Hello Beautiful

The Art and Science of Vision Training using the Bates Method

Introduction

“We’re getting elongated eyeballs from focusing on the computer screen.” -- The Internet.

When the above headline threw itself in my path I yelled at the screen: "Use Near to far, fear to Far."

They said, "Look up from the screen once in a while."

I say, there is more to the story.  

In 2021, I wrote a couple of blog posts on The Bates Method of Vision Training and got more comments than any other blog with people asking for more.Yesterday when an internet pop-up threw itself into my path and told me that we computer users are getting elongated eyeballs from watching the screen for extended periods. I decided that this little booklet could be of some benefit.

This is the true story of my experience with The Bates Method of Vision Training, with commentary and a bit of research thrown into the mix.

I blogged some of this story on https://travelswithjo.com in 2021 where it found readers wanting more.

A big thank you to those who sent me down this trail by asking for more.

In the preface to his book, The Art of Seeing, Aldous Huxley describes how, at sixteen, he had a violent attack of keratitis punctata, which made him nearly blind for eighteen months. After that, he was left with severely impaired sight. He managed to live as a sighted person with the aid of strong glasses, but the strain of reading left him exhausted.

Eventually, he sought the help of Margaret Corbett, who was a teacher of the Bates Method. He found this immensely helpful, and wrote: “At the present time, my vision, though very far from normal, is about twice as good as it used to be when I wore spectacles, and before I had learned the art of seeing.”

I remember reading Bennet Cerf’s criticism of Huxley. Cerf said that while attending a Huxley lecture, he noted that Huxley could barely read his notes.

I wanted to tell Cerf, “Huxley is lucky he can see.”

Perhaps Cerf didn’t know Huxley’s vision history. Or that Cerf knew Huxley touted vision training and was poo-pooing it. Often, we criticize when we don’t know how many miles that person has walked.

Consider this: The eyes, like other parts of the body, can heal.

Also consider that simple exercises can strengthen the eyes and teach the brain to perceive more accurately outside information that the eyes, those windows to the soul, can interpret.

A testament to the Bates Method of vision Training was that during my training, while sitting in a dimly lighted restaurant, I was the only one of six people at the table who could read the menu.

I ended my training when I tested 20/20, although I can’t say what my vision was when I began the training. Sorry, I can’t give you that figure.  When I began, though, the phone book’s print was becoming unreadable to me. (Remember phone books?) At the end of my vision training, I could read that minuscule print Phone Book printers like to use. The ones that drive people crazy once they reached age 40 or so. (The lens of the eyes tends to become more rigid then.)

I believe that Vision training is not necessarily changing the eye’s physical structure, although, with exercises, it might. Some say so.

 I believe it is teaching the brain to see better.

We learn to relax into seeing instead of straining to see. Optometrists, and Ophthalmologists, I’m not entering your world, but into the world of senses, perception, education, and intention.

Chapter 1

Healing

A moment ago, I held the palms of my hands over both eyes while thinking of a time when I walked through our cherry orchard to an open field where my horse was tethered on a chain long enough for him to graze a fifty-foot circle.  

He whinnied in greeting. I unclipped the chain and climbed aboard. Together we galloped back through the cherry orchard up to the house for water and fun.

Sitting here now, I was following a suggestion offered by The Bates Method of Vision Training. That suggestion was to rub my palms together, cup them over my eyes, and think of something pleasant.

The idea is to relax the eyes.

Aldous Huxley (The Art of Seeing) quoted Mathew Luckiesh, the Director of General Electric’s Lighting Research laboratory:

 “Suppose crippled eyes could be transformed into crippled legs. What a heart-rendering parade we would witness on a busy street. Nearly every other person would go limping by. Many would be on crutches and some on wheelchairs.”

Huxley states that when legs are imperfect, the medical profession makes every effort to get the patient walking again and without crutches if possible. “Why should it not be possible to do something analogous for defective eyes?”

Well, look who’s talking. I wear glasses for reading and computer work.

Some could say it’s aging.

I say, “I’ve been negligent.”

I wonder, too, since the eyes are an extension of the brain—how that differs from, let’s say, our legs. I’m sure the eyes communicate more to the brain than the legs do. But I can’t be too sure.

My Naturopath told me that my brain doesn’t care if my legs fall off. It’s concerned about itself and the heart. At least the brain has its priorities in order.

I googled “The Bates Method,” and what did I find? Dr. Christiane Northrup on YouTube touting the Bates Method.

