Do Screens Cause Nearsightedness? Myopia and Screen Time

Nearsightedness is an eye condition that can adversely affect your quality of life. It has been said that there is an increase in the prevalence of myopia as more people are using digital screens on their phones, tablets, and computers. Is there any truth to myopia and screen time?

What are the effects of myopia?

Myopia, or nearsightedness, is a vision condition in which objects close to you appear clear, but objects far away appear blurry. Myopia occurs when the eyeball is too long or when the cornea (the clear front cover of the eye) has too much curvature. As a result, the light that enters your eye isn’t focused correctly and images appear blurry.

The Global Increase In Myopia and Screen Time

The prevalence of myopia has increased dramatically over the past few decades. In fact, studies have shown that myopia has doubled in the last 50 years. In the United States alone, myopia has increased from 25 percent in 1971-1972 to 41.6 percent in 1999-2004.

Can Too Much Screen Time Impact Children's Health and Vision?

There are a number of factors that are thought to contribute to the global increase in myopia. These include:

• Increased use of technology: The increased use of computers, tablets and smartphones is thought to play a role in the development of myopia as it requires children to focus their eyes at close range for extended periods of time. This can lead to changes in the eyeball's shape and result in myopia.

• Less time outdoors: Children are spending less time outdoors than they did in previous generations. This lack of exposure to natural light is also thought to contribute to an increase in myopia, as it reduces opportunities for children’s eyes to focus in proper lighting on distant objects.

Why Does Too Much Screen Use Make Your Eyes Tired?

If you spend too much time keeping your eyes glued to one spot on a screen at one distance. Your eyes can become stuck, tense, and get tired. When your eyes make the same repetitive motions over and over again, the muscles in the eyes become overworked. When a muscle becomes overworked it, will eventually stop working! Think about going to the gym and running on a treadmill until you can't run anymore. After you fall over from exhaustion it's impossible to pick yourself up and start moving again! The eyes are no different

Is Blue Light Actually Bad For Your Eye Health?

Blue light is a type of light that is emitted from screens, such as computers, phones, and TVs. This light has a shorter wavelength than other colors of light, and it is thought to be more harmful to the eyes. However, blue light is all around us. The sun in the evening hours emits 100,000 times more blue light than your screen! There are plenty of people that are outside and active during this time, but don't have vision problems. Yet, we like to blame blue light and screens for our eye issues. Blue isn't so much the issue but rather the amount of time fixated and focused on one point.

How Can You Protect Your Eyes From Screens?

Take breaks often when using screens. There are two ways you can do this.

1. Close your eyes for a while so they can rest.
2. Move around (go for a walk) and look at objects in the distance.

You may have heard of the twenty-twenty-twenty rule. Take breaks every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This will help the muscles in your eyes to move so they don't become stuck at a fixed position.

Match the lighting of screen to your environment.

Many people often look at bright screens in dark environments. To keep eyes working so they don't get fatigued, you should match your surrounding lighting to the brightness of the screen.

What about dark mode?

While dark mode can decrease the brightness of your screen, if your surroundings are dark, then the sensors that process peripheral information won't function as well as they could. Seeing objects in your surroundings or peripheral let your brain know where you are in space.

Adjust position of your screen to reduce eye strain

Adjusting your screen's position can help reduce eyestrain. When you are using a phone or computer, make sure your screen is positioned squarely and centered in front of you. You should also sit in a chair straight up without slouching. This will help with your neck and back posture. This is important because posture can affect vision!

How is myopia treated?

The most common treatment for myopia is glasses or contact lenses. These correct the refractive error and allow the eye to focus light properly on the retina.

Other treatment options include:

• Refractive surgery: This involves correcting the shape of the cornea so that it focuses light properly on the retina. There are several types of refractive surgery, including LASIK, PRK, and LASEK.

• Orthokeratology: This involves wearing special contact lenses that temporarily reshape the cornea so that it focuses light properly on the retina. The lenses must be worn overnight and removed during the day.

