Eye strengthening exercises.

[JP]

Has anyone done eye strengthening exercises to improve their vision? My eye sight is RS and apparently I need glasses but I am loathe to get them. I reckon if I start wearing them then it's only downhill for my eyes from that point.

Basically what I want to know is has anyone done them? If so what in particular did you do and did the exercises work?

Cheers.

[TheLunchbox]

Hey Mate,

Im not sure if this help improve vison but it does say how to exercise your eyes.

Im off to the optomitrist this week for an eye test as I sit in front of the computer 10 hrs a day and get massive eye strain:eek:

http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-Your-Eyes

[Nerf Herder]

Years and Years ago ... the Optometrist outlined some strengthening excercises related to focusing on your finger with both eyes and individually ... for several minutes per eye / combination. and moving the finger around at various distances from your face [1]. I'd guess that focusing in general (both eyes and singularly) by trying to read signs or looking at the view and trying to see the detail etc, would help as well and look less silly :p

Further, from my understanding (I have a couple of Opto friends) you can't stop your vision eventually degenerating ... for some people its just faster due to genetics (Asians as an example are predisposed to weak eye sight).

I couldn't be stuffed doing the excercises (I was already using glasses). Not really for your case as you don't have the specs yet, but I try to turf the glasses for a couple weeks and I always get some improvement in my vision. (kinda hard though as I'm a desk jockey and games nerd).

[1] sorry if that was a trully fucked explanation :o

Hey Mate,

Im not sure if this help improve vison but it does say how to exercise your eyes.

Im off to the optomitrist this week for an eye test as I sit in front of the computer 10 hrs a day and get massive eye strain:eek:

http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-Your-Eyes Ah ... somebody with actual facts ... and or links ... sorry Lunchbox was posting at the same time ...

[supa jb]

go the old fashioned way and wear an eye-patch on your good eye.

or if you dont want to commit social suicide just wear it when your reading or on the computer

[thecat]

Another couple.

Hold your left arm at full length with your thumb up. Raise up your right thumb up at about the mid point. If you focus on the closest thumb you should see 2 left thumbs. Slowly remove the right thumb but maintain the tight focus and you should still see 2 left thumbs. With Practice you should be able to maintain this will moving your left thumb closer and further away.

The oposite to this is to focus on a blank wall on the other side of the room. slowly raise a finger into view but maintain focus on the wall, again you will see 2 fingers. Slowly move the finger closer to your nose then back out again, maintain focus out on the wall.


The theory behind this is that it trains you to strengthen the muscels that focus your eyes and with those muscles stronger changing focus between long and short vision should be easier.

I have no idea if it works, my eye sight is fine but my young bloke has one eye that is very long sighted. A friend pointed out these excersizes explaining to me that wearing glasses is like having a weak arm and compensating by putting it in a sling. It's never going to get stronger if you support it rather than train it. It kind of made sense.

[ajay]

If you're not sure if you need glasses or not, then I can tell you eyes arent rat shit, well not yet anyway:)

If and when they are RS, just get em nuked - and spend less time in front of a computer if you can *writes note to self*.

My eyes are pretty well farked now, I cant see really anything without glasses or contacts so focusing on anything with my glasses off is pretty much impossible.

Getting em nuked isnt to expensive either, about $5k if i remember correctly. It may seem like alot compared to new specs, but what I wouldnt give to be able to see without glass...

I suppose this didnt really offer any advice on strengthening, but I found the more time I spent outside, the better my eyes felt.

[Moggio]

As a desk jockey for the last 18 years of so and after going through a period where my eyes started getting worse, I just started to make sure I didn't keep them focused for too long at the screen without doing some long distance focusing... it helps if you have a window to look out of for that... but even turning around and looking to the other side of the office regularly helps...

Same in the evening don't just flop in fornt of the telly and zone out, or even if you read a book... keep focussing on different distances...

This is not based on any science, but it seems to make a difference and makes sense.

