. He didn't just say "Let's do staring!!" and after 3 months say, "meh, it didn't work"..."lets try palming!" and after 3 months say "yeah it worked!!" All of this is science, we as researchers require feedback to correct the original methods. At the same time, you want to let the experiment run a little before taking results. This is why I don't think it's right to test the vision very frequently and hope for improvement after the first few sessions. Frequent testing puts subconscious strain on your visual system because you WANT to see further down the chart, even though you may not be consciously aware. As Bates said, this effort to see actually increases strain and worsens your eyesight.
No, in reverse, Bates said many times that you have to be very responsive to the feedback you get from your body, and abandon any exercise if you don't obtain quick improvement. So it's completely wrong to think of Bates method as a blind lasting chore that maybe gives some result some day. I was not saying that neither.
I agree that novices need to prove to themselves that the method does work, and fortunately it happens almost immediately and involuntary after they start (a temporary clear flash). Novices get encouraged. Afterwards, they need to realize that the more they care about whether the clear flash is coming or not, the more it will block their progress. It is not contradicting with your "reverse aging process" example, because it's simply the wrong goal that novices tend to chase. You should care about shifting, swing and central fixation, not the ability to see clearly. As a matter of fact, it is the original desire to see that has caused your strain and myopia, that's why you should stop caring about seeing clearly. This is the essence of Bates method.
And "measuring diopters" and alike is the worst way of caring about seeing clearly, put aside that this sort of measurements is completely senseless, as Dave has already stated, due to the quick changeability of vision and big influence of brain. When you have a clear flash you can use fuzzy relative estimates like "better" or "worse" relative to a reference point (like a tree or a house visible through your window, or Snellen card). Be cautious not to switch your attention to analyze how well you see, because it is too easy to destroy a clear flash - you immediately go back to usual strain when you try to do it. You may also analyze accompanying sensations, like relief from strain, which I find even more indicative and not intrusive.
In fact, many Bates techniques (shifting, swinging, black dot, central fixation) are methods of distracting your attention from your everlasting desire to see better. That's why the measurements of the vision are the directly opposite action.
The point is that progress is not linear with the Bates method, it fluctuates and can even get worse for a while before it gets better. If you get more and more flashes lasting for longer and longer it's a good sign that it's working. But don't expect to have a permanent improvement when reading the snellen test card, just because 2 months have passed (for example) and you think you should have had.
Jamie
But I'm one of the 1% who has not had my vision get worse whenever I dedicated time to the Bates method. Every day was a little better than the previous day and I did not hit a plateau either. I think it's a matter of understanding the concepts well enough to keep the progress linear or have a sudden jump in vision like I did after a little while.
Even during Dec. 2006-Feb. 2007, I was doing the Bates method on/off too much but on the consecutive days there was always improvement.
Dave Wrote:I just want to point out that diopters are used in two ways -
1 - as the focusing range of the eye, like as in a normal eye can accommodate to a 40D or 60D range or something like that.
2 - as a measurement of how much correction you need to correct to 20/20 vision as measured on a chart.
Usually people use it in the second way when talking about vision improvement. But it only means how strong glasses you need to see 20/20 with, not how bad your vision is without glasses. One person with a -3D prescription might read 20/60 without glasses and the other one maybe 20/500. It's a VERY weak relationship. So saying that your vision is -3, for example, means nothing at all.
These types of measurements with centimeters often seem to be close because we expect them to be. The truth is that people sometimes see better at 20 feet than 10 feet, and worse again at 30 feet, or something similar. This has to do with the psychological impact of perceived distance along with the focusing (and relaxing) of the mind that often occurs when you regard a smaller object.
Dave
How so? How can't diopters be a relationship between how far you can see?
Otter Wrote:How so? How can't diopters be a relationship between how far you can see?
Because that's not what it measures. A diopter is the focusing power of a lens, whether your eye's lens or a glasses lens. It isn't meant to measure your quality of vision, with or without glasses, so it only has a weak correlation to it. Even eye doctors don't consider it to be accurate in such a way. It would be like determining how many pushups you can do based on the size of your arms.
Dave
Site Administrator
"Half of our funny, heathen lives, we are bent double to gather things we have tossed away." - George Meredith
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