Vision for Life

Chapter 4

Improving and Correcting Errors of Refraction

In this chapter you will find specific exercise programs I recommend for the treatment and, at times, the reversal of vision problems related to errors of refraction. These include myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia, and astigmatism. Although this chapter specifically focuses on errors of refraction, the exercises discussed here will aid in the treatment of many conditions discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. These include cross-sightedness, cataracts, diabetes, glaucoma, optic neuritis, detached retinas, vitreous detachment, macular degeneration, and retinitis pigmentosa.

If you are currently under the care of a physician who is open to a holistic approach to healing, I encourage you to share this information with him. Together you will be able to monitor your progress and adapt my suggestions to your particular condition. These exercises are intended to work in conjunction with whatever else you are doing to heal and maintain your vision.

As I mentioned in the preface of this book, many doctors are quick to prescribe chemicals and even surgery to correct all problems including vision problems, and they will often discourage you from believing that your condition can ever return to normal, regardless of whatever efforts you might be willing to make.

What, after all, is the definition of healing? Healing does not always mean an instantaneous cure, a total reversal of every ailment. Sometimes that happens, but more often, true healing comes in small steps. True healing is simply an improvement, however minor, within the parameters of what is possible given the circumstances of your life. It is important to make comparisons only with yourself. If you can improve, however slightly, from where you are today, give yourself the validation of acknowledging that small success. Build upon it and celebrate it. Celebrate every small accomplishment along the way, and remember where you started.

I cannot stress enough how much faith I have in people’s ability to heal themselves through the diligent practice of these programs. My personal experience of working with myself, with my children, and with thousands of patients and students has taught me that improvement is possible and that the benefits of these exercises are tangible and well within your reach.

Suggestions for Using This Part of the Book

First, make sure you have familiarized yourself with the basic exercises explained in the earlier sections of this book. I will refer back to them again and again. Now turn to the section in this chapter that addresses your particular vision condition. Follow the exercises I recommend for at least the time periods I suggest in each section. Most important, make a commitment to incorporate these exercises into every aspect of your daily routine. I may recommend six minutes of palming or ten minutes of sunning, but this is only a starting point: the bare minimum. Ideally, instead of setting aside one part of your day to do these exercises, you will find moments throughout your day to exercise so that the improvement of your vision is always at the forefront of your mind. Don’t stop being conscious of your eyes and the ways in which they function throughout the day. Never stop looking at details.

Think of this part of the book as a starting point. As with muscular exercise, the best program is not simply to work out thirty minutes a day, three times a week, while being sedentary the rest of the time. The best idea is to incorporate movement and physical exercise into every aspect of your life. Walk throughout the day. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Do push-ups and sit-ups whenever you have a few minutes to spare. Stretch. This way, you are always exercising and always aware of your physical condition.

The same principle is important here. Start with my recommended time periods for these exercises, but learn to always find time throughout your day to palm, to sun, and to look at details. Accordingly, awareness of your vision will become ubiquitous and will be a priority to you no matter what else you are engaged in throughout the days and weeks of your normal life.

Make a long-term commitment to the program and take time out to measure your progress regularly. Do not give up. Do not set unrealistic expectations of instantaneous healing. Take every success, no matter how small, and build upon it. Keep a journal of your progress and your feelings along the way.

If, at any point, you feel as though the exercises are taking you in the wrong direction or are not creating the benefits you desire, it is possible you could benefit from additional therapy. There are classes all the time at my School for Self-Healing in San Francisco (www.self-healing.org), and I also offer off-campus lectures and therapy sessions around the world. I encourage you to research possible opportunities to work with me or with one of my trained practitioners if you believe it could benefit you in your quest for better vision.

Where Do Corrective Lenses Fit into These Exercises?

Ideally, as long as it doesn’t cause you stress or strain, you will practice improving your vision without wearing your lenses, at least part of the time. Once you are a month into doing your exercises, go to a friendly optometrist that does not oppose your working on your eyes, and ask for a pair of glasses that corrects them to 20/40, which is 80 percent of 20/20. When your eyes see better with those new lenses, go back and get a new pair with an even lower prescription. Getting used to the lower prescriptions will build your eyesight.

Some people with very severe myopia (nearsightedness), of 20/500 or lesser vision, should have three different pairs of lenses: 20/20 glasses to drive with safely on foggy nights; 20/40 glasses to walk around with in the daytime; and 20/80 glasses with which to challenge themselves while walking around in a familiar environment. In most cases, after two months of this, you will be able to see 20/20 through the 20/40 glasses. Then you can return to the optometrist and change back to the 20/40 prescription once again, which will be the new 20/40. The idea is to reduce the strength of your current eyeglasses in increments until no glasses are needed at all. We expect you to reduce two diopters a year and to see better all the time. Of course, the rate of progress will vary from person to person.