Treat Nearsighted Vision Naturally

There is no question that screens can contribute to nearsightedness. The American Academy of Pediatrics even recommends that children have their eyes checked for myopia if they spend more than two hours a day on screens.

But the real question is, can myopia vision be cured? And the answer is yes!

Many people aren't aware of this, but you can actually treat and improve your nearsightedness by reteaching your brain to control the movements of the muscles in your eyes and learning how to keep your body relaxed. Wouldn't it be outstanding to go to your optometrist and they give you a lower prescription instead of a higher one?

Learn More About Improving Your Eyesight Naturally

If you want to learn to improve your vision naturally, you can start here with my ebook: 5 Techniques To Prove Your Eyesight Can Get Better

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?

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.

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!

Why did I have to wear glasses?

Why, me? If someone had told me from the beginning that myopia is mental, I wouldn't be wearing glasses now. If someone had only explained or showed me how I was supposed to be looking at things, I wouldn't be wearing glasses. It all started with, Why?

As a kid, I always watched and observed. I loved breaking things apart and putting them back together. I loved puzzles and when I couldn't figure something out, I just kept asking, why?

Eventually, it would all click and I would have my answer. It was my ability to observe, analyze and keep asking why, that led me to create myopiaismental.com

30 years believing something was wrong with my eyes

I started wearing glasses around the age of six or seven. It was recommended by my teachers that I get my eyes checked because I was having trouble seeing the board clearly. I got my first pair of glasses and was told by his doctors that I would probably always have to wear glasses.

My story is the same of millions that go through the same thing. Imagine that the first thing you have to do every day when you wake up is put on glasses. For over 30 years, each eye checkup led to stronger prescriptions and the eye strain was getting worse as the years went on.

The concern about my eyesight

My vision was getting to the point that I was starting to be concerned, so I looked into surgeries like Lasik or PRK. After talking to many friends that had laser surgery, I was even more terrified that it wouldn't be permanent solution. All of them that had surgery more than 5 years ago are either back in glasses or had to get a tune-up. I started to look for solutions to help my eye strain. I started off by taking breaks and resting my eyes when I could. It helped a little, but then something happened.

The Wake-Up Call

One night, I woke up, and I was seeing more clearly than I ever had. I could see the alarm clock across the room. It wasn't perfectly sharp, but it was clear enough that I could recognize every digit. That made me ask why, and can myopia be cured?

I started to do research to find out about vision restoration methods. I mainly worked with the Bates Method and active focus. I understood the basics, but then I did a lot of experimenting on my own.

Triangulation

One of the first moments I started to see an immediate change in my vision was when I was sitting and just noticing objects in my peripheral. My vision would sharpen as long as I was paying attention to everything in my field of view. I called it, triangulation. It took a lot of concentration, and it was extremely hard at first, but overtime I started to make it a habit to try to see this way all the time.

The Big Clear Flash

Several months after starting to work on my vision, I spent some time in my backyard without my glasses. At first, I couldn't see anything, but then I realized I could see everything, but it just wasn't sharp. I stood in the yard just rocking side to side, while looking off into the distance. I did this for over 45 minutes and then all of a sudden my eyes started to tear up and sting. It felt as if I was cutting onions or there was salt water in my eyes. It was very intense. As much as I wanted to blink to stop it, I resisted the urge and then, all of a sudden, I could see clearly. It lasted a few seconds and at first I couldn't believe it.

Myopia Is Mental? A trick of the mind

I thought the first clear flash I got was a fluke, but when I got it to happen again, I started to ask myself why? According to axial elongation, there's no way I should have been able to see clearly for any length of time, but yet here I was getting clear flashes over and over again.

I started to understand that near-sighted vision problems are due to muscle imbalances and the fact that we block ourselves from seeing the way we are meant to see. Tension is the issue and relaxation is the key to restoring the imbalance.

Question your vision habits

Ask yourself this: When you're working at a computer screen or looking a cellphone, do you ever see anything else but the thing you're looking at? If your answer is no, then you have tunnel vision. I did it for 30 years. I was blocking myself from seeing anything beyond the thing I was looking at. It's like having blinders on. We're not supposed to see one thing at a time, we're supposed to see everything at the same time, but the center will always be the sharpest. Our eyes are supposed to use our peripheral vision to judge the depth and distance between objects, and they help us to know where we are in space.

