#bates method

Eye strengthening exercises. Imagine these patterns on a wall and follow them with your eyes, first with one, then the other, then both. 

We have always been told eyesight doesn’t get better. We have been told it is genetic - although what ‘genetic’ means is changing rapidly with new research - that our eyes have undergone an irreversible change, and we will never see clearly again. Yet, we are also told that many of our bodily functions and processes are controlled by the brain, that we see with our mind. Mind over matter. If you’ve ever experienced a hallucination - be it drug-induced or otherwise - you know how true this is. It never sat well with me that I would never see clearly again. Deep down, I never believed it. Grudgingly, over the years, I came to accept my deteriorating eyesight and need of glasses or contact lenses in my everyday life. Having a minimum vision of -4.25 dioptres, I use them almost all the time. I am using them now. But, things still never added up. I noticed how some mornings I would wake up and see clearer than usual. During my rebellious stage, I wouldn’t wear my glasses and - every now and then - I would blink and have 20/20 vision. A few blinks later, it would be gone. How can this be, I thought? I’m told I can’t see, but there are times when I can, even momentarily. Clearly, it isn’t beyond my physical capabilities; my thinking then - and now - is that if I can see sometimes, I have the potential to see all the time. However, at that time I reached a dead end. My vision kept getting worse, and I still hadn’t figured out how to see better stably. I had tried eye exercises and it hadn’t worked. Life happened and this goal dropped in the list of my priorities. I began to have doubts. Fast forward a few years to now. I graduated university, and of course the student life had led me to try new things, perhaps to a more extreme extent than some people. I took herbal medicine, got married in my first year, had months of anxiety that, as a result of, I received life-changing therapy for. Out of my natural curiosity about life, I tried drugs. I had almost forgotten my first time trying MDMA, but something clicked in my brain, a memory that wasn’t previously at the forefront of my mind about that night. I didn’t need my glasses. I hadn’t had an easy time of it that night. The come-up induced in me a full-on, 1 and a half hour panic attack. All I could see was a blur and all I felt was terror. I desperately wanted to sit down, but there was no-where to go in this nightclub. It felt like it went on forever. My friends tried to look after me as best as they could, but for that time, I was trapped in the feeling. At one point, reeling from the shaking, I took off my glasses and found I could see better without them - my vision was still shaky, but it helped. I remember the exact moment the come-up stopped and became the high. The only true way I could describe how it felt was that I had been in a boat out at sea in a storm and it felt like I was almost not going to make it - and then, suddenly, I was out. The sea was calm and the ship was sailing into the sunset. My world stopped shaking in literally one instant. I felt tremendous relief. I felt OK. The rest of the night, I felt incredibly safe. Each person around me that would normally induce a feeling of guardedness in me felt like a friend I simply hadn’t made yet. It was like being a kindergartner again, which I hadn’t remembered until then how it felt like. This left such an impression on me at the time that I simply didn’t focus on the fact that I could see perfectly clearly. Without my glasses. I became curious and got in touch with a friend that has taken the same drug. Her only reply was - “Why do you think I don’t wear my glasses on nights out anymore?” I was completely amazed - It wasn’t just me! I relayed this story to yet another friend, who I know through completely unrelated means. His eyes widened. “I know, right?!?!” he exclaimed. “I take my glasses off when I take MDMA because I don’t need them!!” We proceeded to talk about how what we see truly is our own perception of the world, not the reality of what we are seeing. (If anyone has taken LSD - my friend recounts that tripping with glasses on and without glasses is a very different experience, though I cannot confirm this.)

So, what does MDMA actually do? We know that it affects various neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin. We know that it induces feelings of connectedness with people around us. Could there really be a link between how we feel (which influences with neurotransmitters we produce, and how much) and what we see?

So I’ve been lucky, and had a winter holiday in Egypt. I went from 7oC and gloomy clouds in the UK to 27oC and piercing sunlight in Hurghada. Unsurprisingly, this holiday made me extra lazy.

I’ve realised a lot of things:

 - direct sunlight is really bad for improving your eyesight. There is a method called “sunning” where you sit in the sun and just bathe in the rays of light with your eyes closed, face turned towards the light. It’s meant to be relaxing. But you’re meant to do this at sunrise/sunset.

 - I need to up my discipine levels. I have not done a good job of this.

 - I’ve noticed my eyeslight deteriorate again. I’ve mis-seen a few things this week; originally this kind of experience would lead me to investing in some stronger glasses, but that would be counter-productive to this experiment. So I’m going to increase the exercises I do. More palming, more swinging, etc.

This blog is dedicated to my natural vision journey.

I will share my vision improvement progress here for you to see.

When I get into a new subject, I always start on youtube. One of the most popular videos on myopia is called “Myopia: A Modern Yet Reversible Disease” and the speaker is Todd Becker. Click the link, to watch the whole video - I highly recommend it. 

Here is a summary of the video. I will get into the anatomy of the eye and myopia in a later post.

The talk is basically divided into 2 parts: 

The causes of myopia. 

How can myopia be reversed?

1. The causes of myopia.

There are genetic causes of myopia. He mentions that there are correlations between twins and family members (more than just by chance). A mutation in the SCO2 gene has also shown to play a role. The occurrence is up 70-90% in some Asian countries. 

There are also environmental causes of myopia. When western schooling was introduced to aboriginal people the rate of myopia spiked. There is a correlation between myopia and academic achievement. So basically more reading (or close work), more myopia. 

More stats: 

1887 survey of military recruits in Holland showed, that only 2.5% of people from farming background only had myopia, whereas ca 1/3 of advanced studens had myopia. It increased the more. More groups were between these, but the more reading/near work required, the more myopia again. 