At a certain point, when you feel comfortable walking outdoors without glasses, we suggest you get a pair of pinhole glasses and put them in your pocket. Look at people’s faces and signs up close without glasses. When you are at a distance at which the signs or faces are not as clear, however, put on the pinhole glasses and use them to read signs or recognize faces.

Figure 4.1. Pinhole glasses.

Also, you can use the pinhole glasses while reading. First, look far into the distance for a few minutes to rest your eyes; just look without trying to see anything in particular. Then read without glasses for fifteen or twenty minutes and look into the distance again. Next, read with pinholes for a half hour and look into the distance again. Finally, read with your regular prescription. This exercise is not perfect for everyone, but it can be adjusted to fit your situation. What should never be compromised is that you should never strain your eyes to read.

Pay attention to your individual abilities; if you can hold on longer with the pinholes, that is fine. What you want is simple: to gradually transition out of the continuous use of your glasses.

If your myopia is not severe (i.e., if you see 20/200 or better), my suggestion is to walk everywhere without glasses, unless you drive or have a specific safety reason that requires you to wear glasses. Meanwhile, keep the pinhole glasses in your pocket. When you see a sign that you can read, but with difficulties, or that you can hardly read but can follow some of the shapes, put on the pinhole glasses and look at the sign again. Often, the pinhole glasses will help a person see the sign better. Pinhole glasses work with two-thirds of people, but not with everyone. Pinhole glasses also work with most of my students, but they do not work with me. They either work for you, or they don’t. Since they are not expensive, however, it is worth your while to try them and find out.

Correcting Myopia and Hyperopia

Imagine that you are using a projector to show a film. If you have placed the screen too far away from the projector, farther than the focal point of the lens, the image will be blurry. To someone with myopia, this is how the world looks. Things nearby are clear, but things faraway are fuzzy. With hyperopia, it is as if the screen has been placed too close to the projector. Things close by are fuzzy, but things farther away are clear. With presbyopia, the lens is too stiff, so nothing can be clear from nearby because light is not being allowed in correctly.

Myopia

Myopia is a vision disorder in which a person can clearly see nearby objects while objects in the distance appear blurry. Also called nearsightedness, myopia occurs when the eyeball has become too elongated, and light entering the eye isn’t focused correctly; this is what causes distant objects to appear blurry.

High myopia is an extreme case of nearsightedness requiring more than eight diopters of correction, and it progresses consistently. Though you see well with correction, the eyeball continues to become longer and longer, which causes the retina to become thin, thus risking detachment. This detachment deprives the photoreceptors of vital nutrients and can lead to blindness. There are many other severe problems besides retinal detachment, such as glaucoma and macular degeneration, which can occur if your vision does not improve without glasses. As your vision improves, the eyeball regains its normal round shape.

We can see how one problem leads to another if we don’t take care all the time to improve our eyes.

Beneficial exercises for correcting myopia include shifting, palming, peripheral exercises, reading with pinhole glasses, and night walking. Devote at least one hour a day to these exercises, and remember not to pack the entire hour into just one part of the day. Find time throughout the day to work on your vision. Try a session of night walking once a week. If you live in an environment where it is not safe to night walk, you may wish to substitute walking around and moving in a dark room for forty-five minutes; this can wake up the rods through movement, although there is really no perfect substitute for walking outdoors at night.

Once you begin to experience improvement, you may want to increase the recommended time periods for each exercise. This is a good idea and can lead to even more improvement in your vision. In truth, my recommended hour of exercise should be considered a minimum starting point. If you have very severe myopia, you may want to start with an hour a day, and as you experience improvement, you can move up to two hours a day or more. An hour one day might seem extensive if you are busy, but on another day it may not be a big deal to spend several hours!

Exercise Program for Myopia

• Night Walking: 45 minutes, once a week.

• Shifting: 10 minutes daily for the first two months; 5 minutes daily after that, and throughout the day, with 30 seconds here and 30 seconds there. You should find minutes here and there to pay attention to details until it becomes subconscious. From time to time, you can check on yourself and see that you are constantly looking from detail to detail, all the time progressing to smaller ones.

• Palming: 20 minutes daily.

• Peripheral Exercises: 10 minutes daily.

• Bouncing the Ball: an extra exercise for myopia.

For this last exercise you will need a tennis ball, an eye chart, and your sunglasses, with its lenses popped out and the strong eye’s lens obstructed with opaque tape. You should have your eye chart posted on the wall at eye level. Basically, what you are going to do is put the glasses on and throw the tennis ball at a line on the eye chart and try to catch the ball again. But it is a little more complicated than that.