Questioning people with good vision

I asked my brother and sister-in-law, who both have good vision, how do they see? I said, if you look at me without moving your eyes, what do you see? They both described all kinds of things around them without every taking their eyes off of me. I had suspected this was the case and they both confirmed that they saw more than I did.

More than the peripheral

Many think that I say that you just need to notice your peripheral vision to improve your vision, but that's not the case. There's a lot more to it than just noticing your peripheral. It's a matter of learning to relax in order for your muscles to respond and move faster. A tight muscles can not move as fast as a muscle that is relaxed.

I learned when it came to vision, I had to learn to use my entire field of view, breath, have good posture, be aware of my senses and trust that I could see. When I did all of this, my vision would clear up on demand.

Weren't you just living a life of blur or rather blur adaption?

I've heard people say many times if you stop wear glasses you'll just develop blur adaption. In other words you just get used to blur and live with it. Yes, there were times my vision was blurry, but when I started doing the new habits I taught myself to do, my blurred vision cleared up completely. This was definitely not blur adaptation!

Sharing Myopia Is Mental on YouTube

I started putting vision improvement videos up on my YouTube channel about what I learned. I wanted to share what I learned, but I also wanted to have a way to document my journey to remind myself where I started. Each video I put up, I got more and more questions. I wasn't quite doing the Bates Method, and I wasn't quite doing active focus either.

YouTube is great, but even though I had playlists with the techniques I was using, people were still confused. I decided I needed to put this in a format to make it easy to understand exactly what I did and the order I did it in. That is when I came up with the idea of myopiaismental.com.

Reclaim Your Eyesight Naturally

If you're just getting started, I put out an ebook to help you learn the basics. In the eBook 5 Techniques To Prove Your Eyesight Can Get Better I talk about all the basic techniques I did to improve my vision. I tell you exactly what I did, how I did it and what I felt. I did these techniques every day, all day to improve my vision. They weren't just exercises, I was re-programming my brain to create new habits.

Beyond 20/20: The Advanced Journey Guide

I realized that the techniques weren't fixing my vision at all. They were teaching my mind, body and nervous to relax. This is where the Advanced Journey Guide comes in. There's a lot that I learned from neuroscience that made me start thinking that vision is more than just your eyes but yet everyone just wants to focus on the eyes (pun intended). There's a much bigger picture that many aren't aware of, and I explain everything I learned in a simple way.

Why charge for the Advanced Journey Guide?

By all means I'm not trying to get rich off this. Money has never been a motivating factor for me. I couldn't care less about big houses, cars and all the other trivial possessions' people flaunt on social media. However, I do know that it takes money to get things done. Most of what I've made has been put back into the website and tools I need to keep this site running. My wife told me if I'm going to put so much work into this, you at least need to paid for your time, and she's right. She knows I'm up late constantly researching and learning things to make the journey easier, and then I pass it on to you. I don't pay myself much, but what I do, I share that with my wife and kid.

The Myopia Is Mental Journey

Vision is more than just a problem with your eyes. I wanted to share exactly what I did to change the way I looked at the world. I stopped focusing so much on my eyes and started working on the mental blocks that were causing my vision to fail and this was the difference that made me start seeing clearly.

The journey is not an easy one but if you stick with it, you'll learn more about yourself that will benefit your mental health as well as your entire body.

Can you really cure myopia naturally?

So the question is, can nearsightedness be cured or improved? Can myopia be cured without surgery? The short answer is yes. Now whether you believe that myopia can be healed or improved naturally, is up to you to decide. In my case it wasn’t that I found the cure for myopia or nearsighted vision, I simply learned to start looking at and using my eyes differently from what I was taught and what I taught myself to do from years of bad habits. That improved my vision naturally until I didn’t need glasses anymore.