[STS01]

Eye exercises can only help if your problem is accommodation (focussing on close objects) or convergence (aiming your eyes inwards toward a close object). These are obviously both problems with NEAR vision.

The things they used to promote like Bates method (google it- Aldous Huxley was right into it for the trivia buffs) don't work. I wrote a paper on it in my first degree (B.App.Sci Orthoptics) and a friend did a PhD proving that it doesn't work. It is sensible to do as others have suggested and treat your eyes well and rest them if you're doing long periods of close work by looking into the distance etc.

Getting glasses won't cause your eyes to get worse. The only group who get 'dependent' on glasses are people in their 40's getting 'presbyopia' and that's only a minor part (early on they could keep exercising their focussing muscles and go longer without needing glasses as much). The main reason people think that getting glasses makes them dependent is that refractive vision problems tend to start at a certain age and progress from there so you notice the progression after you get glasses but it would have happened anyway.

As for laser surgery (ajay's 'nuking')- it's not for everyone. It's convenient but glasses and contact lenses will nearly always give better vision (it's all about 'best corrected visual acuity')


In case that was all a bit dry, dull, confusing or too small for the visually challenged- eye exercises don't work

[NeeBean]

Hey Mate,

Im not sure if this help improve vison but it does say how to exercise your eyes.

Im off to the optomitrist this week for an eye test as I sit in front of the computer 10 hrs a day and get massive eye strain:eek:

http://www.wikihow.com/Exercise-Your-Eyes

yes after tha maby hours a day your eyes bill be like your lego man in your dp, haha

[PINT of Stella, mate!]

go the old fashioned way and wear an eye-patch on your good eye.

or if you dont want to commit social suicide just wear it when your reading or on the computer

What? Everyone knows that an eye-patch is a sure sign of pirate activity. You'll be beating the chicks off with a stick and you'll never have to pay for a drink again!

(you might have to get a wooden leg fitted, just to be sure)

[thecat]

(just to be sure)

That should be

Aaarrr to be sure cap'n.

[JP]

The eye patch sounds like a tempting exercise. HMMMMMM...... (Queue dream sequence of me as Kramer from Seinfeld when he wore an eye patch.) I'm sure the missus would be VERY impressed, especially when we go out.

I reckon I'll give some of the exercises a go and see what happens.

[stoff]

Wouldn't the social suicide he may be committing by wearing the eye patch potentially lead to an increase in a certain blindness inducing activity?

[ajay]

Eye exercises can only help if your problem is accommodation (focussing on close objects) or convergence (aiming your eyes inwards toward a close object). These are obviously both problems with NEAR vision.

The things they used to promote like Bates method (google it- Aldous Huxley was right into it for the trivia buffs) don't work. I wrote a paper on it in my first degree (B.App.Sci Orthoptics) and a friend did a PhD proving that it doesn't work. It is sensible to do as others have suggested and treat your eyes well and rest them if you're doing long periods of close work by looking into the distance etc.

Getting glasses won't cause your eyes to get worse. The only group who get 'dependent' on glasses are people in their 40's getting 'presbyopia' and that's only a minor part (early on they could keep exercising their focussing muscles and go longer without needing glasses as much). The main reason people think that getting glasses makes them dependent is that refractive vision problems tend to start at a certain age and progress from there so you notice the progression after you get glasses but it would have happened anyway.

As for laser surgery (ajay's 'nuking')- it's not for everyone. It's convenient but glasses and contact lenses will nearly always give better vision (it's all about 'best corrected visual acuity')


In case that was all a bit dry, dull, confusing or too small for the visually challenged- eye exercises don't work

Do you wear glasses?

Im not at all trying to disprove what you said - you're the one with the degree, not me.

Can you explain why it feels better when I dont wear glasses? My eyes get really tired when wearing them, once I take them off (granted I cant see shit), I feel alot clearer in the head, hard to explain, but its like a load of stress has been taken off. Is it forced focus that casues the tiredness? Its been the same with glasses and contacts from multiple optomotrists...

