Is It Possible To Improve Vision Without Surgery Or Glasses?

3 Beliefs of Poor Vision

Many people believe that their poor vision is caused by:

1) Heredity i.e due to genetics that are unchangeable

2) Age i.e. vision deteriorates with age

3) Eye balls that are just the wrong shape.

First, I'll discuss these beliefs and then I'll present a holistic model that explains what I believe to be the real factors that cause poor vision.

Then I'll tell you about the stress free way to use your eyes - the ten simple vision habits that are important to learn and practice and that will help maintain clear and relaxed vision.

But first, the beliefs about vision . . .

Myth 1: Vision Problems Are Genetic.

Once thought to be the case by most eye doctors, it is now understood that the ability to see is not fixed at birth. In fact, only 3 people out of every 100 are born with vision problems. The other 97% who cannot see clearly develop the need for glasses at some point in their life. Just as we learn how to talk or how to walk, we also learn how to see.

But it's more accurate to say that we were born with clear vision and we learned how to not see clearly. We didn't learn this deliberately or consciously, and we weren't taught it by anyone, but we did develop an improper way of using our eyes and brain that led to unclear vision.

Babies Can Focus Clearly

Recent studies indicate that babies as young as 1 day old can focus clearly. When shown a picture of their mother's face, these little infants could bring the picture into focus by adjusting the rate of their sucking on an artificial nipple. If they sucked at the right rate, the picture would stay clear. If they sucked too fast or too slow, the picture went out of focus.

Until this ingenious experiment was designed, scientists thought that babies couldn't focus clearly until 3 or 4 months of age. It seems that every day we are learning more and more about how really amazing the body is!

So, if you need glasses or contacts, chances are that you had clear vision for some period of you life and then visual tension and stress set in to limit it.

Over Half The People In the U.S. See Poorly

As human beings we learn about the world around us through our five physical senses. Of these the most dominant and highly developed is vision. In fact, over 90% of the information that we gather comes to us through our eyes. Our vision is our primary means of relationship to the world around us.

Yet, over half the people in this country wear glasses or contacts. Needing corrective lenses to see clearly is now considered normal. We have become a nation of people largely dependent on an artificial means to perform a most basic and essential human function.

And it wasn't this way a hundred years ago. Back then, only 10% of the population had vision problems. This huge increase took place over only three or four generations. If poor vision was inherited, whom could we have possibly inherited it from?

Myth 2: Vision Inevitably Deteriorates With Age.

The second belief is that vision inevitably deteriorates with age. That at 40 or 45, or whatever that magic age might be, a person starts to have trouble reading without glasses.

Three years ago I received a letter from a remarkable 89-year-old man who had been using The Program For Better Vision. He said in his letter, "I had been wearing reading glasses for 50 years, since I was 39. Now after 2 months of using The Program For Better Vision there are times when I can read without my glasses and it's completely clear and effortless."

That's a pretty amazing change, but the part of the letter that I like the most is when he goes on to say, "I learned that I can succeed in helping myself and I'm looking forward to more changes in the future." Now, that's a young attitude!

Youthful Vision Can Be Maintained

If nothing is done to retain the inherit youthfulness and flexibility of your visual system, if you don't get rid of the tension and rigidity that has accumulated over time, your visual system may deteriorate as you age. But this is not inevitable and it is not irreversible. In fact, nothing is further from the truth.

Just like any other part of your body, your eyes also respond to exercise, relaxation, and stress relief. It all depends on the attitude you have and the steps that you take to retain the vision that you were born with.

Myth 3: Poor Vision is Caused by Misshapen Eyes.

The third belief is that poor vision is caused by an eye that is the wrong shape. If the eye is too long that is supposed to cause nearsightedness; if it's too short that is supposed to cause farsightedness; and if the shape of the eye is distorted, that causes astigmatism.

The shape of the eye is one element of the visual system - but it is not the only one that determines how clearly you see. And besides, has anyone ever asked how the eye becomes the wrong shape?

There are three real causes of poor vision: First, the visual habit patterns that a person has developed; second, tension in the eyes and body, and third, mental and emotional stress and strain.

How the Eye Works

Before I can address each of these, let me explain how the eye works.

I'll do this by comparing the eye to a camera. Let's see how this analogy holds true and also, let's see where it breaks down.

In the front of the eye there is a lens, just like in a camera. In a camera, there is film; in the eye the film is the retina, a light sensitive surface located on the back of the eyeball. In a camera, for the picture to be clear, the image must be focused on the film. Likewise, in the eye, the image must be focused on the retina.

In a nearsighted eye, rather than the image registering precisely on the retina (or film), it comes to focus in front of the retina. So one conclusion that could be drawn is that the eyeball is too long. In a farsighted eye, the opposite happens. The image comes to focus behind the retina. So, in this case, the conclusion drawn is that the eyeball is too short.

How Could an Eyeball Become Misshapen?

If these conclusions are true, then the question becomes how did the eyeball lose it's natural shape and become too long or too short?

There are six muscles that surround each eye. Called the extra-ocular muscles, they control the movement of the eyes. They move your eyes up, down, to the right and to the left; when you look at something up close they turn your eyes in and when you look at something in the distance they turn your eyes out. These extra-ocular muscles are 200 times stronger than they need to be to perform their job.

In 1981, research performed at Harvard University Laboratories showed that when these muscles hold the eyes in one position for an extended period of time, they also squeeze the eye. This pressure can change the eyes' shape. And if the eye is misshaped by only 1/25th of an inch, that can cause focusing problems.

So it's rigidity, tension and lack of movement and flexibility that causes the eyes to become misshapen. Just as exercise and relaxation can help other parts of your body, so can it loosen up tight eyes muscles.

But let's return to the camera analogy for a moment. In the camera, the lens moves in and out to bring objects at different distances into focus. This doesn't happen in your eyes. Instead, the lens changes it's shape, becoming thicker to focus on near objects and thinner to focus on objects that are further in the distance.

Now, since unclear vision is caused by the image not being focused directly on the retina, then there are really two different conclusions that can be reached. One is that the eyeball is the wrong shape, or - and this is important - that the lens is too rigid - not changing it's shape enough to bring objects at certain distances into focus.

Let's look at this second conclusion more closely.

Again, in order to focus on something close up, the lens becomes fatter, bulging from front to back. To focus on something further away, it becomes thinner. We are always changing what we are looking at, so the lens is continually making fine adjustments in its shape. In fact, in the normal eye, the lens changes it's shape - and it's focus - more than 100,000 times each and every day.

Now, the shape of the lens, and thereby it's focusing ability, is controlled by two sets of muscles that surround it. It is the constant and delicate interplay between these two sets of muscles that gets the lens to be the exact shape that it needs to be to bring whatever you are looking at into sharp focus.

And if you can't bring an object into focus, it's because there is not enough flexibility in these muscles to change the lens into the appropriate shape to view that object.

So if you are nearsighted, and can only see clearly up close, then these muscles are stuck and only move the lens within a limited range. And if you are farsighted, the same is true - the muscles are stuck and only move the lens within a limited range, but that range is different.

Improving Vision Means Increasing Flexibility

Another way to talk about your vision problem is to say that you see fine within a certain range, but not so clearly within another. So there is some degree of flexibility to change focus. And improving your vision simply means increasing the flexibility of those muscles that control the lens.

So again, it's not a matter of strength, but of coordination between these two sets of muscles and their degree of flexibility. And when these muscles regain their natural flexibility and coordination, your vision just automatically improves.