Figure 4.2. Wear your obstruction glasses covering the strong eye and throw the ball at the chart.

Stand in front of the eye chart at a distance from which you can read the top three lines well, the middle lines with more difficulty, and the bottom lines as being completely fuzzy. This is the correct distance from which you have the opportunity to make improvement. You should not be closer than three feet away, but whatever distance beyond three feet that is comfortable for you should be okay. It is important not to judge yourself harshly about what distance is comfortable for you. If five feet is your distance, work to achieve improvement at five feet; if seven feet is your comfortable distance, work to achieve improvement at seven feet. Remember that you are seeking something very personal and should only compare yourself to yourself.

So, put on your cheap sunglasses, the ones with the strong eye’s side blocked with opaque tape. Pick up the tennis ball and extend your hand out toward the eye chart. Aim the ball at one of the largest letters on the chart. Retract and extend your arm several times, as though you were taking careful aim. Visualize that the ball is hitting the chart and flying back into your hand. Now throw the ball at the chart and try to catch it again.

Repeat this exercise from all the different angles you can. Throw the ball at an angle from one side; throw it at an angle from the other side. Throw it overhand and underhand. Throw it with a lob; then throw it straight out in front of you. Now take the glasses off and look at the chart again.

Let’s assume that when you started, you saw the first three lines quite well but, from there down, it started to get fuzzy. After throwing the ball, look at the eighth line and focus on the spaces between the print. Then look back at the sixth line and see if the letters have become clearer. Focus on one letter on the sixth line and then close your eyes and say, “The ink is black and the page is white.” Say it five times, open your eyes, and look at the print again.

Now put on the glasses again and throw the ball back at the eye chart. Repeating this exercise often yields positive temporary results and, over time, gradually improves many people’s ability to see lower lines on the chart.

A variation can be done while running in place. For this variation, attach a medium strip of black paper to the bridge of your nose so it obstructs your strong eye. Now run in place and bounce the ball on the eye chart, catching it again if you can. Wave your other hand in the periphery of your strong eye. You wave your hand to the side of the stronger eye so it can only pay attention to the periphery, provided that you are looking straight at the paper that obstructs it. Your job is to never lose track of the hand that is being waved to the side. The important thing here is to get your two eyes working together. The reason that you run in place is to keep yourself moving, so you will not freeze your gaze. Breaking the tendency to freeze is the beginning of better vision.

The next step is to run in place with the paper obstructing your strong eye and to throw the ball back and forth with another person. Do not put the paper in the middle of your eyes. Make sure you are obstructing the strong eye so that you are working on both the periphery of the strong eye and the central vision of the weaker eye.

When you look at the eye chart before beginning this exercise, look at the lowest visible line, where you can see most of the letters but not all of them. Pick a letter you can see clearly. Close your eyes, visualize the letter, and say it out loud. For example, if it is a Z that you can see clearly, say, “The Z looks clear. The Z looks wonderful. The Z is black and the page is white.” This is just to appreciate what you see. Enjoy the fact that you see the letter clearly. Instead of saying, “I don’t see clearly,” you are saying, “This is what I do see, and it is wonderful.” This is positive reinforcement, but you are doing it in a very tangible way. The Z is wonderful! Even if it looks fuzzy, you enjoy the way it looks anyway. Respect what you have and work with it.

I have met quite a few people who compare their vision without glasses to their vision with glasses, and they are not enjoying the vision they have. Allowing yourself to enjoy the vision you have, however, is where the healing begins. It’s like the old adage that the one who is rich is the one who is happy with his fair share. You’re talking about a field in which people are so emotional and so aware of what isn’t there, without ever really being grateful with what they can actually produce. Say, “The O is great! The A is great!”

Now look back at the chart and see if you can identify more letters. If you can, be grateful because the very fact that you can breaks the concept that many doctors are stuck in—that the eyes cannot improve—which is bogus! The improvement may be temporary, but it will show you the possibility that daily repetition of this exercise will help your myopia to improve over time.

While practicing this exercise, you must experience definite improvement from the distance that you have designated for yourself before you change your distance. Some people are tempted to change their distance too quickly. For example, they see really well from five feet, after not seeing well from five feet, so they move quickly to ten feet. Nevertheless, you have to understand that the eye of a nearsighted person is very rigid, and the mind of a nearsighted person is fixated with the vision he or she has.