As for laser surgery, glasses may give a better correction on paper, but if its likely that it would work in my case, then i'd risk it, if it will enable me to leave my specs in the draw. Waking up and looking at my clock only to see a mess of red light resembling blured tail light gets pretty damn frustrating I must say:(

[PINT of Stella, mate!]

Wouldn't the social suicide he may be committing by wearing the eye patch potentially lead to an increase in a certain blindness inducing activity?

FFG, mastubarikn dpes not mske yoi go blofd!!

[Elbo]

I asked my Optometrist whether I could do any exercises to improve my eyes (I am short sighted and have astigmatism). He said, basically there is nothing you can do, and strenuous exercises will only damage the eye. You can look around from your computer and focus far and near, but it will only help with eye strain. You can't change the shape of your cornea through exercises. He said for me (with astigmatism) it would be like trying to do foot exercises to shorten the length of my foot. Astigmatism is a condition where horizontal and vertical focussing muscles have different power and therefore things may look slightly distorted and it is difficult to judge distance. Basically, he told me, don't do exercises. Just wear your glasses and contacts and rest your eyes when possible, as in focus on nothing in particular (don't concentrate on reading or small things like computer screens, look at the landscape or something)

Waking up and looking at my clock only to see a mess of red light resembling blured tail light gets pretty damn frustrating I must say:(
Mate I feel your pain! I need my glasses to even read my laptop screen, my vision starts to go after about 30cm. As much as it's not a permanent fix, I got contacts last month and I am so much more confident just walking down the street, I can actually make out who someone is rather than squinting at them when they are only a few metres away, and then realise I know them at pretty much the same time that they pass me. Most frustrating thing is not being able to read menu's above the counter at a shop or something similar.

[STS01]

Do you wear glasses?

Im not at all trying to disprove what you said - you're the one with the degree, not me.

Can you explain why it feels better when I dont wear glasses? My eyes get really tired when wearing them, once I take them off (granted I cant see shit), I feel alot clearer in the head, hard to explain, but its like a load of stress has been taken off. Is it forced focus that casues the tiredness? Its been the same with glasses and contacts from multiple optomotrists...

As for laser surgery, glasses may give a better correction on paper, but if its likely that it would work in my case, then i'd risk it, if it will enable me to leave my specs in the draw. Waking up and looking at my clock only to see a mess of red light resembling blured tail light gets pretty damn frustrating I must say:(

F*#k I hate it when I throw out a massive generalisation and then have to spend hours clarrifying it... Part of the problem with this topic is that is literally big enough to form whole careers!

Feel free to skip the boring bits but I might as well try to clear it up a bit.

The most simplistic way to look at is that there are different causes of reduced vision and there are different aspects of vision which can be affected.

The main aspects of vision are:
1. Visual acuity. The resolving power of the eye or 'clarity' of vision
This can be further divided into
1a. Distance vision
1b. Near vision- requires accommodation (adding lens power) and convergence (making eyes point inwards)
2. Contrast sensitivity (too closely related to #1 to try to explain here)
3. Colour vision.
4. Visual field (how much peripheral vision you have)
5. Stereopsis (how your two eyes work together to give depth perception etc)
6. Ocular motility (eye movement)

Causes of reduced vision can be broken down into where they affect:
-Cornea: Wrong shape (astigmatism) or reduced clarity
-Lens: cataracts, presbyopia (stiffness with aging that means you need reading glasses)
-Retina: usually affects visual field
-Length of eye: causes refractive error ("near" or "far" sightedness) by far the most common problem.
-Optic nerve
-Visual area of brain

An additional problem is of coordination between the 2 eyes which can cause visual problems in real life even if each eye works perfectly on it's own.

