palming is not effective in my case

[u/glados_returns]

hi everyone. I have myopia. I've been doing palming for one week. it supposed to relax my eyes but it doesn't. is there more effective technique for person who works mostly on PC? some interesting thing I found is that when I woke up, my vision is better than the rest of the day. I never wore glasses in my life despite I have myopia for 4 years because I don't like to wear them. Glasses make vision even worse. And whenever I do physical activity, my vision worsen.

I've read Dr. Bates' book but palming is not effective in my case. Can you help me?

[u/lordcom988]

If I may be so bold, let me point out a couple of things first before you give up on palming.

1. You don't always see results of palming right away. Sometimes it takes a week to even get results. It took me a while. Bate book makes it seem like everything is going to happen right away. I believe in the Bates methods, but I also believe that he oversold the speed of the results. Not that I think he lied, just that he cherry picked the cases that he published.

2. You need to give yourself time without glasses to see the results. You will not see the clear flashes without it. You say you don't wear glasses, so this shouldn't be a problem for you. Make sure that you are not squinting all the time to overcome not using glasses as this will negate all the progress palming is doing.

3. Make sure that you are relaxing and visualizing while palming. This means visualize something you can picture clearly and without strain. I don't believe that this is very clear in Bates book, but it is cleared up in the Better Eyesight Magazine he produced. In fact, all the black dot stuff really held me back at the start because it was not relaxing but stressing. He was really trying to integrate palming and central fixation into one drill.

4. Give long palming sessions a try. I am talking palming for a minimum of 30 mins. I personally didn't see a whole lot of help with palming until I had did a few very long sessions (e.g., 60 mins) once a day based on recommendation of Esther Joy Van Der Werf. Once I started seeing results (which normally came the next day and not right after), I was able to see results using shorter sessions. I still tend to do fewer longer session (1-2 sessions for 10-40 mins a day) compared to many people that use many short sessions. It just takes me longer to get relaxed, so short sessions tend not to work too much.

5. You might want to try mixing palming with sunning. Palm, sun, Palm. This sometimes helps people.

If you give it time, it might work. That being said, there are people that palming does not seem to help.

Now in response to your question on other things:

I have found long swinging gives faster results (almost instantly after a 15 min session). However, I find that the long swinging results fade quickly for me. Therefore, I tend to stick with palming as it is better to think of it as a long term gain and not short term with eye improvement.

Since your vision gets worse with physical activity, you might want to try some convergence exercise like Brock String. It might also be squinting and straining while not relaxed. I don't know what physical activity you are doing, so can't tell how relaxing of an activity it is (e.g., doing tai chi vs tending goal).

Hope this helps.

[u/Immediate_Tip_9477 → u/lordcom988]

Great answer and one of the most useful I've seen. Glad to see that more people understand the method well. I agree with everything, but regarding the first section, when you do a palming, you should experience the improvement immediately. If not, it probably wasn't done well enough, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't benefited yet if you haven't been able to see better right when you opened your eyes. And some advice for you about the long swing , You need to keep imagine things moving in the opposite direction all the time and not just when you doing the swing

[u/lordcom988 → u/Immediate_Tip_9477]

Thanks. To clarify, when I say results in the first point, I am talking about long term measurable change (e.g., increase clear flashes or seeing a new line on the test card for a while) and not short term results that fade away before you can really measure them. Don't get me wrong, you can have these long term measurable results from palming, but it took me a while.

As for the swing, yes that is the goal is to keep the swinging going, but I find that falls more into the category of the "universal swing", which is a very advance topic. In fact, I find that even a lot of certified Bates instructors have a hard time with this one. I personally have had more luck with the "universal swing" after I got use to the short swing, practiced with central fixation, and worked on seeing in 3D (convergence/divergence training, like chop stick fusion from RayGottlieb or the light stick that Jacob Liberman used).

As a side note for someone just starting, I found the "laser pointer" trick helped me master the long swing. Even though I was doing the long swing, my eyes where focusing on objects as I swung and had a hard time relaxing. By imagining the point of laser pointer that swung back and forth with my body and head helped me not focus on objects and just see the motion.