For me, I learned myopia was more of muscle imbalances and tension in the eyes, head, neck and body. While there was muscle tension throughout my entire body, I learned much of the imbalances were due to mental deficiencies. Fact: Your brain controls all the muscles in your body. If the brain is not interpreting sensory input data properly, it can change your muscle tone. This is when I concluded much of vision is a mental issue. I simply learned to reprogram my brain to use these muscles the way they should be used to reduce myopia.

What is myopia?

Myopia, nearsightedness or short-sightedness is all the same thing. It means you can see things close up but you can't see things far away. Its a refractive issue of the eyes that produces a focus error.

How my myopia progression started

My myopia symptoms started around the age of 7 or 8 with blurry vision. I recall not being able to see the board clearly. It was a challenge seeing distant objects as well. One of my teachers recognized that I might have eye problems and had a discussion with my parents. She recommended that I might need corrective glasses. I had my first eye exam at the eye doctor also know as an optometrist.

That put me down a path that wouldn’t be corrected until I was in my mid adulthood. My prescription lenses started very low in diopter power, but that number increased with each yearly checkup. My last prescription was starting to border high myopia. My left eye was -5.0 with a -1.00 power astigmatism correction at 80 degrees and my right eye was -4.00.

Is bad eyesight learned or inherited?

Research has shown that the rate of myopia in children is increasing each year. Eyeglasses in children is becoming more of a common thing and the ages are getting lower as to when they start wearing glasses.

Growing up, my brother is the only one in my immediate family that didn't have eye problems. My mom, sister and I are nearsighted. My dad is farsighted, meaning he had great distance vision, but needed glasses for close up. In my wife’s immediate family, her sister is the only one in their family that doesn’t wear glasses. My brother's work activities has him in front of a computer all day and my sister-in-law does the same. My brother spends a lot of time outdoors. He is always active playing sports. My sister isn't as active. She does however, spend a lot of time away from home and staying on the go with time outside.

How come they don’t have vision issues but everyone else in the family does? It was that burning question of can myopia be cured naturally that led me to ask them what they saw when they were looking at me? I had a discussion with them and they both could describe all kinds of things without ever taking their eyes off of me! I told them I didn’t see that way. I only saw one thing at a time. That was the beginning of my understanding that I wasn’t seeing the complete picture. I was blocking most of my peripheral view, and it had a big effect on my vision.

Causes of myopia progression

I know some things can be passed through heredity, but I don’t think myopia is one of them. I have reason to believe that it’s a learned behavior and once you learn what causes it, it can be fixed. 

Why I wanted to know if myopia can be cured?

Looking through lenses makes you feel like you’re hiding from the world. I really wanted to know, can myopia be corrected naturally? I also realized I had never seen things as they truly were, and my view was limited. Even with contacts, what I saw just never felt right.

I worked in front of computers for over 8 hours a day and as time went on, I would feel more and more strain. Some days, by the time I finished work, my eyes would hurt painfully from overuse. I got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore and made the decision to do something about it.

Doomed to a life of eye glasses?

I started to question the vision advice that I had been given over the years. Are we really doomed to a life of eyewear? If you want a stronger body you can go to gym and lift weights. If you want a flexible body you can stretch. If you break a bone it can heal over time. If you want to clear clogged arteries, you can eat better and exercise. Fixing diabetes is a matter of understanding glucose management. These are all lifestyle choices.

Why can’t vision be improved? We shouldn't have to rely on medication or devices to heal the body. There are many natural remedies that can be used instead. Using medication or devices such as glasses is taking the easy way out, but realize it only masks the underlying cause that never gets addressed. The rest of the body can be changed and improved without medicine by taken certain actions, so why is so hard to believe that the eyes can’t improve?

Something happened, but what changed?

I started to take more breaks while working. I would take off my glasses and close my eyes for a few minutes, several times per day. One night, I woke up, looked across the room, and to my surprise, I could read the numbers on a digital alarm clock. It wasn’t perfectly clear, but it was clear enough for me to see the numbers. Normally it would have been blurry, and I wouldn’t be able to read any numbers at all unless I put on my glasses or walked across the room to see it. However, on this particular night I could see it. That got me thinking, can myopia be cured naturally?

