Introducing Bates method to a friend

[roger89]

Hi!

I would like to know, how do you all share with your friends/family about Bates method? If they want to start reading, which book should we recommend them to start with first?

I have a couple of question, I hope someone can shed some light to it.

Whenever I feel my eyes straining, I quickly do the palming and black dot imagination. After that my eyes feel more refreshed, but soon after I would discover my eyes get tensed up again. And I need to repeat the process many times. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury to do this so often, especially when I'm in lecture halls. Do you have any suggestion and how do I not get into trouble of straining..?

Is the reason why our eyesight has not been improving but worsening instead all this while(b4 discovering Bates) due to we have been held our eyes under strain? Thus this prevents our eyes to heal naturally?

Does these relaxation method 'triggers' the eyes/mind the signal that it is not functioning properly(i.e. myopia) and that it needs to start repairing? Does our eyes/mind knows what is wrong?

Thanks.

[David]

Hi Roger,

You're actually doing better than you may think. Some people never become aware of the most obvious feelings of strain that you are noticing, and then some people who are aware of it can't seem to relieve it no matter what they try. So the fact that you can relieve it partially and temporarily by palming is a good sign. At that point it's just a matter of keeping up the palming as often as possible and learning other exercises to find things that'll help. You may find that for some unknown reason an exercise you practiced earlier in the day with some benefit still appears to have a positive effect later on, even if it doesn't help you completely.

There's not really any healing or repairing in a physical sense. Holding our eyes under strain is the problem, and that's it. No strain, no problem. No healing required. You just aren't aware of all the strain you're under at the moment, only some of it.

David

[apavel]

I would like to know, how do you all share with your friends/family about Bates method? If they want to start reading, which book should we recommend them to start with first?

Just tell them what Dr. Bates is all about.  Direct them to his book (available free on this website) "Perfect sight without glasses".  It has experimental data and proof that his methods work.

Whenever I feel my eyes straining, I quickly do the palming and black dot imagination. After that my eyes feel more refreshed, but soon after I would discover my eyes get tensed up again. And I need to repeat the process many times. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury to do this so often, especially when I'm in lecture halls. Do you have any suggestion and how do I not get into trouble of straining..?

Why don't you simply relax your eyes?  Try to "let go" of your eyes, and relax them all over (just as you relax when you lie down on the couch after work...you know what it's like to have the physical strain leave you).  I find that tilting my head back and looking horizontally often relaxes my eyes and almost always improves my eyesight.

Is the reason why our eyesight has not been improving but worsening instead all this while(b4 discovering Bates) due to we have been held our eyes under strain? Thus this prevents our eyes to heal naturally?

sure, in modern society, when we can't achieve something...we try harder.  i.e. if you don't get the mark you expect, try harder...  With eyesight it doesn't work like that.  When you get the first bit of temporary blur, you do what you do best: try harder!  This leads to initial eyestrain and further blur. 

As Dave said, it's not a matter of healing, it's matter of releasing eye strain.  There is nothing physically wrong for you to heal.  That's why if you relax instantaneously and permanently, you get perfect eyesight instantaneously and permanently (always keep this in mind).  You don't realize how true this is until you get more experienced with Bates.


Paul

[roger89]

Thanks David and Paul for the reply.

From what I understand from your post, if there is strain, then we will have the errors of refraction(myopia/hyperopia). The more strain we have the more myopic our vision will be. That means zero strain = perfect eyesight(20/20). Also, that means all this while since I was myopic, I had held my eyes under strain?

If that is true, then I think it is simply hard for me to believe it's just that 'simple' to cure myopia..

Now harder part is, to detect the strain that I have and release them and to keep my eyes relaxed all the time..

[apavel]

Yes! I don't understand why everyone makes it so complicated!

You can do palming to relax your eyes.  Swinging and imagining a black dot also give a little help to relax.  You'll notice that whenever you don't pay attention to your eyes, they strain - because that's what you've been doing for the past many years of your life.  Just relax them, look at everything with a relaxed gaze.  Think of the swing and the black period if you cannot relax the strain.  If you cannot feel the strain, try palming.  Sooner or later you'll begin to feel the strain, which makes it easier to let go.