Northrup is an OBGYN of enormous wit, and wisdom who isn’t afraid to talk of intuition, angels, or the loving God within. She wrote the book, Women’s Minds, Woman’s Bodies, and has used the Bates’s exercises for years. She said she has worn contacts since the age of 16 and still does. However, she says that her vision has not deteriorated.

She also states that aging is a matter of the mind, and you can help your vision with exercises.

Northrup speaks of epigenetics, a relatively new science that says the environment and our thoughts affect our genes. 

Remember, teachers taught us that genes are compact little gems that gather together to make us. We considered genes to be unalterable and unchangeable—no longer.

“Remember, you are in the driver’s seat of your health, and you can make a profound change.”

–Dr. Christiane Northrup

Northrup told of a study on two groups of people, ages 80 plus. After testing their vitals, hearing, eyesight, and such, they were told to go to a quiet place, like a monastery, and pretend they were living in the 1950s. They were to speak as though they were living in the ’50s. And to watch TV and films of that time. At the end of the study, all their vitals were better, and they looked ten years younger, while the test group who had gone on, as usual, showed no change. 

You know how easy it is to take a pill for some disorder, or go to the optometrist for glasses, slap them on, and to go on our merry way.

I’m not saying don’t go to the optometrist; indeed, yes, go. Get a diagnosis, and don’t throw away your glasses until you can see well without them. Maybe that will never happen, but wouldn’t it be great if our eyesight never got worse?

Here are a few things I remember from my Bates training:

Sunning the Eyes: 

•      I will put this up front, for it is the most controversial. 

•      Folks have criticized Dr. Bates saying he told people to look at the sun. He did not.

•      His way of sunning the eye was to protect the pupil and have the sunlight shine through the white of the eye.

•      Close one eye, look down so that the pupil is below your eyelid, hold the

  eyelid up with your hand, and allow the sun to shine on the white of your eye. 

Do Not Look Directly at the Sun.

This procedure will encourage a chemical Bates called “visual purple.” Today scientists call that chemical Rhodopsin.  Rhodopsin is a protein that responds to light. (And is reddish-purple in color, thus its name.) You can notice Rhodopsin’s effects on how quickly your eyes adapt from light to dark such as walking from sunlight into a dark movie theater.

Julia Galvin said that perhaps Dr. Bates Method of Vision enhancement is lost, and it will wait until it is rediscovered. Bates was a bit pig-headed. That can antagonize people, but it also shows that pioneers in their field get fed up with the resistance they encounter and that probably affects their attitude.

Beliefs are so strong that even when we want to accept a new idea, we must fight against our own negative bias. You don’t have to do the new thing, consider it as a possibility, but praise the pioneers.

Online information says:, “The increase in knowledge of Rhodopsin structure and function has been nothing short of phenomenal over the past 30 years.” At first, I read that Rhodopsin was found only in the rods of the retina, the cells that perceive low light levels. The rods do not see color. Now I read that it is also needed for the cornea, and conjunctival membranes.

When someone discovered that Vitamin A (beta-carotene) is necessary for Rhodopsin’s production, the idea of carrots are good for the eyes came into being. (They are.)  

Incidentally, there are about 130 million rods in the retina and only 7 million cones. 

Near to Far:

For Near to Far training, the teacher held a rope of about 20 feet on one end, and I held the other. She asked that I look at my hands holding the rope and then slide my focus from my hands down the rope to her hands, then back. We did this a few times.

Now I have my computer in front of a window and occasionally, I look out the window to the house a distance away, then I slide my vision focus back to the window, then to the house again a few times.

Do this a few times every hour or so.

No window? I feel sorry for you, but look down a hall or across the room. Better yet, look into the next room.

Half-way through my Bates training, I was looking at a complex picture, a scene in a magazine. I knew that picture was two-dimensional. It had to be; it was printed on a page. Yet, as I stared at the picture, I would have sworn I could see depth. Was this my brain filling in something that wasn’t there? 

Looking near to far will help with your accommodation.

Accommodation is how quickly you can focus on one thing then another, especially if one item is a distance away. Once, I mentioned to my daughter’s mother-in-law that my vision was getting slower, and she knew what I meant. When I am driving down the street and see a sign in a shop window, I don’t stop in the middle of the street to read it, and thus miss what it says.  A time ago, I could read the whole word while cruising by. Now I need to stop and take it in. (How embarrassing.)

