Training Your Brain So That You Don’t Need Reading Glasses (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Training Your Brain So That You Don’t Need Reading Glasses (2017)

nytimes.com

540 pointswalterbell137 comments

There are presbyopia convergence exercises, no app required, the PDF can be printed or stored on your phone. Once you can fuse the images at a given distance, move the image closer to your nose and repeat: http://www.robert-silverman.net/presbeninst.htm

You can also use a "Brock String" (available on Amazon and elsewhere): http://www.yourfamilyclinic.com/ND/vision/brock.html, "One of the most important pieces of equipment for vision exercises when working on convergence is the Brock String. It offers instant feedback to the participant if their eyes are working together to focus on an object at various distances. Children with reading problems or who are slow readers often have problems with convergence." Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=71o20wyPsR0

I learned to cross my eyes way back in the mid nineties during the "3d poster" craze (and man those posters were amazing, zo SO much better than the crap images found on the web). I remember they sold them in the tube in London, in gorgeous color and the depth was fantastic.

But anyway... do we know that convergence actually helps vision? How so? What is backing this up?

We know that poor convergence affects near vision. Presbyopia also affects near vision. Are convergence and presbyopia related? Should you ask the person trying to sell you a pair of expensive progressive lenses?

http://www.convergenceinsufficiency.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyopia

http://www.strabismus.org/

The exercises are easy to try and have almost immediate (temporary) positive effect. They work for some people. There isn't an economic incentive to fund studies to determine why they don't work in others, since this could hurt various revenue streams. Standard big pharma vs. wellness dilemma. However, video game software subscriptions for vision therapy may change incentives.

> There isn't an economic incentive to fund studies to determine why they don't work in others, since this could hurt various revenue streams.

I could be incredibly naive, but it sounds like a public health issue. Depending on how widespread it is, I can see any country organizing a study or pilot program. The country wouldn't have economic competition from big pharma and would see having a healthy and skilled population as an economic advantage.

The global numbers for myopia are rising in children, https://www.brienholdenvision.org/myopia-prevalence.html, "The hot spots of myopia right now are in East Asia where countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and Japan have a prevalence of myopia of 80 to 90% but even the USA has reported a staggering prevalence of 42%, almost doubling in three decades."

A few behavioral optometrists have spoken up or published books on these topics, but they are a tiny minority, e.g. https://vision-therapy-pa.com

I can't find the link but I seem to remember a study found that exposure to sunlight (at least the level found on an overcast day) was required for ~4 hours per day to prevent myopia.

This link had been suspected previously but they found a mechanism of action. The eyeball itself would release regulatory chemicals at night after the daytime exposure that inhibited growth of the eyeball. Since myopia is most often caused by the eye being slightly too large this seems like a plausible explanation. It certainly makes more sense than the previous theory about spending too much time indoors - that somehow you would spend too much time focusing closely since distances indoors are limited.

The article you're referring to might be this one:

http://bjo.bmj.com/content/early/2017/06/12/bjophthalmol-201...

(Alas, it's not Open Access)

I also remember reading an earlier news article in Nature on this exact topic:

https://www.nature.com/news/the-myopia-boom-1.17120

That's fascinating. I didn't see this exact point in the Nature article linked below, but is it as simple as your body needing bigger eyes to see in the dark?

> I could be incredibly naive ... The country wouldn't have economic competition from big pharma

Yep.

The USA has to be the most egregious example of this, other countries aren't immune.

That's clearly not the case in all parts of the world. China and India often ignore patents and trade secrets to produce generic drugs for domestic use.

I often hear about how useful donating used prescription glasses are to people in need in other countries like Africa and China. I imagine this would be a similar program that would be aimed at prevention. I would think any influence of big pharma would affect prescription glasses distribution programs in the same way.

http://www.strabismusworld.com/

https://www.seevividly.com/

And also, I'd like to point your attention to Aniseikonia, an EXTREMELY underdiagnosed issue:

http://www.opticaldiagnostics.com/info/aniseikonia.html

Neither clinical neuro-ophthalmology, nor orthoptists, nor optometricians, nor opticians, commonly have the equipment to test this, let alone know about it. (I had to literally have a lens kit dusted off in my case. One that nobody besides one entire person in the city knew about besides me.)