Since 1970 the incidences of myopia has increased in US

Barrow Alaska study on eskimos in 1969: People younger than 40 had high prevalence of myopia, whereas anyone over 40 wasn’t introduced to schooling, so their rates were much lower (environmental factor). 

Study of German students 2012: The rates of myopia increased by more schooling. The (rounded) percentages of myopia were 25% of dropouts, 35% of secondary graduates, and 55% of university graduates.  

Even 34% of 7-9 year-old children in Singapore wear glasses due to more schooling.  

Diet is as always also shown to play a role. Things such as excess intake of carbohydrates and whole grains, unregulated insulin levels (diabetes), and deficiencies of fish oil, minerals can contribute to myopia. Becker refers to a study in Vanuatu, of children receiving 8 hour schooling and the rate was about 2%. They ate fish, yam and coconut, but no bread or cereals, so maybe that plays a role. (I have not looked into this yet, but this is quite interesting - it is by “Cordain et al. (2002)”.)

He then talks about how some genes can become affected by the environment (epigenetics), so if you are predisposed to myopia (genetics) and engage in myopic-causing practices like reading or constant near-work (environment) you can get more than 2.0 diopters of myopia (I will get into diopters in a later post).

He then gets into the anatomy of the eye, vision physiology and myopia. I will not get into that in this post. I have a separate post for that prepared.  The causes of myopia.

2. How can myopia be reversed?

Todd Becker’s key principle is “HORMESIS”. It is “a beneficial response of an organism to a low dose stressor that is otherwise harmful in high doses”. So if you stress your body a little bit (like working out, or taking needed medicine, cold or heat exposure, barefoot running and active focusing) it will be beneficial, but if you overdo it, you will harm your body. This is because Hormesis activates your defense or repair mechanisms, and you will then supercompensate and have increased resilience to that stressor in the future. Reminds me of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.  The most optimal training in Hormesis occur at the “edge of failure” (= SAID principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand)

Before moving on to apply this knowledge he makes this great analogy between Gyms and Optometrists. “You walk into gym, and apply the same model as the optometrists do. Instead of giving you glasses/linses you would here get the equivalent which would be crutches or even better an exoskeleton. You would then get immediate effects and satisfaction. When you take off this exoskeleton, your muscles become weaker and starts atrophying (just like astronauts in space when they come back), and this is exactly what you are doing with glasses - you are weakening your eyes”

Hormesis for the eyes: active focus techniques according to Todd Becker: 

Print pushing and plus lenses (while reading)

Progressively weaker lenses (for outdoor activity and long distances)

Fusing ghosted images

The first step is measuring your myopia. This can be done with Snellen charts. The results can be shown as Snellen scores, diopters (minus) or Distance (inches). This is also my next step. 

1. Print pushing and plus lenses (FOR READING): This is also illustrated in his slide at 19:30 and the picture below.  Push the book/your head as far back as the edge of blur, just when it starts to blur a bit. This should be farther back than your normal focus distance, but not to the edge of readability, as this is too demanding for your eyes and you will hurt them.

You will be able to increase D1 and D2. You might even move a whole inch after the first day, and it works surprisingly quick. When you get to 20 inches/50 cm. away, you are in great shape, and need to start using plus lenses. (This is where my gut is telling me to be careful, and to read more about the side effects this can have on your eyes) If you have high myopia (>-2 diopters) you don’t need these plus glasses. If less, then he advice that we should get plus glasses that allows us to read 15-20 inches (38-50 cm) from a screen/book. This is like working out with weights. The effect of these plus lenses is, that they will handicap you, so you are way more near-sighted than usual, and you therefore have to be closer to everything to see it clearly. They can be necessary, if you are reading more than 20 inches/50 cm away, as this is not comfortable. He says we should graduate to stronger plus lenses, once we can see more than 20 inches away with the last pair.  While doing this, test your vision each week, using a Snellen Chart at 20 feet in bright light. Keep going until you reach your goal (20/20 or 20/50). 

Progressively weaker lenses (for outdoor activity and long distances) When you are not reading, and going out to walk, watch TV, lectures, riding as a passenger (do not experiment with this when driving!), you buy new lenses that are progressively weaker by 0.5 diopters each time. He recommends buying them cheap, since you will need to update your lenses/glasses. 

The last technique is:  Fusing Ghosted Images He talks about when you look at things far away with sharp contrasts (like the edge of a building and telephone wires), he saw 2 images. One very crisp version, and one faint next to it. This is diplopia, and it is usually not a problem when it is caused by myopia.You will see it with mild myopia, and it is a refractive phenomenon. What you will see is one getting darker, and one lighter, and eventually both images fuse. (I have not experienced this yet, so I honestly have no idea how this feels. I’ll keep you posted if I start getting diplopia and can fuse ghosted images). 

Print pushing and active focus are not exercises, but should be a part of your everyday life

He recommends 2-4 hours of print pushing each day (sounds a bit excessive, but it will hopefully make me study more)

Take breaks every 15-30 min, and alternate between looking at near and far objects.

Print pushing should feel awkward but not painful.

If you ever feel strain or redness, take a break for 1-2 days.

Ending remarks: 

I recommend his website “gettingstronger.org” which is very popular with over a million views (in 2014). 

Be patient, it will take months, since it also took months for you to develop myopia. Just like working out, you have keep moving forward patiently and the results will present themselves after a while.

Remember, you will be able to see everything in crisp detail, if you do this for some months. 

Typically people see some improvements within a few weeks. 

Usually there is a sudden change, but then it moves slower forward.

I hope you liked this summary of Todd Becker’s technique. He mentioned the Bates method, and I intent to look into that and what the criticism is about in a later post. I will also dive deep into Jake Steiner and his methods, which are probably going to be my main inspiration.