Another idea for the near-to-far exercise is to place a letter a distance away and occasionally look at it. (Is that the reason guys have pin-up girl pictures in their garage?)

My Vision trainer emphasized that your eyes won’t lie. Believe your eyes. We are mistaken much of the time, but gradually through trust, we learn.

Palming:

Palming is the exercise I did at the beginning of this chapter—that is rubbing my hands together then place one on each eye and think of something pleasant.  Greg Marsh calls it “Yoga for the eyes.”

“Do not cup your hands,” says Marsh, “but place the center of your palm over each eye. Overlap your fingers and bend from the hips over a table, so to rest your elbows on it. You can palm while standing, but your arms will get tired, and that rather negates the process.” Allow your eyes to be gently loved.

The Blind Walk:

The most profound exercise of my training was the blind walk. The trainer blindfolded me and led me out to the sidewalk. I was to walk down the street and find my way back. (OMG, now I have trouble finding my car in the parking lot with both eyes open.) Well, I ran into parked cars, got disoriented, went in circles, but I didn’t get run over or become lost forever. (She was there with me all along.)

This blind walk was to teach me to be observant and rely on other senses besides my vision. 

The above exercises seemed to effect little change in my vision until the teacher held two cards side-by-side. I was somehow to fuse the images. I felt as if my eyes were crossing, but I developed a feel for the placement of my eyes. This biofeedback tipped the scale for me. 

A friend’s little boy in Riverside, California, eyes weren’t converging correctly. The treatment for him was to jump on a trampoline behind a wall just high enough so that when he jumped, he could see over the wall. 

Something on the high wall gave him a focal point that on the zenith of his jump, he had only a microsecond to catch the image. That treatment must have worked to correct his vision, for he went on to become a professor and doesn’t wear glasses.

Chapter 2

Sunshine

I have hit upon a characteristic of the eye, indeed the body, that I didn’t know the day I wrote that first blog post. 

We are sunshine beings. And light is good for us.

Sages of old used to bow to Ra, the sun, each morning. Now we know that the morning sun, being low on the horizon and behind layers of atmosphere that filters out much of the UV, is an ideal time to heal the body. Infrared rays can stimulate the microcondria (little powerhouses present in all cells). Since the eyes have a great need for energy, and the microcondria are abundant in the retina, Infrared light is good for them.

In 2008, Colleen Huber, NMD. wrote:

During the few short months of summer, we experience here in New England, we all do our best to get outside, enjoy the beautiful weather, and obtain our vitamin D. With all the research out there showing the benefits of vitamin D on bone health, enhancing mood, preventing sickness, preventing tooth decay, optimizing hormone levels, and preventing cancer. We could all benefit from getting a little sun on our bodies. However, did you know that getting a little sun in your eyes can actually be just as beneficial?

While I am emphasizing that Infrared light supports microcondria health, it appears that a full spectrum light is necessary for increasing and maintaining the health of the entire body.

According to two researchers, German Ophthalmologist Fritz Hollwich, MD, and John Ott, Hon. D. Sci, the array of bodily organs and systems that depend on full-spectrum light are astounding. “When the eyes are exposed to natural light, the pituitary gland, thyroid, adrenal glands, ovaries, testes, pancreas, liver, and kidneys all function better.” 

And think of this, the eyes and the skin are the only organs of the body exposed to light.

Glassblowers can get cataracts from the Infrared light of their furnace, which in their case is heat—like the burner on your electric stove that glows red. Heat can cook the whites of the eyes like an egg. But we aren’t going to sit in front of a blast furnace. We aren’t going to heat up our eyes. And we aren’t going to sunburn our skin. And if you’re a glassblower, wear protective goggles. 

We’re talking about the gentle rays of the sun. Go outside for 20 minutes to an hour without sunglasses.

I once went to a seminar where the presenter pointed to someone wearing sunglasses and said, “The more you wear those, the blinder you will get.”

Recently, my husband said that he has been going to the roof patio during his lunch hour. While sitting there, he would close his eyes and allow the sun’s rays to fall on his closed eyes. After a few days of letting the sunshine in, he noticed that the hills that are often hazy had become clearer.

As our bodies age, specific components deteriorate. (Unless, of course, we take measures to combat this.) The retina of the eye ages sooner than other parts--thus the need to recharge its batteries. Around age 40, the eye's lens loses much of its elasticity, causing a condition called presbyopia. This is when people begin reaching for their reading glasses. Presbyopia is considered a normal part of aging. However, Bates pointed out that some people go into old age with perfect vision. So, apparently, even presbyopia can be helped. That was probably what was happening to me when the Phone book print was becoming blurry.

