Restoring 20/20 Vision:
Your Eyes Can Be Well Again
with a little practice... 
The eyeball views the world with the help of six tiny muscles that adjust each orb for light and depth perception. Natural vision therapy operates on the premise that poor eyesight is the product of chronic tension in these muscles. The good news is that you can correct the condition with the help of gentle exercises, ergonomics, herbs, certain foods and a whole lot less staring.
(Revised 4/30/11)
BY ROSEMARY REGELLO
You may never hear this from an optometrist, but when your 20/20 vision starts slipping away, it often has very little to do with age and biology. More often than not, it's the result of stress, too little time spent outdoors and a few bad viewing habits. All of these obstacles can be overcome without resorting to eyeglasses or contact lenses.
An ophthalmologist named William Bates demonstrated back in the 1920s that most vision problems were linked to muscle tension. Two muscles are wrapped around the back of each eyeball, and four others help orient it for proper focus, just like a camera aperture and lens. If the muscles stiffen from lack of motion, they fail to align your eyes properly. Depending on which of the six fall out of kilter, the end result may be nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism or myopia. Bates managed to cure his own faltering eyes with gentle flexing exercises and other vision techniques he developed through trial and error. Unfortunately, his academic peers rejected the notion of natural vision recovery. Hence, most people have never heard of this pioneering health care practicioner.
Dr. William Bates
According to Bates, the use of corrective lenses sidesteps the underlying muscle tension and therefore only excaserbates the pathology diagnosed by eye doctors. And as impractical as it may sound to toss your eyeglasses to the wayside, the Bates Method has nevertheless proven effective in resolving the conditions that cause poor eyesight. His exercises include sunning, palming, edging, centralization and vision calisthenics. See below for instructions, a glossary of eye ailments, and online resources.
Robert Michael Kaplan, the author of Seeing Without Glasses, points out that given their small size, the eyes require “a greater blood and nerve supply than most other organ systems in the body.” In fact, about half the cranial nerves that feed the nervous system are dedicated to vision. Each time you yawn, for instance, the blood flowing through your brain gets a big dose of oxygen and relaxes your jaw to improve circulation. Yet many of us lose our natural tendency to yawn because our bodies become inert and lack steady motion from all the muscles wrapped around the bones. Lack of hydration also hampers circulation because your blood gets thicker and struggles to pass through vessels and capillaries. That's a big deal, too, because the hemoglobin highway is how our nerves, tissue and organs get nourished.The most common bad habit connected to vision failure is staring or fixating your gaze. Locking your eyeballs into place for extended periods causes the six muscles attached to them to tense up and atrophy. It's similar to the hinges on a door rusting from lack of use, and as time goes by, opening and closing the door becomes increasingly more difficult. Eye fixation also strains the center of the retina, which is responsible for assessing detail, or clarity in an object, such as when you're reading words on a page.
Lubricating the eyes so they stay fresh and rotate without friction is another component of normal vision. Blinking distributes the liquid produced by your tear ducts, which are located in the bottom inner corners of your two eye sockets. The average wink rate for humans is 5-7 times per minute, or once about every 10 seconds, and that's enough to grease the wheels sufficiently for good vision. If your eyes feel dry much of the time, it could be that your lids are falling down on the job, so to speak, and need to pick up the pace.
Besides teaching you to blink more, natural vision care encourages your eyes to rove around rather than stayed glued to one position. You can think of them like planets circling the Sun, or maybe as eight balls rolling across a pool table, driven by a cue stick called your will. That constant motion is critical. Bates discovered in his research that the best way to look at objects is to first trace their outer edges, then take in the inner details. This allows the brain to methodically build a picture of what you're seeing through the use of two moving cameras. Bates called the process Centralization.
Writing in Better Vision Now, a classic how-to guide first published in 1955, author Clara Hackett said, “Nature, it would seem, meant vision to be a pinpointing process involving great mobility, with the eyes constantly shifting to take in large images in small, clear segments.”
Fingering the Usual Suspects
Nowadays eyestrain is most often the byproduct of constant computer use and video screen fixation. It’s interesting to note that the sockets in the skull, where the eyeballs are lodged, are called orbits. The two balls are intended to function as fine-tuned cams, rolling around inside their cavities like ball bearings, always ready to adjust to different viewing angles.
Unfortunately, computer and TV use restrict your vision to a single depth of field (typially at 16 to 20 inches for most computerized equipment), which over time diminishes your capacity to zoom in and out on any objects outside that range. When your muscles lose their ability to rotate or squeeze the eyeballs into position correctly for the object distance in question, it causes a condition called Presbyopia. At this point eyesight becomes blurry and glasses are prescribed by your optometrist.
Computer Vision Syndrome is a secondary problem that has prompted opticians to measure for a third range of vision besides reading and distance. Reading glasses are designed for a range of 16 inches away from the eye. However, computer screens generally sit 20 to 22 inches away from the face, making multi-focal lenses or single-vision computer glasses a better choice than traditional readers.
