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What it takes
When I first started looking for ways to improve my sight, you couldn't search the internet like you can today. But I did go to the library and the book stores. I read about how the eye works, why an eye is near-sighted or far-sighted and generally got a good understanding of the principles involved in focusing. I read about a number of exercises you can do but they didn't really exercise the focusing muscles. I bought materials and tried a variety of approaches. I "played" with my sight to see what worked and what didn't. I learned about tricks with the eye such as those hidden 3-D images called stereograms. I learned about pinhole glasses that trick the eye into focusing at the sacrifice of depth of field. I tried several approaches that purported to improve vision naturally but they all seemed to be full of BS. Frankly, I found them to be cumbersome and difficult to do and I could not rationalize WHY they should work. But they gave me ideas of new approaches to try.
First I bought an eye chart that allowed me to roughly measure my visual acuity and to follow my progress - indeed to make sure I was making progress. Then, over time, I developed my own regimen of eye exercises that forced my eyes to exercise in ways that were giving me headaches. I thought of quitting from the headaches but was reminded of my early experiences with weight lifting. My muscles would hurt for a period of time and then the pain would subside. Would my experience be the same with my eyes? Would the muscles hurt for a period and then get stronger? Or did the pain indicate that I was doing damage to my eyes? There was really only one way to find out. I doubted very much that I was damaging my eyes. For starters, I wasn't touching my eyes in any way. And I wasn't exposing my eyes to anything strange. I was simply forcing my eye muscles to move in amounts larger than I had been doing on any regular basis. I decided to continue my exercises on a daily basis for one month.
After a few days of routine exercises, I added some additional exercises that would prove to be helpful. What I ended up with was a set of eye exercises that are simple to do just about anywhere and just about anytime. At the end of one month, I could indeed see better in my left eye. Although I didn't have a very accurate method to measure my improvement, I was certain I saw improvement. The eye chart was one measurement tool. Another very obvious sign was the fact that I could now make out the numbers on my digital alarm clock WITH MY LEFT EYE ALONE. Yes, the numbers were still a little blurry but my left eye alone could read the clock. I knew I was on to something good here. I hadn't been able to do that in a few years. So, I continued the daily exercises hoping to regain perfect vision. The positive reinforcement of progress made was enough to convince me to continue indefinitely. However, after two additional months of exercise, it seemed that I had hit a plateau. I was becoming discouraged but how could I give up after seeing such good progress. I couldn't.
I read more and more about the eye hoping to find some additional clues or ideas to improve my vision. Then I remembered my thoughts about working with the system. Other thoughts came back to me from my reading on eye diseases. Suddenly I found myself focusing (no pun intended) on the vulnerability of the eye especially in diabetics. Diabetics had to be very careful with their eyes because of blood sugar imbalances. Blood chemistry! Perhaps there was a clue here that would help. Indeed their was. I will spare you the details but my studies led me to learn a LOT about pH and how diet affects it. One of the many books that I read was Alkalize Or Die (author: Baroody). If you are interested in studying this subject, you might want to start with this book. So, I began a quest to raise my body's pH as a general approach to good health and as a specific approach to better eyesight. To help you make the connection here (that took me some time to make) - sugar makes the blood more acidic (lower pH). A higher pH (alkaline) indicates a more healthy condition. A more alkaline blood supply could only be better for my eyes it seemed. (See how much you can learn without a medical degree!!)
All the while I altered my diet to create a more alkaline environment, I also continued my eye exercises. In a few short weeks, I experienced the most amazing thing. I woke up one morning and could read all the numbers on my alarm clock in absolute crystal clarity with either eye or both eyes together. It was one of those experiences in life that just gives you goose bumps. It's more exciting than winning the lottery (well, let me think about that). I thought I was almost home free. My excellent youthful sight was almost fully restored. I was so close I could taste it. But, alas, another couple of months went by and I still could not read a distant highway sign with my left eye. I had not lost what I had gained but I was not yet able to clearly read a distant sign with my left eye. It seemed that I had hit a plateau again. Was it just a matter of time? I was clearly doing something right. How much more time before I had 20/20 in both eyes?
Well, I had no patience to wait and see (ha ha). As a result, my thoughts returned to the principle of working with the system. My mind wandered along these lines until I found myself thinking again about the body as a whole. Since I clearly believed in God's design for the human body, I decided to look to the pages of the Bible for clues about health and dietary issues. It didn't take long before I was reminded of one of the most ignored dietary principles ever espoused. Yet, it was something advocated throughout the Bible for a number of purposes. In my gut, I knew I had hit pay dirt and began reading up on this approach (no, I'm not going to tell you here what it is). I decided to include this approach along with my other dietary changes and eye exercises. Six weeks later (for a total of about 7 months of time elapsed since I started my first eye exercises), I was able to read any highway sign with my left eye. For the first time in years, I had no visual handicap at all. I have continued this dietary and exercise approach for more than 10 years and, as a result, continue to enjoy excellent health and eyesight. So, what does it take?
It takes:
1) Raw desire to succeed.
2) Perseverance.
