Ending Myopia

[Hugh Johnson]

Hi, Im Jake Steiner.

20 years ago I began a journey to reverse my -5.00 diopter myopia. It took a great deal of experimenting and trial and error to apply theoretical concepts found in clinical journals and peer reviewed studies, though I eventually managed get back my natural 20/20 eyesight.

Over the years I cataloged the many tools, resources, and experiences that made my myopia recovery a reality. Much of it exists now as part of this resource to help and share and connect with fellow myopes, so that more of us could our get natural eyesight back. More about my own antics a bit further on – but first let’s talk a bit about endmyopia and a few things you may want to know before diving in.​

About Endmyopia - Endmyopia

I was listening to his interview (link below) and his experiences with optometrists reminded me of haidut's experiences with doctors. He quoted peer reviewed research on myopia to optometrists, and all he received was hostility.
Jake Steiner | Ending Myopia, The Deceptive Eye Care Industry, & Active Focus • The Higherside Chats

Hope it helps someone.

 

[Bogdar]

Thanks... I recently developped myopia and was wondering if it was somehow reversible.

 

[Noodlz2]

Thanks Hugh, the video you get after confirming your email has already been really helpful in understanding myopia.



Based on this, I think using a computer and reading a few feet away from your face could help start reversal. Will read his other content soon.

 

[Alex Jaramillo]

Hi, Im Jake Steiner.

20 years ago I began a journey to reverse my -5.00 diopter myopia. It took a great deal of experimenting and trial and error to apply theoretical concepts found in clinical journals and peer reviewed studies, though I eventually managed get back my natural 20/20 eyesight.

Over the years I cataloged the many tools, resources, and experiences that made my myopia recovery a reality. Much of it exists now as part of this resource to help and share and connect with fellow myopes, so that more of us could our get natural eyesight back. More about my own antics a bit further on – but first let’s talk a bit about endmyopia and a few things you may want to know before diving in.​

About Endmyopia - Endmyopia

I was listening to his interview (link below) and his experiences with optometrists reminded me of haidut's experiences with doctors. He quoted peer reviewed research on myopia to optometrists, and all he received was hostility.
Jake Steiner | Ending Myopia, The Deceptive Eye Care Industry, & Active Focus • The Higherside Chats

Hope it helps someone.

He makes very practical recommendations. I’ve been subscribed for a few weeks but still need to read up a little more. I might try using the 20/50 glasses like he suggests soon.

 

[TheSir]

I have been into myopia exercises for a couple of months now in an attempt to fix my worse eye. I have come to learn that myopia is a very dynamic thing. One day you may achieve very clear vision, while another day it's very difficult. It seems to be all about neuromuscular training and finetuning of the ocular muscles. So stress, tension etc play a factor too.

One exercise that I came up with while meditating has been of particular help to me. I close my eyes then try to gently focus my eyes on the blackness of my eyelids. By 'gentle focus' I mean a firm focus with relaxed eye musculature. I alternate between focusing on as tiny and as large areas of the blackness as possible. Try imagining that the blackness is very close or very far away and see how your eye response changes.

The blackness technically of course is not 'focusable' because there are no visual anchor points that the eye could use, but I believe it's precisely this quality that makes it so beneficial for the eye, because you are encouraging the eye to seek focus either way. This way the eyes learn to naturally focus on all distances without interfering objects or visuals that may confuse the myopic eye at other times.

Often after a session I can focus much farther than usually and the effect seems to last for the rest of the day. Over time the baseline vision improves too.

 

[Collden]

My eyesight deteriorated quite a bit during the winter when I spent much more time than usual watching TV with glasses on.

I do think visual acuity is a very dynamic organic process and always malleable depending on what stimuli (or lack of) your visual system receives.

Motivational salience probably plays a very important role in vision changes, given the strong link between dopamine signalling and myopia development. When you send your brain signals that everything relevant to survival happens at a very close focal range such as when doing near work or using glasses, you will stimulate myopic development.

Then I think, to reverse myopia it isn't enough to simply not use your glasses or go around lackadaisically trying to focus on far objects without any meaning behind, you have to actively engage in activities that make you highly motivated to focus on objects in the distance. Activities like hunting, foraging, ball sports or any activity requiring long-distance visual acuity to achieve your goal are probably the best for myopia reversal.

But I think another thing that can be a great tool are video games, especially visually complex 3D games with lots of sharp details, since playing such video games make you subconsciously highly motivated to maximise your visual acuity to be able to focus on salient details relevant to in-game survival. Especially if you place your TV screen slightly beyond your normal focal distance, your visual system will be working like crazy trying to counter-act your myopia. Just watching TV in contrast probably isn't particularly helpful at all since its a very passive and un-engaging low-dopamine activity.

 

[Apple]

I'm wondering if Ray Peat ever tried to impoved his eyesight or when he started wearing his glasses.
Is there any connection between foods we eat and eyesight?
When I have a good strong cofffee in Starbucks , with sugar and croissants my vision turns blurry for several hours...Can't figure out whether the problem is coffee , sugar, milk or... croissants or all together :)

 

[TheSir]

I'm wondering if Ray Peat ever tried to impoved his eyesight or when he started wearing his glasses.
Is there any connection between foods we eat and eyesight?
When I have a good strong cofffee in Starbucks , with sugar and croissants my vision turns blurry for several hours...Can't figure out whether the problem is coffee , sugar, milk or... croissants or all together :)

That's a typical symptom of diabetes.