For their part, natural vision therapists suggest installing a glare screen across CRT and flat panel screens to combat the syndrome, as well as taking a break every fifteen minutes when working on a computer. You can also try gently flexing your eye muscles by looking at more distant objects and in other directions, including up and down and side to side, in the course of your work sessions.
Ergonomics can also play a role in eliminating eyestrain. First your screen should be lower than your eye level and not to close to your face (nor too far). You should also take the time to adjust your screen knobs for optimum focus, brightness and contrast. Second, eliminate any glare from windows, indoor lighting or other sources as much as possible. Always work in an adequately lit space and avoid the older types of flourescent bulbs that are dim or flicker. (That flicker can cause migraines.) Never allow the computer screen be the your only light source in the room, either. Always diffuse the screen light and TV radiation with another light source. In addition, flat panels produce far less radiation than CRTs. Use the Energy Saving to limit the radiation even more.
In addition to making these changes, consider adopting a daily routine of progressive relaxation exercises - focussing on the shoulders, neck, face and scalp. This will improve blood flow to and around your head, at the same time alleviating any tension or strain you may not even be beaware of. For more on progressive relaxation, see our article (PDF) on the subject.
Using Nutrition and Herbs to Bolster Eyesight
Diet modifications can also enhance vision. Scholl tells her patients to avoid heavy, artery-clogging foods like red meat, which can hinder blood flow to the cranial nerves. In addition, the bioflavinoids found in the white rind pulp of citrus fruits are especially beneficial to the eyes, as are berries, avocados, carrots, spinach and other dark leafy greens, nuts, broccoli and pumpkin seeds. Eggs are a good protein source for eye health.
A tincture of bilberries sold in natural food stores has been shown in several studies to improve eyesight. (Huckleberries are a close relative to this plant.) Small berries are a staple in the diets of birds, who are credited with possessing the sharpest vision of all the species on the planet.
Chinese medicine also has remedies for poor eyesight and acute disorders like conjunctivitis. (In fact, children in Chinese schools are taught to stop during the day and give their eye sockets a fingertip massage.) A typical diagnosis for poor vision may identify “liver heat” or “liver chi congestion" as the culprit. Both are caused by stress, inactivity, poor digestion, alcoholism, over-consumption of red meat or drug abuse. If your eyes are chronically sensitive to light, then you probably suffer from this condition. Deficient kidneys are also thought to hinder vision. Drinking less coffee, alcohol or soda, eating less ice cream, and relieving stress will help to boost kidney strength back to a level essential to overall health. Apples and other high-fiber foods are recommended for maintaining a healthy liver and calming an iritated gall bladder, which can cause headaches and impede vision.
Acupressure is widely used to relieve soreness and discomfort around the eyes, as well as eyestrain-related headaches. Tiger Balm rubbed on the temples and forehead can help ease tension. A formula of chrysanthemum, lycium and other herbs may be prescribed to cool the liver heat or treat the chi congestion. An 800-year-old patent remedy called Shiao Yao Wan is commonly prescribed for women with liver chi problems. (You can buy it for a few dollars in Chinese herb stores.) Rehmannia root (shu di huang) and Schizandra fruit (wu wi zi) are recommended for building vision. For acupressure points and a common massage technique used in China, follow the link at the end of this article.
Domestic herbs recommended for healing eyesight include lutein, eyebright, gingko (a natural blood thinner) and grapeseed. To relieve soreness, you can steep eyebright leaves, then make a compress out of the cooled liquid. The leaves, however, are not widely available in stores.
Still Time to Get a Room with a View
It's a shame the Bates method never caught on in western medicine. Most conventional eye doctors were so opposed to his new approach that he was forced to resign his teaching post at a top New York university. Even today opthamologists persist in their claim that natural vision therapy makes no real impact on eyesight and corrective lenses themselves do no harm to the eyes. See the Nwe York. Times article listed below for more on this.
Today, you can still find Bates specialists in most parts of the industrialized world. Many of these therapists allow their patients to continue wearing glasses, gradually reducing the strength of their prescriptions over time rather than abandoning corrective lenses from the getgo. Recovery takes much longer, though, and lowering the strength of your lenses can itself cause eyestrain.
Curiosity is a primary force driving our eyes to absorb all there is to see in the universe. Perhaps the reason they fail as you get older has less to do with biology and more to do with a loss of interest in the view that's out there. It could be that simply immersing yourself in a more visually stimulating landscape, like a garden, vacation setting or even a trip down to the local museum can jumpstart corrective vision better than any $300 pair of designer spectacles on the market today.
But you'll never know until you try...
Disclaimer: Always check with your doctor or other health care provider before changing your eyeglass prescription or undertaking any new vision regiment or diet modification.
Note: This article was originally published on December 10, 2007.
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