5 Ways to Improve Eyesight Naturally

5 Ways to Improve Eyesight Naturally

1. Palming to Improve Vision

This is the cornerstone of the Bates method of natural vision improvement. It’s very simple to do and if you get creative, you can find ways to palm without having to set aside time to do it. Why not give it a try now? If you’re sitting at a desk, rub your palms together until they feel warm, take off your glasses (after you finish reading this paragraph), and then place your palms over your eyes as you rest your elbows on the table.

The key is to relax your shoulders, neck and eye muscles while the heat from your palms soothes your eyeballs and the surrounding muscles. Breathe in deeply and imagine that you are looking off into the distance watching the ocean waves or anything else that is relaxing and pleasing to you.

The more you can palm, the better. Aim for 5 to 10 minute stretches to start. Here’s my creative tip for finding time to palm. I palm while sitting on the toilet . You jest! But it adds up to several minutes a day without any extra effort or time commitment on my part.

The beauty of palming is that if you activate the energy centers in your palms, you can use your qi (life force energy) to heal your eyes. I’m creating a class right now on improving eyesight naturally, and one of the things I want to do is to guide students through a qi gong exercise to raise the energy coming through their palms. Qi from your hands is incredible healing energy. I’ve used it to recover from bruised ribs in half the time the doctor said it would take me to heal. Why not use it for your eyes too?

2. Go take a walk.

If you want to improve your vision quickly, take a 20-minute daily walk outside if you can, preferably in nature, but cities work too. Here’s the catch. Do this without your glasses on! If you’ve got a strong prescription, I totally get that this is going to feel a little scary. So go somewhere really safe where you can’t get hit by a car and try walking without your glasses for a few minutes at a time. Keep adding time until you’re comfortable and feel confident.

You’ll notice that you really need to look and pay attention when you don’t have your glasses on. In some ways, you’ll see better because you won’t go into that zone where you can tune stuff out (here’s a hint why people plateau).

If you were to imagine the walls of a room when you’re outside, you’d really notice just how short a distance that is. It feels claustrophobic. When you’re indoors all the time, your eyes are confined and they don’t get room to stretch out.

3. Take off your glasses and set your eyes free.

Glasses help your eyes see perfectly as long as you look through the center of the lenses. Notice how things distort just a touch when you look at the perimeter of your lenses. What happens then, is that your eyes get used to always staring through the center of the lens and they don’t move around as much.

Basically, your eye muscles have to hold your eyes in a fixed position in order to see. Unfortunately, it’s the lack of movement that keeps tension in your eyes. When you take off your glasses, your eye muscles get the opportunity to relax. Your eyes can move around more and that is highly beneficial for improving your vision naturally.

Consider this analogy for a moment. How do your legs feel when you’re stuck on an airplane in a cramped seat and you can barely move them? The circulation gets cut off and your legs feel antsy and then they start to get cramped up. Imagine if you were stuck like that for decades. You’d lose a lot of flexibility and motion in your legs. Same goes for your eyes! Set them free by going without glasses whenever it’s convenient and safe to do so.

You can start by removing them when you’re at home. E.g. when you’re brushing your teeth, eating, doing laundry, etc. When you feel ready, start taking off your glasses in different situations where it feels a little scary to get by without them (e.g. washing dishes, at a meeting at work, socializing with friends, etc.).

Improving your eyesight isn’t just about what you do physically, but also about stretching your comfort zone a little. I’ll write way more about this in a subsequent post because I believe this is the most important way to improve your vision if you have a strong prescription or if you hit a plateau.

4. Use eye exercises to improve eyesight naturally, but always in moderation.

There are two eye exercises that I practice for about 30 to 60 seconds each day. Here’s one of them. It’s an exercise that works on the principal of memory and imagination. Memory and imagination help you fill in the blanks faster when you’re looking at something. For example, it’s always easier to pick out your loved ones from a crowd because you’re using your memory of what they look like to help you find them. Thus, exercising your memory and imagination can help you to see.

To practice this eye exercise to improve your vision, take off your glasses and hold a book in front of you at whatever distance is comfortable for you to read, even if it’s only 2 inches away. Cover or close your left eye and then focus on one letter of the page with your right eye. Trace the outline of the letter with your eye.

Then, close your right eye and picture that letter in your mind’s eye. Try to imagine it as clearly as possible. Open your right eye and look at the same letter again for a few seconds. Envision it being blacker than all of the other letters. When you start noticing this, it means that you are improving your vision. Repeat this 2 to 3 times. Then do the same exercise with your left eye. When you are finished, gently massage your eyes or cover them with your palms.

Here’s where eye doctors will warn that eye exercises to improve your vision can be harmful. You’re working your eyes to focus, relax and then focus again. Any exercises done in excess will cause eye strain, which is harmful for your eyes. You can’t muscle-build your eyes to improve your vision naturally. The key is to relax your eye muscles so that your eyes can lose their rigid lack of focus and relax into clarity.

5. Loosen up with shoulder rolls and head turns.

Tension in the eyes is always accompanied by tension in other areas of your body such as your face, jaw, neck and shoulders. Shoulder rolls and turning your head from side to side are really beneficial because they help improve circulation and release tension. From a Chinese Medicine perspective, they also help improve the flow of energy in your body.

Did you know that the occipital region of your brain contains the primary visual cortex? That’s where you process and make sense of what you see. The occipital region is located at the base of the back of your head, right above the neck. Tension in your neck and shoulders can cause this area to be very tight as well.

Do between 20 to 25 forward and backward shoulder rolls with a focus on bringing your shoulder blades together as you do the rolls.

For the head turns, stand in a relaxed position and then turn your head slowly to the left and then slowly to the right. Do this for about 12 repetitions. If you want to get a two-for-one deal, when you reach the end of your head turn, pause and then look as far around as you can with your eyes. This way, you’ll get to exercise your eyes too. Be sure to keep your shoulders relaxed as you turn your head.

http://www.chinesefootreflexology.com/improve-eyesight-naturally/ 

Bates, W.H., M.D. The Cure of Imperfect Sight byTreatment Without Glasses. New York: Central Fixation Publishing Co., 1920.
Free book:http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020199.batesbook.pdf