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.