That started me down a path to improve my vision for however long it took.

My What The Heck Moment [Seeing the light]

I researched various vision restoration methods and tried different techniques. After a few months of trying to improve my vision, one day I was standing in my backyard just rocking side to side, trying to relax. All of a sudden, my eyes started to sting and tear up. The next thing I knew, I was seeing clearly. It only lasted for a few seconds and at first I thought I had imagined it. It was quite an intense moment that I’ll never forget.

A few days later, I got it to happen again and this time it lasted a bit longer. Seeing clearly like that should have never happened according to everything I knew about eye elongation, but yet here I was, seeing perfectly clear. It was at that point that I knew I was doing something mentally to block myself from seeing clearly all the time. That was the start of my journey to learn to see this way all the time.

What are the Options Available for Myopia Eye Treatments?

Glasses or contact lens treatment – Myopia Control Methods

I had already been wearing glasses or soft contacts for over 30 years. These are the typical treatment and management strategies for for most people when it comes to eye care, but realize they are not permanent remedies! I learned that glasses are nothing more than crutches. They don’t teach you to use your eyes properly. Glasses make them weaker and more strained over time, and then you end up with myopia progression. Your prescription will continue to increase year after year because you never addressed the problem of tension and strain. Glasses and contacts management strategies will never improve your vision permanently.

What about Laser, LASIK, or PRK Surgery?

At one time I considered myopia laser eye surgery, Lasik or PRK, but something kept telling me, don’t do it! I knew of the risk factors, but I realized these were just other myopia control options that didn't address the root problem.

Later, I learned from many friends that had some type of vision correction surgery greater than 5 years ago that they all had to go back for a tune-up. Many of them ended up in prescription eyewear again. If this was supposed to be the solution to myopia, then why did it come back? Knowing this made me realize for my eye health, surgery is not a permanent cure and once your eyes have been operated on, they will never be the same, and you can never go back. These surgeries can pose a lifetime risk to you eye health and if there's any major complication, you could end up blind.

What about Ortho-K?

Orthokeratology lenses is a type of contact lens option. They are worn overnight while sleeping but not during the day. It puts pressure on surface of the eye and reshapes the cornea. It allows you to temporarily see objects clearly but they much be worn every night in order to see sharply.

Vision improvement the natural way without glasses

Or you could learn to improve your myopia the natural way!

What I did to correct my myopia?

Each time I was able to get a clear flash, I learned from the experience. I became very observant to what I was doing and how my body was feeling when I got these clear moments. I realized relaxation is the key to release of muscle tension, but how do you get this relaxation? I summed it up as this:

• Breathing and Posture
• Awareness and Sensory
• Trust and Acceptance

They work in pairs and they all of these lead to calmness and clarity.

I started to spend more time working on these things than doing any eye exercises. Not only did my vision improve, but also my overall health and mind-body connection.

What about low, high or severe myopia?

I believe no matter how severe myopia one has, one can see perfectly clear in a matter of minutes. Of course, this only occurs once you learn how to relax your body and nervous system. I got my first clear flash when I was supposed to be wearing -5.00 correction in my worst eye. There’s no way that should have happened but yet it did. The number doesn’t matter at all! I think the only thing a high myopia number tells me is how stressed and how much tension you carry in your body.

The Journey [The path to clear vision]

There were some important things I learned on my journey to fix my vision in order to make it a success.

These things take time.

Getting the clear flash is rather easy to get once you know what to do. The hard part is learning to make the clear flash permanent. Most of your time will be spent learning how to stay relaxed. Fixing your vision will take as long as it needs to. It can be quick for some and longer for others. Time is irrelevant! For me, I was able to get many clear moments, but I had a hard time stabilizing the clarity all the time. Once I stopped trying to just fix my eyes and started working on the body as a whole, the stabilization became more permanent.

It might get frustrating.

