There are four basic principles involved in order to rapidly improve eyesight.

Belief and emotional issues

First you need to address the beliefs you have about this being possible for you. Do you honesty, deep down, believe that you can do this?

Secondly any emotional issues related to your vision need to be addressed. There is compelling research that links unresolved emotional issues with diminished visual acuity. In most cases those are innocent incidents that happened a long time ago; such as being moved from one school to another as a child; or forced to sit next to someone you did not like in school. There can be many incidents like that which you have completely forgotten about, yet they are still relevant at a sub-conscious level. To restore your eyesight they need to be acknowledged and dealt with. For rapid improvement you need to have sub-conscious agreement.

Logical thinking and sheer willpower is not going to do it. It’s not simply saying: “Quit this nonsense and see clearly.” You need to be fully convinced that this is possible and that you can do it. In the workshop we will address these issues during the first morning. My goal for the workshop is that you leave on the second day knowing that you have control over your eyes. And that you know precisely what you need to do to regain your eyesight naturally.

Physical exercises

When you wear glasses the lenses do virtually all the focusing. Consequently your eye-muscles get lax with disuse. It is similar to you keeping an arm in a sling for 20 years and then taking it out to play a game of tennis. What do you think will happen to the arm?

The muscles lose their strength. This is similar to what happens in your eyes.

Vision training involve simple exercises designed to get your eye-muscles working again. The exercise depend on the type of vision problem you have. In all cases the exercise is done for only a few minutes at a time usually involving some kind of feedback.

Relaxation

Natural clear vision is effortless. Problems develop because a chronic state of tension develops in your eyes causing deterioration. This is the Bates theory of “Mental Strain.” being the cause for near-sight and other vision problems.

Vision training involves updating old strategies you have developed for seeing. For example you may have, without realizing it, begun to squint to compensate for deteriorating eyesight. This condition became a permanent habit, which incidentally aggravates the condition, and you end up in a vicious circle where your vision continues to deteriorate.

Energy work

The eyes consume as much as 30% of the energy used by the brain. Imagine, that reading this consumes about a third of all the energy available to your brain. It also involve as much as two thirds of your brain. Light from this page is focused, 80% by the cornea, on the back of your eyes, where it is converted, by the cone cells, into nerve energy. This energy flows through the optic nerve into a place called the optic chisma where part of the information from the eyes are crossed and sent on to the opposite brain hemisphere. The path continues to the geniculate body, about midway through the brain. Then the image flow toward the back of the head and the visual cortex. You are also involving brain-centres used for distinguishing shapes, like reading this text, shade, colour, and of course you have some feelings about what you are reading. No wonder, seeing require so much energy.

Near-sight or myopia of more than a few diopters appears to severly deple the energy flowing to the eyes. It is similar to a car battery going flat. You may be able to start the car if you switch everything off. Near-sighted eyes are similar, they function on a low ration of energy all the time. You can experience this if you take your glasses of. You eyes get tired very easily, don’t they?

Vision training addresses this issue by teaching you techniques where you can clear your eyes of old and tired energy and replenish with new fresh vitality.

I know that energy is important since this is all I did to regain my eyesight. Energy is all around us. Sunlight is a great source of energy. Taking a walk I the forest is refreshing because of the air and the energy emanated from the trees. A walk along the beach as similar effects. The vital energy the Chinese call “Chi” is the life force within all living beings. To regain your eyesight you need to have good energy flow in your eyes.

Vision Training seeks to restore your natural clear vision by way of training exercises. The assumption is that you already have good eyesight. You were, most probably, born with good eyesight. More than 98% of all children under the age of 6 have great eyesight. Vision training seeks to restore your natural ability to see. This is accomplished through a series of exercises that relax the eyes and let go of any tension. Think of Vision Training as “Tai Chi ” for the eyes.

Wearing glasses simply corrects the refract ional error and you have the illusion of good eyesight as long as you wear the glasses. However, you are still nearsighted and depend on your glasses to see. Laser treatment is similar, only the lenses are carved into your corneas.

Vision Training is the most natural way of regaining your eyesight. If you broke an arm or a leg skiing, ten years ago, would you still be wearing the braces?

Vision Training brings back your natural clear eyesight.

The length of time you have to exercise depend on a number of factors such as the degree of myopia, astigmatism etc., and your body’s healing response.