A new study has discovered that “Red-light therapy can help arrest this natural process of losing elasticity of the lens. lens.

Giving the eyeball with the right wavelength of light has been found to “recharge the retinal batteries.” (670-nanometers for 3 minutes.)

Apparently, having one’s eyes closed, as my husband was doing that day on the outside deck, filters out the blue light waves and allows the red ones to hit the retina.

With a microscope’s aid, we can see those little retinal batteries, the mitochondria. They are little organelles floating about in the cytoplasm of all cells. And remember, the retina with its high energy needs—either by luck or design—it has a dense population of these little powerhouses.

“The University College London (UCL) looked at the potential for manipulating the performance of mitochondria. They found that red-light helped produce the energy-rich molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP.)”

Glen Jeffery, the lead author of the study, says that with an aging population, we need to try to stem this decline. He thinks that red-light therapy can help re-boot aging retinal cells.

The UCL researchers had previously conducted experiments. They found that exposing the eyes of mice, bumblebees, and fruit flies to 670-nanometer deep red light resulted in significant improvements to their vision.

“Mitochondria have specific light absorbance characteristics influencing their performance. Longer wavelengths spanning 650 to 1000 nanometers are absorbed and improve mitochondrial performance to increase energy production,” says Professor Jeffery.

“Next, the researchers turned their attention to human subjects. This round of experiments involved 24 healthy participants between the ages of 28 and 72 who underwent examinations at the outset of the study. This meant testing the retina’s rods’ sensitivity, which handles peripheral vision and low-light scenarios, and cones, which mediate color vision.

“All of the subjects were given a small LED flashlight that emitted a deep red 670-nanometer beam and were asked to hold it up to one closed eye, then the other for three minutes a day for two weeks. Follow-up testing revealed that the therapy had no impact on the younger subjects but brought significant benefits for those 40 and over.

“The ability to detect colors improved by as much as 20 percent in some of those subjects, with the most significant gains observed in the blue part of the spectrum that is most susceptible to age-related decline. Rod sensitivity was also significantly improved in those 40 and over, albeit not by quite as much.

“Our study shows that it is possible to significantly improve vision that has declined in aged individuals using simple brief exposures to light wavelengths that recharge the energy system that has declined in the retina cells, rather like recharging a battery,” says Jeffery. 

I didn’t intend to get too scientific here, but perhaps, some like me, want it.

 (More on the light spectrum later on.)

Chapter 3

The Blind Spot

I did it.

You’ve probably done this too. Probably in school.

Last night with an ink dot on the edge of a napkin, I performed an experiment and found the blind spot in my right eye.

I may have other blind spots, but we won’t talk about those. We’re talking about the blind spot everyone has. It’s on the retina–that area at the back of the eyeball where cells (rods and cones) collect our images.

There is a space on the retina that is blind. It is where the optic nerve exits the eyeball, and thus there are no receptor cells there.

I laid the napkin with its dot beside my focal point on the table. Still staring at my table spot, I slowly slid the napkin to my right. Suddenly, the dot disappeared.

It’s cool. Try it.

It’s astounding when you first discover it. If you want to get more technical, you can actually map it using the dot method and putting a dot on a piece of paper beside you. After you have a complete circle of dots, draw a line dot to dot. That will be an outline of your blind spot, a funny little blob, not a perfect circle. Remember, this is where the optic nerve exits the eyeball.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it’d fun, and it demonstrates the eye-brain connection, for the brain fills in that blind spot, so, unless we test for it, we don’t know it’s there. Also, since we have binocular vision, one eye covers what the other one does not see.

In school, we were taught that light goes into the eye through the pupil, is focused by the lens, and collected on the retina. (Remember that diagram?)

Do you remember that the image on the retina is upside down?

Now, how in the heck do we see things right side up?

The brain switched it for us.

Amazing.

In response to my blog readers asking for more information, I thought, “No,” I don’t have more to say, except on rethink I do.

First, to reemphasize what I said earlier:

DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN.

I know that changing beliefs is nearly impossible, but to be open to new data is the mark of a scientist or a learner. Except, we all have negative bias.

Have you ever found yourself dwelling on an insult or fixating on your mistakes?

