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.

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.

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.

Begin Getting into Shape Strategies: PART 2

So you've started detoxifying your body, and you've slowly accustomed your muscles to exercise by going for long and longer walks, now you push your training level up a notch, and begin more serious exercise. Before you begin any exercise, it helps to develop a habit of putting yourself into the correct frame of mind before you start. This involves clearing your mind of any pressing problems or deadlines you have to meet, you're not going to entirely get rid of all these current issues, but it helps to unload the majority of them because although you may think they weigh only on the mind, just having them there can increase risk of injury and reduce your performance ability.

Begin, by standing with an upright posture, and slowly breathe in and breathe out. This will help remove tensions from your diaphragm which controls your lungs. Breathe all the way in, and exhale all the way out. Imagine that you are breathing in focus and clarity and exhaling troublesome thoughts. Do this until you feel comfortable and relaxed. Then proceed to do some stretching - you'll find that stretching comes much easier after this, as most tension in the muscles originate from the mind. Keep your mind clear while you stretch your body thoroughly. I won't explain any stretching exercises, you can do a search on YouTube if you don't know how - but it is important to do this before you initiate any kind of strenuous exercise to prevent cramp and injury, also it allows you to perform longer without your muscles stiffening up.

Nowadays, I do most of my exercise outdoors, for reasons I will explain another time, but for beginners, the gym is a safe environment to begin working out. At first it may be slightly intimidating for the first timer to a gym, but most people are too focused on their own exercises to care what anyone else is doing. Make sure you are familiar with the equipment before you begin using them by seeking the advice of a qualified instructor - if you're using the equipment incorrectly you could hurt yourself or others. When you start, like I said in my previous post, think LONG term - this is something you want to keep doing for the rest of your life, so don't burn yourself out by trying to overachieve your goal in a short period of time - this will have the effect of putting you off exercise and making you mentally and physically weaker in the long run. It is best to proceed slowly at a pace that is not relaxed but enough to challenge your heart rate - if you're too relaxed then you're not going to benefit, if you're going too hard, you're going to burn yourself out, you want to be in the middle so your heart is getting a good workout and the blood is really pumping around your body.

The most important part of maintaining a workout routine is frequency - Someone who works out twice a week benefits more than someone who does twice as much once a week. This is because unlike your brain, the body does not have a memory, it won't remember how much work it did two weeks ago. The longer you leave it, the more unfit you get. If you're extremely busy, and can't find to go to the gym, just doing a few minutes of 'maintenance' exercises at home is better than doing none at all, this is how you keep your body in shape - instead of waiting to make up for the lost time by doing a big bout in the gym when you do go - remember, the body has no memory, your fitness level drops quite fast if you're not maintaining it.

On some days, you probably won't feel in the mood to workout - everyone gets it, it's completely normal; we're not robots which can turn it on and turn it off. Sometimes, I feel too tired, or the idea of all those repetitions and sets makes me feel tired - but once I get the blood pumping, I forget about it. Your psychology plays a big role in determining how motivated you are. Most people when they see a hill, they look all the way to the top and think, 'pheww, that's a big hill!' and immediately feel exhausted just from thinking about it! That is a psychological weight, it burdens the body as much as the mind, and can exist in any form, whether it be about work or relationships, it can be the obstacle to our goals. Some motivators will tell you 'attack it! face your obstacle and charge at it!', but I take a different stance, obstacles are obstacles because they are seen as such. A mountain cannot be overcome by a single bound, but it can be done slowly with each step and each breath. So the trick is not to look at the top of the hill/mountain, but to focus on each step that brings you closer, because that's what each step does, it brings you closer to your goal - no matter how small.

When I go running, there are parts of my regular route which has long straights where I can see stretching all the way to the distance, I avoid looking that far, instead I gaze at the ground just a few metres ahead, looking up now and then to make sure that I'm not going to hit something. By concentrating on each stride I take, I'm not overwhelming myself with the entire task - I'm breaking it down and making it more manageable, I'm not giving myself something bigger than I can chew, and this is all mental as all things are in life. People who give up easily, tend to be those who expect the prize at the end. Each step that you take should be a reward in itself, because each step makes your healthier and fitter, and that is all you should keep in your mind, the more steps you take, the narrower the gap becomes between you and your target. When you train, you should remember that you're training your mind as well as your body.

When you manage to build up frequency in training, like I said already, there are going to be some days which you don't really feel like it. The best way to overcome this is not to set yourself a target for the exercises you do that day - on the treadmill, don't set the timer, just run without looking at the clock until you feel exhausted. If you've decided that you're tired before you've even begun, it's pointless to expect that you'll do each exercise with your normal intensity, so don't count your repetitions because you'll be disappointed and your morale will take a beating. Just exercise without counting or timing, you may even find that you do more than usual! Often it is our own expectation of ourselves that creates the burden, a performance anxiety which comes to those who demand too much of themselves. We all like to see progress, but we kick ourselves hard if we're not making any - it happens to everyone. Forget about numbers, let your body work until you sense it has had enough, you may surprise yourself, because when there is no pressure, we can do much better. Once you're done, be happy that you did something rather than nothing, and the next time you train you'll be grateful that you did your maintenance exercises.

The ability to think long term is unique to human beings, no other animal on this planet can hold a goal in their head for years or even a century. A goal may not appear achievable at first, because we're not able to see the fiftieth step from the first step, but as we draw closer to the fiftieth step, we have a better perspective on how to proceed to the hundredth step. Exercising and building a body to good health and fitness, requires a long term strategy. Your body is what you wear everyday, something that you carry with you for the rest of your life, whatever you have been given, you should make the most of what you've got. A fit body brings confidence and keeps the mind happy.