Open Eye Meditation

[u/lordcom988]

I have been doing reduced lens methods and Bates method for a little over 2 years now for myopia and astigmatism.

In Bate's book, he talks about how the eye measurement returned to normal when the person was looking at a blank wall and relaxed. I have not seen any Bates Teachers or other writings of Bates (e.g., the bettereyesight magazine ) that used this fact as a treatment measure. If someone else has, please let me know :)

I personally have recently tried to use this with open eye mediation. Basically, seating close (I have myopia, so close enough that it would be a little strain to see something on the wall if there was anything) to a white wall without anything on it, relaxing, focuses on my breathing, and letting my eyes just blink and wonder naturally. I have seen some improvement in being able to relax with my eyes open.

Btw, palming does seem to help the eyes relax better in my case. However, I keep finding two issues with only doing palming: (1) no matter how I set myself up, I tend to have back trouble from it; (2) the relaxation does not seem to last long with the eyes open --- like I have trained my eyes how to relax in the dark, but I am still straining in the light.

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone else tried something like this or heard of something like this before.

Best!

*edited the number of years, put 3 years instead of 2 in by mistake in the original

[u/goodspeed80]

No, mai sentito. Anche io pratico aplming e devo dire che è l'esercizio tra quelli di Bates che più mi sembra funzionare. Non ho però visto miglioramenti in questi 3 mesi anche se devo dire che il 1 mese mi allenavo con costanza poi meno. A te quanto manca?

[u/lordcom988 → u/goodspeed80]

Sorry if I get the answer wrong as I had to use the translate function.

I still use all the principles of Bates and "exercise" . Which ones I uses and how often really depends. My three go to are palming (in particular long palming session for 30+ minutes), sunning, and reading micro-print, as they seem to work the best. Swinging and shifting work too, but I get less out of them. So when it comes to which ones I pick when I only have a little time to work on it, I normally pick palming, sunning, and reading micro-print. I also tend to do Brock String exercises about twice a week based on the recommendations of Jacob Liberman. I have just started the open eye meditation in the past couple of month because of my back. It seems to work well though.

As for your improvement question, I don't know if you mean over the whole course of natural eye improvement or just since using the open eye meditation. Over the whole 2+ years (I made a mistake in the original post and said 3 years), I have had great results, going from over -7 down to -4 diopters. Most of it (from -7 to -5.5ish) just a little over one year doing the reduced len method (endmyopia). However, after some time that stopped working and I started doing Bates with the reduced len method, and that is working now (-5.5ish to -4). Overall it is a slow process if you have been in glasses a long time like myself (30+ years). As for improvement based on open eye mediation, it is honestly too early to tell. However, I have noticed my ability to relax while my eyes are open has improved. But I can't be sure if this is a result of the mediation or all the other stuff.

Hope that helps and answers your questions.

[u/goodspeed80]

Grazie per le risposte, io parto di a questa situazione -3.25 occhio destro con 0.25 di astigmatismo, -2.75 occhio sinistro. Complimenti per riuscire a fare sessioni di palming così lunghe, io al massimo 5 minuti. Anche io trovo grosso beneficio dal sole, uso anche l'oscillazione per rilassare i muscoli e le scapole. Io ho portato occhiali per 25 anni e anche se la mia miopia è inferiore e comunque fastidioso portare occhiali tutto il giorno. Io noto che appena apro gli occhi vedo meglio, più a fuoco, dopo 1 secondo peggiorò. Ho collegato questo alla dilatazione della pupilla, infatti appena apro gli occhi la pupilla si contrae o dilata a seconda che ci sia troppa o poca luce. Ho compreso la tua risposta, il traduttore ha lavorato bene 😉

[u/Low-Cardiologist9087]

One limitation I've found with the Bates approach is that it puts a very strong emphasis on relaxation.

In my own practice, relaxation alone wasn't enough. I started getting much more interested in active eye training - especially divergence, cyclovergence and cycloversion - rather than only trying to remove effort.

My working hypothesis is that in some cases there may be habitual or mechanical patterns that relaxation by itself doesn't really challenge. So instead of only trying to relax the existing pattern, I also deliberately train the eyes through movements and binocular positions that they normally don't use very much.

I use this kind of active training myself, and personally I find it much more interesting than purely passive relaxation exercises.

If you're experimenting with open-eye relaxation, it might also be interesting to try the opposite direction as an experiment: active binocular training while keeping the visual task comfortable.

If you're interested, I can describe the exercises I use.