Criticisms usually have a greater impact than compliments, and bad news draws more attention than good. 

“Given events of equal weight occur, the negative one will have the most weight.

Why is that?

Negativity has a louder voice.

Such differences in negativity bias might explain why some people are more likely to value things such as tradition and security, while others are more open to embracing ambiguity and change.

Where Negative Bias Comes From

Our tendency to pay more attention to bad things and overlook good things is likely a result of evolution. Earlier in human history, paying attention to harmful, dangerous, and damaging threats in the world was literally a matter of life and death.

Those who were more attuned to danger and who paid more attention to the bad things around them were more likely to survive. (And have more children.)

This meant that those children were given genes more attuned to danger.

This tendency to dwell on the negative more than the positive is simply one way the brain tries to keep us safe. and so, it is an uphill battle to stay positive in a world that throws negativity on us at the smallest provocation. (News, media used the principle, “if it bleeds, it leads.” I know you get it.

Psychologists define Negative Bias as the tendency to weigh-in on the bad over the good. And this bias has a powerful effect on our behavior, decisions, and relationships.

All this is to say, you don’t have to do the new thing, just consider it a possibility. And praise the pioneers.

Have you noticed that various methods will come into vogue, like using small pyramids to preserve foods, make wine taste better, or sharpen razor blades?

Did a razor blade really become sharpened if placed under a small, accurately aligned Pyramid? Or did the idea of it get poo-pooed without a test? It would be easy to test that theory. Was the razor blade sharper after being placed under a pyramid? This is a simple, yes, or no answer. Except, of course, it’s a judgment call. “It doesn’t look or feel sharper to me,” says one. “I shaved with it,” says another. “It was definitely sharper.” WAS IT OR WASN’T IT? Someone with an electron microscope could prove if the atoms on the edge of the blade were changed. I guess it wasn’t worth the effort.

I want to emphasize that over the ages, thoughts, theories, or processes have been put forth and touted as world-changing, only to disappear—like the Bates Method.

I believe the Bates Method works if you work it. 

Many of us do some of these processes for a time, then find them too tedious or time-consuming, and take the easy road. Yep, I did it too.

It doesn’t mean the process didn’t work. It meant we were too lazy to do them.

There is a phenomenon in horse training. Let’s say you have the horse circling you. (I don’t call it lunging, for lunging is often a way to take excess energy off the horse. or to make him submissive.) Asking a horse to circle you on the long end of a rope establishes trust, and yes, obedience, but you don’t wear him out with it. You want to ride him while he has energy, not after you have exhausted him. This is not a master over a slave, but to place you as the leader. Horses, being herd animals, will follow a leader. The fascinating thing is, to reward the horse, you allow him to stop and hang out. Horses don’t like to work either.

Chapter 4

How the Eyes See

The internet told us that extended use of computer screens is causing our eyeballs to elongate.

So, what does that mean for our vision?

Many factors determine how the eyes see. It could be the shape of the cornea, the lens's ability to accommodate, or the shape of the eyeball.

If the eyeball is so rounded that the image falls behind the retina, the person’s close-up vision will be blurry or unclear. That person is said to be far-sighted. The medical term is hyperopia.

Near-sighted people have an elongated eyeball, and the image falls in front of the retina. They see close images clearly, but not far.

Did the use of lenses, aka glasses, changes the focus, so the image falls directly on the retina as in normal vision.

My husband demonstrated near-sighted and far-sighted the other night. He held a pair of glasses over the kitchen table, using them to focus the ceiling light onto the table.

When he focused the light on the table, it represented a person with perfect vision.  The image hit right on the retina.

When he focused the image off the table and onto his hand (held slightly below table height), the image was blurry. This demonstrated that the image’s focal point was behind the retina.

So, if we place a lens (glasses) in front of our eyes, we can focus that image precisely where it ought to be. (Genius idea, huh?)

However, I am talking about making it easy on the eyes without strain, whether you wear glasses or not. 

Some proponents of eye muscle exercises think that exercising the muscles that surround the eye will pull the eyeball into its ideal shape. That way, the light falls exactly on the fovea, that spot on the retina that contains the most cones. This is the area of the best “visual acuity.” (Sight.)

Many will give you instructions on finding the tiny microfiber muscles at the top and bottom of the eye. I found such a person on the Internet, but I can’t find her again. This person said to lightly press each muscle 100 times a day. It is like lifting weights for the arms. She claims you can get rid of your glasses with this exercise but says she’s lazy and resorts to 100 dp. reading glasses when she needs them.

