Introduction - one of the most popular videos on myopia
When I get into a new subject, I always start on youtube. One of the most popular videos on myopia is called “Myopia: A Modern Yet Reversible Disease” and the speaker is Todd Becker. Click the link, to watch the whole video - I highly recommend it.
Here is a summary of the video. I will get into the anatomy of the eye and myopia in a later post.
The talk is basically divided into 2 parts:
How can myopia be reversed?
There are genetic causes of myopia. He mentions that there are correlations between twins and family members (more than just by chance). A mutation in the SCO2 gene has also shown to play a role. The occurrence is up 70-90% in some Asian countries.
There are also environmental causes of myopia. When western schooling was introduced to aboriginal people the rate of myopia spiked. There is a correlation between myopia and academic achievement. So basically more reading (or close work), more myopia.
1887 survey of military recruits in Holland showed, that only 2.5% of people from farming background only had myopia, whereas ca 1/3 of advanced studens had myopia. It increased the more. More groups were between these, but the more reading/near work required, the more myopia again.
Since 1970 the incidences of myopia has increased in US
Barrow Alaska study on eskimos in 1969: People younger than 40 had high prevalence of myopia, whereas anyone over 40 wasn’t introduced to schooling, so their rates were much lower (environmental factor).
Study of German students 2012: The rates of myopia increased by more schooling. The (rounded) percentages of myopia were 25% of dropouts, 35% of secondary graduates, and 55% of university graduates.
Even 34% of 7-9 year-old children in Singapore wear glasses due to more schooling.
Diet is as always also shown to play a role. Things such as excess intake of carbohydrates and whole grains, unregulated insulin levels (diabetes), and deficiencies of fish oil, minerals can contribute to myopia. Becker refers to a study in Vanuatu, of children receiving 8 hour schooling and the rate was about 2%. They ate fish, yam and coconut, but no bread or cereals, so maybe that plays a role. (I have not looked into this yet, but this is quite interesting - it is by “Cordain et al. (2002)”.)
He then talks about how some genes can become affected by the environment (epigenetics), so if you are predisposed to myopia (genetics) and engage in myopic-causing practices like reading or constant near-work (environment) you can get more than 2.0 diopters of myopia (I will get into diopters in a later post).
He then gets into the anatomy of the eye, vision physiology and myopia. I will not get into that in this post. I have a separate post for that prepared. The causes of myopia.
2. How can myopia be reversed?
Todd Becker’s key principle is “HORMESIS”. It is “a beneficial response of an organism to a low dose stressor that is otherwise harmful in high doses”. So if you stress your body a little bit (like working out, or taking needed medicine, cold or heat exposure, barefoot running and active focusing) it will be beneficial, but if you overdo it, you will harm your body. This is because Hormesis activates your defense or repair mechanisms, and you will then supercompensate and have increased resilience to that stressor in the future. Reminds me of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
The most optimal training in Hormesis occur at the “edge of failure” (= SAID principle: Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand)
Before moving on to apply this knowledge he makes this great analogy between Gyms and Optometrists. “You walk into gym, and apply the same model as the optometrists do. Instead of giving you glasses/linses you would here get the equivalent which would be crutches or even better an exoskeleton. You would then get immediate effects and satisfaction. When you take off this exoskeleton, your muscles become weaker and starts atrophying (just like astronauts in space when they come back), and this is exactly what you are doing with glasses - you are weakening your eyes”
Hormesis for the eyes: active focus techniques according to Todd Becker:
Print pushing and plus lenses (while reading)
Progressively weaker lenses (for outdoor activity and long distances)
The first step is measuring your myopia. This can be done with Snellen charts. The results can be shown as Snellen scores, diopters (minus) or Distance (inches). This is also my next step.
1. Print pushing and plus lenses (FOR READING): This is also illustrated in his slide at 19:30 and the picture below.
Push the book/your head as far back as the edge of blur, just when it starts to blur a bit. This should be farther back than your normal focus distance, but not to the edge of readability, as this is too demanding for your eyes and you will hurt them.
You will be able to increase D1 and D2. You might even move a whole inch after the first day, and it works surprisingly quick. When you get to 20 inches/50 cm. away, you are in great shape, and need to start using plus lenses. (This is where my gut is telling me to be careful, and to read more about the side effects this can have on your eyes)
If you have high myopia (>-2 diopters) you don’t need these plus glasses. If less, then he advice that we should get plus glasses that allows us to read 15-20 inches (38-50 cm) from a screen/book. This is like working out with weights. The effect of these plus lenses is, that they will handicap you, so you are way more near-sighted than usual, and you therefore have to be closer to everything to see it clearly. They can be necessary, if you are reading more than 20 inches/50 cm away, as this is not comfortable. He says we should graduate to stronger plus lenses, once we can see more than 20 inches away with the last pair.
While doing this, test your vision each week, using a Snellen Chart at 20 feet in bright light. Keep going until you reach your goal (20/20 or 20/50).
Progressively weaker lenses (for outdoor activity and long distances)
When you are not reading, and going out to walk, watch TV, lectures, riding as a passenger (do not experiment with this when driving!), you buy new lenses that are progressively weaker by 0.5 diopters each time. He recommends buying them cheap, since you will need to update your lenses/glasses.
The last technique is:
Fusing Ghosted Images
He talks about when you look at things far away with sharp contrasts (like the edge of a building and telephone wires), he saw 2 images. One very crisp version, and one faint next to it. This is diplopia, and it is usually not a problem when it is caused by myopia.You will see it with mild myopia, and it is a refractive phenomenon. What you will see is one getting darker, and one lighter, and eventually both images fuse. (I have not experienced this yet, so I honestly have no idea how this feels. I’ll keep you posted if I start getting diplopia and can fuse ghosted images).
Print pushing and active focus are not exercises, but should be a part of your everyday life
He recommends 2-4 hours of print pushing each day (sounds a bit excessive, but it will hopefully make me study more)
Take breaks every 15-30 min, and alternate between looking at near and far objects.
Print pushing should feel awkward but not painful.
If you ever feel strain or redness, take a break for 1-2 days.
I recommend his website “gettingstronger.org” which is very popular with over a million views (in 2014).
Be patient, it will take months, since it also took months for you to develop myopia. Just like working out, you have keep moving forward patiently and the results will present themselves after a while.
Remember, you will be able to see everything in crisp detail, if you do this for some months.
Typically people see some improvements within a few weeks.
Usually there is a sudden change, but then it moves slower forward.
I hope you liked this summary of Todd Becker’s technique. He mentioned the Bates method, and I intent to look into that and what the criticism is about in a later post. I will also dive deep into Jake Steiner and his methods, which are probably going to be my main inspiration.
Vision is an unpopular yet very exciting world. I hope you follow along as I learn more new things, and I’ll try to share more.
