It’s been over 18 months since I last updated this site. The reason I haven’t made any posts in that time is that I haven’t really had anything ground-breaking to report, and if I’m completely honest I’ve always found it a challenge to sit down and write about myself. I’m probably safe to post now though because anyone who was looking at my blog has probably given up and gone somewhere else. 😉

What I’ve been up to

The main reason for this update is to post my new prescription, but first I thought I should summarize my activities and experiences during my absence, for context. I’ve been continuing to try every book that I can find, in the hopes that I would find the one that would magically work for me:

Book 1: Program for Better Vision by Martin Sussman

I was drawn to this program (despite the negative comments on various online forums!) because I have always had trouble getting into a routine, and thought that a daily program would help me to commit more seriously to practicing. I thought I saw some minor improvements initially, but I got very bored with the program after the first 6 weeks and the improvements ceased. I also joined the accompanying “Eyesight Club” for a few months, but I found that Martin Sussman wasn’t very responsive to members’ posts. I decided in the end that he just chases every idea that comes his way and doesn’t really have a focus (no pun intended!) or much of an interest in the effectiveness of what he publishes.

Book 2: Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman

I don’t have a lot to say about this book, other than I read it last summer and found it interesting, but I didn’t really understand his concept of “Open Focus”. The whole book seemed a bit too “out there” for me – there was nothing concrete for me to latch onto and put into practice.

Book 3: The Practical Guide to Natural Vision Improvement by Carina Goodrich

This is probably the book that has spoken to me the most (and I have read nearly all of the “popular” ones now). I really like Carina’s writing style, and she describes all of the activities in a very easy to understand way. She also includes lots of guidelines to assist the reader in setting up their own personalized program of activities depending on their individual needs. I followed such a program for a few weeks and found it to be a positive experience, but I didn’t stick with it for long enough to show any real improvement.

One of the things that derailed my practice was a realization that I had to do something about my neck and shoulder pain and general postural imbalance. For the last 2-3 years I have been suffering with really bad neck and shoulder tension, particularly on the left side of my body. I initially thought that this might be a result of my vision improving, as my left eye is the weaker one, but it has steadily got worse over time to the point where sometimes I will have a headache on my left side which lasts for several days and doesn’t respond well to pain medication. I had been managing this pain by getting regular massages but could not figure out a permanent solution. The self-massage techniques described in Carina’s books simply made the problem worse. So I eventually decided to try Alexander Technique lessons…

Alexander Technique Lessons

Taking these lessons is by far the best investment I have made in my health, and I wish I had taken the plunge years ago! I have learnt so much in the last few months about the patterns of misuse that I have got myself into, and the unnecessary tension that I hold in my body. When I practice the Constructive Rest position I can actually feel the knots in my neck and shoulders slowly releasing. It’s early days and I have a long way to go before I undo all the bad habits I’ve created for myself, but I am already getting less headaches and am feeling much more comfortable generally, whether sitting, standing or lying down. My awareness of myself is improving – for example, I am beginning to notice when I am sitting in a position that is causing strain, which is enabling me to correct the problem sooner rather than waiting until my muscles are literally screaming out for me to notice them!

I have discovered that when I sit at the computer I tend to drop my head and round my shoulders forward, which creates a lot of strain on my neck because it has to use the “wrong” muscles to support my head. Working with my teacher I figured out that this is largely due to me changing from contact lenses to glasses – if I don’t drop my head, I have to look “underneath” my glasses to see the keyboard or my notes, which of course means my view is blurry because I’m not looking through the glasses. It seems that I have been subconsciously dropping my head to look through the glasses, resulting in the mysterious neck pains and headaches that started up after I  stopped wearing my contact lenses. This is clearly counter-productive, so I decided to find a new optometrist and see about getting contact lenses again, at least for my desk job.

Eye exam and results

As luck would have it, I managed to find a behavioral optometrist near my home town! I was fairly honest with him at my appointment – I came clean about wearing weaker glasses due to eyestrain but I wasn’t brave enough to mention natural vision improvement. He was very receptive, and after inspecting my “prescribed” lenses and conducting an eye exam, he said “no wonder these glasses are uncomfortable for you, they’re far too strong and your self-prescribed glasses are much closer to what you need!”. That was music to my ears. 🙂 Here is my 2010 glasses prescription:

And here is the new one he prescribed for me:

I don’t know if this means my eyes have actually improved, or simply that this new optometrist is less inclined to over-prescribe, but either way it’s great news overall. I’m not thrilled about the astigmatism correction increasing, especially considering I have been removing it from my self-prescribed glasses for the past four years. But I will say it seems to make a huge improvement to my clarity of vision, and for the short term I will just accept it, for reasons I’ll go into below. I am however very happy to see that there is only a 0.5 diopter difference between my eyes now, down from a 1.5 diopter difference a few years ago!

I requested contact lenses, explaining my Alexander Technique discovery, and the optometrist offered (without my prompting) to prescribe me lenses that would give me 20/30 vision rather than 20/20. I am planning to wear these for work and special occasions, and will probably still switch to under-corrected glasses for other activities.

Future Plans

I am not giving up on vision improvement, but I have decided to allow myself to take a breather for a while. I’ve been going through a very stressful period in my life this year, with several house moves and a family bereavement. I have been feeling like I’ve been putting some aspects of my life on hold until I “fix my vision”, and after four years it is apparent that this approach is counter-productive and is just making me feel like I’m wasting precious time walking around in an uncomfortable blur with frames masking my face. I’ve come to the realization that I can’t do everything at once, and for the time being I have to focus more generally on keeping my stress levels under control and releasing the chronic tension I hold throughout my body. Only then will I be in a position to effectively work on my eyes.

Perhaps once I have a greater understanding of the Alexander Technique I will explore Peter Grunwald’s Eyebody method. I also plan to revisit Carina Goodrich’s book and give her daily program a really good try. But for now, just practicing awareness, inhibition and direction, and establishing a daily Constructive Rest program, is proving to be enough of a challenge and a significant time commitment. I have been slowly realizing that I need to make a commitment to one or two aspects of my life at a time, and do them well, rather than jumping around from idea to idea and not really making any progress with any of them.

I fear that if any Bates “purists” read this, they will shake their heads at me – I know wearing contact lenses and using astigmatism correction are both generally frowned upon – but this is the best compromise I can make for now. It’s time for me to lighten up and get back to enjoying life without harshly judging myself!

I just remembered something from my childhood that might have led me to get my first pair of glasses.

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