See, even proponents who believe they can improve their vision with exercises have a hard time sticking to a discipline.

I see that it is resistance to do the exercises that is the downfall of these methods. I suppose having a trainer such as I had encouraged me to keep with the program, and thus my results were good. Now, being a slacker, I need reading glasses. But, in writing this, I am motivated to do the exercises.

I just stopped typing and lightly pressed the area above, then below my eyes 100 times. I pressed in that area bony ridge right inside the eye socket. After that, I palmed my eyes. And now my eyes feel much more relaxed.

Yes, I know there are only so many minutes in a day, and it appears that plenty of people want your minutes, including me. Here I want you to read this book. I also want it to be worth your while and that you will enjoy a more relaxed vision. More relaxed eyes can’t help but improve your day.

Huxley believes that it isn’t the light level of classrooms that is causing children to need glasses, it the gripping of muscles by straining to do their work under stressful conditions—trying to get it right, sitting still in desk most of the day. Fear or reprimand—those sorts of things.

And learning when we are motivated can be fun. Isn’t that what we do from the time we are born, try to have fun and learn along the way. How did we ever learn to walk?

One criticism of Bates was that he put little stock on the lens of the eye, which we know adjusts and accommodates the focus of the eye.

It’s fascinating that we use the phrase “I see,” meaning to understand.  And that so much emotion can be expressed through the eyes–such as crying.

Chapter 5

“It appears that the harder we try, the worse we do the thing.”

“Take the piano teacher, for example.” Huxley wrote. “The teacher always says, “Relax, relax.” But how can we relax while our fingers are rushing over the keys?”

Yet they have to relax. The singing teacher and the golf pro say precisely the same thing. And in the realm of spiritual exercises, we find that the person who teaches mental prayer says that as well. We have somehow to combine relaxation with activity.

What has to be relaxed is the self who tries too hard, thinks he knows what is what, and uses language to enforce his beliefs. 

In all psychophysical skills, we have this curious law of reversed effort: the harder we try, the worse we do the thing.”

This conundrum is hard to explain, and metaphysical teachers have tried to explain it, generally leaving us wondering what in the world they are talking about. 

Daughter Dear explained it well today. When she first got out of college, she worked at Pet Smart and worked hard. She advanced in her field until she was the Director. She loved it. 

She was working hard, in a way that pleased her. It was effort with relaxation.

I’m sure cyclists in a race work hard. That is, they push their body, but their mind is at peace, happy.

We are pushing, yet not pushing if that makes sense. 

Chapter 6

Memory, Imagination, and

Other Exercises that will Help You See Better

The most crucial fact of memory is, it doesn’t work well under strain. You’ve had the experience of meeting someone you know and forgetting their name. The more you strain to remember it, the harder it becomes. Later on, during a time of calm, it comes to you. (This doesn’t bode well for final exams, does it?)

When people begin remembering, they put themselves into mental relaxation. The body relaxes, and with that, their vision improves. You might notice that some days you see better than other days.

Relaxation:

Relaxation can be learned until it becomes a habit. I am now thinking of Lamaze Childbirth Training. In training, we learned that when our belly contracts, we relax. And we learned that relaxation before labor, by pretending or by using Braxton Hicks contractions. While the uterus was practicing, so was the Lamaze student. The idea was to practice until it becomes automatic. 

You have probably seen women—especially in the movies, writhing in pain, gripping the bars of the bed or someone’s hands, and screaming. Indeed, in film, that is more dramatic than seeing someone go limp, breathing steadily, and making it through without a scream. Drama be darned, Every woman wants an easy childbirth.

Lamaze learned this technique by watching cats pant during labor and birth. I fear that The Lamaze training is another technique that has fallen to the wayside alongside Vision Training.

Palming, sunning, swinging, and shifting can do much to put a presbyopia (hardening of the lens) or hyperopia (long-distance vision) person into a state of relaxation. Thus, they will be able to read at normal distances without glasses.

Shifting:

The Calendar drill:

Rip off a large desk-sized calendar page, one that has a small calendar in the lower right. Hang it on the wall and swing your head as though looking over the right shoulder, swing to Day 1 of the calendar. Next, shift to the left, and go to 2. 

Shift to the small calendar at the bottom of the page. Go the first day on the calendar. Don’t worry if it’s gray and blurry. Swing back up to the large calendar. Go to day 3 and back to the small calendar. And so on.

