Are visual exercises to improve vision legit or are they BS???

Question

They say you can improve your visial acuity by doing visual exercises...???.

I'm myopic and once your eyeball is too long, it's not gonna shrink...how can vision improve then???

Answer 1

sure.

Answer 2

The visual excercises you are referring to are probably what is known in the Optometric profession as Vision Therapy. Vision Therapy basically is a series of exercises mainly used to treat eye movement disorders. They can't fix any refractive error (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, etc).

Here's a common example of what vision therapy would be used to treat:

Your eye's automatically converge (cross) whenever they strain to look at something near. In some disorders, the eyes converge too much or too little when focusing on near targets. This could lead to seeing double (just like if you go cross-eyed). The brain can compensate for this and essentially pull the eyes back to where they should be, but it can lead to eyestrain and headaches, especially during prolonged near work. Vision therapy essentially would train the eye muscles (through excercises) to work the way that they are supposed to with the eye, so that the brain doesn't have to correct for errors and force the muscles back where they're supposed to be. This would eliminate the symptoms of headaches and eyestrain the person was experiencing.

Anyways, hope this helps!

Answer 3

They are mostly BS as others have stated.  Once you are near-sighted you generally always are.  You can temporarily correct it with orthokeratology which is lenses worn to reshape the eye (generally at night like a retainer) so that you can see without correction for a while.  It isn't permanent and must be maintained.  If you are an adult with a stable prescription, reftactive surgery such as lasik may help.

Answer 4

You are absolutely right. It's mostly BS and imagination.

All the excercises can do is relax the muscles, and reduce eyestrain during the day , but they can't actually improve vision.

Answer 5

If you're interested, do a search for "Bates method".  William Bates, ophthalmologist, believed that "strain" squeezes the eyeball out of shape.  His approach was to help people become able to use their eyes without effort.