And the fact that one must consider the current distance and measuring equipment used for vision tests insufficient:

http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/acuity.html

To quote:

"Traditionally, optical infinity has been accepted to be 20 feet or, approximately, 6 meters. However, at this distance, there is an accommodative demand on the eye of about 1/6 D (one-sixth of a diopter). This amount of accommodative demand can be significant for some people. For very discriminating observers (such as myself), an accommodative fluctuation during an eye examination of more than 1/8 D can result in a variable endpoint in measuring a person’s refractive error (resulting in an imprecise lens prescription), and 1/6 D is even greater than 1/8 D.

As a result, it is recommended that the viewing distance (d) in an examination room should be great enough to create no more than a 1/8 D accommodative demand on any patient’s eyes. I maintain, then, that optical infinity, for purposes of examining the refractive error of the human eye, is at least 8 meters or 26¼ feet, rather than merely 6 meters or 20 feet."

This combines with the fact that that the human eye experiences "accommodative microfluctuations" which have a range of about 0,5 diopters (aka ±0,25 diopter), and it does so even at true optical infinity.

This then makes any assessment done without cycloplegia problematic, but assessment under cycloplegia also has its issues:

There exists a dissertation from a German Technical University (Well, "Fachhochschule", look the term up if you have an obsession with detail like I do) that beyond the shadow of a doubt proves that Schack-Hartmann sensor based Wavefront aberrometers can and will do better than humans when measuring the ideal prescription for a human eye. However, this dissertation, even as good as it was (they had a huge sample size and accounted for damn near everything), has several limitations and also points several problems out, and in addition to these, I'll add a few ones I've observed myself and that one can find in the literature (this is from memory and reading a lot of the literature, but keep in mind I can't find the original paper [in German] anymore, and some of this comes from other papers):

1. The default setting of most wavefront aberrometers defaults to 3 eye measurement cycles per eye measurement. However, the study found quite clearly that at this setting, a wavefront aberrometers will very often do worse than an experienced human optometrist or orthoptist, even if they do account for the distance problem I described above, which nearly all of them don't. A 5 measurement cycles however elevate the wavefront

2. Most wavefront aberrometers lack the capability to do a proper measurement of a fully dilated pupil as they expect a maximum pupil dilation of about 5mm, which is ridiculously tiny

3. Wavefront aberrometers cannot compensate for deeply (or at all) cramped cilliary muscles, an extremely common issue

4a. To get a dilated pupil, one must apply a mydriasic (i.e. pupil dilating) agent such as cyclopentolate.

4b. To get a relaxed cilliary muscle, one must apply a cycloplegic (i.e. cilliary mucscle paralyzing) agent such as cyclopentolate.

5. Most wavefront aberrometer measurements occur in the office of an optician, who legally may not dispense cycloplegic & mydriasic eye drops (such as cyclopentolate).

6. This is a good thing, because cyclopentolate is an muscarinic antagonist. Normally relatively harmless, when given to people with various atypical neurological features such as for example some of (but not all of) those exhibited by some of (but not all of those) those diagnosed with schizophrenia, it can lead to acute psychosis.

7. The above seems doubly unfortunate because schizophrenia seems to have an - extremely little researched - link to the previously mentioned Aniseikonia: http://www.schizo-binoc.de/ [Personally, I think some of the hypotheses on the neurological mechanisms of this link as offered by Hildegard Korn seem whack, but if you look at purely her quite empirical - albeit possibly anecdotal - data, you'll see that the pattern she describes along with the formal errors in commonly used diagnostical procedures she outlines quite flawlessly do add up to something and could probably get easily explained, in terms of neurological mechanisms behind the observed biophysics, by a more respectable theory on the neurological mechanisms behind it.)

And then there's the whole patent lockdown between all the big glasses manufacturers, but I cba to continue typing this out.

I truly despise the optical and ophthalmological industry. They still haven't heard Sue Barry's message although she's shouting it with all the force she can muster.

One note is that opticianry and optometry are not separated in Germany. While this may lead to conflict of interest, it can also lead to a better eye exam. We can now manufacture lenses to 0.01D but still perform exams in 0.25D increments. Everyone should have their eyes examined by two independent doctors, preferably in diverse cities, just to see the range of subjectivity involved in each prescription.

Why can't SeeVividly vision therapy be made available directly to consumers? Is the reason technical or business, to avoid conflict with eye doctors?

The computer industry may be on a collision course with the optical industry, due to augmented reality and smart glasses. We all know what happened when pocket computers collided with mobile telecom/carriers. The illusions provided by AR depend upon the brain's visual cortex and neuro-plasticity. Smart glasses may use 3D printing / nanoscale manufacturing to create transparent "lenses"/"displays" which embed cameras and microphones.