When the hyperope (long-distance vision person) looks at the large print, they should notice the blackness of the ink. With eyes closed, remember that those small letters were written with the same ink, and the paper behind them is the same white as the paper under the large letters.

“Sensing is not the same as perceiving,” Aldous Huxley wrote. “The eyes and the nervous system do the sensing. The mind does the perceiving, and much of perceiving is related to the individual’s accumulated experiences, in other words, to memory.”

To illustrate this, think of a microscopist.

He will see certain things on a microscope slide a novice will not.

A city dweller walking through the woods will be blind to what a naturalist will see.

As kids, we often saw shapes in clouds or tree branches. We saw animals, monsters, people, more than geometrical shapes. We would tell our friend what we saw. My friend saw a lion, and the moment he pointed it out, it popped into my awareness as well.

Huxley says that myopia usually begins at a young age, and he believes that schools are primarily responsible. Reformers have tried to rectify this trend by increasing the light level and offering larger print, to no avail. One school did look at the psychological aspects with great success, but with the changing of administration and the pressure from people who had gone through the old system, it fell to the wayside.

Imagine a lifetime of that sort of pressure. Many of those students move into the workforce and experience much of the same. Is it any wonder we have illnesses and poor vision?

Huxley suggests placing an eye chart in a classroom as something familiar for the children to see and rest their eyes upon since memory and familiarity aid. We could put something prettier in the classroom than an eye chart.

As I look up from typing, I see my friend June’s oil painting of a mother and two children picking up shells on the beach. The ocean and horizon are there, and those are always relaxing. Maybe that’s the reason we like pictures on our walls. It not only graces our room but gives us a breathing spot, something pleasant to look at, and something familiar.

Chapter 6

Light

Don't you wonder what colors other creatures see, those who see further to the right or left of the light spectrum?

You know that we see only a tiny portion of the spectrum: the primary colors, red, green, and blue.

Blend these primary colors and get orange, green, and violet secondary colors.

Add black and white; we can see many colors like pink, blue, magenta, brown, tan, cream, etc.

Bees and many other insects can detect ultraviolet light, which helps them find nectar in flowers. Birds can see into the ultraviolet (300–400 nm). Some have sex-dependent markings on their plumage visible only in the ultraviolet range. Bees' visible spectrum ends at about 590 nm, just before the orange wavelengths start. Birds can see some red wavelengths, although not as far into the light spectrum as humans.

Plant species that depend on insect pollination may owe reproductive success to their appearance in ultraviolet light rather than how colorful they appear to humans. 

One would think that the rainbow colors would be six—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Yet we have seven. Why is that?

Who in the heck named our rainbow colors and counted them as seven? 

Sir Isaac Newton, that's who.

Newton was a fan of Pythagoras, who said there are seven basic musical notes. Newton thought that there should also be seven basic colors. Thus, he divided purple into indigo and violet.

We usually think of Pythagoras as a mathematician. However, he was more fascinated by the soul's fate after death. Most of the mathematical and music theories attributed to him came from Plato and Aristotle 150 years earlier.

I like the number seven, too, so I'm happy with the seven colors of the rainbow. It's strange how we accept what we've been told, especially when repeated repeatedly. 

I see that this is chapter six. Perhaps I will write one more chapter and make this book come out as seven chapters—like the rainbow colors.

Captured while driving up I-5 from Eugene, Oregon, toward Salem, Oregon. Notice there are two rainbows.

Chapter 7

The Art of Seeing

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows,

and what’s on the other side?”

-- Kermit, the Frog

I would say it’s because we like magic and imagination and dreaming and supposing. 

You can take all I have said as a fairy tale. Or you can take what I’ve said as one person’s belief that while the body operates physically, it also operates magically. (Psychologically, with intuition, in areas we don’t understand yet.)

A fascinating fact was that two days after completing this booklet, my 14-year-old grandson told everyone at the dinner table how rainbows were made. And he didn’t know I had rainbows on my brain. 

Huxley calls his book “The Art of Seeing,” and here I emphasize that there is a science and an art to this phenomenon of seeing. There is something ethereal, indeed magical about how we see the world. And our fantastic brain can choose and interpret what it prefers to focus on.

Daughter Dear sent me this text the other day:

 “We live in a time when we can tour the Louvre museum online, or access the Library of congress online, or read almost every joke ever written. And what do most people choose to put into their heads? One elderly woman who is very smart, chooses to feed on the garbage of the news.” (On the hour, that would be repeat, repeat, repeat.)