So, if you improve from five feet, enjoy your improvement. Get used to the clarity from that distance. Experience and love it. Enjoy the fact that you see better and that you can measure your improvement. Stay at that distance for six months before you increase the distance by two feet. When you experience improvement from your new distance, stay there for six months; then increase three more feet. The gradual improvement is the permanent one. It needs daily work, and you can’t neglect it.

One additional exercise is to look at the eye chart from a distance that is comfortable for you. Look at a line that you can almost read; then move up two lines from there to letters that you can easily read but that are not sharp. Now take a sheet of paper and make an entire page of letters that size. Create for yourself two pages of random letters, with anywhere from twelve to twenty letters on the page. If your vision is highly challenged, use as many sheets of paper together to give yourself at least twelve different letters to look at. Now hang your paper next to the chart, read it from the exact same distance you read the chart before, and allow your eyes to become comfortable focusing at that distance. To ensure that you are truly focusing on that letter size, read them from left to right and right to left, up, down, and diagonally, so that you don’t simply recite the letters. This exercise is best done with direct sunlight on the page. You can also do this same exercise wearing the cheap sunglasses and looking with only the weaker eye. Reestablish the letter size that is comfortable, but not sharp, with the weaker eye. Repeat the steps above; then return to your original page with both eyes.

You have to keep working until the results are satisfactory. Sometimes you may take a break from exercises, or sometimes you will change them. Instead of always doing one program, you can deviate to keep your mind fresh and to keep engaged in your exercises; this way you will not get bored. Then, you will go back to the original exercises. Be patient with yourself because all vision improvement has to do with inner patience.

An Additional Note about Myopia

Most people with myopia have a good focal point somewhere. Let’s say someone sees well from a foot away. That person should do the eye exercises involving eye charts and pictures, and anything that can help with looking at details and shifting, from a distance of thirteen inches, then from fourteen inches. One inch at a time will make it possible to develop vision from afar. Inch yourself ahead of where you are. And remember to do it in strong light like sunlight, or indoors with a light of 200 watts or more. You will find that the light improves your capacity to see smaller details from a slightly farther distance. That’s all you want to achieve: to see slightly better and better all the time. Again, daily work is key. You might change the exercises or focus on different areas, but you must keep working.

Hyperopia

Hyperopia is a condition in which you have a short eyeball. With hyperopia, because the eyeball is short, a picture coming into the eye falls behind the retina. So when it hits the retina, it does not appear clearly.

Since the eyeball is short, you may see fuzzy from nearby or from far away, and you may not have a good focal point from either distance.

The normal prescription for myopia is reduction (minus) lenses. Hyperopia, before being cured by natural vision improvement exercises, is corrected with plus lenses (magnification). Plus lenses are also used by children who were born with cataracts, because they had their natural lenses surgically removed. All can be helped with natural vision improvement exercises.

Many children before the age of six have hyperopia, where they see well from afar but not so well from nearby. So it is very important to remember that when you teach your child to read before the age of six, you may cause eyestrain. Before this age, it is better for children to look at pictures and shapes than it is to look at letters. If you do teach your child how to read early, use large print.

Conventional wisdom says that it is normal for people to grow farsighted when they hit their midforties. In fact, people don’t even call it an eye problem. Instead, they say it’s a part of the aging process. This is an amazing misconception, and one that I personally cannot accept. Are arthritis or type II and III diabetes part of the aging process? Truthfully, if you develop the correct habits, you can live to the end of your life without developing any of these disorders.

And there is also a way to prevent farsightedness. Be very flexible with your neck and your head and practice the following exercise program every day. Remember: do not simply set aside one part of the day to work on your eyes. Find time throughout your day to work on your eyes so these exercises can become a part of your lifestyle, a constant memory through which you are always consciously working on your vision.

Exercise Program for Hyperopia: 90 Minutes a Day

• Sunning: 10 minutes daily.

• Peripheral Exercises: Pay attention to the periphery all the time, and do at least 20 minutes of intensive peripheral exercises each day.

• Palming: 12 minutes daily.

• Look Far into the Distance: 20 minutes daily.

• Extreme Close-Up: 20 minutes daily.

Prior to doing this last exercise, make sure you look far into the distance; then palm for at least six minutes. Because you have hyperopia, looking at nearby objects is undesirable for you, and you have become accustomed to looking at objects from afar. So now you should train yourself to do the exact opposite.

Find an object that is pleasant to look at, like a flower or a painting. Stand a foot away from your chosen object. Now put your face about two or three inches away from the object and wave your hands to the sides of your face while looking at different details. Then go back to standing a foot away and determine if you can see the object any better. If you find that you can, it means that you have temporarily relaxed the lens muscles and that your lens has temporarily become more flexible and less rigid. In terms of presbyopia, it also means that you may have elongated the eyeball temporarily.