Now to get to the problems people have raised:

If the cause of your visual problem is:

Myopia ('shortsightedness'):
-The eye is too long relative to the power of the lens/cornea.
-Usually no symptoms, just bad vision.
-It has nothing to do with muscles.
-No amount of excercises will fix it.

Astigmatism:
-The cornea is more curved in one direction than the other (think rugby ball rather than soccer ball)
-Usually no symptoms, just bad vision.
-Nothing to do with muscles
-Exercises won't fix

Hypermetropia ("farsightedness" even though it affects near and far vision):
-Eye too short relative to lens/cornea power
-Can be overcome to some extent by using the adjustable focus mechanism of the eye. This is why some people get worse as they get older- we naturally lose focussing power with age.
-May cause eye strain due to the effort involved in using those muscles to correct vision.
-Excercises to maintain muscle power may help
-Once you get into your 40's the lens is getting too stiff for the muscles to adjust and you're stuffed no matter how many excercises you do.

Any problem associated with the clarity of the cornea, lens (cataracts) or vitreous, any problem with the retina, optic nerve or visual cortex then excercises aren't going to help.

The area that excercises are most useful (and which may apply to your problem ajay) is in the coordination of the 2 eyes, especially in near vision.

Your eyes do three things when you look at something close ("distant" in eye terms is considerd to be 6 meters or more)
1. Accommodate- the lens is pulled into a different shape by muscles inside the eye to increase it's power to focus on closer objects.
2. Converge- the eyes are pointed in towards each other by muscles outside the eye (like when you look at the tip of your nose)
3. Pupils constrict- Looking through a smaller hole reduces the effect of less than ideal focus (try it by taking off your glasses adn looking through a pinhole...)

These 3 processes should be naturally synchronised and happen in a balanced way but this isn't always the way. Inbalance is very likely to cause symptoms like eye strain and tiredness. The various problems and how they are treated would fill a book...

I think trying to solve medical problems in this context is hopeless but for the sake of discussion I'll try to address some of your questions:

The eye strain feeling you are getting could be related to a few things but the likely ones are:
-a weakness in the convergence or accommodation power of your eyes
-astigmatism correction in the glasses you use for close work (sounds weird but even though the correction is OK at distance it causes some people an eye strain feeling in close work)
-Overcorrected myopia (this makes the focussing muscles work all the time)
-Distortion from high power lenses in small frames.

I'd suggest trying to find an orthoptist to assess your eyes or get your GP to refer you to an ophthalmologist (ie a doctor who specialises in eyes). Orthoptists specialise in eye muscle issues whereas optometrists mostly concentrate on refractive (lens / cornea / eye length) problems.

As for refractive surgery (LASIK, LADAR etc):

The thing is that this type of surgery is partly dependent on the healing process so it's not absolutely accurate and most ophthalmologists are slightly conservative because overcorrection (especially of myopes) can give people symptoms like eye strain etc. There is a range of results and this is what you need to think about when deciding whether or not you want to do it.

Normal vision is said to be 6/6. Great vision might be 6/4 or 6/5 while lousy vision might be 6/36 or 6/60.

If you have 6/36 without glasses and 6/6 with glasses and there is a 90% chance of having 6/6 after laser surgery then you may decide the convenience is worth it. The problem is that if you have less than 6/6 after lasik it may not be able to be corrected better than that because it's now an issue of clarrity of the cornea rather than just a focussing problem.

To answer your question and hopefully give you an idea of a way to consider it, yes I do wear glasses (actually contacts 95% of the time). My vision is shithouse without glasses but fantastic with glasses or contacts (better than 6/4). I have tried lenses that give me 6/6 vision and I feel disabled so for me the risk of having laser surgery and reducing my vision to 6/6 is not worth it.

Hopefully that answers some of your Q's and didn't put anyone in a coma

BTW- I had a similar problem to you with eye strain while doing close work with glasses but not contacts. I took my glasses to work and checked the lenses and found that the f*#king optometrist had put a trivial amount of astigmatism correction into them (which a sensible person would never correct) and it was weirding out my eyes. I got a new set of lenses made without this correction- problem solved.