Paul

[roger89]

I'm wondering again, when you relax your eyes, do you feel as though the eyes muscles are stretching? The feeling is like when you touch down your forehead to your knees and feel the stretch in your hamstrings. Do you feel the same?

Also, my wondering mind a little of a obstacle to palming because that will make me not relax, my eyes would be moving around.. How do you control your mind?

Last thing, when I palm I occasionally feel some ticklish feeling at my sinus. I'm not sure if it's caused by my palm resting on it.. feel the same too?

TQ!

[Daniel]

If I were now introducing Bates to someone, the first thing I would do would be to have him make his vision momentarily worse. This would demonstrate that I know something of what I'm talking about, that strain at least can contribute to sight problems, and that vision improvement is at least a rational endeavor. Now, I wish I had thought of this back in high school. Even then I could make my vision worse, but never thought of explaining it to someone. A friend was perhaps more nearsighted than me, and I wanted to work with him on Bates, but he would have none of it. He insisted his eyes were not tense and that Bates couldn't be right because he lived a hundred years ago.

[sorrisiblue]

I've don't necessarily agree that one should immediately refer a friend directly to Bates's book. What happens when they get to Chapter 17 where he talks about people improving their vision by looking directly at the sun? Even if he's not advocating people to go out and do this, I showed this section to my fiance and he nearly lost all faith in the entire method.

I would really like input about this chapter. What do you think about it? How do you approach it with critics?

As for me, I'm never going to risk looking at the sun directly, I don't care what someone promises me, there are way too many people who have gone permanently blind in the process.

[David]

As to how you address it with critics, I generally just don't. People set their minds on certain ideas, and they'll generally change their mind of their own accord. Arguing just makes people defensive of their own beliefs. If you just ignore them, don't argue, there's really I think a much better chance of them going to research it on their own eventually and come around. People like to be consistent, and having to defend a position just solidifies it.

Damage from looking at the sun is exaggerated a lot. It's mostly an old wives' tale, and it's just propagated because of the strain people feel when looking at the sun (which has nothing to do with it causing any damage to their retinas) and the occasional report by an optometrist of someone damaging their retinas by staring at the sun. Newsflash, people also get sunburns on their skin, but it doesn't happen in a matter of seconds. As with anything else in this world, there's such a thing as too much, and "too much" can come sooner if you aren't used to it.

David

[Urban]

I think that the sungazing is one of Bates' more mainstream views.

In the world of optometry, Helmholtz seems to be pretty much unassailable. On the other hand, aversion to sungazing isn't nearly as ingrained a belief.

To relate to this, I've pretty much given up on attempting to introduce people to the Bates method. Like Otis, I chose a myopic group I figured would be desperate for any lifeline to get them to where they wanted to be, pilots. Instead of embracing Bates, they would inevitably disappear when I introduced them to this site.

People believe what they want to believe, it takes a special person who is willing to think outside the box and try anything to give Bates an honest shot.

As for the safety of sungazing: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html">http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html</a><!-- m -->

Here is the punchline:

So, did Galileo go blind from looking at the Sun through his telescope? The answer is, “Certainly not.”

Is it possible to injure your eyes by looking at the Sun? The answer is “Yes, but you have to work at it under normal circumstances.”

Can you become totally blind from looking at the Sun with the naked eye? The answer, according to Mulder, and from the cases of solar retinitis in the literature, is “No.”

Is it safe to look at the setting Sun? The answer is clearly “Yes, IF you are careful to wait until the Sun is within its own diameter of the astronomical horizon.” If you have accurate predictions of nominal sunset times, wait until 5 minutes before the expected time of sunset. CAUTION: Sunset times published in newspapers are often incorrect!

Note that the low Sun can even be observed safely with binoculars, if it is touching a sea horizon. However, higher-powered telescopes are likely to be dangerous. And an elevated mountain horizon may put the Sun dangerously above the astronomical one at apparent sunrise or sunset — particularly if you're in a valley near the mountains.

