improve_your_eyesight

3 Exciting Ways My Eyesight Improved Naturally…Without Even Trying

Hi, my name is Marcy from Establishing Your Balance! I am excited to share my journey with you about how I improved my eyesight while I was focused on balancing myself as a whole person (mind, body, and soul).

When my husband, Mark, learned you can improve your eyesight, he began his journey to fix his vision. I was on another journey of my own. The idea of not being dependent on glasses and contacts all the time sounded wonderful. However, I needed to balance my mental and physical health before finding the best ways to improve eyesight. This took priority over improving my vision at the time.

How Did I Know My Vision Was Improving? My Most Recent Exam

During the first part of my journey, I didn’t realize it. The time came I needed to get a renewal on my contact lenses. I scheduled an eye exam and during my appointment, it was determined my eyesight went from a -3.75 to -1.75!! Wait!…What?…How could this be?… How did I do that?

improve your eyesight

I even asked the Optometrist to confirm the numbers. She was just as surprised and started asking what had I changed. Truth be told, at that time, I didn’t know how my vision improved. But there was the proof, in the numbers.

How To Get Better Vision…What Was My Process To Heal Eyesight?

I couldn’t wait to come home and tell my husband and literally show him the proof. I was asking him rapid-fire questions about how this could have happened. He sat and pondered for a minute, and we reflected on the 3 main things I did over the past couple of years.

My husband’s journey started off by taking a very direct approach to improving his vision. However, I’m excited to share my journey with you on how I improved my eyesight, without really even trying to.

1. Assess Your Lifestyle and Create Healthier Habits to Improve Your Vision and Eye Health

Living a healthy lifestyle is one of the most important things you can do for your overall health, including to improve your eyesight.

I know, I have a lot of friends who are not overweight and eat healthy, but still complain about their eyesight or eyestrain. It’s no surprise to me because it has been proven countless times that certain lifestyles can cause eye issues, and certain lifestyles can improve eyes.

So, if you feel you have some areas of your health and lifestyle you can improve, it is important to create healthier habits and keep a healthy lifestyle in order to fix your eyesight problems.

There are many ways to improve your eyesight issues and maintain good eye health, but the most important is by activity and nutrition. Odds are the more you focus on these two, you will find they go hand in hand.

Physical Activity and Exercise And Eye Vision Improvement

It’s no secret that a sedentary lifestyle is bad for your health. Kids who don’t exercise regularly often have poorer eyesight and are more prone to developing other health problems later in life.

But did you know that getting regular exercise is one of the best ways to improve blood flow and oxygen to your eyes? It’s true! And the good news is, there are lots of different exercises you can do that are fun and feel good.

The Problem Of Being Too Still: Focus On Being Active

We don’t need to run out and get a gym membership and start blocking off 3 hours a day to get moving. You can easily start with a 10-minute walk during the day and build from there. You will also find many free resources online that are only 15-20 minutes long.

Bonus tip here, the more activity you can do outside you are also getting the benefits of vitamin D straight from the sunlight!

What Was My Overall Nutrition [Diet] To Improve Your Eyesight?

In order to improve your eyesight, you need a proper diet. Diet is an important part of improving the human body’s function and general health. A healthy diet can help with weight loss, in addition to lowering the risk of health conditions such as high cholesterol.

There are many reasons to eat healthy and exercise regularly. Proper nutrition helps you maintain a healthy weight and waistline. Healthy habits you establish can greatly improve your overall health. Eating the right foods is important, but it’s especially important if you want to keep your eyes healthy.

The important part to remember is to find a Nutrition Plan that works best for your body. You may have noticed I don’t use the word ‘diet’. It feels restrictive, it feels short term, it feels trendy. We all know of many…many….many fad diets. Our goal here is longevity, and lifestyle change, not just a short term ‘fix’. Find the foods that fuel your body to be at its best, and make that your nutrition plan.

You can start managing your nutrition by simply limiting the amount of processed foods, sugar and alcohol. Begin to eat whole foods.

Eat Quality Food: Get Enough Key Vitamins, Minerals, and Antioxidants

Some of the nutrients that are essential for eye health include amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. You can find these nutrients in quality food sources, for instance in foods like carrots, broccoli, leafy green vegetables, strawberries, sweet potato, citrus fruits and fish. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids are also a good source of these nutrients because they provide important antioxidants that keep the macula healthy.

However, the average American eats significantly less than recommended for daily intake, which leads to health problems such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. We will talk more about how chronic conditions like these effect our eye health below.

veggies

2. Manage Chronic Conditions / Diseases to Help Improve Your Eyesight

Managing a chronic condition can be difficult, but it’s important to do everything you can to keep yourself healthy and to improve your eyesight. Chronic health conditions can lead to vision impairment, which is why it’s important to manage these conditions and take care of yourself.

Sometimes we have chronic conditions that we are able to maintain on our own. However, there are times we may need professional help from a provider to help us. Be sure to ask your provider about how a chronic condition may affect your body as a whole.

There are several chronic conditions that affect our vision, and overall health, but let’s just chat about a few that are more common.

Manage Stress and Anxiety For Better Eyesight

The main area I needed to focus on when balancing my mental and physical health was my stress and anxiety levels. The demand of stress and anxiety wreak havoc on our entire body due to our body constantly being in flight or fight mode. We need to find ways to manage, not just cope, our stress and anxiety to relieve the tension.

A lot of times, as we talked about above, when you start to increase your activity level and manage your nutrition, your anxiety and stress may start to come down. Sometimes, we need extra help from a professional to start us and guide us on our journey.