Note- I am no longer involved in the eye business so I think I can safely say I have no conflict of interest when I say to go see an ophthal or orthoptist :)

[ajay]

F*#k I hate it when I throw out a massive generalisation and then have to spend hours clarrifying it... Part of the problem with this topic is that is literally big enough to form whole careers!

Feel free to skip the boring bits but I might as well try to clear it up a bit.

The most simplistic way to look at is that there are different causes of reduced vision and there are different aspects of vision which can be affected.

The main aspects of vision are:
1. Visual acuity. The resolving power of the eye or 'clarity' of vision
This can be further divided into
1a. Distance vision
1b. Near vision- requires accommodation (adding lens power) and convergence (making eyes point inwards)
2. Contrast sensitivity (too closely related to #1 to try to explain here)
3. Colour vision.
4. Visual field (how much peripheral vision you have)
5. Stereopsis (how your two eyes work together to give depth perception etc)
6. Ocular motility (eye movement)

Causes of reduced vision can be broken down into where they affect:
-Cornea: Wrong shape (astigmatism) or reduced clarity
-Lens: cataracts, presbyopia (stiffness with aging that means you need reading glasses)
-Retina: usually affects visual field
-Length of eye: causes refractive error ("near" or "far" sightedness) by far the most common problem.
-Optic nerve
-Visual area of brain

An additional problem is of coordination between the 2 eyes which can cause visual problems in real life even if each eye works perfectly on it's own.

Now to get to the problems people have raised:

If the cause of your visual problem is:

Myopia ('shortsightedness'):
-The eye is too long relative to the power of the lens/cornea.
-Usually no symptoms, just bad vision.
-It has nothing to do with muscles.
-No amount of excercises will fix it.

Astigmatism:
-The cornea is more curved in one direction than the other (think rugby ball rather than soccer ball)
-Usually no symptoms, just bad vision.
-Nothing to do with muscles
-Exercises won't fix

Hypermetropia ("farsightedness" even though it affects near and far vision):
-Eye too short relative to lens/cornea power
-Can be overcome to some extent by using the adjustable focus mechanism of the eye. This is why some people get worse as they get older- we naturally lose focussing power with age.
-May cause eye strain due to the effort involved in using those muscles to correct vision.
-Excercises to maintain muscle power may help
-Once you get into your 40's the lens is getting too stiff for the muscles to adjust and you're stuffed no matter how many excercises you do.

Any problem associated with the clarity of the cornea, lens (cataracts) or vitreous, any problem with the retina, optic nerve or visual cortex then excercises aren't going to help.

The area that excercises are most useful (and which may apply to your problem ajay) is in the coordination of the 2 eyes, especially in near vision.

Your eyes do three things when you look at something close ("distant" in eye terms is considerd to be 6 meters or more)
1. Accommodate- the lens is pulled into a different shape by muscles inside the eye to increase it's power to focus on closer objects.
2. Converge- the eyes are pointed in towards each other by muscles outside the eye (like when you look at the tip of your nose)
3. Pupils constrict- Looking through a smaller hole reduces the effect of less than ideal focus (try it by taking off your glasses adn looking through a pinhole...)

These 3 processes should be naturally synchronised and happen in a balanced way but this isn't always the way. Inbalance is very likely to cause symptoms like eye strain and tiredness. The various problems and how they are treated would fill a book...

I think trying to solve medical problems in this context is hopeless but for the sake of discussion I'll try to address some of your questions:

The eye strain feeling you are getting could be related to a few things but the likely ones are:
-a weakness in the convergence or accommodation power of your eyes
-astigmatism correction in the glasses you use for close work (sounds weird but even though the correction is OK at distance it causes some people an eye strain feeling in close work)
-Overcorrected myopia (this makes the focussing muscles work all the time)
-Distortion from high power lenses in small frames.

