by Leo Anghart
3. While swinging your head slowly from side to side, let your eyes run over the first line of dominoes. You are not looking at any particular domino. Just let your eyes glide over them. Notice the white margin, the edges of each domino and the white dots.
4. Close your eyes and keep moving your head as if you were looking at the first row of dominoes. Exhale as slowly as possible as you do this.
5. Open your eyes and look at the dominoes as they swing by. Notice what happens. Move further and further away as your vision improves.
6. Close your eyes once more and sweep by the first row of dominoes in your mind.
7. Open your eyes and sweep across the second row of dominoes. Alternate between swinging across the page with eyes open and closed, as if you were reading the lines all the way to the bottom of the chart.
Look at the dominoes as if they were columns. Allow your mind to become involved by adding up the dots and calling out the total as you read each domino. For example, the first domino has only three dots. The second has two and six dots, so say eight, and so on. You can also add up the entire line of dominoes. Play around with this exercise three or four times a day and you will find that your vision will become perfect in no time at all.
16. Recovering More Than 4 Diopters of Myopia
With 4 diopters of myopia your vision extends out to only about 25 cm, which is too close for reading or working. With higher degrees of myopia you have even less visual range and you may have found in the past that you need to wear glasses the whole time in order to function.
The basic principles for regaining eyesight of more than 4 diopters of myopia are:
• Always wear lenses that are about 1 diopter under-corrected. This will give your eyes room to improve.
• Make sure that you have enough energy in your eyes for them to work comfortably. Low energy limits your progress.
• Work with the string exercise (below) to first equalize your eyes so both left and right eye have the same near point and far point. Then begin to move the far point further out.
• Decrease your lens prescription as you progress.
If your myopia registers anywhere from 4 to 14 diopters you are looking at several months to several years of Vision Training. Your eyeballs have to make some major changes before you have clear natural vision again. The first step is to wear reduced prescription lenses. If you continue to wear the full prescription, the glasses or contact lenses will do most of the focusing for you. Your eye muscles are used to doing very little and over time become lax and lose their tone.
Wearing glasses causes your eyes to adjust to the lens prescription of the glasses themselves. A friend of mine wanted to avoid serving in the military, so he borrowed the spectacles of another friend who was wearing -10 diopters. He wore his friend’s glasses for a week before appearing before the military board. As one would expect, his vision was deemed below the necessary military standard and he was rejected.
He returned the glasses to his friend and his own eyes returned to normal. This story shows us just how much the eyesight can change over a small span of time. As mentioned earlier, there is no doubt that eyesight is influenced by external factors. Therefore, wearing lenses that are under-corrected by up to 1 diopter allows your eyes to adapt and change naturally during the course of the day.
Wearing under-corrected glasses does not in itself do much to improve your eyesight. It may slow the rate of deterioration but is unlikely to produce any dramatic improvement. However, under-corrected lenses, combined with Vision Training exercises, can actually become a Vision Training tool.
In the Renaissance, your eye-care specialist would lend you a pair of frames and keep reducing your lens prescription every three or four days until your vision was back to normal. I guess that one of those guys had an MBA from somewhere and discovered that you could actually keep people coming back every year for new glasses!
Apart from wearing under-prescribed lenses, there are two kinds of exercises that you need to do to help your eyes return to normal. Firstly, you need to do exercises that help get the energy back into your eyes, and secondly to do active exercises that train your eyes to extend their point of clarity outwards.
Under-correction
There are very few studies that examine the effect of under-correction. Tokoro and Kabe (1985, 1986) compared myopia progression rates during a three-year period for 33 children who entered school with low myopia. Thirteen of the children were given full correction and were instructed to wear glasses all the time. Ten children were under-corrected by 1 diopter or more. A further ten children were given full correction but told only to wear the glasses when necessary.
Gross (1994) calculated the myopia progress rates for the children not receiving pharmacological treatment and these 11 children were fully corrected on a full-time basis, the mean annual rate of myopia progression (±1 SD) was 0.83 diopters. However, for the five children who were under-corrected the mean annual rate of progression was only 0.47 diopters (±0.009 SD). So the myopia progression rate was cut almost in half.
From the above we can see that to simply under-correct is an effective means of arresting the progression of myopia. Simple under-correction is not sufficient to actually reverse the myopia, but combined with Vision Training myopia can be reversed. Of course this is easiest when there are only a few diopters of myopia.
Energy exercise
The eyes function as a part of the brain, consuming as much as 30 percent of the energy used by the brain when they observe an object. Therefore it is easy to understand that the eyes need an abundance of available free flowing energy. One of the consequences of myopia above just a few diopters is the lack of energy in the eyes. The Chinese call this life-giving energy chi.
