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 Balclass="underline" 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.