How to see better today

Ok. So you’ve bought in. You realize that I’m at very least on to something and you want to know what’s next. You want to see naturally or begin to improve your vision. You battle anxiety and can’t seem to find other solutions.

If you don’t mind a nice boring read, you should dive into Bate’s book. Here’s a link.

If you are looking for the Cliff Notes, I’ll do my best here.

As far as I’m concerned, your eyes are just holes in your face. Yes, our eyes are different. But the important part about them is how the brain interprets the images that come its way. And your brain is fine. So the eye doctor can bend the light to change the refractive error in the eyes with unreal precision, but this is not the underlying problem. This is only a symptom.

 

You’re eyes only were made to focus at a single point. Glasses, cell phones, TVs, they all seem to require our eyes to look multiple places at the same time. Untrained eyes, without glasses, will strain to gather this information. Your eyes move 70 times per second, they are fully capable of gathering whatever information from whatever you’re watching or doing. As you continue to watch or read, your eyes or focal points diverge and begin to cause myopia.

Edit: Your eyes focus at a single point off in the distance. The closer the object is to you, the closer your focal point is to the distance your eyes are apart. It sounds confusing. I think about it like this: if I were to set a pair of glasses on whatever I was looking at, how would I see through them? Play around with it with these thoughts in mind. Stare off in the distance at a single point, and transition closer. The results may not be immediate, but they are worth the wait. 

Your eyes were made to see the same way your ears hear. It is a passive sense. There is no strain and your brain will do it effortlessly without assistance. That strain or effort to see is the very thing that causes myopia. You cannot try to see. Next time you’re in the car, try to memorize the first song that comes on. Like your life depends on it. Unless you’re superhuman, the very fact that you’re trying to listen to this song will make it impossible to remember. Relax.

Panning is what humans do. This one took some practice for me. I ditched my glass and focused on an individual point. I could see it fine, but I was used to the information from my whole field of view. Turns out, this was not the way we were built to see. Paint your peripheral with your eyes. It will relax them. Do not focus on any one point for too long, it will cause strain and blur.

Alright. These are your basics. It will take some practice. Here’s a great place to start.

Just know that the whole eyesight problem has been solved for almost a century. Think critically and with an open mind. My only new ideas here are about how it ties into mental health, aging, athleticism, and some other things we’ll get into later.