How Naturally Improving My Eyesight Taught Me the Secret to Relaxation

Up until recently, my teenage years have been a time of increasing myopia. Being such a personal development addict, I’ve never accepted the need to wear glasses or contact lenses and as a result, my eyesight didn’t deteriorate too rapidly. After purchasing my first pair of glasses a year ago, I was quick to realize that artificial vision correction simply doesn’t offer the same visual experience I had as a child with perfect vision. The general acuity may appear to be the same, but there’s just something lacking that’s very hard to describe. Maybe those who’ve worn them for a long time don’t remember, but subtle things like the speed of focus, the refraction of bright light, the depth perception, and the energy and vigour of the eyes actually seem quite noticeably dampened if you’ve been accustomed to perfect vision. I was frustrated, and I wanted a solution.

My research in natural vision improvement began a year and a half ago while scouring the Internet for a quick-fix. In the past, my vision had naturally restored itself on two occasions by small increments soon after the deterioration process had begun. Now that my vision had worsened, I was afraid I needed something more.

I bought into to the concept of “eye exercises”, and that improving vision was like training a muscle. By mechanically practicing the exercises, I thought I could restore my eyesight. In hindsight, I realize these theories were the creation of greedy Internet marketers eager to make a few dollars.

Months of wasted time and effort passed by before I realized I taken a completely incorrect approach. Proven vision improvement, as first described by Dr. William Bates, has nothing to do with spending half an hour a day “exercising” the eyes. The key is in fact just reinstating the natural vision habits that people with perfect vision practice subconsciously! This begins through relaxation of the mind, which was what I had instinctively done when I improved my vision in the past. However, because it’s not easy for people who’ve accumulated loads of stress and tension over the years, ignorant Internet marketers have twisted Dr. Bates’ relaxation techniques into step-by-step, do this, get that instructions. It doesn’t work like that at all.

When I began pursuing more credible sources of information, I came across a book in the public library that cleared any doubts I had about vision improvement. Possibly the longest book dedicated to natural eyesight, Relearning to See: Improve Your Eyesight Naturally!by Thomas Quackenbush could justifiably be renamed Relearning to Live. I won’t hesitate to say that it was life-changing.

What fascinated me Quackenbush’s book was that many of the principles he describes are necessary for the overall health of the mind and body. One principle really struck a chord with and I truly believe that it is necessary in order for anyone to truly experience life to the fullest.

What’s this secret you might ask? Well, it’s not actually a secret as almost all of us do it naturally when we’re born. Quackenbush calls it “sketching”, but I refer to it as “seeing lots of detail, a tiny bit at a time”.

Young children are curious about the strange and exciting world; there’s so much for them to absorb that they’re constantly jumping from one little thing to another. As we grow older we learn to skip over the little things we’ve grown accustomed to and try to assess the whole shebang at once. This is true for our thought as well as our vision. When you see a tree in the park, for example, do you see a big, craggly brown tower with thousands of leaves busting from the long thin sticks…or do you see a tree? For most of us “mature” people, we just see the tree. If that’s what we tell ourselves we need to see, it’s no wonder why our vision declines. Parents often scold their kids for daydreaming when the poor kids are in fact doing the exact opposite of dreaming: they are directing their attention at the small, interesting details like the fly on the window sill or the bird preening its feathers. It is the grown-ups who are truly daydreaming, when they stare rigidly at their work and block out all the beauty in life. Thus, they lose not only their vision, but the priceless state of inner peace.

Photo by Look Into My Eyes