 

[Alex Jaramillo]

My eyesight deteriorated quite a bit during the winter when I spent much more time than usual watching TV with glasses on.

I do think visual acuity is a very dynamic organic process and always malleable depending on what stimuli (or lack of) your visual system receives.

Motivational salience probably plays a very important role in vision changes, given the strong link between dopamine signalling and myopia development. When you send your brain signals that everything relevant to survival happens at a very close focal range such as when doing near work or using glasses, you will stimulate myopic development.

Then I think, to reverse myopia it isn't enough to simply not use your glasses or go around lackadaisically trying to focus on far objects without any meaning behind, you have to actively engage in activities that make you highly motivated to focus on objects in the distance. Activities like hunting, foraging, ball sports or any activity requiring long-distance visual acuity to achieve your goal are probably the best for myopia reversal.

But I think another thing that can be a great tool are video games, especially visually complex 3D games with lots of sharp details, since playing such video games make you subconsciously highly motivated to maximise your visual acuity to be able to focus on salient details relevant to in-game survival. Especially if you place your TV screen slightly beyond your normal focal distance, your visual system will be working like crazy trying to counter-act your myopia. Just watching TV in contrast probably isn't particularly helpful at all since its a very passive and un-engaging low-dopamine activity.

Good summary, this seems logical to me. If vision was never “corrected” in the first place would we really need glasses etc? All the people I know with 20/20 never went to routine eye check ups.

 

[Alex Jaramillo]

That's a typical symptom of diabetes.

Interesting, I had high blood sugar last time I checked. Do you think A1C would be a good metric to go by? I know Ray mentioned something about eyesight improving at high altitude.

 

[Beastmode]

I'm wondering if Ray Peat ever tried to impoved his eyesight or when he started wearing his glasses.
Is there any connection between foods we eat and eyesight?
When I have a good strong cofffee in Starbucks , with sugar and croissants my vision turns blurry for several hours...Can't figure out whether the problem is coffee , sugar, milk or... croissants or all together :)

A good place to start is looking at the quality of intake here. Starbucks coffee is crap, the milk choices aren't very good, the sugar is typically brown sugar in my experience and the croissants.....well......if you're on this forum, you already know it's crap as well.

Whenever my gut is irritated, my vision gets worse. Eating lower fat (especially low pufa) with high, quality carbs have made the most difference in my eyesight very fast. I'm far-sighted so it's easy for me to notice this whenever I look at my computer or phone.

If you're patient and in this for the long game, check out The Vision Gym - Z-Health as the training and material can help just about anyone improve their eyesight and vision. You can do all this at home and/or wherever you are.

 

[Apple]

That's a typical symptom of diabetes.

Yeah, it could be anything. Though my blood checkups have never showed any issues, eyesight is just slow deteriorating with age the more time I spend at the computer.

 

[Apple]

Whenever my gut is irritated, my vision gets worse. Eating lower fat (especially low pufa) with high, quality carbs have made the most difference in my eyesight very fast. I'm far-sighted so it's easy for me to notice this whenever I look at my computer or phone.
If you're patient and in this for the long game, check out The Vision Gym - Z-Health as the training and material can help just about anyone improve their eyesight and vision. You can do all this at home and/or wherever you are.

I will check it out.
I would rather connect it with cholesterol level. When I stop coffee/Sugar , cholesterol goes back from 210 to 180 or lower and eyesight is better. Also when I'm extremely exhausted ( fitness exercises) I have a drastic impovement in eyesight

 

[TheSir]

Yeah, it could be anything. Though my blood checkups have never showed any issues, eyesight is just slow deteriorating with age the more time I spend at the computer.

The situational blurring is probably a separate thing. For chronic myopia the computer is likely to be the culprit. You have to regularly train your eyes to focus at far distances in order to compensate for all the strain, otherwise the ciliary muscles acquire chronic tension that will cause the eye to lock in to the near focus. Pick a small dot in the distance and then just try to bring it to focus, do this 15 min every day and you'll slowly begin to reverse the myopia. Also put as much space as you can afford in between your and the screen.

Interesting, I had high blood sugar last time I checked. Do you think A1C would be a good metric to go by? I know Ray mentioned something about eyesight improving at high altitude.

No idea sorry.

 

[Beastmode]

I will check it out.
I would rather connect it with cholesterol level. When I stop coffee/Sugar , cholesterol goes back from 210 to 180 or lower and eyesight is better. Also when I'm extremely exhausted ( fitness exercises) I have a drastic impovement in eyesight

Maybe when you don't drink that coffee/sugar, your system doesn't get stressed. Before I started sorting out my system, any coffee/sugar mix would mess up my body.

You can connect it, but it doesn't me it has anything to do with it. 210 isn't a bad # at all. With exercise you're improving circulation which can improve many things such as eyesight. You can do balance drills and improve eye sight as well.