This exercise is in two parts. First of all you remove the old, tired energy from your eyes and then you bring in a fresh source of vitality. The objective is to give your eyes plenty of energy so they can respond to Vision Training exercises with vigor. This exercise is the one that actually cured my eyesight, and is based on the pranic healing tradition developed by Master Choa Kok Sui.
1. Activate your hands by gently touching the center of each palm with the opposite fingertip and then shake your hands vigorously.
2. Close the four fingers of your left or right hand, whichever you prefer, to form an imaginary arrow. Close your eyes and imagine soft apple-green energy flowing from the center of your palm down through your folded fingers in such a way that it creates a beam of this green energy.
Raise your hand and direct this stream towards the energy center located between your eyebrows.
Imagine that the energy flows in an endless stream from your fingertips into the point between your eyebrows and fills your eyes with cleansing apple-green energy. This should last for as long as it takes you to breathe in and out six to eight times. Then bring your hand down.
3. Next imagine that you are wearing a glove of transparent green or violet energy, which extends about 10 cm from your fingertips. Use your extended energy fingers to scoop away tired and old stress from your eyes. It is important that you clean the eyes all the way to the back of the eyeball. You will feel all the tiredness and tension being swept away from your eyes.
4. Now imagine lavender or pale violet energy flowing from your palm and direct this towards the energy point between your eyes. This lavender energy will re-energize your entire visual system. Once again do this as you count six or eight breathing cycles.
5. Turn your head to the left if you are right-handed. Find the energy point located at the back of your head at the same level as your eyes.
6. Project apple-green energy and briefly clean the energy center. Then project white energy into the back of your head and imagine this energy flowing from your fingertips into the back of your brain. This energizes the visual cortex located at the back of your head. Continue this process – energizing and flowing into the center of the brain – where it separates into two streams following and
energizing the optic nerve and flowing into the back of the eyes – energizing the retina, the fovea, the muscles around the eyes, the lens, the cornea and the eyelids. Imagine your eyes filled with brilliant stimulating white light. Allow your intuition to guide you as to when you have had enough.
7. Imagine that your hand is a paint-roller dipped in sky-blue energy. With one or two sweeps, paint a layer of blue around the energy you have projected into your eyes. The blue will stabilize the energy.
8. Finally, rub your palms together until they get nice and warm. End the exercise with about 30 seconds of palming. You may see beautiful colors swirling around. This is the energy being absorbed into your system.
In the beginning I couldn’t see the colors, so don’t be concerned if you can’t see them either. After a while this may start to change. In any case, remember that it is your intention that directs the energy and “energy follows thought.” If you have difficulty imagining colors you could look at a sample of each color before visualizing it.
This exercise is very effective and will quickly restore vital energy to your eyes. Your eyes will feel clean and refreshed. The colors around you may seem brighter.
Note: It is possible to over-energize your eyes. You will feel as if your head has been stuffed! The remedy is to sweep the excess energy away, or go and lean against a tree. The tree will automatically balance your energy level.
For maximum benefit, do this exercise every two hours. Your first objective is to get enough energy into the eyes and for them to feel comfortable throughout the day. If you wear glasses with a power of more than 2 diopters you will have experienced how quickly your eyes tire whenever you remove them. Just like when a car battery goes flat, the car will start, but only after a couple of tries. The objective is first of all to restore an adequate level of energy to your eyes. Then you can develop additional energy so that your eyes are able to respond to the Vision Training exercises. Without energy in your eyes you won’t get very far.
This exercise is the key to your myopia program. You should perform it every two hours until there is an adequate build-up of energy in your eyes. One of my participants in Manila, in the Philippines, was able to regain an impressive 3 diopters in only three days. She went from -6 diopters on Friday morning to -3 diopters on Sunday evening. To achieve this she practiced the exercise every half hour.
The energetic aspect of vision is not widely understood, and even less easy to comprehend is what can be done about it. In fact it is the key to regaining your eyesight. I have participants who have regained 5, 7 and even 8 diopters of myopia through this practice. The results have been objectively measured, with patients taking regular optometric tests to reduce their prescription.
String exercise
The string exercise is designed to give you a quantifiable method of measuring the parameters of your vision. Most people have difficulty understanding the meaning of a diopter reading. The string exercise provides definite and quantifiable feedback. All you need is a piece of string about 1.5 meters in length, a colored pen, a bookmark shaped piece of paper or card and a tape measure.
1. Firstly we need to measure the range of vision in each eye. This is done by placing one end of the string on the cheekbone, just below whichever eye you are testing. Tie the other end of the string to a chair or something convenient.
2. Use a bookmark shaped piece of paper or card that is inscribed with bright colors and large text. Slowly bring in the marker, holding it right next to the string, and starting from the other end of the string. Stop at the point where the text is no longer clearly visible.
