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Do you wear glasses or contacts?

Started by Max Kon, 10 May, 2006, 11:20:40 AM

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Max Kon

if you do, i'm pretty sure you wish you didn't have to, so here are some are some eye exercises you can use to improve your eyesight. These exercises  were devised by US opthalmologist Dr William H Bates (1865-1931) re-educating visual habits and improving vision, and have since been adopted around the world.

Start with 5 minutes a day, later you may wish to inrease to 5 minutes twice a day. These exercises are best done without glasses or contact lenses.

1. Palming - Cup your hands and place them gently over your closed eyes. Total darkness is very therapeutic and relaxing for the eyes. Palming may be done at any time during the day to revive tired eyes. Whilst palming your eyes perform the following exercise: Keeping your head still, look down as far as you can, then return your eyes to the centre. Continue by looking to the right as far as possible, up as high as you can and then to the left, returning the eyes to the centre after each movement. Repeat this 10 times.

2. Tromboning - Focus on an object, eg a pen tip, held at arm's length. Slowly (take at least 5 seconds) bring it in until ir touches your nose, focusing on it all the time. Move in and out 10 times.

3. This is similar to exercise 1. This time focus on a pen or other object held in your hand. Hold this directly in front of you and move it slowly as far down as you can continue to see it. Focus on it all the time, wiggle it if necessary to help you see it. Repeat for the other directions, focusing on the object on the outward movement only. Repeat 10 times.

4. Splashing - splash your closed eyes 20 times with warm then cold water in the morning and with cold then warm water in the evening. This improves circulation.

5. Swinging - stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and sway from side to side while keeping your eyes fixed on a point in the distance in front of you. Repeat 50 times, blinking left and right as you do. This relaxes the eyes and reduces strain.

Floyd-the-k

yaaargh, I don't want to know about this until I have to

Max Kon

Well they are also good practice if you want to preserve good eyesight into your later years. Tromboning is the most important, as when using a computer we are focusing on something at a fixed distance, and readjusting less often. These exercises will mean that your eyesight will remain strong for years to come.

Martin Jameson

Well I turned 39 today and I have just had to start wearing glasses (for pc and reading etc.).

And I feel old all of a sudden.

scutfink

Happy day lightsurfer,

...About these eye exersises...

 If they really work, howcome sooooo many people still wear glasses?

IndigoPrime

I'm pretty sceptical about the Bates Method being able to entirely free someone of wearing glasses, but he does make one VERY good point, which few opticians admit to: while wearing corrective lenses of any type, the eye has to continually make the same "mistake"/"error", in order to see through them properly. Therefore, you end up on a downward spiral, which cannot be reversed.

I used to do the Bates exercises every day, religiously, and it's a habit I want to get back into. While, as I said, I doubt they'd ever enable me to ditch glasses entirely, they definitely helped reduce eye strain, made my eyes "feel" better, and improved my perception of the world around me (which is a large part of how well you "see").

As for "how come so many people still wear glasses?", the medical profession mostly regards Bates as something of a crackpot?hardly surprising when you look at the profits to be made in the eye-care industry...

Quirkafleeg

Quackery like this rubbish actually makes me angry... I've worn glasses all my adult life. Has this led to a downward spiral. Errr no. Same prescription since I came out of my teens.

>hardly surprising when you look at the profits to be made in the eye-care industry...

That's just paranoid rubbish...

Max Kon

i found it on the bbc. and my opticion has told me to do the Tromboning exercise at it prevents damage from the long hours spent at the computer screen

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/complementary_medicine/practicalexercises_eyes.shtml" target="_blank">bbc


El Spurioso

Palming, tromboning, splashing and swinging?


Over to Wils, I think...

Leigh S

Can we have a strongest prescription competition?

I'll start with a bid of -11.5 in both eyes for contact lenses... (might be higher for glasees?)

Jim_Campbell

"I'll start with a bid of -11.5 in both eyes for contact lenses... (might be higher for glasees?)"

For contact lenses? Sweet Baby Cheeses - how do you close your eyes?

And, yeah, whilst some of the exercises described aren't bad ideas, they won't stop you needing specs if you need 'em, nor will they stop the ageing process which leads to loss of flexibility of the eye's lens and causes a tendency towards hyperopia [1] as one drifts into one's 40s.

Cheers

Jim
(Customer Service Supervisor for a chain of High Street Opticians!)

[1] That's long sight to you. Although if you're short-sighted to start with then your prescription will actually improve as presbyopia (the process described above) sets in ...
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IndigoPrime

:: I've worn glasses all my adult life. Has this led to a
:: downward spiral. Errr no. Same prescription since I
:: came out of my teens.

Which is very, very rare. Pretty much every short-sighted person I know has had increasingly stronger lenses as time passes. Partly, this is down to incompetence in the industry: I have an astigmatism in one eye, due to my first optician giving me a prescription that, according to my second optician, wasn't even remotely accurate. Because of my eyes being "forced" to make further errors, they became used to seeing through the "bad" glasses, and my eyes suffered for it. In a smaller way, a slightly too strong prescription does the same thing, if you wear glasses all day.

The problem with the Bates method is that too many people see it as a "cure", when in fact it's a set of exercises that may improve your sight due to relaxing your eyes and being more aware of your surroundings (the *brain* has a lot to do with how good or bad your eyesight is, not just your eyes).

As for Bates and the industry, I just find it amazing how quick opticians generally are to dismiss an alternate way of thinking (several, in fact, have almost shouted at me, as though my bringing the subject up was the rough equivalent of me shitting on their desks); one, however, had a fairly in-depth discussion with me about it, confirming my thoughts (that it's unlikely to do you any harm, and is probably beneficial in *some* ways, such as relaxing eyes in people who tend to work with computers).

SamuelAWilkinson

I'll start with a bid of -11.5 in both eyes for contact lenses...


Great goolies! I thought my -7.75/-8.5 was bad...
Nobody warned me I would be so awesome.

Jim_Campbell

"Partly, this is down to incompetence in the industry: I have an astigmatism in one eye, due to my first optician giving me a prescription that, according to my second optician, wasn't even remotely accurate. Because of my eyes being "forced" to make further errors, they became used to seeing through the "bad" glasses, and my eyes suffered for it. In a smaller way, a slightly too strong prescription does the same thing, if you wear glasses all day."

This is quite likely to be complete shite. In my experience, opticians will slag the given prescription of a previous optician at the drop of a hat, usually with very little justification.

If you were older than about eight when you started wearing specs then there is essentially NO possibility of you suffering lasting damage, even if the prescription was slightly iffy. Massively iffy might be different, but a bit of uncorrected cyl power is going to do you no harm. [1]

Let me say that again: "NO possibility of you suffering lasting damage."

I'm not a qualified optician, but I've dealt with enough of these issues to be able say that with some confidence.

Cheers

Jim

[1] One and a quarter dioptres of uncorrected cyl (astigmatism) in my left eye and I can't tell the difference between that and the vision in my (fully corrected) right eye.
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the3rdman

ya hay! with my prescription of -5 makes me feel like i have 20-20 compared with you bunch of Mr.Magoo's !!

Incidentally been -5 for past 15+ years, so no downward spiral here