Next, move your eyes in a rotating motion. Look up, look to one side, look down, and look to the other side. Now put your thumb and your index finger on the bridge of your nose. Move them up and down while looking at your nails. Look at the two nails from two sides as you look up and down. As you look at the nails, you will find that you are straining quite a bit. Most (meaning 99.9 percent) people cannot see the two nails at once. So, you start with your two fingers above the bridge of your nose at an area where the bridge of your nose meets your forehead. You then move them one centimeter below your nose, and you keep going up and down, up and down, trying to watch the nails. After two minutes of this, look back at the nearby object from one foot away, and see whether it appears clearer to you now. Now look far into the distance for two minutes; then look back at the object in front of you again. Your eyes should have relaxed significantly.

Figure 4.3. Move your eyes in a rotating motion.

Be aware that you are exercising. This is not a normal way to use your eyes. This exercise is also great for presbyopia.

Figure 4.4. Place your thumb and index finger on the bridge of your nose and watch your nails as you slide your fingers up and down your nose.

Correcting Presbyopia

Warning: We have to understand that with hyperopia and presbyopia there could also be astigmatism. So before you do these exercises, it is good to first do the astigmatism exercises. Especially good is the exercise in which you wave the page with large print in front of your eyes while looking at the eye chart. This really takes away the astigmatism.

Hyperopia and presbyopia are similar conditions. The difference is that presbyopia is a stiffening of the lens that occurs through use of the eyes, usually when someone is around forty years old. This condition makes it difficult to focus on nearby objects. Often, people who develop presbyopia start to wear reading glasses to help them focus on books and newspapers or other objects at close range. Hyperopia, on the other hand, is a short eyeball, a condition you are either born with or that occurs because of a modification of the eyes.

The prevailing concept among most doctors is that once your lens is stiff, it can never become flexible again. This is the only reason why people don’t work for more flexibility: they have been incorrectly told that it is impossible!

If you are able to arrest that concept and understand that your lens is all-powerful and capable of responding to these exercises, you will never be presbyotic again. Furthermore, you will maintain good reading vision into your midnineties or early hundreds.

Exercise Program for Presbyopia: 60–90 Minutes a Day

(Work mostly outdoors at first. As you improve, work in gradually dimmer and dimmer light. And remember: don’t squint!)

• Extreme Close-Up: 20 minutes daily.

• Peripheral Exercises (using the opaque piece of paper between the eyes): 10 minutes daily.

• Bouncing the Ball: 5 minutes daily.

• Look Far into the Distance: 20 minutes daily, divided into two or three sessions.

• Rotate the Eyes: 5 minutes daily.

• Massage around the Eyes: 10 minutes daily.

• Extra Exercises for Presbyopia: 10 minutes daily.

It is important to reiterate the necessity to work on these exercises throughout your day. Even though I suggest 10 minutes of a particular exercise, it is better to do a few minutes here and a few minutes there to get into the habit of constantly working on improving your eyesight.

Extra Exercises for Presbyopia

Blinking One Eye

In this exercise, you are going to practice blinking with each eye separately.

As I have mentioned before, when you close one eye at a time, your brain learns to allow the two eyes to function independently. The way to do this is to close one eye as if you were blinking with it and then to cover it with your hand. Now take your hand off your eye and open it. Repeat this a hundred times for each eye. Afterward, you will find that you have a bit more control with each eye. Although you do this as a concentrated exercise, remember to blink gently throughout the whole day.

Reading in Dim Light

First, practice reading in dimmer and dimmer light each time you read. Now have someone turn the lights on and off while you are trying to read. Next, practice some of your other exercises, like reading large and small print or bouncing a ball in dim light as well.

This practice will improve your vision in strong light within four months. It will also improve your vision in normal light within ten months and will help you to see in dim light within sixteen months. No longer will you be dependent on glasses, which will be a great thing for you.

Look Near/Look Far

For this exercise you will want to find something that it is very pleasant for you to look at, like a beautiful picture. Look very closely at the object. Now put a small piece of black paper on the bridge of your nose so it obstructs your strong eye. Then look closely at the picture while waving your hand in the periphery of your strong eye. Next, look away from the picture and far into the distance. Continue to wave your hand in the periphery of your strong eye. Now look back at the picture again, this time close-up. Take the paper off your nose and look back into the distance with both eyes. Now look back at the picture close in front of you with both eyes. You may be able to notice more details this time. Palm for six minutes in order to relax your eyes. Remember to stop and relax anytime you are feeling strained. The object is not to strain but to relax your eyes, your neck, and your body.