It is important to emphasize the word clearly. We want the mind to understand that we want clear vision, so sending that message is of paramount importance.
Using one of the colored pens, mark this point on the string – the near point of absolutely clear vision. In most cases the near point is quite easy to identify. It should be less than 15 cm from your eyes.
3. Next, we want to find the point on the string where distance vision is no longer absolutely clear. You find that by slowly moving the marker out until the point where the text is no longer clear. Mark the far point of clear vision on the string. You now have a measure of the current extent of clear vision in that eye. The exercise thus far is just about providing a benchmark so that you can see how you progress. Now we come to the actual training part of the exercise.
4. Use one eye and follow the pen back and forth from about 5 cm before your far point where you can see it clearly and then out to about 5 cm beyond it, so your eyes begin to focus further and further away. Begin to involve your breathing. Exhale as you move your eyes outwards and inhale as you move your eyes back. Do this slowly. You will notice that your eyes start improving their ability to focus on the pen as it moves further and further away. You only need to do this exercise for 5 minutes at a time, but try to perform it ten times each day.
Distance
to far
point
100 cm
75 cm
50 cm
40 cm
33 cm
28 cm
25 cm
22.5 cm
20 cm
18 cm
15 cm
14 cm
12.5 cm
11 cm
10 cm Diopters
-1.0
-1.5
-2.0
-2.5
-3.0
-3.5
-4.0
-4.5
-5.0
-5.5
-6.0
-7.0
-8.0
-9.0
-10.0
This string exercise is exceptionally effective for exercising your focusing ability – the medical term is accommodation. You have constant feedback as you progress. In fact, you can improve your vision quite dramatically doing this exercise. For example, if you have 5 diopters of eyesight, your far point will be about 20 cm from the end of the string. Follow the string back and forth from 5 cm before your far point to 5 cm beyond your far point. Once your ability to see the marker has improved enough to be able to see it 5 cm further away, you will have regained one full diopter of your eyesight.
Check both eyes and compare the near point and far points for each eye. The near point should be 15 cm or less from the end of the string. If you have a high degree of myopia, then the near point may be quite close to the end of the string. If this is the case, there is no need to be concerned about it. On the other hand if the near point is more than 15 cm away then you are developing presbyopia or “old eyes.” This is usually not an issue if you are near-sighted.
Compare your far points. They should be exactly the same. If there is a difference, then you have anisometropic vision (i.e., one eye that has better vision than the other). This is the condition you need to attend to first. If left alone you could develop amblyopia in the weaker eye. This means that your brain simply switches off the input from that eye. Often people are not aware of this since it develops very slowly.
To correct the imbalance between your eyes use the string exercise and work with the weaker eye until both eyes are the same. The string exercise is a superb tool for restoring vision in an amblyopic eye.
Coming and going exercise
Assuming that myopia is a functional and learned phenomena, I have for years been looking for an exercise for myopia that would be equally effective as the Tibetan wheel exercise is for astigmatism. The main problem in myopia is that the oblique muscles hold too much tension, combined with what ophthalmologists would call excessive accommodation (i.e., the ciliary muscle around the lens is in a constant state of tension). This is the all too common experience of trying to see things in the distance clearly, especially after you have been using a computer. In other words, you are straining to see.
When you have a stiff shoulder or neck you begin to move your shoulder and head so the muscle is stretched and thereby releases the tension. This is one of the fundamental princ
iples of all bodywork approaches. The question is: How do you exercise and relax the two oblique muscles in the eye?
The eye muscles work in pairs and are all involved in any movement. However, the active force of turning the eyes is performed by pairs of muscles. It is a fluid relationship that exists between pulling and holding. This dynamic enables the fluid movement of your eyes as you track the flight of a bird from one tree to another or in reading this page. Normally, this process happens quite naturally and without any effort. However, if for one reason or another you happen to hold too much tension in one or more of your eye muscles, they will automatically exert undue pressure on the eyeball and cause undesirable stress patterns. The research done by Peter Greene (1980, 1981) using mechanical engineering principles in studying myopia, shows that tension held by the oblique muscles creates a higher level of stress on the back of the eyes where, in cases of myopia, an elongation is apparent.
Looking at the way that eye muscles work, I have noticed that the obliques are most engaged when you turn the eyes inwards towards the tip of your nose. The coming and going exercise is designed to stretch your oblique muscles and is especially beneficial for people with myopia.
The movements of this exercise are done at the center line right in front of you. Keep your head still and only move your eyes.
1. Take a pen or use one of your fingers and begin to slowly move it from below, and close to your body, up towards the tip of your nose. While looking at the pen, continue the movement until the pen actually touches the tip of your nose and your eyes are turned in towards your nose.
