Eyesight Focus Training Update

As the days go on, I'm getting more and more hopeful that I can eventually throw away my glasses. I've been doing my Yoga eye exercises each morning and night, with at least an hour of meditation, and when I wake up, there are noticeable improvements in my vision, whether it is the ability focus at distance, or focus faster. Some days I get discouraged by worsening vision with glasses, but I just have to remember that the prescription has likely become incorrect for my improved eyes.

I have been experimenting with focusing techniques - although the focusing at the moment is not perfect, if I relax my eyes (without squinting or narrowing them), details in the distance become in very sharp focus as if I'm wearing my glasses. Early on, I would strain due to eye dryness, and it would cause me to lose the focus, but I've resolved this by practicing to properly blink. If I manage to stay relax, I can hold the focus, but I also have to hold my gaze, which takes a lot of practice if you are easily distracted - That's why I think eyesight training also builds up your self-discipline to become more focused mentally too.

So, I noticed that without my glasses, parts of the overall scene captured by my eyes, there will be certain parts that will be detailed, and some that aren't. I figured that the parts that had detail, eg, text would be readable, or fine textural details were pronounced, were because my eye knew how to focus them - in that some kind of eye muscle memory was able to recall the focus length for that particular distance. For normal sighted people, focusing is an analogue process, but with my myopia I'm only able to focus at the distances that my eyes remember. So with this fact, I decided to develop a new technique for focus training, which I will call focus leading. I don't know if it has ever been covered by anyone before, but I certainly have not read it anywhere else.

I begin by finding a part of a scene (which overall) is kind of blurry to me, and locate a part which is unusually in sharpest (these are not necessarily the closest to me). This part isn't always fully in focus, so I begin by relaxing my eyes and my mind, allow it to come gradually into focus. Now I have it in focus, I move my eyes, slowly and with precision, to a neighbouring part, giving enough time for my eyes to slowly adjust the focus to adapt. This may be similar to holding a pencil, in focus, in front of your eyes, and slowly moving it away, to build up your ability to focus further and further away, but it has the advantage that your eyes can move back to the original location as a reference whenever it needs to find the focus again - I imagine that the focusing involved is very delicate, and the yoga eye exercises allow your eyes to be controlled with with extreme precision.

You may not begin with a scene, perhaps it is better to begin with a grouping of objects. By focus leading, you can quickly put a close group of objects into focus. Using each successful focus point as a stepping ladder onto the next one, you build the ability to see a whole scene, although it will not be perfect, and you may have to keep revisiting certain points, I believe it is a good exercise and I understand this is perhaps the way that babies also learn to see.

Learning To Focus & Eye Dryness Solution

Focusing by the eyes is performed so instantaneously that we take it for granted that the whole process is innately given. But focusing is actually something that our brains have learnt to do, because our eye muscles do not have the complexity to understand how far an object is, or what indeed should be within our attention. When something is in focus, the visual details become clearer, and in turn, our brain is 'rewarded' with information; this reward, teaches us how to achieve the same result faster in the future.

With my myopia, I'm learning how to focus on distant objects - in reality, it does not matter how far, because my vision has a refractive error, which makes things appear blurry beyond a certain point. So far, I've discovered that I can put distant objects into focus, if not for but a brief moment, if I relax my body and mind. Often it requires that I stare at a point of interest, without straining my eyes, then the object will become as clear as if I am wearing my glasses. I believe that the more often that the eyes can achieve this, then the better and faster it becomes at focusing.

A problem I encountered early on while trying to focus at distance, were my eyes drying up. As I relaxed my eyes, the objects would slowly come into focus, and then my eyes would suddenly begin to sting and tear up. This transient pain would be enough to cause all my eye muscles to tense up and all the learning effort would be wasted. I came to the conclusion, that perhaps, this was the reason why my myopia was so bad in the first place, that I'm not blinking correctly (sounds silly I know); but blinking lubricates the eyes, and prevents them drying out and hurting - Any type of pain, whether it is in the body or eyes, can create muscle tension. Since then, I've made a lot more progress by practicing blinking, and to blink at intervals while engaged in my focusing exercises.

