Better eyesight naturally

Please note; These suggestions are meant to be carried out without your glasses on. Wearing glasses while you do them will not result in improved vision. There are many things you can do to improve your overall visual acuity. However, you may have been diagnosed with farsightedness or short sight.

FARSIGHTED

Farsighted people often have trouble when reading. Before you buy a pair of reading glasses, try the following:

LIGHTING

Make sure you have a strong reading lamp poised at a helpful angle. You need to have the bright light, the brightest you can get, placed behind your shoulder, so that the light is shining onto your page and not in your eyes. Increasing your reading light may be all you have to do to carry on reading without glasses.

THE SNELLEN CHART

Buy, scan or photocopy a Snellen eye chart.

The Snellen eye chart is the chart you see at the eye doctor's surgery and you may be under the impression that its only use is to help the doctor determine how badly you see, so that a pair of glasses can be prescribed for you.

Actually the Snellen chart can be very useful in helping you to avoid the wearing of glasses at all.

Place one, or several, on the walls of your home and look at them often, particularly before a reading session or before you go to the doctor for an eye test. By so doing you are simply allowing your eyes to practise on the letters you will see on the page you are about to read.

Practising like this makes the letters easier to discern, as they are already familiar to your eyes. Familiarity with the letters means you will be more relaxed and less frightened that you may not be able to see them well and this will automatically mean you are using your best vision.

NEARSIGHTED

Nearsighted people are often afraid to look into the distance. They find it traumatic to confront the fact that they cannot see well at the far point, so they prefer to avoid looking very far ahead of them. This is a big mistake, because the eye muscles cannot relax while they are focused on a near point. Our eyes are constructed so that they relax when we are looking into the far distance with the head slightly tilted backward. This is because our eyes developed at a time when there were vast open spaces and no TV or books.

The more you don't relax your eyes, the more strained and nearsighted they will become, so dare to look into the distance (without your glasses on) as often as possible.

GUESS

Just as you need to recover your confidence to look into the distance, you also need to recover your confidence to recognise what you see there. You can do this by means of a simple, fun guessing game.

As you approach a distant, blurry object, start to guess what it might be. You will be surprised at how often you guess right, but do not be afraid to change your mind as you get nearer to the object and your visual field picks up more clues as to what it might be.

Eyesight should really be called "brainsight". The brain works out what you are seeing, using the information provided to it by the eyes. This brain deduction is something you can improve by practice, no matter what diagnosis of shortsightedness you have received.

SEE BLACK

Both far and nearsighted people trying to improve their eyesight naturally can benefit from palming To palm, cup your warmed hands over your eyes.

When palming your goal is to see black. This may not sound difficult, however, if your eyes are not relaxed, it can be surprisingly difficult to see black. You may see all shades of grey, or darting images, during your first attempts. This is sign of tension. Continue to practise palming and, as you become more relaxed, you will be able to visualise black more easily. When you are successful in seeing black while you palm, you will be well on the way to lifelong improved vision.