A wonderful computer engineer, who once came to a class of mine, was able to improve his vision from 20/200 to 20/80 during the class. He reduced his prescription by half within eight months, from 7 diopters to 3.5 diopters. For the first time in his adult life, and still in his forties, he felt comfortable driving without glasses.
We all can take the time. We just have to decide that we are worth the time and that the process is worth our while. We need to make an effort to combine eye exercises with our everyday lives. Then we can thrive. Then we can excel. Imagine never needing to have any major treatments from the eye doctor. Imagine your life without cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, or retinal detachment. Imagine that you can improve your life simply by creating more life in your eyes.
So far, the oldest person I’ve worked with was 101 years old. This patient experienced great changes and was able to see better and to improve his brain and eye functions quite a bit, even after just one session. Since he was one of only two patients over the age of a hundred with whom I have worked, I can only give these examples. I did, however, have success with both of them. I have also worked with several patients in their eighties and nineties and have witnessed tremendous positive changes in their visual systems through working with these exercises.
There is no doubt in my mind that, whether you are in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, or beyond, you can change the function of your eyes. There is enough elasticity in your brain to back it up. The problem isn’t age itself, but whether or not a person is practicing the correct exercises for his or her age. It may be easier for a five-year-old child to get used to the weaker eye’s workings by putting on a patch for four or eight hours a day as he or she plays. And truly, the brain has more plasticity when you’re five than when you’re seventy-five. But there are good, age-appropriate exercises you can do at anytime in your life that can change your visual system completely.
Chapter 2
Ten Steps to Better Vision
If you take care of your vision, not only will you see better, but you will also feel better, and you will positively affect your whole body’s health. In addition to the exercises aimed at combating specific disorders and conditions, I have developed ten important steps that are perfect for incorporating into your daily life. These exercises are based on my seven principles of healthy vision:
1. Deep relaxation
2. Adjusting to light frequencies
3. Looking at details
4. Looking into the distance
5. Expanding your periphery
6. Balanced use of the two eyes
7. Body and eye coordination
These are the essential principles of healthy vision, and they can be attained by consistently practicing the eye exercises in this chapter.
Step 1: The Long Swing
I will never forget when I met Alan. He was a young French-Canadian banker who, while driving home after a meeting in his bank, fell asleep at the wheel and found himself in intensive care three days later. By the time he woke up, they had replaced his forehead with platinum. He had lost all his vision. The optic nerve in his left eye was destroyed, in addition to most of the optic nerve in his right eye. But that little bit of nerve tissue remained, so Alan discovered that he still had some visual sensation.
The physicians thought that only 4 percent of his potentially functional nerve was not enough to regain any vision. Alan heard about my book The Handbook of Self Healing. In it, I suggest that people who are legally blind start working with blinking lights in a dark room. Alan experimented with the techniques in the book, and, sure enough, the little bit of remaining optic nerve woke up. He called me in San Francisco and soon came out for a series of therapy sessions. Alan’s girlfriend held his hand to walk him into the office because he couldn’t see most objects. His brain did not yet know how to use that little bit of remaining healthy nerve tissue in his right eye.
During our first session we practiced an exercise called the long swing. As he did this exercise, he said, “I’m noticing twelve objects that I’ve never noticed before in the room.” Within minutes, his sense of orientation built up even more. When the series of sessions finished, he no longer needed to be led around. The long swing is what is called an integrative exercise. It allowed Alan to perceive a sense of space.
The long swing exercise develops a sense of fluidity and flexibility that will allow you to look at details with more ease, to adapt to light easier, and to adapt to new, livelier visual habits.
How to Do the Long Swing
Stand with your legs slightly more than hip-width apart and your knees slightly bent. Hold your index finger about one foot in front of your face, pointing up to the ceiling. Look at your finger with a soft gaze. If you are legally blind, or even with correction have very poor vision, you can look at your index and middle fingers together. While looking at your finger(s), swing your body from side to side. As you swing to the right, twist your body so that your left heel rises slightly off the ground. As you twist your body to the left, your right heel raises slightly off the ground. If your hand becomes tired, you can switch hands. Do this at least twenty times.
You will notice the sensation that everything in the background seems to be moving in the opposite direction of your finger, like scenery passing by you as you look out the window of a train. Allow yourself to feel the sense of relaxation that comes when you don’t need to place a hard focus on any one object. Move to the right, and the world moves to the left. Move to the left, and the world moves to the right.
Figure 2.1. (a) Long swing, front view; keep your eye on your finger. (b) Long swing, right profile. (c) Long swing, left profile view.
Now hold your finger horizontally in front of your face. Move your finger up and down in front of you, moving your head vertically along with your finger. Remember to continue to hold a soft gaze. When you move up, everything in the background seems to be moving down. When you move down, everything seems to be moving up.
Next, hold your finger in front of you and do the long swing, pointing your finger to the ceiling as in the first explanation, but this time as you swing to one side, bend at the waist and sweep down in a half circle—just to knee level. Don’t lower your head below your knees, but continue the swing until your arm is fully extended and you are looking up at your finger. This exercise should relax your eyes further.
The next step is very important. This is where we visualize the long swing. We close our eyes and do the movement with our bodies, and visualize in our mind’s eye that the world is swinging back and forth, passing in front of our eyes. Everything you visualize is moving directly opposite. When you move to the right, the neighborhood moves to the left. When you move to the left, the whole world moves to the right. Remember how you saw objects this way. Now you open your eyes and continue the exercise.
When you look in this way, you stop yourself from freezing. It becomes easier to look at details and much easier to blink. Remind yourself to blink. Blinking will help you to relax.
When I started to work on my own vision, my eyes had a constant nystagmus, which is an involuntary rapid movement of the eyes caused by continuous strain from trying to see the world with a total lack of success. So I practiced the long swing for about forty minutes a day, and it immediately eased the involuntary flutter of my eyes. I had a feeling of more light entering my eyes. Details started to appear in the background, and when I started to look at details like windows and books on shelves, they gradually became clearer and clearer to me. Long swinging prepared my brain for new exercises.