We each have different triggers and pain points for our stress and anxieties. It can come from going to work at the office, home life, family and even friends. This is an area to talk to your healthcare provider about your new lifestyle goals and how your plan will help manage your stress and anxiety too.

Diabetes

Over time, diabetes can damage your eyes and cause vision loss. The good news is if you monitor and manage your diabetes it can help prevent vision problems and having to take daily prescription medications. If you are a diabetic, your overall activity and nutrition does play a big role in managing diabetes.

This is a great area to talk to your service provider about your new lifestyle goals and how your plan will help manage your diabetes too.

Heart Health: Hypertension / High Blood Pressure

High blood pressure is a risk factor for more than heart disease. High blood pressure can damage the tiny, delicate blood vessels that supply blood to the eyes, causing:

  • Damage to the blood vessels in the retina (retinopathy).
  • Fluid buildup under the retina (choroidopathy).
  • Nerve damage (optic neuropathy).

Again, this is an area to talk to your provider about your new lifestyle goals and how your plan will help manage your hypertension / high blood pressure too.

Learn Your Family’s Eye Health Problem History To Know Of Potential Risks

Let’s face it, sometimes our health is just inherited. Understanding your family history can also be vital to maintaining good health. Genetics play a role in increasing our chances of developing many medical disorders, including those that impact vision and eye health.

3. Rest and Sleep Can Help Improve Your Eyesight

The Best Treatment: Rest Your Body and Mind

One of the ways I was managing my stress and anxiety was taking a couple of breaks during the day to just be still. Our bodies are machines and like cars, if the gas pedal is constantly on the go you’re going to run out of gas! Rest will help refuel your mental and physical tank.

A few quick ways to take a break :

  1. Enjoy that cup of tea / coffee
  2. Take 5 deep breaths
  3. Enjoy the beauty of nature, literally smell the flowers!
  4. Do 5 stretches and focus on your breathing.
  5. Journal

We need to also start focusing on getting good quality sleep at night. As you begin to get more active during the day, eating the right nutrition for your body, and managing chronic conditions, your body will begin to naturally improve the quality of sleep. You will wake up feeling energized for the day. (Don’t get me wrong, I still have my morning coffee, but I feel great and ready for the day!)

Resting our body is not only for physical rejuvenation, it is amazing for our mental health too! Quality sleep allows our bodies to rest and relax, repair our muscles from the day, and our eyes are a muscle! You need good quality rest to improve your eyesight.

Taking Off That Eyewear: Prescription Lenses [ Glasses / Contacts ]

Of course, you are resting your eyes during that good quality sleep time, but we also need to rest our eyes by simply taking off your glasses / contacts, especially when working long hours, looking at computer screens. I remembered this was one of the first major things I saw my husband do. Though this came a lot later in my own journey.

It wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and we weren’t leaving the house and driving as much as normal. I knew I didn’t need my contacts when we were just at home. So I took them out. As time went on, and we still weren’t going anywhere much, the longer I had them out. I didn’t necessarily leave them out with the thought of “I’m going to improve my vision”. I took them out because I didn’t need them while doing the things I was doing.

It took me a while to be comfortable driving to the local grocery store without contacts, so I found an old pair of glasses I would wear just for those quick drives. Then the day came that I noticed it was taking forever for my eyes to adjust back when I was back at home. So the next time I went to the store I drove without the glasses. In my own experience, I could still see the stop signs, lights, the other cars around me, lane markers, etc. I felt comfortable driving this distance without prescription lenses.

So, Can You Improve Your Eyesight Naturally?

Yes, you can cure it! I did it, without even trying to manage it. As I focused on balancing my mental and physical health, and stopped wearing corrective lenses, I had cut my prescription in half in just a couple of years.

The key is to manage your health, not just vision. If you have a healthy nutrition plan, and get enough sleep, work out regularly, manage stress, etc., you can improve your eyesight naturally. I still don’t have perfect vision, but my eyesight is good enough that I can drive without corrective lenses and sit at my computer without constant eye strain.

When you take the journey to improve your eyesight and/or improving your overall health, it is a process. What works for one, may not work for the other. My husband and I were on different journeys, so to say. During my journey to balance physical and mental health I ended up improving my vision. During his journey to improve his eyesight, he ended up improving his overall health as well.

What About Vision and Eye Muscle Exercises to Manage Your Vision Correction?

Let’s chat about this for a moment. This is a big part of a lot of practices to improve your eyesight. I do believe in eye muscle exercises and the other ways you are learning to improve your eyesight and heal your eyes. I see it working wonderfully for my husband.

I personally did not focus specifically on eye exercises, techniques or methods. I did not focus on getting clear flashes during the day. However, what I did observe is that when I would close my eyes to breathe (rest), I was actually doing a form of eye exercise. Now, when I open my eyes after a deep breathing exercise, I find that I do have clear flashes. As I am focused on resting and relaxing my body and mind, I am at the same time resting and clearing my eyes!

When my husband first started his journey, he worked to fix his eyes first. As he continued on his journey, he has now looked at fixing vision from a whole body approach. He is now more consciously working on his mental and physical health, diet and exercise to improve his overall health. When I started my journey, I did just the opposite, and now we have both come together in the same place.

As we both continue on our journeys, we are both learning that a lot of the practices, exercises, disciplines, etc. are hand in hand, and they all work together. Mind, Body, Soul…and Eyes!

Feel free to come visit me on YouTube or at Establishing Your Balance!