Vision for Life

by Meir Schneider

  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 deviat
e 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 blin
king 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.

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