Correcting Presbyopia
Exercise Program for Presbyopia: 60–90 Minutes a Day
Extra Exercises for Presbyopia
Blinking One Eye
Reading in Dim Light
Look Near/Look Far
Headlines and Large and Small Print
Creating Controlled Stress on the Ciliary Muscle for Strength
Unfreezing
Correcting Astigmatism
Note for Astigmatic Readers
Exercise Program for Astigmatism
Extra Exercises for Astigmatism
Headlines
Glow in the Dark
Chapter 5
Overcoming Cross-Sightedness and Lazy Eye
Correcting Cross-Sightedness
Exercise Program for Cross-Sightedness: At Least 90 Minutes a Day
Extra Exercises for Cross-Sightedness
Rotate the Eyes; Look into the Darkness
Mirror Images
The Melissa Exercise
Beads on a String
Holding Double
Two-Color Exercise (Beak Glasses)
Red and Green Glasses
Object and Line
Card Game
Chapter 6
Pathology Conditions
Correcting Cataracts
Exercise Program for Cataracts
A Note about Cataract Surgery
Extra Exercise for Cataracts: Bounce and Catch
Correcting Diabetes
Exercise Program for Diabetes: 40 Minutes Daily
Extra Exercises for Diabetes
Tapping
Waving
Patch the Strong Eye
A Note about Laser Treatments
Cataracts and Diabetes
Correcting Glaucoma
Exercise Program for Glaucoma
Physical Exercises for Glaucoma
Special Instructions for Palming with Glaucoma
Exercises for Glaucoma
Correcting Optic Neuritis
Correcting Detached Retinas and Retinal Tears
Exercise Program for Retinal Detachment
Extra Exercise for Retinal Detachment: Darkness and Light
Correcting Vitreous Detachment
Correcting Macular Puckers and Holes
Exercise Program for Macular Puckers and Holes: 80 Minutes a Day
Extra Exercise for Macular Puckers and Holes: Pinhole Glasses
Correcting Retinitis Pigmentosa
Exercise Program for Retinitis Pigmentosa
Extra Exercises for Retinitis Pigmentosa
The Mask of Zorro
Waving Lights in the Dark
A Final Note about Peripheral Exercises
Chapter 7
The Blind Spots of Conventional Wisdom
The Hidden Danger of Sunglasses
The Dangers of Corrective Lenses
Conclusion: The Real Cost of Vision Problems
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Foreword
Whoever has had the privilege to attend a lecture given by Meir Schneider knows that one does not passively listen to his work. The audience members are immediately treated as students and invited to perform exercises right there in the conference room. According to Meir, more important than talking about his method is experiencing it; theory is only valuable when implemented. We are beings with an incredible adaptive capacity, and so is his teaching: simple, direct, and transformative. It goes beyond the barrier of predefined concepts and comes with the assurance that we can walk away from the passiveness of our routine actions and into the freshness of new ones.
This book is a mirror of his way of teaching. The interactive and dynamic contents express the author’s quality, moving us away from the apparent security of restrictive visual habits, to experience new possibilities. Since he considers that we all can improve our vision naturally, this book is not destined only for those who have diagnosed visual dysfunctions; this is for all of us. As Meir always says, routine is the ultimate degenerative disease.
I first met Meir Schneider in 1992, at a conference for six hundred people in São Paulo, Brazil. He made such an impression on the audience that it became the perfect time for the first training course in that country. I took part in it, although I had no previous experience in the health area. To be a health professional was not a prerequisite for Meir, however. He wanted to keep his teaching open to whoever was up to working on himself. This closer contact with the technique completely changed my way of relating to my body and my cognitive processes. Soon I started teaching others, thus complementing my learning experience. A few years later, already working as a fully trained therapist who specialized in visual education, I felt an urge to deepen my theoretical knowledge and went back to school to become an optometrist. This skill gave me better conditions under which to appreciate the grandeur of the method—Meir’s great ability to bring complex theory into something that speaks to us. After all, theory tries to explain what we are. And Meir translates it with rare intelligence and generosity. There is no hidden material in his teaching; it is all there, at the reach of minds willing to experience themselves.
This book is much more than a guide to exercises; it is an invitation to transformation. Good reading.
M. Fernanda Leite Ribeiro, optometrist and self-healing instructor, São Paulo, Brazil
Preface
The world may soon be faced with an epidemic of vision disorders, as hundreds of millions of humans who have been subjected to constant contact with computer screens, fluorescent lights, and excessively lit cities gradually enter old age. Tragically, although they seem adequately equipped to predict such a catastrophe, the existing medical establishment is not at all prepared to address this epidemic correctly. From my personal experience, I believe medical doctors often tend to suffer from their own form of myopia, a shortsighted attitude toward holistic approaches to body repair and maintenance.
In this generation we understand the importance in any successful endeavor of budgeting for repair and maintenance. If we intend to maintain the value and the beauty of any product or system throughout its life span, and to extend that life span for as long as possible, steps must be taken along the way to maintain the usefulness of all vital systems and to correct any defects that develop along the way due to misuse, neglect, or accidental damage. Human beings need even more attention than machines in this respect; we need nurturing.
I am happy that people are beginning to wake up to this notion, and that a preventive, protective attitude has already begun working its way into the human psyche. Every day, more people pay closer attention to the food and beverages they consume, to the environment in which they live, and to establishing general healthy habits like physical exercise. But we still do not spend enough time addressing the health and well-being of our eyes. That is the purpose of Vision for Life: to help people maintain and repair their vision as a way to increase the length and quality of their lives. It seems ironic to me that the scientific establishment might be to blame for the sorry condition in which we are finding ourselves. The success that optometry and ophthalmology professions have had in recent decades is largely to blame for our culture’s laissez-faire attitude toward the health of our eyes. This has happened by correcting vision problems through prescriptive lenses and surgical technology without offering any alternative.
People often take it for granted that if something goes wrong with their vision, medical science will come to their rescue. And while this may be true in many cases, I am a firm believer that it is always better to prevent a disease in the first place rather than to simply wait for the system to break down in hopes that science will offer a solution. First of all, preventative medicine is cheaper! Compare twenty minutes a day of aerobic exercise, such as running along the beach or bicycling through the park, to the cost of a $100,000 surgical procedure to correct clogged arteries. Even factoring in the price of an expensive, luxury gym membership and regular massages, the preventative approach is still far less expensive.