Headlines and Large and Small Print

For some of the exercises that follow, these pages with text of gradually decreasing size will be helpful.

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related to near work which are experienced during or related to computer use.” The AOA developed this diagnosis after seeing an

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increase in the number of patients requiring eye exams due to symptoms they experienced at the computer. The visual stress of working at computers can bring on nearsightedness (myopia) or make it worse, and can also worsen middle-aged farsightedness (presbyopia).

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CVS is a repetitive strain injury. One muscle that is strained is the ciliary muscle, a muscle within the eye that changes the shape of the lens to determine the focus. Pixels, which make up the images we see on the computer screen, are bright in the middle and blurry on the edges;

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the brain is unable to determine a focal length for pixels, and endlessly attempts to do so. The iris, a muscle within the eye that regulates the amount of light that enters the eye, is strained by inappropriate lighting and glare, which are often a problem with computer work, and the result is light sensitivity.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

Nothing is more surprising than change, when it arrives—but nothing is more predictable. When we get into our forties, most of us begin to have trouble reading small print. The newspaper becomes easier to read if we hold it out at arm’s length.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

People who have always had 20/20 vision start to walk around with reading glasses in shirt pockets or hanging from a cord around their necks, and those who are nearsighted switch to bifocals. Doctors assure us that it’s a common change at middle age; our ciliary muscles, which change the shape of the lens to focus the eye for near vision, weaken, and the lenses become stiffer as we age. What they don’t tell us is that the lenses can get even worse—eventually we can get cataracts, the biggest cause of blindness throughout the world.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

It’s not a lack of compassion that causes eye doctors to go on prescribing ever-thicker glasses without warning us of the dangers that lie ahead. They simply feel that it’s hopeless, that our eyes can only get worse. Schneider and other vision improvement teachers believe that eyes can also get better. They say that ophthalmologists are seeing only one end of a continuous spectrum—whether you see nothing more than lights and shadows or have vision that is more acute than 20/20, you’re somewhere on the continuum, and change in either direction is possible.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

Even when your eyes are working hardest, trying to make out small print in dim light, for example, they need to function out of a sense of relaxation; this is the bottom line. This is why upper body massage is so important for good eye care.

The eye’s own built-in massage, blinking, gets curtailed with the frozen stare that is the hallmark of bad vision.

Blinking bathes and refreshes the eye, gives it intermittent rest, and promotes flexible use—for example, if you’re blinking while walking, your eyes open each time to slightly different scenes.

Unbalanced vision/movement patterns create tension in the eyes and poor vision; thus, massage therapists can help clients improve their eyesight by working with them on posture. Midback, shoulder, and head posture are especially important—if the head is habitually tilted forward, for example, the brain assumes that distance vision is limited, and it does indeed get worse.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

The eye exercises teach relaxed use:

To adjust the eye through relaxation to all intensities of light;

To balance the use of both eyes together. Uneven use creates enormous tension; the domination of the stronger eye needs to be limited, and the weaker eye needs to be strengthened. If one eye, or part of one eye, is damaged—even to the point where it can do no more than register the presence of light—it should be stimulated; the stronger eye will relax, and its vision will improve when the brain senses greater balance;

To balance central with peripheral vision. By habitually gazing at books or computer screens for hours at a stretch, we tend to ignore peripheral visual information until the periphery actually shrinks;

To create a flexible, fluid eye so that the eyes move easily between near and far;

To stop freezing the gaze and shift the eye easily from one small detail to another, lightly skimming the world like a butterfly.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

You may feel that wearing glasses relaxes your eyes; some people say they feel undressed and unready to meet the world without them. They do create problems—they teach us that without their help, we can only see poorly. They also tend to make us lose peripheral vision, since we are used to limiting our reality to what is visible within their frames.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

Of all the eye exercises, palming—a visualization of blackness coupled with awareness of soft, expansive deep breathing—is the most important. A meditation in its own right, it can relax the eyes, quiet the senses, and bring calm to an overwrought nervous system. Palming can be done passively to clients, or you can massage their necks and shoulders while they palm. It is a powerful tool. Long palming sessions can be harmful with glaucoma. Massage is a good substitute. Combined with breathing and movement exercises, massage can create a deep awareness of upper-body tension, especially around the eyes, so that the client learns to release it.