Is solar eye damage permanent? The answer seems to be, “Only if it is severe.” About half the people with small scotomas recover from them completely after some months or years.

I don't intend to minimize the seriousness of solar eye damage; victims often lose the ability to read normal-sized print, for example. But draconian pronouncements that “you should NEVER look at the Sun” or assertions that you can become permanently and completely blind are an over-reaction to the actual hazard. Sunsets can be viewed safely, both with the naked eye and with binoculars, and most people are already aware of this.

I can personally attest to the safety of sungazing during the early morning. I woke up early every day for about ~2 weeks to watch the sun rise for increasing intervals. Not only did I never notice any visual problems aside from a few sun streaks in my vision for about ~15 minutes, but months later I had my retinas scanned and no problems were found (nothing that would have been caused by sungazing, I do have "stretching" on the sides of my eyes from the force exerted by straining muscles. This is typical of myopic people, especially with my perscription). I also watch the sun as I walk too and from classes whenever it is in front of me as I walk, sometimes 5 or so minutes as I make my way to my dorm. I've never experiences any side effects from this other than ~10 minutes of streaks and spots in my vision.

All in all, sungazing isn't essential to success with Bates. I believe that sunbathing and focusing the sun on the white part of the eye can substitute well, but like I said, if people flinch at sungazing, I doubt they want it bad enough.

Ted

[sorrisiblue]

Yes, the effects of looking at the sun can be exaggerated, but even in Dr. Bates's later articles (after the 1920 book) he no longer advocates looking directly but sunning with closed eyes. Even the site quoted above (in defence of looking at the sun) states:

Here are a few sites that tell the truth about solar retinopathy:
Advice about eye care, stating that “Occasionally glancing at the sun usually does not harm your eyes. However, staring for several minutes at the sun or a solar eclipse can damage visual cells in the part of the retina that allows us to see fine detail. This kind of injury, called solar retinopathy, can cause a blind spot in the center of the field of vision. Loss of vision in these cases can be temporary but often is permanent.”

The point I'm making is that there is a huge difference between "looking at the sun" and "looking at the sun within 5 minutes of sun up and sun down". People (who are not interested in Bates) who read his book will read that staring at the sun is ok.

Clearly, they know that glances of rays and accidental reflections aren't making us all blind. It seems to me that some people have permanent damage looking continuously at the sun, while others don't.

In the end, I guess I agree with David, critics will have to come to their own opinion themselves. So far, the way I've found it best to talk about the Bates method with my close friends and relatives is not by recommending they go out and read his book. I simply explain that I'm trying to improve my eyesight naturally and describe the principle of Bates Method: that the method focuses on reteaching the eye to function in a relaxed way instead of constantly straining. If they become curious they can ask or read more. I also won't be pushing the subject until I see improvement in my own eyes. Results speak for themselves. If it works, I imagine most people close to me will be very keen to find out what I did, no convincing needed.

[otis]

Dear Urban,

Subject: Excessive respect for Helmholtz (and Donders).

I respect Helmholtz for the many insightes he had; But some analysis has "failed". The further
"add-ons" of Donders caused "corrupted" science -- because of the assumptions that he made. It was Bates who detected
these intellecture failures -- and attempted to correct some of them.

In the world of optometry, Helmholtz seems to be pretty much unassailable. On the other hand, aversion to sungazing isn't nearly as ingrained a belief.

The problem is this. The majority-opinion optometrists tend to protect their "practice", and ignore some
of the fatal flaws of the Helmholtz-Donders concept that the eye -- as a box-camera.

I do not take umbridge at this. But I only suggest that majority-optometrists have a closed mind when
you ask them certain questions about the effect of "environment" on the eye's refractive STATE.

That is why I encourage Dave and this site.

Science in no sense supports the over-prescription of a minus lens, and further telling you
that, "... a lens has no effect on the eye".

Scientific proof has long along ago suggest a "go slow" policy in the use of the minus lens.

Just my opinion,

Otis