Astigmatism usually responds very quickly to Vision Training. I have seen mild astigmatism (less than 1 diopter) go in a matter of minutes. In most cases expect to do the exercises for a few days. In severe cases perhaps for a few weeks.

Myopia with only 1 or 2 diopters correction usually requires you to do the exercises for a week or two. Myopia that require more than 3 diopters of correction will obviously take more Vision Training to get back to normal. A realistic goal that most people feel comfortable with is a consistent improvement of half a diopter a month. In many cases even 1 dipoter improvement a month is possible. In some exceptional cases people have reduced their prescription with as much as 3 diopters in as many days.

Presbyopia (the need for reading glasses) usually responds very quickly. Many participants in my workshop are astonished that they can read the newspaper the next morning. Only in rare cases does presbyopia take more than a week of exercises to get back to normal.

Ambliopia is like a high degree of myopia and may require months, even years, before your eye is back to 20/20 vision. However you will have several milestones on the way. The first goal will be to get to reading distance (35 cm), then out to arms length etc.

Strabismus or divergent eye, responds surprisingly quickly. In most cases the eye will begin to track after a few days of Vision Training. It may take a few weeks to get both eyes to move normally. Children usually respond very quickly to Vision Training.

Expect to spend about an hour a day doing Vision Training exercises. The best results are obtained if you start of with as little as 5 minutes 10 times a day. That is about 5 minutes every hour and a half. This will also coincide with your natural Ultradian Rhythms. The times during the day where your body naturally regenerate and healing takes place.

The good news is that improvements you achieve with Vision training do last. The experience we have gathered over the last 10 years is that the improvements you experience tend to last, even if you no longer do any of the exercises.

For example you might start out with 5 diopters of myopia. You attend the Vision Training workshop and do the exercises for a few weeks. Then life intervenes and you stop doing the exercises. The 2 or 3 dipoters you have regained tend to stay until you decide to continue doing the Vision Training exercises.

However, if you are sick or under a lot of stress. Your eyes will reflect this and you may experience variance in your vision until you have recovered. Also be aware that many prescription drugs have an effect on your vision. It is not only consuming alcohol and smoking grass that will distort your eyesight.

Some people find that doing a few exercises once in a while helps them keep their eyes in shape. In the same way you work out to keep your body fit you can also involve your eyes.

This is a good question since the basic ideas underlying Vision Training go back almost 100 years. During that time there have been people teaching and writing books about it. William H. Bates, M.D.’s book “Better Eyesight Without Glasses” was first published in 1920 and is still available.

Today at the dawn of the 21st century we are moving toward a more holistic approach to healthcare. We are turning way from the almost exclusive reliance on invasive drugs and surgical procedures. Fortunately, more and more ophthalmologists are becoming interested in methods that restore vision in ways that are natural.

Optometry is the art of correcting vision defects using optics or glasses of various kinds. The procedure does correct your vision very quickly. However, wearing glasses does absolutely nothing for your vision. You are still nearsighted if you take the glasses of, aren’t you? In fact my experience, and the experience of most people, is that your vision deteriorates when you wear glasses all the time. Especially, if your glasses are for distance vision and you use them for reading as well. It is well documented that this practice aggravate your myopia—making it worse.

Also let’s be honest, the optic industry is billions of dollars every year. For example the German Health Insurance spends an estimated 1.5 billion € every year just to replace lenses. The economic advantage of selling and manufacturing lenses of various kinds is a powerful lobby for the status quo. It is similar to smoking. The tobacco industry has successfully countered, often overwhelming evidence, that smoking causes diseases like cancer. Only recently have society taken steps to counter the image of the Marlboro Man.

Finally, how much can you charge for teaching someone to regain their eyesight? If you get this information at the time you realize that you may need glasses. Chances are that you will never ever be a lifetime customer spending a few hundred US$ every year or two for new lenses. How much will you spend on contact lenses over a period of 70 years? So economic considerations tend to outweigh other factors.

Again remember that myopia is a condition that develops out of poor vision habits. It is not a disease. It is not something we can’t do something about. Myopia is transitory like a flu. It affects you for a while and you recover. Many people have this experience. They were sick for a while and their vision was affected. Upon recovery the vision recovered as well. A very dramatic example of this is man who underwent a quadruple heart bypass operation. When he woke up from the anaesthesia his vision was greatly improved.

It is my mission to let people know that is it indeed possible to regain your eyesight naturally without the need for any invasive procedures or devices you need to buy. It is as simple as taking a walk along the beach or through the park.