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LARGE AND SMALL PRINT

The “cone” cells of the retina supply daytime color vision in sharply realized detail. To supply central vision, the normally sighted eye is continuously moving, easily and accurately, from one small, clear detail to another—the behavior called shifting. The periphery is supplied by “rod” cells. Although our vision is incredibly high-resolution—we have 100 to 200 million rods and cones—we don’t all see all the parts of the visual field equally well. With normal vision, we see one small detail best, in a field of increasing haziness. Accepting this can be hard for near-sighted people, who often find blurriness unpleasant. Because the brain fills in what we expect to see, the entire periphery appears to have color, but it doesn’t. Try standing in an unfamiliar room with many small colored objects, looking straight ahead; you wont be able to identify the colors at the edges of your visual field.

Creating Controlled Stress on the Ciliary Muscle for Strength

Ideally, this exercise should be done outdoors on a bright day, with sunlight falling directly on the page. The next best method would be in bright daylight without direct sun. And the least ideal way would be indoors with strong light, which should still work.

Look at the pages with large and small print. Read the normal size print at a normal distance, where the letters are clear but not crisp, and not completely comfortable to read. You might not be able to make out a letter or two, or perhaps even a word or two, but you should be able to read most of it. Do not strain; just look at the letters. Make sure to blink and wave one hand around your periphery to ensure that you don’t strain. This will also help you to see well because it encourages the brain to notice more of the periphery and not to overstrain your central vision.

Next, obstruct your strong eye with a small piece of black paper (two inches by two inches) and look at the largest print. Bring the page all the way to your face until the page is almost touching your eyelashes, even closer than the tip of your nose. Read the print, letter by letter, or part of each letter, point by point, reading aloud and waving your hand in the periphery of the obstructed strong eye. Instead of moving your eyes the way you would when you normally read, you will move the paper so that each letter falls right in front of your eye, in your focal point. Wave your hand in the periphery to take the strain off reading so close. Do this for two minutes.

Figure 4.5. Bring the page all the way to your face until the page is almost touching your eyelashes.

Now hold the paper back eighteen inches and read the normal print again. This is an induced stress on the eye rather than one of which we are unaware and that strains the eye. Nevertheless, this will strengthen the ciliary muscle. In 80 percent of my clients and students, this works both momentarily and, with continued practice, long-term.

Unfreezing

It is amazing how much our patterns control us. If you tend not to move much because you watch television a lot, sit at a computer all day, or drive for a living, it can eventually lead to a frozen back, a frozen gaze, frozen looks, and, quite often, repetitive thoughts in your brain. Even if you are intellectually very advanced, you may freeze the way in which you look and the way in which you move.

If you are a long-distance runner, you may run with a constant sense of freeze, meaning that you tighten your shoulders, neck, chest, and lower back when you run. Or if you lift weights, you may tense every part of your body in order to lift them. So, a sense of freeze may be the starting point from which you function.

One of the most important things for you to learn is how to unfreeze yourself. Regardless of what your lifestyle is, you could be frozen.

If your lifestyle is one of sitting, it’s important for you to be comfortable when you sit, not just to think that you’re comfortable. You should be properly supported in your seat so that you do not damage your back and neck from freezing your posture. It’s likewise important to know that your eyes are relaxed, not frozen. How do you know that your eyes are relaxed? Simple: first of all, they blink; second, you have a sense of periphery when you look straight ahead.

Eye exercises are the beginning of unfreezing. Body movement is also the beginning of unfreezing. Unfreezing is more than a thing to do—it is a philosophy that you share.

Correcting Astigmatism

Astigmatism is caused by an irregularly shaped cornea or an irregularly shaped lens. It is difficult to describe what the world looks like to people who experience astigmatism. Oftentimes, people with astigmatism have the sense that they see several images of objects at once. For example, when they look at the moon they may see the image of a clear moon along with a shadow moon, two shadow moons, or several shadow moons side by side. Even if they close one eye, they may still see more than one moon.

Often astigmatism accompanies nearsightedness or farsightedness. Thus a progressive way of improving your eyes would be to simultaneously work on correcting the myopia or hyperopia while also addressing the astigmatism.

After practicing the recommended exercise program for astigmatism for two months, the astigmatism may disappear. It is then advisable to return to these exercises for one week every six months, for several years, in order to prevent the astigmatism from recurring.

Note for Astigmatic Readers

Beyond your program, you must do extra looking into the distance and extra palming throughout your day. Even though you do the astigmatism program, when you sit at your computer again for four hours or so, the benefit you have gained with these exercises is going to decrease. By regularly looking into the distance and palming, you give your eyes the opportunity to rest and to maintain more of the progress you have made with your vision.

Therefore, you must take moments throughout your day to add to your program. If you have been looking closely at your computer screen for an hour, take some time and look into the distance. Palm two or three times a day, for no less than six minutes each time, but don’t forget to blink and to breathe freely and deeply.

Exercise Program for Astigmatism

• Sunning: 10 minutes daily.