I'd suggest trying to find an orthoptist to assess your eyes or get your GP to refer you to an ophthalmologist (ie a doctor who specialises in eyes). Orthoptists specialise in eye muscle issues whereas optometrists mostly concentrate on refractive (lens / cornea / eye length) problems.

As for refractive surgery (LASIK, LADAR etc):

The thing is that this type of surgery is partly dependent on the healing process so it's not absolutely accurate and most ophthalmologists are slightly conservative because overcorrection (especially of myopes) can give people symptoms like eye strain etc. There is a range of results and this is what you need to think about when deciding whether or not you want to do it.

Normal vision is said to be 6/6. Great vision might be 6/4 or 6/5 while lousy vision might be 6/36 or 6/60.

If you have 6/36 without glasses and 6/6 with glasses and there is a 90% chance of having 6/6 after laser surgery then you may decide the convenience is worth it. The problem is that if you have less than 6/6 after lasik it may not be able to be corrected better than that because it's now an issue of clarrity of the cornea rather than just a focussing problem.

To answer your question and hopefully give you an idea of a way to consider it, yes I do wear glasses (actually contacts 95% of the time). My vision is shithouse without glasses but fantastic with glasses or contacts (better than 6/4). I have tried lenses that give me 6/6 vision and I feel disabled so for me the risk of having laser surgery and reducing my vision to 6/6 is not worth it.

Hopefully that answers some of your Q's and didn't put anyone in a coma

BTW- I had a similar problem to you with eye strain while doing close work with glasses but not contacts. I took my glasses to work and checked the lenses and found that the f*#king optometrist had put a trivial amount of astigmatism correction into them (which a sensible person would never correct) and it was weirding out my eyes. I got a new set of lenses made without this correction- problem solved.

Note- I am no longer involved in the eye business so I think I can safely say I have no conflict of interest when I say to go see an ophthal or orthoptist :)

Awesome post mate, thanks. That actually cleared up a lot of jargon the optometrist throws at me. Especially with the laser/lasik surgery. He would always say "dont get it, it doesnt work" which, weather true or not, sounded like he just wanted to keep my business perscribing lenses for me.

To be honest, Ive never actually asked my optometrist about eye strain, I just assumed it was part of the territory of wearing glasses/contacts 24-7. Ill have to follow that up.

Cheers!

[STS01]

the optometrist... would always say "dont get it, it doesnt work"

Get a different optometrist. Seriously.

[k3n!f]

In case that was all a bit dry, dull, confusing or too small for the visually challenged- eye exercises don't work

Thank god there is someone of farkin who knows what they are talking about.

[PINT of Stella, mate!]

As long as you're not competing in any sports where you may get drug tested, I know a geezer down my gym who could get you some pretty good gear. Just spike it in and you'll get the benefits of weeks of your eyes pumping iron, in a matter of hours! Seriously, this shit works! They use it on horses!

;)

[maxwolfie]

Has anyone done eye strengthening exercises to improve their vision? My eye sight is RS and apparently I need glasses but I am loathe to get them. I reckon if I start wearing them then it's only downhill for my eyes from that point.

Basically what I want to know is has anyone done them? If so what in particular did you do and did the exercises work?

Cheers.


Hey JP,

I'm shortsighted (or was, as I recently had laser correction, which I highly recommend), my eyesight deteriorated even faster as I spend alot of time (probably too much) on the PC in dark rooms. I think this alters the focal point over time hence the bad eyesight. Not saying that this caused my shortsightedness in the first place, but the optomistrist believes that it definately sped the process of deterioration up a fair bit

IMO take regular breaks from close-up work and go outside, to focus on things > 5-10m away

[BM Epic]

Hey jp,if you go the eyepatch,i'm going the feathersword,we will beat up them punks that were picking on me on sunday morning!

[maxwolfie]

All you need now is a toy parrot superglued to your shoulder