This is a subject very close to my heart. I think it ought to be against the law to put glasses on children. Think about it. A child is constantly growing and developing both emotionally and physically. Putting glasses in front of a child’s eyes will freeze the growth of that child’s eyes and keep the vision locked at the time of the eye-test. It is well known that lenses freeze the eyesight. Further more the lens does most of the focusing, so the child’s natural focusing ability diminish and the eyesight gets worse.

Children respond magnificently to Vision Training. I first discovered this a few years ago in Ireland. A 14 year old boy in an evening class had been wearing glasses (+ lenses) for 8 years. He regained the ability to read really tiny print in less than 10 minutes. This experience set me thinking. If you introduce Vision Training at the onset the amount of work is a lot less that if you start doing Vision Training 20 years later.

I have many, many examples of children regaining the ability to read the bottom line of the eye-chart (20/16) in just a few hours of Vision Training.

In 1998 I started a program for children called “Magic eyes: vision training for children.” This program is aimed at children in the 8 to 12 year range where vision problems tend to develop.

A Magic Eyes workshop is 3 hours long and include lots of activities involving the child’s body and mind. The workshop is usually repeated, with variations, three times with a day in between. This give the child time to practice and also ensure that most children benefit from the experience. The most important criteria for success is that it’s fun.

It is my dream that parents all over the world will have the opportunity to choose to have their child attend a Magic Eyes Workshop in stead of being fitted with glasses. If Magic Eyes were available in your community chances are that a lot less children will be wearing glasses. A conservative estimate would be that at least half would never need glasses.

I believe that you are born with Magic Eyes, and that your Magic Eyes are still there. What we together, need to do is to go on a journey together to discover your Magic Eyes and bring them back. You will always have your Magic Eyes.

Presbyopia, the need for reading glasses, respond very well to Vision training. I have seen many people be able to read really small print like this (with 20/20 vision you can easily read 3 point print) after about half an hour of Vision Training. This may sound incredible, even unbelievable, but it is never the less an experience many people have.

One wonders what would happen if most people knew that it is possible to avoid reading glasses all together? One prominent ophthalmologist, who teaches his patients Vision Training, told me that his sale of reading glasses has dropped more than 50%. Interestingly enough his patient ratio has also gone up. This is easy to imagine If you find a good eye-doctor you tell your friends.

Often there is a difference between the eyes and you will need to train each eye differently. For example, many people have one eye that see near and one that see far. In some cases this will cause reading to be very tiring. Vision Training will restore reading the small print, as above, anywhere from 15 cm to arms length. Not only at the 35 cm reading distance. The extra ability will compensate for times when you are tired and your visual acuity naturally decline (as a result of your fatigue). Reading small print under various light conditions ranging from bright sunlight and all the way down to reading with just one candle. This way you can always read the menu even in dimly lid restaurants. See Presbyopia

Myopia or near-sightedness is relatively easy to correct if you need only one or two diopters of correction. Glasses are usually only prescribed when you have a refractive error of 0.5 diopter or more. In other words you can read the 20/25 line on the eye-chart (the third line from the bottom).

If you start Vision Training exercises at that point you are likely to be able to discard your glasses all together after a week or two. It is still safe to drive without glasses if you have less that 20/40 visual acuity (fifth line from the bottom of the eye-chart).

For myopia that is more than 3 diopters your journey is longer. As a start you need to step down your prescription with 1 diopter less than 100% correction. It is well known that lenses freeze your vision and your eyes will adjust to whatever lenses you wear. A dramatic example of that is young men wanting to avoid military service borrowing glasses with high prescription from fiends, and wearing them for a week before the entrance examination. Their eyes will have momentarily deteriorated enough to give a very poor reading at the eye-test done by the military doctor.

Fortunately this also works in the other direction. IF you wear a lens that is about 1 diopter less than full correction this will give your eyes more room to move and your eyes tend to get better. Under prescribed lenses combined with Vision training exercises enable you to reduce your prescription with from 0.5 to 1.0 diopter a month. It really depend on how much effort you put into regaining your eyesight. If you do not exercise your eyes they are not likely to improve very much. However, if you do Vision Training exercises appropriate for your eyes they are likely to respond magnificently.

There are a growing number of people who have achieved what some people would describe as miraculous results. For example, reducing the prescription from –11 diopters to 2 diopters in about two years of Vision Training. This and other examples have objective measurements confirming the results scientifically.