I had good days and bad days, and it can get quite frustrating at times. Sometimes I had perfect clarity and other times I had soft and even double vision. I didn’t give up because I knew what was possible, and I just kept trying until it clicked. You have to remember you’re reteaching your brain how to work after years of bad habits! Take it one day at a time. Enjoy the good times and enjoy the journey.

Find out more!

So, can myopia be cured without surgery? Absolutely! If you want to learn more about how I improved and fixed my vision, you can start by going through my ebook 5 Techniques To Prove Your Eyesight Can Get Better.

Optometrist Confirmation That Vision Can Be Improved!

First off, before you get too excited, this is not my optometrist confirmation! While I haven't worn glasses in over a year and a half, I still have a few moments here and there when my vision isn't perfect. This occurs mostly when I'm tired or stressed. While I know I could pass an eye exam now, I'm waiting until I'm ready! I know exactly where my vision is and how good it can be when it's perfect, so I'm still working on my perfect balance.

This optometrist's confirmation is from my wife! She doesn't do anything to the degree that I have over the last few years. However, she had seen my improvement and also wanted to know, can myopia be cured? She decided that she would try to stop straining her eyes as much as well. She didn't do any of the techniques I do or have talked about. She understands all the stuff I do, but hasn't put in the time to do it!

So what did she do?

She simply stopped wearing her glasses when she didn't really need them! We both work from home, and she realized she doesn't need her glasses or contacts for anything around the house. She stopped wearing them around April and has only had them on a handful of times since May 2021.

What was her prescription?

Her prescription was:

This was the last prescription she had about 5 years ago. She has not had an eye exam since then.

What is her prescription now?

Drumroll!

The optometrist had to check her twice because she couldn't believe there was that much change. She almost cut her prescription in half! When the optometrist asked what she was doing, she simply told her she just stopped wearing her glasses or contacts as much around the house because she didn't need them to see, which is the honest truth.

Now my wife has done no measurements, drills or techniques. She had just started learning to relax, become stress-free and stopped relying 100% on her glasses. It has only been a few months since she started doing this and just think where she would be if she was doing just a little more!

My wife was truly surprised at how much her vision improved without doing anything and I do believe it's given her a bit more motivation to work on the things I've talked about. I have not pressured her to do any of this. She saw the mental motivation I had to change my life and it was 100% her choice to work on improving her own health.

Let this be a lesson to all. If you want to encourage your family or friends to change their lifestyles, you don't have to do anything but lead by example and just tell them what you're doing!

A few weeks ago, one of the Sensei I used to train with posted this quote about the mind-body experience:

The integration of the mind-body is an experience and not a concept. Without this experience, no matter how hard one trains, one cannot go beyond the mundane physical endeavor, but instead will sink in the tub of mediocracy.

"Ku: A Lifetime of Karate and Zen"

I find it interesting that, since I’ve been on my vision improvement journey, much of what I learned from taking karate and jujitsu has parallels to what I’ve learned about curing my vision naturally. It's been many years since I last stepped into a dojo, but I now understand things that I didn't understand way back then because of what I learned on my vision journey. Alternatively, there were things that I learned from karate and jujitsu that have made me understand what's happening with my eyes.

The above quote not only applies to training in karate or jujitsu, it also applies to vision as well. Many of us lose our ability to see clearly for the simple fact that we’ve lost our mind-body experience and connection. We become so distracted with mundane tasks, like constantly checking our social media or going through an endless binge fest on Netflix, that we really don’t experience the things that we should. We have essentially shut off our minds from our bodies and now the body has to go into survival mode while our brain is left to do these singular, mediocre tasks.

This leads us down a path of tension that can spread throughout the entire body and manifest itself in all sorts of issues to include: foot issues, knee pain, hip pain, back and neck alignment issues, tension headaches and you guessed it, vision problems!

About a year ago, I started to realize that vision is more than just the eyes. It’s a full body experience and when you stop feeling what is going on not only in your body but what is going on outside your body, tension starts to set in. The parasympathetic nervous system goes beyond fight, flight or freeze and gets stuck in survival mode. It can remain in this state for a long time, and it’s hard to get out of it. This is one of the reasons many who have tried vision restoration and failed because they don’t quite understand how to get their nervous system to calm down and out of this state.

