Vision Therapy - Natural Ways to Improve Your Eyesight

Many people who wear glasses (or contact lenses) to correct vision problems assume that they will always need them, unless they elect to have surgery. But there is actually an alternative to these treatments, and it's growing in popularity.

Vision therapy originated with the work of William Bates, an opthalmologist practicing in New York City. Unlike his colleagues, Dr. Bates believed that vision problems were the result of stress - either physical or emotional - that caused the muscles around the eye to become tense. He developed special "exercises" to relax and strengthen the eye muscles, and in 1920 he published his theories and methods in a book entitled The Cure of Imperfect Eyesight by Treatment without Glasses.

Dr. Bates had his admirers, including Aldous Huxley, a writer who claimed that Bates' techniques had cured his vision problems. But there were also critics; most opthalmologists believed (as they do now) that it was not stress but an abnormal curvature of the eyeball that caused imperfect vision. They did not feel that relaxing the eye muscles would change this curvature or help the problem.

Still, Bates' ideas persisted, used largely by individuals on their own, and his book has remained in print. And today the field of vision therapy has developed and expanded, so that it's now possible to work with an optometrist, who can treat you in their office and give you "homework" as well as track your progress. Some treatment plans even include eyeglass prescriptions that are adjusted as your vision changes.

Today's vision therapy, while rooted in Bates' work, focuses more on retraining your eyes and helping them "unlearn" unhealthy habits. It now includes techniques designed to improve coordination of one eye with the other, or both eyes with the brain. Current theory, which differs slightly from Bates', is that the eye muscles are strong enough; they just don't function smoothly, on their own or together. There are too many techniques to list here, but it is possible to find fairly detailed descriptions in at least one book.