Most Vision Training approaches originated with the work of William H. Bates, M.D. (1860—1931). Dr. Bates was a prominent ophthalmologist in his day working and teaching in New York.

As many ophthalmologists have noted, Bates saw people spontaneously recover from myopia while others became worse. In some cases people who had their lenses operated out, due to cataracts, could still read and see normally without glasses. These phenomena are contrary to the theories prevailing at the time and still today. The scientific thinking today is that the cause of myopia is unknown. Possibly genetic in origin and it is structural. In any case the preferred remedy is to fit glasses or recommend refractive surgery.

In essence Dr. Bates redefined the theory that excessive near point work, like a lot of reading, working with microscopes, doing needle point work etc. is the cause of myopia. This theory is known as functional myopia. After four years of intensive study of the anatomy of focusing Dr. Bates came to the conclusion that myopia and other visual problems are caused by mental strain. This theory is in many ways opposite to what is considered to be the scientific basis of vision.

Bates concluded that myopia is primarily caused by tension held in the oblique muscles around the eyes and the origin of this tension is mental. He realized the close body-mind connection we have discovered is so important in healing.

Peter Greene of Harvard University (1978) studied myopia based on engineering principles and came to the conclusion that the typical elongation of the eyeball is mainly caused by tension of the oblique muscles. In other words Green came to the same conclusion as Dr. Bates. There are more and more evidence that external factors greatly influence vision. There and many studies with animals that leave no doubt that environmental factors affect eyesight.

Vision Training is based on the well known fact that exercise will regenerate lost ability. This is the basic idea behind your daily exercise program, physiotherapy, body work etc.

Ambliopia, is a condition where one eye is switched off by the brain for unknown reasons. This condition is often associated with Strabismus, a condition where one eye is diverging, usually in or out. The brain tend to switch off images that diverge beyond the midline of vision. The “Lazy Eye” is functioning perfectly. However, the coordination between the two eyes is out of alignment.

Vision training is very effective for developing proper coordination between the two eyes as well as raining the often severe myopia that is associated with a “Lazy Eye.”

The traditional approach is to block the good eye with a patch and thus forcing the “Lazy Eye” to function. Unfortunately this forceful approach does not take the mind-body connection into account. On the other hand Vision Training provide a gentle conditioning where you have a constant goal in mind and you have instant feedback. Training a “Lazy Eye” is a long process, of course depending on how severe the myopia is. However, the reward is clear natural eyesight, and this is well worth the effort.

Strabismus usually develop in infancy (around age two). Usually one eye will diverge in (esotropia) or out (exotropia), but can also be up (hypertropia) or down (hypotropia). Ophthalmologist generally prefer to surgically correct the muscles around the eye. This procedure will correct the cosmetic appearance of the child. Unfortunately, proper three dimensional vision is seldom achieved and you are left with a “Lazy Eye.”

Vision Training is very effective for treating Strabismus more than 90% can expect to regain normal 3D vision and normal eye coordination. In some cases slight divergence may recur in instances where the individual is very tired or is sick. Vision Training is obviously the more effective route and is also much more agreeable for the child. No need for surgery and wearing eye-patches. See Strabismus

Vision Training and laser surgery are two very different approaches. Laser surgery is an invasive process that alters the curvature of the cornea by burning away part of your eye. In the same way glasses does nothing for your eyes, laser surgery does not change the fact that you are near-sighted.

Vision Training aim to bring your eyes back to what they were naturally. That is, no near-sight, presbyopia, astigmatism etc. in other words eyesight the way nature intended you to see the world. So you can benefit from Vision Training like anyone else. In fact many people come to the workshop because they notice that their vision have started to deteriorate and they want to stop that.

Of course Vision Training cannot heal physical damage where the integrity of the cornea or other parts of the eye have been compromised by surgery. For example, astigmatism due to cataract surgery replacing the lens. This kind of astigmatism is caused by the stitches used to close the eye after replacing the lens.

Yes, in the same way there is a guarantee that you will lose weight if your exercise, or your optometrist will guarantee that you will never need new glasses, or your doctor will guarantee that your medication will work, or that your laser treatment will give you 20/20 vision for the rest of your life.

The success of Vision Training appear to be directly related to the amount of effort you put into it. If you do the exercises regularly (five minutes every hour and a half) then chances are that your eyes will respond.