They work, but not as well as advertised on most websites. Most eye exercise programs on the Internet are simply the Bates Method repackaged. Positioning them as an alternative health approach for your eyesight is borderline false advertising. We will pick that up below. Also, most how to articles and how to instructions on YouTube are discussing the same thing. But it is a limited approach to improve your vision. So,
What Are Eye Exercises?
It's a way to exercise your eyes that is also known as
vision therapy and eye training. Vision therapist rely on eye exercises when their patients need to improve their eye muscle control. For conditions such as convergence insufficiency, binocular vision, crossed eyes, and lazy eye. Also behavioral optometry and pediatric ophthalmologists apply them to
improve the vision of children to delay the onset of vision problems. Behavioral optometrists use them to improve the
visual perception and depth perception.
What Do Eyesight Exercises Help With?
Most online programs advertise to treat myopia or nearsightedness. That's because this eye condition is the biggest market share they can grab. The truth is that you need a more holistic approach to
cure myopia naturally. Pure eyes exercises are best for
farsightedness, amblyopia, lazy eye, and cross eyes. They work best for conditions when the eye muscles became too weak. But they are also effective with depth perception and visual perception.
How Do They Work?
The theory is that when an eye problem occurs, the eye muscles are not functioning correctly. The muscles are
- too tense
- too weak
- out of balance
Eye strengthening exercises are best when eye muscles are too weak. For examples in the case of hyperopia, presbyopia, and farsightedness. Eye muscle stretching, palming, and relaxing works best when the muscles are too tense and can't relax. That's the case for myopia (nearsightedness). For astigmatism, lazy eye, amblyopia, and cross eyed a combination works best. In these cases the eye muscles are out of balance and the combination will rebalance them. Eye exercises work by strengthening and
stretching all eye muscles, and then relax them. With that the eye regains the ability to focus in on close objects with stronger eye muscles. By relaxing and stretching them the eye regains the ability to loosen the muscles, which allows to see clearly into the distance. In reality, most eye exercise programs don't achieve that. The Bates Method only focuses on stretching and relaxing. It's not designed to strengthen the eye muscles properly. Since most eye exercise programs just copied the Bates Method, they are also missing that important element.
What Are The Benefits?
The most important benefit of
eye therapy is
eye strain relief. In today's world computer eye strain is a common problems. With hours of computer work per day, relieving eye strain is a great plus.
Eye Exercises Are Not Enough Because They Don't Balance Out The Entire Visual System. Your Eye Problems Have Underlying Root Causes In Your Mind, Your Emotions, Your Body, And Your Eyes. Read The Article And Click This Image To Discover Simple Ways To Improve Your Eyesigh.
Most programs claim benefits for every eye disease. They compare the exercises to yoga and call it "yoga for the eyes". The difference between a real yoga class with holistic yoga exercises is that with yoga you balance out your entire body and organ system. With eye exercises you only gain better eye muscle control. The exercises have no effect on your state of mind, your emotional state, your organ health, and the rest of your body. You have to take care of all aspects, which we'll discuss below. Another condition that can benefit from exercising your eyes is double vision because it is the starting point of eye problems. But the relieve doesn't last, if you don't take of the body-mind system. Also crossed eyes, lazy eye, and amblyopia can benefit. But a close look at the upper part of the neck is more important. That's the area where the nerves controlling the eye muscles exit the spine.
What Are Some Eye strengthening Exercises?
The most popular set of exercises is very simple:
- keep you head facing straight ahead at all times, only move your eye throughout the exercises.
- Slowly move your eyes on the horizontal plane to look over your left shoulder until you feel a comfortable stretch in your eye muscles. Hold there to a count of 5.
- Slowly mover your eyes horizontally to look over your right shoulder until you feel a stretch. Hold for 5.
- Do the same slow movement vertically to look over your head until you feel a stretch. Hold for 5.
- Slowly move your eyes horizontally down to look at your feet while holding your head straight. Feel the stretch and hold to 5.
- Keep you head straight, and slowly follow with your eyes an imaginary 8. Make sure the movement is smooth and even.
- Still with your head facing forward, now slowly follow with your eyes an imaginary infinity symbol (∞). Again, nice and smooth.
The problem with most eye strengthening exercises is that they are only stretching, but not truly strengthening the eye muscles. So,
Are These Exercises Effective?
Truth to be told,
eye exercises are the last element you need for natural vision correction. What
most programs are missing is to address are underlying root causes for the vision problem. The stuff that is causing the eye muscles to perform incorrectly in the first place. These root causes appear in three areas of your life (listed in order of importance):
- Your mental and emotional life
- Your chemical life (nourishment and toxicity in your body)
- Your body (that includes your physical body, and lastly your eyes)
This is what we coined the
"Triangle of Sight".
So to improve vision naturally and to have better vision for the rest of your life, you have to address each of these areas. To start with, you have to know what these root causes are for you specifically. To find out your personal root causes, I would strongly encourage you to
take the free test here on our website. It is designed to analyze your specific case, and will give you a personalized report with suggestions.
Do Eye Exercises Really Work? is courtesy of Eyesight Matters Inc