I've always questioned why myopia is so prevalent in the Chinese population compared to the rest of the world, and my earlier discovery about blinking to relieve tension while 'focus learning' could be partly responsible for this. The Asian eyelid is formed in a noticeably different way from other races, in that many cases, it is insufficiently large enough cover the eyeball without engaging other muscles of the upper brow area. Dry eyes are a common problem in Asia, incidence of persistent dry eyes are estimated to be over 28% compared to 5% in the Caucasians. I believe that this problem can be corrected by learning to blink properly. One exercise that I developed for this, is to just close the eyes lightly, then relax the face. Feel the tension escaping from around the eyes and forehead, then slowly open the eyes without any strain or utilizing your brow muscles, just let the eyelids 'slide' open, keeping all your muscles relaxed while you do it. Then close your eyelids again gently, and repeat twenty times. This exercise will train you to blink fully, and prevent your eyes from drying up.

On a side note, there are many other reasons why people may suffer from dry eyes, from pollution to lack of sleep. The tears that lubricate your eyes are composed of not only water, but also salts and oils. If the oil glands in your eyelids become blocked, then your eyes are not getting the necessary oils to keep them wet. To overcome this, you can use a warm compress over your eyes - just soak a wash cloth in warm water, the fold it into a compress over your eyes for 5 to 10 minutes for several times a day - this will help unclog any blocked oil glands.

So keep your eyes relaxed. I know that many Asians are self-conscious of having 'slitty eyes' so they unconsciously open their eyes more than they should, putting the surrounding muscles under continuous tension, and exposing more of the eyeball area than the tears can lubricate. The forehead and brow muscles should remain relaxed, and if anyone has a subconscious fear of appearing 'slitty eyes' should deal with that psychological obstacle first, before dealing with dry eyes.

Natural Eyesight Healing: Almost 2 Weeks Progress

It may be a bit early to start blogging about my natural eyesight healing progress, since it has only been 11 days, but I'd like to keep reporting my thoughts and ideas before they become lost from time, and I have the advantage of being in a process of myopic healing.

Every day I have been performing my Yoga eye exercises, twice a day, morning and night. Even after the first week, I could feel as if my eyeballs were more lubricated, there seems to be an extension of my peripheral vision - taking in visual information by quick scanning with my eyeballs rather than relying on motioning my head towards the direction objects that I want to observe. So the first big benefit is a faster reaction time - good for sports, no doubt.

The Bate's Method suggests reducing the wearing time of spectacles - This is something that is hard to do for most people, but I've developed my own technique. I doubt that many people need to wear their glasses while sitting on the toilet or eating, so during these periods, it is a good time to relax the eye muscles and reduce eyestrain. When I am out and about, I wear my glasses a bit lower, so I may peek over the top of the rims to help relax my eyes again - even for walking long distances, I can look over my glasses to help train my eyes.

Already, my eyesight seems better without glasses as the distance of the 'double vision' effect is smaller. With glasses, my eyesight has gotten worse; one might be mistaken to think that I have damaged my vision somehow, although the only reason for this is because the prescription is trying to correct a visual problem that no longer exists - it may be discouraging at first, but bear in mind that with exercising, eyes can only improve, and that the stronger your eyes get, the worse you're going to see with glasses.

I'm learning to relax my eyes when looking at distant objects. Sometimes, I will stare at the text on the screen, it will appear a blur. The mistake that most people make is to strain to focus the text, but that is the complete opposite what you should do, you should just relax. I've had some amount of success with this technique, but it requires a very relaxed mind, and a sense of indifference to the objects around you. Very much like the 'Magic Eye' books, you just stare, and relax your eyes, and after a while, the objects or text come into focus. The idea is to keep doing this, until your eyes remember how to do it by themselves. Unlike relearning to see, for me it's like learning to see, feels as if I missed out on this process while growing up as a kid, and I'm learning to be more aware of textures (sharp and soft) and subtle shades of light and dark.