I wrote back and asked, “Where are those jokes?”

This came back: “Hear about the new restaurant called Karma?”

“No, what is it?”

“There’s no menu.: You get what you deserve.”

Haha.

Before I go, here are a few suggestions that might be beneficial. 

•         Roll your eyes clockwise then counterclockwise.

•        Press lightly on the spot where your closed eye meets the lower lid.

•         Place three fingers under your brow and push up.

•         While still holding your fingers under your brow and using your brow muscles, press down. 

• I’m not saying this will improve your vision, but it makes your eyes feel like they have had a massage.

Eat well:

Dr. Scott’s Better Vision Regimen:

• Vitamin A: This vitamin is crucial for vision and eye health. It is an essential component of Rhodopsin–the protein that absorbs light in the retina. It also is vital for the health of the cornea and conjunctival membranes.

• Omega-3 Fatty Acids: DHA found in fish oil is an Omega-3 fatty acid. The photoreceptors in the retina are made up of 50 percent DHA. I suggest you supplement with one to three grams of fish oil a day.

• Berries: I’m a big fan of berries. They contain many potent antioxidant compounds. Berries are high in essential vitamins and flavonoids that your eyes need. Studies have shown that blueberries may help with night vision, but so do bilberries and Maqui berries.

• Lutein and Zeaxanthin: These carotenoids are found in colorful fruits and vegetables and help the macula determine color vision.

• Balance Your Blood Sugar: Increases in blood sugar can cause cloudy vision. If you have problems balancing blood sugar, look to the herbal extract berberine and the mineral chromium.

The Bates Training in a Nutshell:

• Swing side to side., arms loose and flopping at your sides.

• Blink. Relaxed eyes often blink, tense eyes not so much. Besides lubricating the eyes, blinking wakes up the eyes. It also gives them a reprieve with a moment of darkness.

• Breathe.  Excellent vision depends on good circulation. When concentrating, some people appear as though they are diving for pearls and hold their breath for long periods. When one is tense, they tend to hold their breath.

• Look near to far numerous times a day for rest and relaxation for the eyes.

• Don’t stare. Eyes in motion are healthy eyes. 

• Palm several times a day when you are working at the computer or reading.

• Get some sunshine, but don’t look directly at the sun.

Remember, Huxley wrote his book in 1939. He said that before the war of 1914, it was rare to see any person with dark glasses. After that time, the fear of UV rays, in part propagated by the medical profession, sent people off the purchase sunglasses. Designer glasses further encouraged people to block out the sun. (They are cool.)

Animals get by very well without sunglasses, as did primitive men. 

The need for dark glasses also came about after people experienced the pain of going from a semi-dark place into bright light. They grimace, frown, screw up their faces, and narrow their eyes.

Before vision training, I would experience sharp pain and tearing when driving into the sun. During the training we lived in Rancho Santa Fe, California, and driving west toward the ocean into Del Mar, one day I noticed that the bright setting sun didn’t hurt my eyes as it once did.

I attributed this change to my practice of sunning.

Remember, Infrared rays are the good guys.

Learn to do what you do without strain. 

Dark frames on glasses look cool, but when you put a frame around the eyes that tend to make the wearer look straight ahead.

Go glasses-free frequently. Wear glasses when you need them for safety and to avoid eye strain when reading. However, remember that the eyes are dynamic mechanisms. Your vision will vary throughout the day and with various psychological states. Fixing them with glasses will inhabit that natural variation.

•        Remember, Infrared rays are the good guys.

•        Learn to do what you do without strain. 

•         Dark frames on glasses look cool, but when you put a frame around the eyes that tend to make the wearer look straight ahead.

• Go glasses-free frequently. Wear glasses when you need them for safety and to avoid eye strain when reading. However, remember that the eyes are dynamic mechanisms. Your vision will vary throughout the day and with various psychological states. Fixing them with glasses will inhabit that natural variation.

How in the world did Bates know that light was good for the eyes? But remember, children should not sleep with the lights on. Neither should you.

Thank you for motivating me to write this little book. I am now reminded to tend to my eyes in a more gentle, relaxed manner. 

Now, look up from reading. Look to the horizon!

Now come back with happy eyes, 

Jo

Copyright © 2024 by Glenda Joyce Davis

aka Jewell D

All rights reserved.