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VISION IMPROVEMENT
Like other vision improvement teachers, Meir Schneider believes that we have a collective blindnessto an important concept
-
hat we can improve the health and function of our eyes. In part one, of atwo-part article
Meir Schneider
and
Carol Gallup
report just how much can be achieved.
w
e have the same kind oflearned helplessnessabout self-care for theeyes that we 'once hadabout the body as awhole.Nowadays, many people see a strongconnection between lifestyle and health;we feel confident we can get healthier andlive longer through body/mind practiceslike yoga, good nutrition, regular exercise,and meditation.But we don't make that kind ofconnection in terms of the eyes. We assumethat we may be doomed, by chance orinheritance, o nearsightedness n childhood,farsightedness
in
middle age, and blindnessfrom diseases of the eye in old age or at someother time, and that there is nothing at all wecan do to prevent or overcome any of theseproblems. 'In my opinion', says MeirSchneider, 'these conditions are a long timein the making, and have everything to dowith chronic visual stress and patterns ofunbalanced visual behaviours'.'It's my experience in more than
20
years of teaching vision improvement, thateven with diseases of the eyes, we cancreate better eyesight and healthier eyes.The medical establishment disagrees withme. But increasingly, in many parts of theworld, I'm meeting a different kind of eyedoctor
-
holistic or behavioural optometristswho specialise in eye exercises forprevention and vision improvement, andeven ophthalmologists who are open tothis approach. In fact, some of them havestudied with me.'For Lula Vee, who became a client ofSchneider's at his Center for Self-Healing inSan Francisco, the discovery that her eyeswere unhealthy coincided with a momentof terror: 'I opened a telegram, and it said,"You'll never see your children again."'.Her estranged husband had abducted theirthree small children and flown them toanother country. As she read the telegram,Lula lost her eyesight. 'I was aware of thelight shutting off, as if a shade had beendrawn,' she said. It turned out that she hadsarcoidosis, a serious disease that creates
Lula Vee, who recovered from seriousvision problems, performs
a
favouriteeye exercise
-
uggling.
small tumors and inflammation in manysystems of the body. It manifested asarthritic symptoms in her fingers, anduveitis, an inflammation of structureswithin the eye.After
18
months' effort, Lula regainedher children. The problem with her eyesremained serious. Her left eye was strickenwith glaucoma, excessive pressure withinthe eye that is destructive to the optic nerveand often occurs with uveitis; vision soonfaded away in that eye, until even lightperception was gone. Since childhood, Lulahad used glasses for farsightedness andastigmatism in her right eye, and her brainhad learned to ignore its messages in favourof herdominant left eye, which had furnishednormal vision. A dominance pattern like thisis hard to overcome, because it is part of theorganisation of the brain and personality.'When my left eye was going blind, Ikept experimenting looking through myright eye in a different way,' she said. 'Inoticed how, week to week, it cciuld seemore
-
I could even read with it, which
I
hadn't been able to do before. I feltawakened to another part of me wanting toexpress itself.
I
felt a need to integrate thesetwo selves represented by my two eyes.'Lulawas exploring the body-mind link. Usingmassage therapy, meditation, diet, andvitamins, she stabilised the glaucoma. 'Istopped taking all the medicines, even thedrops. The pressure had gone up to
50
[anextremely high intraocular pressure] in myblind eye, and they told me if I didn't takethe drops they'd have to remove the eyebecause I'd have unbearable pain in it, butI had no pain, and the pressure was stable.'Meanwhile, the right eye lost itsfarsightedness and astigmatism and insteadbecame nearsighted.Four or five years ago, her visionworsened when cataracts, anothercomplication of uveitis, appeared in botheyes. A cataract is an opacity of the normally-transparent lens, which changes shape toallowthe eye to focus for nearvision. Doctorstold her that the poor health status of hersighted eye made surgery impossible, andwarned her to expect a gradual extinction ofall functional vision as the cataract matured.'I didn'twantto hearthat,' shesaid. 'I couldn'timagine myself blind.
