In regard to vision improvement, I’ve mainly been using long swings for relaxation and just trying to use my eyes correctly. I also bought the 14 E-book set from Clark Night which includes Bates’ book, Perfect Eyesight, and all of his Better Eyesight magazine issues. These, along with all the other included books, are great materials to have for reference and reading. Thanks Clark 🙂 .
Anyway, I’ve been reading alot of the articles, blog posts, and forum posts on David’s website iBlindness lately. I really like how he tries to simplify the components of the Bates method into the most applicable way. From what I’ve read on iBlindness, and from my own thoughts on Bates’ methods, there are basically two components of seeing clearly. First, is relaxing your mind and occular muscles. Second, is using your eyes correctly; this is how someone with 20/20+ vision uses their eyes.
For the first part concerning relaxation, Bates utilized many exercises such as palming, swinging and sunning. These exercises usually don’t improve one’s vision permanently, but they relax your mind and put you in a good state for the second part. While Bates shared some stories of people who were cured quickly using these relaxation methods, for most of his patients they just started off their visits or home practices with these exercises. After they were relaxed mentally, Bates would try to teach them how to correctly use their eyes. My thoughts on the people who were cured solely with these exercises is that those people had personality traits that made it difficult for them to effectively cope with life stressors (the poor coping ability leading to their poor visual acuity).
Concerning the second part, Bates taught the patients about correct eye usuage using such concepts as shifting, central fixation, and the universal swing. It seems that most people with imperfect sight, whether they are generally relaxed, are not using their eyes correctly unconsciously. Relearning to use one’s eyes as one did when his/her vision was good is difficult as one has the opportunity to use their eyes well/poorly every second they are awake.
I believe that I should focus on the second part. While my job is often stressful, I don’t always sleep well, and I sometimes have a low level of anxiety about uncertain things, I am generally a laid-back person. While palming and swinging might feel good as I use them, they never really improve my vision. What I do notice when I wear glasses or see without them, is that I’m prone to staring. I know that it isn’t my natural inclination to shift, be aware of central fixation and look for details.
Anyway, this post is mainly just a way to organize my thoughts and focus my future vision improvement practices. I think if I really focused on one thing, it would be looking for details. This practice alone utilizes shifting and central fixation and can lead to the appearance of the universal swing if done unconsciously. David also seems to have come to this realization and has written multiple blog posts on ways to look for details as someone with good vision would do. I believe all my future vision work needs to be focused on always looking for the smallest details in the things I see.
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