I find that riding on the upper deck of a bus is a good way to train and strengthen the eyes. There is no need to wear glasses at all for this exercise, and the constantly updating movement of light and colour, encourage eyeball movement. It can also be very relaxing as long as you remember to be indifferent to what you see, breathe fully and slowly with your diagphragm, and avoid straining. Once the eyes become fully relaxed, you'll be amazed at catching glimpses of small print at a distance, although whether something is near or far becomes irrelevant because one has to stop thinking like a glasses-wearer, ie, straining to see something beyond the prescription - a person with perfect vision (as in uncorrected) sees near and distant objects with the same visual acuity. All becomes clear when the mind is relaxed and one with the universe.

Avoid Motivation Bullshit & Energize Your Body!

A quick search on the topic of 'motivation' reveals a ton of websites devoted to teaching you how to be motivated by a 'qualified' motivation coach. Sorry, but WTF? - There are people who will always try anything to make a living, and I feel especially sympathetic to those whom these workshops are targeted at, i.e, desperate unhappy individuals who are willing to part with the remainder of their savings in order to basically 'learn the secret of success'. I'm not going to say anymore, except, close your eyes to such nonsense - I can show you the path for free, and you can thank me by being a good human being.

Motivation; the solution is not to merely tackle the problem by hurling motivational advice and phrases, but by understanding the individual situation. Although there are psychological issues which can often be resolved using NLP techniques, the practitioners of NLP, neuro-linguistic programming,fail to embrace solutions outside their field, because any type of healing, and making someone motivated is a form of healing, needs a holistic approach in order to be successful. NLP, which I am a firm advocate of, is only one approach, and many 'motivation coaches' believe that it is the end-all-be-all-holy-grail answer. I'm telling you it isn't because the mind is affected by the brain, which is an organ of the body. You affect any physiological process of the body, and it will affect the way you think - makes sense right? Such a rationally simple piece of holistic thinking, escapes the NLP believer, and without this foundational logic, most of the people who subscribe to their courses are going to fail.

There are many reasons why someone may not be motivated. When someone feels 'lazy', finds it hard to get out of bed, or have energy to start exercising - they're going to blame themselves - 'why am I so lazy?' Next they'll force themselves, coercing their bodies into physical rigor - it won't last long, there is only so much that physical determination can do. They'll believe that something is wrong with their thinking, and will probably find 'inspiration' in motivational quotes, see a motivation coach, etc. As I see it, it's akin to pushing a wheel barrow with a flat tire.

One major reason for tiredness in many cases is due to the liver being unhealthy. The liver is the second largest organ in the body next to skin. It is responsible for removing toxins, and making energy for the body. If you're eating fatty junk food all the time, then your liver is also going to be clogged up with fat. If you're not drinking enough water, then your kidneys are going to dry up - the job of the kidneys is to clean the blood, your kidneys need water for optimal functioning, if they aren't working that well, then your liver takes over its job. If the liver is busy doing the job of the kidneys, it's not going to do its main job of breaking down fats and making energy for you very well, is it? So keeping your liver in good condition is the FIRST step in overcoming your motivation problems.

Other causes of tiredness could be a build up of toxic metals in your body. In which case, chelation can be used to remove them. I have amalgam fillings given to me by a drill-happy dentist - every time I chew, I'm releasing cumulative amounts of mercury into my body. Naturally, my body gets rid of any poisonous metals if I'm eating the right stuff. A natural chelation supplement is Selenium, which occurs at high levels in Brazil nuts, but be careful you don't take too much - you can overdose on it. Selenium will remove other metals in your body that are useful to you, so make sure you replace metals like zinc and calcium. Selenium is also found in other food substances, here is a list and other useful information.