3) Raw willpower - there are no willpower pills. You either want it or you don't.
4) A permanent change in dietary habits which are probably considered "drastic" by most people raised on Chicken Nuggets and Quarter Pounders.
5) Diligent, regular eye exercises - no pain, no gain.
6) Someone who takes personal responsibility for their health and does not think someone else will do it for them.
7) Patience.
I'm amazed sometimes when I see some wide-load (is there a shortage of mirrors in this country?) waiting in line at McDonald's (yes, I take the kids very, very occasionally and I order a salad and a yogurt). He/she typically orders a Big Mac (or a double Quarter Pounder), fries ("oh, supersize that please"), apple pie (wait! They're 2 for a buck on the dollar menu) and a DIET coke. What's the point of the diet code? It's psychological. That's as much effort/sacrifice that that person is willing to invest in their health. Little do they know that the aspartame in the diet coke is worse than the sugar they are trying so hard to avoid. Back in the medicine closet is their cholesterol lowering drug, their blood pressure medicine and perhaps a diuretic for their overworked heart muscle. In the basement is the treadmill they bought two Christmas's ago. The pantry is full of chips and snack food. For fruit, they eat strawberry flavored Pop-tarts. Vegetables? Potatoes and onions are vegetables so they are covered with the fries and O-rings. By the way, I'm not picking on McDonald's. The whole lot of them (Wendy's, Burger King, Taco whatever, and any restaurant that serves fries) can be a bad place to be shopping for dinner.
It's all about making choices - CORRECT choices. Corporate America has inundated the supermarket shelves with thousands upon thousands of poor choices for food. They are driven by making profits for themselves and their shareholders. They do not have your (or my) best interests at heart. They know that the average American is addicted to salt, sugar and fat. In an effort to hold on to the market for people who are beginning to pay attention to their health, they have their chemists create substitutes for these ingredients (Aspartame/Nutrasweet, saccharin, Olestra) - substitutes that are just as harmful as the items they are substituted for. Personally, I believe they are more harmful. And, of course, the use of substitutes sends the message that massive consumption of garbage is acceptable as long as you avoid a few key ingredients or take pills to counter their affect (nonsense).
If you are eating "foods" with these substitutes, you need to educate yourself. I'd like to recommend the following books:
Aspartame (Nutrasweet): Is It Safe?
And here's a good read on Olestra
Of course, there is much more garbage that food companies put in their products. These are just a few of the more prevalent ones. To enjoy good health, I found that I not only needed to stop my intake of this stuff, but also needed to find a way to rid my body of the accumulated crap. In retrospect, I can see that my quest for restoring and preserving my sight took me on a path of reverse discovery. In other words, the last changes I made (dietary) were the first things that needed to be done. And the first things that I worked on (eye exercises) were dependent upon a healthy environment for me to see the most significant improvement. This is why I saw limited results in the beginning. This observation seems to be supported by the feedback I have read on the internet from people that have tried the various alternative treatments for restoring their eye sight. It seems that there is a mixed reaction. Some people experience dramatic improvement in their sight when they begin to exercise their eyes. Others have mild improvement or no improvement at all and give up. When I read these experiences, I was reminded of similar experiences that people report when trying to lose weight with exercise (jogging, walking, etc.); results that are typically all over the map. Any good personal trainer will tell you that nutrition and exercise go hand in hand. One without the other will yield inconsistent results. But, when both are applied, the results are quite consistent and predictable. Why should it be any different with the eye muscles? Why should anyone expect that exercising the eye, while ignoring general nutrition will result in success? Answer: you shouldn't.
So, it is possible (but my guess is unlikely) that anyone can significantly improve their vision with eye exercises alone. Apparently some are successful and my guess is that they are already fairly conscious of their diet/nutrition. Yes, it's a guess. I do NOT have hard data on other people's experiences. But, my experience and results are not a guess. I am quite sure that my body works pretty much the same as yours. And my reverse discovery was key to seeing what the critical missing component was - diet. There are those in the market place that thrive on the misconception that each of us is so different that what works for me will not work for you. They want to sell you custom (expensive) solutions to your problems. But common sense should tell you that the inner workings of the human body are vastly more similar than they are dissimilar. When you look at a family and see that all the kids are fat, it's not a stretch to realize that they are all influenced by the same dietary and exercise influences around them and their bodies respond in similar ways. It's predictable. I guess some will say it is genetic but I just don't buy that.
There is absolutely no pill that can be purchased that could have given me what I have gained and preserved for years - good health and good eyesight. I believe that only an approach of good nutrition and eye exercise that works with the body's system can deliver these kinds of results. If you think you have what it takes (in the beginning, it's hard, diligent work - I don't want anyone thinking they can eliminate their dependency on lenses with minimal effort; if you make the lifestyles changes, long-term maintenance is quite easy though) and are interested in obtaining a written report of exactly how I eat and exactly what eye exercises I do, you may purchase a copy for a nominal fee. However, if you are not the kind of person that is able to do what is necessary to effect personal change, then please don't order it as it will be a waste of your money which you can put to better use towards your next pair of glasses.
