subject: The Bates Method for natural vision improvement [print this page] The Bates Method for natural vision improvement
Eye problems including myopia, hyperopia, presbyopia and astigmatism need to be corrected in different means. Till now, prescription eyeglasses and contact lenses are most widely used in this sense. Dealing with an advanced visual problem, laser eye surgeries including LASIK may be performed. Yet there is also the concept of exercising the eyes for vision improvement. This alternative has been into existence for over a hundred years. What's more precious, eye exercising can be practised at any point of the process of visual deterioration.
Over a century ago, a fully qualified ophthalmologist named Dr. William H. Bates created a method to improve eyesight without the help of prescription eyeglasses. It was called the Bates Method. He applied this newly developed method to his patients. Surprisingly, some of his patients would experience spontaneous vision improvement. Those newly discovered techniques helped many individuals recover their natural ability to see successfully. After that, Dr. Bates tried to develop a system of eye exercises which are still popular nowadays. His success has greatly changed the old dogma that visual refractive errors are irreversible. Before Dr. Bates's success, nearly all eye doctors believed that irreversible changes in the eyeball caused refractive errors. Light entering the eye would then be prevented from being properly focused.
According to Dr. Bates's theory, eye strain is the main cause of those refractive errors. Visual decrease actually results from eyestrain-caused expenditure of energy which is needed by a visual action. Eye exercises developed by Bates are aimed to reduce such kind of eyestrain, achieving eye relaxation. These exercises are believed to undo all the bad visual habits which are great contributors to eyestrain and finally visual problems.
Even until now, the Bates Method has not been formally acknowledged by current medical thinking. Modern medicine still thinks that those refractive errors can not be reversed by eye exercises. But one fact is true that the Bates Method has existed for over a century, during which successes are intermittently reported.