Digestion problems can also be responsible for lethargy. If you're not digesting your food properly, then you're not able to absorb the nutrients that give you energy and help your body repair. From a holistic point of view, digestion can be the root of many severe problems - I've read so much stuff, that I wouldn't be able to do it any justice by attempting to even begin to cover it. The digestive tract consists of so many organs, including the stomach, that any diagnosis would be specific to any array of secondary symptoms.

Finally, no matter what. Every human should get enough life-giving, nurturing, energizing SUNLIGHT. We've been warned about the dangers, and of course the radiation from the sun can be harmful in the form of UV rays, but the sun is a good source of vitamin D (which is most beneficial to the liver). It is good to get this solar supplement without sunglasses or sunscreen when the sun is at the lowest in the sky - meaning near sunrise and sunset. Sunlight has been known to cure depression, and many people who suffer from SAD, seasonal affective disorder, can attest to the healing effect of sunlight on their mind. The more sunlight you get, the energized you will become in body and mind. Not only will it cure depression, it will also clear your mind of worries or other neuroses. Getting daily sunlight is as essential as breathing!

The Truth About Myopia

original article

"By using a hood to restrict the vision of monkeys so that they could not see more than fifteen inches (38 cm) from the eye, it was found that most of them develop myopia after a few months' time, just as humans do. Monkeys living in the wild, on the other hand, do not develop myopia."

"Numerous researchers have found a higher incidence of myopia in girls than in boys. Heredity need not be the reason for this. It can be explained by the fact that boys have traditionally spent more time in outdoor sports activities while girls have more frequently turned to sewing, knitting and other close-work activities."

"At one time, most of the lenses produced by optical companies were plus lenses to correct hyperopia or presbyopia. Minus lenses to correct myopia made up only a small percentage of their production. Now this situation has reversed, and far more minus lenses than plus lenses are produced."

Reminiscing Childhood Optician Visits

When I was a child, I hated visiting the opticians as much as the dentists. The whole idea of being physically examined, and then corrected, filled my adolescent body with an anxiety that went beyond the fear of school tests and exams. No amount of studying can yield a good result for eye and teeth examinations; except with regular maintenance and care, I could never expect a good outcome for something that seemed outside of my control.

I started wearing glasses at about age thirteen - quite a late age to start for most children - and by that age, I had already become fully aware of my outward appearance to others, so that in vanity, I was quite self-conscious whenever I needed to use my spectacles; therefore, in an effort to avoid the playground taunts of 'four eyes', or as I imagined other kids to judge me, I only wore my glasses when I deemed it necessary.

My mother knew that I didn't wear my glasses all the time, and to my betrayal, reported this to the optician during my eye examination. The optician who was in her late-twenties, starting out this new business venture with her husband, scolded me - "If you don't wear your glasses all the time, your eyesight will get worse!" Those words, that I never felt the need to question, stayed imprinted on my mind for many years after.

The truth is, that even though I did what the optician said, by obediently wearing my glasses - all the time, my eyesight still continued to deteriorate! So, now I realize that I have been lied to, I wonder if my eyesight would have been better if I hadn't started wearing glasses at all. For certain, I did have better vision as a child, but I can only speculate that wearing glasses for all these years have weakened and strained my eye muscles, so that they have 'forgotten' how to focus correctly.

Eye Exercise May Boost Creativity

original article by David Pescovitz

A study in the scientific journal Brain and Cognition suggests that increasing the "crosstalk" between the brain's left and right hemispheres can increase creativity. Researchers from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey ran an experiment on 62 people to gauge creative thinking. After a first try at the task, some of the participants were told to shift their eyes horizontally back and forth for 30 seconds, an exercise that boosts the communication between the hemispheres. Those subjects performed much better on the test the second time around than a control group who stared straight ahead. The scientists published the results of their study in the journal Brain and Cognition. From the British Psychological Society Research Digest:

An important factor that the researchers took note of was the participants' handedness. Prior research has suggested that people who have one hand that is particularly dominant, so-called "strong-handers", have less cross-talk between their brain hemispheres compared with people who are more ambidextrous or "mixed handed"...
The key finding is that on their second creativity attempt, strong-handers who'd performed the horizontal eye movements subsequently showed a significant improvement in their creativity, in terms of being more original (i.e. suggesting ideas not proposed by others) and coming up with more categories of use...