• Palming: 12 minutes minimum, 6 minutes at a time.

• Headlines: 20 minutes daily.

• Glow in the Dark: 20 minutes daily.

Extra Exercises for Astigmatism

Headlines

Note: If you are farsighted, this is a great exercise to practice before starting to work on your other exercises.

For this exercise, you will need an eye chart taped to the wall at eye level, your cheap sunglasses with the lens on the strong eye’s side covered with opaque tape, and the page with large and small print or a newspaper with a large-print headline.

Stand at a distance from the eye chart so that you can see the top third of the chart clearly without much straining, but you have to strain to see the bottom two-thirds. Basically, you are going to look at the eye chart while quickly waving the headlines in front of your face. Look past the blur of the headlines being waved in your face and try to read the eye chart. Every few seconds, stop waving the headlines and look quickly at them. Blurt out the first letter you see clearly. Now wave the page back and forth again and go back to reading the eye chart. The object is to quickly shift your focus from far to near and back to far again.

Figure 4.6. Headlines exercise for astigmatism.

If you have a partner with whom to practice these exercises, you can do this exercise a little differently. While you are reading the eye chart, your partner can flash fingers in front of your face, very close to your eyes, and you can tell your partner how many fingers he or she is holding up. Of course, this method is not good if you are by yourself because you cannot surprise yourself with your own fingers!

So when you are practicing by yourself, pick up the page with the large headline and quickly wave it back and forth in front of your eyes while looking at the chart. Read the chart aloud even if all you can read is the first three lines; do so repeatedly. Now for less than half a second, stop waving the headlines, look at the large print, and say the first letter you can see. If you are in a phase of half-guessing and half-seeing because of the speed, that’s exactly where you want you to be. Then return to waving the page back and forth.

Figure 4.7. Variation on the headlines exercise for astigmatism.

Let’s say that you are reading the letters on the top line of the eye chart. As you wave the piece of paper with the headline back and forth in front of your face, you might see the words “moving economy” in your periphery. What you want to do is to wave the paper so quickly that when you stop you may only see “e”; then you keep waving it and say the letter “e” as you return your gaze to the chart and read the top line of letters once again. Then you stop waving the paper, and you may see the letter “c” or the letter “o.” Announce it aloud; then wave the paper and read the top line of the chart again. It is good to speak with a loud voice as you do these eye exercises, as it helps to distract yourself from focusing on the exercise itself. This will make it much more effective.

The next phase is to improve your near vision by trying this same exercise reading the large and small print on this page–this page. This way, you are working with the eye chart to improve your eyesight for distant objects and with the large and small print pages for objects nearby.

Now put on your cheap sunglasses with the strong eye’s side covered with opaque tape. Again wave the paper with the large print in front of your weaker eye while looking at the chart. Read the top line of the chart aloud while waving the headline back and forth in front of your face. From time to time, stop waving the headlines in front of your face for half a second, enough time to guess a letter that you see. After ten times of doing this, look at the chart with your weak eye, but without waving the headline in the air. You may be able to clearly read an extra line on the chart. Then take off the glasses, and you may be able to clearly read two extra lines on the chart.

Glow in the Dark

Note: We do this exercise because we want the eye to move around. We have found, in our experience, that many people have an easier time moving their eyes in a rotating motion in the dark.

The idea is to follow the glowing objects with your eye, not by moving your whole head. Move your eyes only, so that your eye muscles are stretching. The stretching motion changes the structure of the eyes with time. People say the cornea cannot change shape, but they are wrong.

For this exercise, you will need a glow-in-the-dark ball, a dark room, and a strip of paper to tape to your nose. The paper should stretch from the top of your forehead to the bottom of your chin, the same as in the Melissa exercise mentioned earlier in this book and also in the next chapter.

Eventually this exercise gets simple, but it’s difficult to master at first. All you do is tape the paper to your forehead and to your chin, turn the lights off in your room, and play catch with the glowing ball. Throw the ball from hand to hand so that the ball crosses the visual plane in front of your face. It should disappear briefly as it passes the paper taped to your head. You can also practice bouncing the ball off the wall, throwing it with one hand and catching it with the other. Remember not to move your whole head to track the location of the ball. Move only your eyeballs so that they can stretch through their full range of motion in both directions.

Imagine doing curls with your biceps but only bending your arms a little bit. You would not be getting the full benefit of the exercise, and you may even damage the very part of your body you are attempting to build up. This idea is the same when it comes to your eyes. Exercise the eye muscles by watching the glowing ball in the dark and moving your eyes through the full range of their possible motion; this will stretch, and even change, the shape of your cornea over time.