I
decided to leave myjob [teaching at high school and college] andwork in a creative way on myself. I came toCalifornia in August
1996
o work with Meir.The fact that he had healed himself of thesame conditions that I had inspired me tobelieve that my "incurable" situation couldbe reversed.'Vision improvement teacher DrorSchneider (Meir Schneider's wife) seesstrong similarities between Lula's processof recovery and her husband's. At age
17,
Meir Schneider overcame congenitalblindness caused by a number of serious
 
conditions, ncluding cataractsandglaucoma,using the eye exercises of the Bates Method,which he learned from another youth.Unsuccessful surgeries in early childhoodleft behind such an array of scar tissue thatthe better eye lets in less than 1% ight.For Lula, and for Meir Schneider beforeher, copious amounts of self-massage of theface, and use of two major eye exercises
-
palming, a visualisation of blackness, andsunning, in which the closed eyes arecarefully bathed in sunlight
-
brought therelease of chronic tension which sets thestage for improvement. 'The relaxation youget from facial massage, palming, andsunning may at first seem to increase theblumness of your vision,' Dror Schneidersaid. 'You're letting go of your short-termsolutions for bad vision
-
frowning andsquinting. Even ifthey momentarily sharpenthe image, these strategies worsen youreyesight over time. It can be difficult toaccept the increase in fuzziness and continuethrough this stage. But it's essential. Thekey to vision improvement is bombardingyourself with relaxation
-
good eyesight isbuilt on it. Meir spent hours sunning on theroof of our apartment building in Tel Aviv,and palming while listening to pop music
-
I can't believe he found that music relaxing,but it worked for him.'Lula had recently trained as a massagetherapist, so she was very sensitive to herown body. She learnedthepalming, sunning,and self-massage easily, and created Self-Healing support groups to practise the eyeexercises among friends, and trademassages. But ultimately what worked forherwas the beautyof nature, which allowedher to see in a relaxed, accepting way. Everyday, she would take a long walk around thelake near her home in Oakland, and enjoylooking for details she hadn't seen before.During her sessions, we'dgo to the beach topractise shifting with distance vision, andshe loved it.'In the shzjtingexercise, you look for thesmallest details you're able to see
-
for oneperson, a small detail
in
the distance mightbe a twig, for another, a treetop. In normalvision, the eye easily makes continual smallmovements from one small detail to another;shifting imitates this kind of softly relaxed,fluid movement. With poor eyesight, youhave a rigid, inflexible gaze,
as
Lula did.'For Meir, shifting led to his first bigbreakthrough. Using a sighted person'sdescription of windows, he stood acrossthe street from an apartment building forweeks, visualising them and looking forthem where they ought to be; finally, oneday, he saw them. For him, the world wasone big blur, and in trying to break it up intoseparate objects, a window was an
'Using a sighted person'sdescription of windows, Meirstood across the street from anapartment building forweeks,visualising them and lookingfor them where they ought tobe; finally, one day, he sawthem.
..
He immediately beganlooking for the next smallestdetail,air conditioners in thosewindows, and gradually, hebuilt up functional vision.
A
few years later, he passed hisdriver's licence test. And hecan still show you his oldblindness certificate.'
appropriately small detail to search for. Heimmediately began looking for the nextsmallest detail, air conditioners in thosewindows, and gradually, he built upfunctionalvision.A ew years later, he passedhis driver's licence test. And he can stillshow you his old blindness certificate.'Lula's distance vision was very poor tobegin with
-
she could read the big Eon aneye chart from 20 inches, but 25 inchesaway, she couldn't see it at all. It was achallenge to avoid walking into telephonepoles and parking meters. But she did havethe advantage of a visual memory, and Meirdidn't. Since it was election time, we workedwith campaign posters; gradually,she couldsee them further and further away. Onceshe had progressed enough to be able to seebuildings across the street, we worked onpicking out shapes and compaEing colors inthem. But it was the natural world that gaveher so much joy in shifting that she couldreally stretch her distance vision. On hernature walks, she would shift with nearvision, and then the distance shifting wouldbe more successful
-
a good strategy.'Her near vision was never asproblematic. When we started, she couldreadvery large print at a distance of three orfour inches from her face. With a lot of near-vision shifting, eventually she could readsmall print in strong sunlight.'After five months of full-time visionimprovement work, Lula's doctors told herthat the sighted eye had probably becomehealthy enough to withstand cataractsurgery; the inflammation was gone. Shedecided to risk it. 'I saw light at the end ofthe surgery. The next morning, clarity andlight returned. Everything came rushing atme, beautiful, spotless
-
birds, ripples onthe water. I'd been living in the dark for 10years. I'm still so excited when I open myeyes every morning. All day long, thingspop out at me I had never seen before.'