The researchers also showed that, for strong-handers, the beneficial effects of the eye movement exercise lasted nine minutes for originality, but just three to six minutes in terms of coming up with more categories of use.

Paul McCartney Teaches Eye Yoga!

Natural Eyesight Healing: Day One

Over the past month or so, I have been considering to have eye sight correction by Lasik surgery, but because I have an aversion to any type of surgery, I decided to look up alternative treatments to improve my sight. I suffer from myopia (short-sightedness), and I stumbled upon the Bates Method, which I remembered reading about from a book I borrowed when I was fourteen.

I won't go too much into it, but the underlying theory is that the muscles that are used to rotate the eyeball are under tension causing a 'squeezing' which deforms the shape of the lens creating difficulty in focusing. The Bates Method involves a combination of exercises and relaxations that are designed to train the eye to be able to see properly again. There have been many books since written, elaborating and building upon the original principle, with very optimistic results from practitioners.

I approach everything with a slight skepticism, but seeing as the underlying theory seems plausible, I'm willing to give it a go. There's no harm in trying, and the process would help me learn more about the fascinating biology of the eyes and its processes.

Before going to bed last night, I practiced some of the Bates Method eye exercises. When I woke up this morning, I resisted the temptation to grab my spectacles. Apparently, when the eyes are relaxed the vision is better, because the muscles are not deforming the eye structure - I decided to take advantage of possibly improved vision after a relaxing night's sleep. I'm quite blind without my glasses, with quite a severe myopia of more than -6.0 in each eye; so at first I felt quite handicapped unaided by them, feeling retarded and clumsy when performing my usual tasks.

After a while without them, I found that I started to develop more confidence at doing things. One feels as clumsy without glasses, as one who has been depending on crutches to walk all his life. Initially, I struggled to think to do the most simplest things like making a cup of coffee, but that may be because of the distraction of the blurred environment. But there is no reason why I couldn't perform these tasks because if a blind person can do it, then there's absolutely no reason why someone who has partial vision cannot.

I thought about the difference between people who depend on glasses and those with perfect vision. People who look through lenses all day long have built a habit of locking their eyes forward (fixating on the optimum part of the lens), so that without glasses, they tend to look as if they are staring - ie, they don't have the soft stare that perfect vision people have. People with perfect vision scan more with their eyes, the movements are miniscule, yet small enough to notice. Someone who uses glasses, rely more on the movement of their head to look at things, whereas those with perfect vision move their eyes. That small but essential differentiation, is the reason why people with perfect vision have a faster peripheral vision. I decided that I would break the habit of my locked gaze, and be more conscious to use my eyes to scan, in that way, it would also work those muscles that have perhaps atrophied over the years.

So I tried reading a book, it was possible but uncomfortable because I held the novel so close to my eyes that I could smell the ink. When I used the computer, I had set my font size to 150%, and activated the magnifying tool, but even then it was difficult to read the screen without compromising my posture, so I decided to use my glasses for now whenever I used the computer - but removing my glasses when away from the screen to use the toilet or get a glass of water, etc.

Luckily, I have a mild obsessive compulsive order which makes it easy for me to keep up with things like these tedious eye exercises. These repetitive eye exercises which involve moving the eye up/down, left/right, clockwise/anticlock, etc, I imagine, are designed to mimic the natural eye movements of a full sighted person that us short-sighted people lack. I didn't expect to see any immediate improvements in vision after doing the exercises, especially after such a short time, but my eyes certainly did feel a lot more looser, as if someone had lubricated my eye sockets.