I stopped thinking about fixing my vision and started working on fixing the things I didn’t even realize were broken, starting with my mental awareness. As I slowly started to learn to relax and take in every moment and everything, I found the mind-body experience that I lost many years ago. 

So what is this mind-body experience? 

I'll give you an example. You want to fix your vision and you try a technique like rocking, that I often speak of. You start rocking and the whole time you're thinking, “If I do this, I'll see clearly.” This is singular task thinking and because you are so focused on this one thing, you can't see or experience anything else! You've blinded yourself from seeing and feeling everything else that is going on! Tension now has its clutches around you and you can't escape it. You might understand the concept of rocking, but you're not experiencing it!

So what do I experience through rocking? I see motion between two objects. It's a pattern like waves repeatedly crashing on a beach. It's relaxing to the point that it's almost hypnotizing. I notice colors that I don't normally pay attention to. I hear sounds of the room or environment that I'm in; I smell the air, and I feel the ground, all at the same time. My mind is connected to my body and my body is connected to everything that is going on around me. This is a full mind-body experience and once you have this experience, you'll be surprised at how fast the body can correct itself and believe me, it goes beyond vision!

To find out more on how I restored my vision, be sure to check out my ebook 5 Techniques To Prove Your Eyesight Can Get Better.

How To Get Better Vision Quickly

Did you know you could get better vision within a matter of minutes just by jumping on a rebounder or mini-trampoline?

Here's how it works.

When standing on the trampoline, you need to be inline with two objects that have some distance between each other. I typically position my rebounder so I can see out of a window that has a horizontal bar in the middle. Behind the bar, I look for an object outside of the window. In the example below, there is an old shed that I see across the yard that is inline the horizontal bar of the window.

Now comes the fun part to get better vision! When I first start jumping on the trampoline, I stare at the center of the horizontal bar. As I jump up and down, I notice that the shed in the background appears to move up and down in my peripheral vision. I'm not looking directly at the shed, I'm just looking at the horizontal bar, but noticing the movement of the shed in the background. I do this for about 5 to 10 jumps.

Next, I stop staring at the horizontal bar and look at the shed in the background. As I jump up and down, the shed will appear to be still, but now the horizontal bar, that's in my foreground peripheral vision, will appear to move up and down. I do this for about 5 to 10 jumps.

Now I switch staring at the foreground object and background object every 5-10 jumps. In my case, it's the horizontal bar from the window and the shed outside in the background. I typically do this for about for 2-3 minutes. Then I'll take a break and do another round. If you can jump longer than that, great! Go for it!

After I'm done jumping, I simply close my eyes for 5-10 seconds to give them a rest. When I open them, I notice immediately improved sharpness and clarity! That's right, better vision within a matter of minutes!

Why does this work?

I've noticed that jumping on a rebounder works on four major things.

1. From the Bates Method, it's called central fixation. You're staring at one particular point where your vision is the sharpest.
2. It works on is your awareness of peripheral objects that move when you're not directly looking at them. This is important because we as humans were not meant to be stationary for long periods of time! When we're stationary too long, we can lose our awareness of motion of the objects around us.
3. It works on your ability to transition from near and far objects. This is also from the Bates Method known as shifting.
4. It helps realign the extra-ocular muscles, so it's great for working on astigmatism correction.

There are some other benefits of using a rebounder.

• It can stimulate your lymphatic system to flush out toxins
• It's low impact
• It's a full-body workout
• It can improve your balance
• It supports bone density, bone strength, and bone formation

What if you don't have a rebounder? That's not a problem. You can sit in a chair and move your body up and down. You can stand and do short squats up and down. You can even do calf raises if you can't squat. If you're really ambitious, you can jump up and down as well, but warning this is a higher impact on your knees!

I have often talked about rocking to improve your vision, but bouncing also works just as well. Instead of seeing only horizontal movement, jumping works on seeing vertical movements. Trying it to see if you can get better vision in 5 minutes.