The
Computer Screen
-
A
Limbo for
the
Eyes
Within the past five years, eye doctors havebegun to keep records of a new kind ofvision problem
-
computervision syndrome,or CVS. American optometrists reported
15
million cases in 1996, and industry figuresshow a steady rise of about a million a year.Symptoms nclude eyestrain, general fatigue,headache, neck and shoulderpain, dry eyes,and difficulties with focusing.Before the rise in computer use,optometrists tended to start reducingprescriptions in nearsighted patients
in
their40s, as their nearsightedness began to beoffset by middle-aged farsightedness. (Innearsightedness, the eye is over-focused,and in farsightedness, it is under-focused,so the two refractive errors lie in oppositedirections.) Increasingly, nearsightedpeople who use computers are insteadgetting more nearsighted in middle age.Holistic optometrist Iole Taddei, whopractises
in
California, explains that chroniceyestrain with near work always brings onnearsightedness or makes it worse.Like carpal tunnel syndrome, also awidespread problem for computer users,CVS is a repetitive strain syndrome. Themuscle that is strained is the ciliary. Thissmall muscle within the eye changes theshape of the lens to focus the eye for nearwork. The brain tells the ciliary to set up afocus for a given distance, 16 inches, forexample. To determine that the page you'rereading is exactly 16 nches away from youreyes, your brain analyses the edges andspaces of the letters. Unfortunately, thereare no definite edges and spaces on acomputer screen. There are only pixels
-
tiny, fuzzy grey dots. Bereft of essentialclues, the brain endlessly searches for afocal length. As you look at your screen,your ciliary muscles are on the move everymoment, making tiny changes, looking fora focal point that can never, ever, be found.This is unhealthy exercise. It's as thoughyou decided to exercise your biceps byquivering them through only an inch or soof their range for hours on end, rather thandoing biceps curls through the full range ofmovement for a few minutes. The strain onyour ciliary muscles after hours at thecomputer is like the strain on your heartafter running a marathon.
As
the strain spreads outward from youreyes to your forehead, you frown and squintto try to help yourself focus. 'The constantsearch forafocal length creates unconsciousanxiety,' Dr. Taddei said. 'Your eyes are thenavigation tool for your whole being, andyou literally don't quite know where youare. Meanwhile, your hands get carpal tunnelsyndrome and your posture is regrettable.
 
VISION IMPROVEMENT
It's even worse if the job you're working onis diecult, frustrating, or boring.'If computerwork is harmful to the eyes,it is partly because we bring bad visualhabits into it, Meir Schneider said. 'Peopleget poor eyesight because of straining tosee, and computer work aggravates thishabit.'The whole body tenses up to supportour effortful way of seeing, and we wind upwith stiff, sore bodies and bad posture.Have you ever noticed the way many of uscrane our heads so far forward that it lookslike the head can't wait for the body tocatch up with it? The head and everythingsupporting it becomes a platform fromwhich we aim an anxious, searching gaze.'Looking at a computer screen tends toshrink the visual field. So does wearing
The whole body tenses up to support an efforlful way of looking at the computer sreen.
glasses; you tend to limit the world to whatyou see within their frames. In both cases,peripheral vision
-
everything around whatyou are looking at
-
is habitually ignoreduntil much of it is functionally lost. This istrue for so many people that it probablycontributes to the incidence of trafficaccidents. As peripheral vision diminishes,central vision becomes strained andoverworked.In many people, there is a tendency forone eye to dominate the other to somedegree; a tendencywhich can be aggravatedby computer work. As a result, one eye isstrained from overwork, while the othersuffers because the brain is suppressing itsinput. Many eye exercises that enhanceperipheral vision also have the effect ofbalancing the use of both eyes together.Schneider suggests breaking up theworkday with brief sessions of the eyeexercises described below
-
perhaps a fewminutes' exercise for every hour of work.The exercises can be minimal. Wagglingthe hands beside the ears reduces the strainon central vision by stimulating peripheralvision. Similarly, briefly appreciating a fewenjoyable details n the distance (the shiftingexercise) while looking out a window ishelpful; the eye is at rest with distancevision. Briefly alternating near and distanceshifting creates a more flexible, lively gazeand relieves eyestrain.
•
Taking a break for the palming exercise at the computer; massageenhances the relaxing effects.
~p~~~~
1
.In Port Two, we look of several of
the
vis~on
Stimulating peripheral vision at the computer.
improvement exercises in detail..Guided eye exercises are available, includingMeir Schneider's Miracle EyesightMethod, a three-hour vision improvement seminar on audiotapepublished by Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado,USA. Contact The School for SeTaraval St., Son Francisco,
CA
94 nail:school@self-healing.org*Meir Schneider will lead
\
professional raining courses in he melr ~cnneiderSelf-Healing Method in the UK ininformotion, contadMaggie Lyonsor Zeljko Bozic (01225) 723176If-Healing,
1
1
16, USA. e-r1999; for fu~;(01225) 722
of 00

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