Restoration of vision according to the Bates method

More and more people are now turning to glasses or contact lenses as visual impairments in people around the world are becoming more common every year. The most effective method of restoring vision is laser correction, but not everyone can afford it. Therefore, estet-portal.com presents to your attention the Bates method for restoring vision, developed by the American ophthalmologist William Horatio Bates. He believed that the main cause of visual impairment is the tension of the eye muscles. Bates's theory fully explains why the percentage of people who lose normal vision is constantly growing – there is practically no job left that does not involve constant eye strain while working with a computer.

The basic principles of the Bates method for restoring vision

As mentioned above, Bates believed that the frequent tension of the eye muscles during daily activities and the inability to properly relax – main cause of visual impairment. Therefore, the Bates method is mostly based on relaxation exercises and stress relief, as well as the maximum restriction of wearing glasses (respectively, lenses)

You need to learn how to relax your body and mind – and Bates thinks it should be done at the same time. Main – Eliminate all factors preventing relaxation and make every muscle in your body relax. Following the body, it is necessary to relax the psyche, let all thoughts slowly crawl out of your head as you physically relax.

The Bates Method – vision restoration exercises

      1.Palming

This exercise is considered the foundation of the Bates method. Gently close your eyes and cover them with your palms so that the fingers of both hands rest on your forehead and the fingertips overlap each other. The palms should not press on the eyeballs. The eyes should open and close freely under the palms, light should not penetrate between the palms. The purpose of palming – when you close your eyes, your task will be to see a perfectly black field – without any circles, lines and other geometric shapes before the eyes. To do this, you need to achieve maximum mental relaxation, which does not work right away. Also, while palming, you can concentrate on breathing and count to 100. You can do palming at any time, it is great for relieving eye strain.

1.1. Visualization while palming

Choose any letter in the book or on the test card, look at it, remember. Then close your eyes and remember the letter you saw, try to mentally paint it in the deepest black color possible.

1.2. Play of colors during palming

For 5-10 minutes, visualize each color in its most intense shade for a second. After that, imagine a piece of white chalk on a black background. Concentrate on this blackness.

2. Memories

During palming, you can also do an exercise that focuses on remembering objects you know. For example, you can do a checklist exercise. In good lighting conditions, look at the standard vision chart, remember the last letter that you could see without straining your eyes. Now you need to make palming, during which you will represent this letter as clear and black as possible. Open your eyes and look at the vision chart, but the line below – if you managed to read this line, repeat the palming with the letter of this line and try to see the line below.

Also, a great exercise in the Batesian method is to represent the letter seen in a smaller size and more saturated black.

3. Solarization

The Bates method also includes solarization. Go outside or sit in front of a window so that the sun shines in your face. Take a comfortable position, relax. Close your eyes and slowly turn your head to the left and then to the right about 45 degrees. Do not open your eyes, let them warm up under the influence of the sun. The light source can be any – you can use a lamp, but make sure that it does not blind your eyes too much.

Immediately after solarization, palming should be performed, and its duration should be twice the duration of solarization.

There are many more exercises in Bates's book. As for the effectiveness of the Bates method, people's opinions differ – some claim that with its help they managed to restore vision to one, others have achieved significant improvements, and there are those who did not help the Bates method.