I've always had a fear of being blind in public, so I decided to challenge that fear and go out to lunch without the aid of my glasses - although I brought them along incase I needed to read anything. At first, I felt quite uncomfortable going outside without glasses, almost naked, and when I'm not wearing my glasses, I never know what to do with my eyes, they automatically lock into that straight forward, mannequin gaze. People appear as a blur to me, but I'm able to see enough to avoid a collision. I mimic the eyes of someone who can see, scanning my environment as if every object was sharp. It's easy just to stare blankly straight on because when everything is a blur, it's not very interesting, but I decided to be interested in the different types of blurs and fuzzy shapes. I managed to enter the mall without smacking my face into a glass door.

I feared my vision would be even more limited indoors, and I was right. As soon as I entered the mall from the sunny outside, the contrast between objects became even fuzzier and abstract. I got the feeling of jumping in at the deep end, but I decided that I'd feel more comfortable once I got used to it. I didn't collide with anyone, and I also made the effort to keep looking around, gazing into shop windows as I passed them. When everything is blurry, it's tempting just to isolate the larger shapes and ignore the smaller ones. Textures, words, and small collections of objects are extremely demoralising when you're half blind, but I decided that I would make a concerted efforted to 'scan' them, and not look like a semi-blind person stumbling through a mall, but more like a shopper taking a leisurely stroll. After a while, my eyes became more comfortable and relaxed, and after having lunch, I found that I could even read some of the text from the billboards at a distance. I could also begin to 'decipher' textile patterns on clothing, and start defining people's faces, although still blurry, I had the confidence to look at them, rather than avoid them as 'too difficult'.

I don't know if by this method I'll ever have perfect vision; I've read some people claim to go from 20/500 to 20/30 - 20/40. But I'll be happy with 'functional' vision, where I can perform daily tasks without depending on my glasses. I'll keep up this experiment for now, just to ... see. Off with my glasses again.

Curing My Mother's Arthritis

My mother has been suffering from arthritis in her fingers for over six years. She was referred to a specialist who said that the best thing that they could do for her was to operate, and there was no guarantee that it would improve her condition. Since then, her joints have gradually gotten worse, becoming swollen and sore, causing the thinner skin at the knuckles to form abscesses.

After some careful analysis and research, I finally diagnosed that the arthritis was caused by a gastro problem, as my mother suffers from a frequent and persistent heartburn which she self-medicates with indigestion tablets. I deduced that the indigestion problem was caused by a lack of stomach acid production, as it is also related to acid reflux.

I prescribed her apple cider vinegar; she has been on it for two weeks now, and her abscesses have cleared up, no sign of red sores, and she is not experiencing any pain. I expect that if she continues taking the supplements, the swollen joints will eventually recede in size. The apple cider vinegar has been aiding her digestion, giving the extra acidity required to break down undigested proteins in her stomach, which were leaking into her bloodstream and getting trapped in her joints.

Now this is first-hand experience about the effectiveness of apple cider vinegar helping cure arthritis - you may or may not believe that this simple product can have such curative strength, but I have seen it, and it is up to you whether you want to try or dismiss it. There are plenty of websites (which I believe function as big pharma propaganda disinformation) which claim that the apple cider vinegar cure is an old wives remedy and does not cure anything - The best advice is not to take anyone's word for it, but to try it yourself. Apple cider vinegar is a harmless food product which you cannot overdose on, and it does not manifest any side-effects, so there is no harm in trying.

Most people, when their parents begin to suffer the symptoms of ageing, think that they can throw money at the problem and hope that some 'so-called specialist' can solve the problem. The problem with the medical profession, is many of those who practice it, do so only as a job without any real passion or interest in the subject and thus they are unable, or unwilling, to keep up with the latest or alternative developments in their fields. You love your parents, why would you leave them at the mercy of people whose job it is to prescribe the most expensive method of treatment?

Do yourself and your parents - and your relatives and friends, for that matter - a favour and put the effort into researching their symptoms and finding alternative natural cures which are often better than conventional medicine. Only true love and caring can drive a passion for learning. The books are available in libraries and academic bookstores. Money may be the quick and easy 'pay and forget' answer, but it could also be the regretful decision in years to come - Show your love, and study as hard (and with passion) as the professionals whose advice you pay for!