Thank you for the Sue Barry pointer: http://www.stereosue.com/

>While this may lead to conflict of interest, it can also lead to a better eye exam.

I have very good familiarity with the situation in Germany. It's barely any better there due to the same limitations I've already outlined. Granted, you find more opticians with 1/8 diopter trial frame lenses there, but it's still a rarity and opticians lack orthoptic training, something NOT supplementable by normal optometric training (which already goes beyond optician training), even if the IVBS would like you to think otherwise.

>Why can't SeeVividly vision therapy be made available directly to consumers? Is the reason technical or business, to avoid conflict with eye doctors?

Liability.

I recently got a few pairs of glasses from the most common optical retailer with their best lenses (Ray Ban Rox Plus in sunglasses and BlueIQ in the regular ones). I have a light single vision prescription (about -1.5 sphere and -1 cyl in each eye) but still, I find these are not very good lenses -- I see plenty of chromatic aberration on the sides (I guess they're both made from polycarbonate where I'm more used to getting CR39 plastic) and they both appear to have other abberrations in the plastic that I can see when I pass different parts of the lens in front of my eye.

As a photographer, I'm really interested in having excellent optics in front of my eyes, but I don't know how to achieve it. I agree with the comments above -- it's sucky that you have to make full .25 incremental jumps, and that the axis for astigmatism is still determined by me having to say "1" looks better than "2" and "3" looks better than "4", all done with antiquated equipment manually operated when it should all be readable right off the retina.

Couple this with high pressure salesmanship and no transparency at all about the lenses and it is obvious why it's so hard for the consumer to get this right.

Yesterday I learned that Sam's Club offers Nikon, Zeiss and Seiko lenses. Some of my favorite glasses I got in Japan for $80 and they included standard Seikos with UV protection and great AR coating.

Sorry for the late reply. Chromatic aberrations primarily originate from glasses with a low Abbe number, which ROUGHLY (_but not strictly!_ RARE [and expensive] exceptions exist!) correlates with glasses with a high refractive index. Get glasses with a high Abbe number (which you'll likely find in glasses with a low refractive index) and the chromatic ab(b)errations will disappear. The price you have to pay: They'll end up heavier. But only slightly, thanks to modern organic glass polymers whose surface we, via surface treatment, can make harder than mineralic glass nowadays. A capability that has only appeared in the last few years.

As for the rest, the advice given in the other reply to your comment seems sound.

Try a digitally surfaced Zeiss single vision lens in Trivex. It can be made in 0.01D increments. Visit a local university for your eye exam, they're probably not trying to sell you lenses. Seiko has good products but were bought by Hoya and have been going through many internal changes.

https://www.personalizedvision.com/zeisssinglevisionhd

I've recently developed intermittent vertical diplopia (double vision) - it will happen out of the blue and last for a few minutes (closing eyes and relaxing seems to clear it up). I've been trying to wear my reading glasses more often and also when on the computer and it seems to have largely cleared up, but it still happens now and then. Do you think it's safe to consider it problem solved or should I be looking into it more? Went for an eye exam and she said everything was fine.

Sorry for the late response. I overlooked this. Go see a doctor. Never fuck around with double vision. Especially not with vertical one. And make sure to AVOID horizontal prisms. They never work as a solution except in cases of actual muscle /paralysis/, i.e. via the nerve, and not just muscle "weakness". The muscle weakness theory of strabismus and diplopia seems akin to a load of hogwash, as it fails to pass even the simplest human bioenergetics(and I mean the scientific field that deals with caloric distribution & thermoregulation, not the - unfortunately more well known - hurdur pseudoscience term.) litmus tests:

If given a sufficient nutrient supply and an issue stemming from muscle strength, then exercise alone must suffice to grow the muscle. If the issue stems from muscle length, then exercises alone must have the capability to lead to elongative growth. However, this requires an incentive to LOOK IN THE RIGHT WAY instead of supressing the image. As a theory, it fundamentally confuses cause with effect. Yes of course the muscles become unbalanced - as a CONSEQUENCE of the neurologically originated suppressive (amblyopiatic[sic]) action of averting the gaze of one eye to ensure the brain doesn't have to keep on encountering statistical near misses that waste neurological resources.

If our muscles had some kind of "critical period", then people who didn't hit the gym as children couldn't ever gain muscles in a gym as adults. A clearly absurd notion, thus, via reductio ad absurdum, QED.

There are lots of possible causes of double vision, including neurological. If it's still happening you really should see a doctor (a good GP.)

Do you have bouts of doubled vision with only one eye open? If so, that is likely astigmatism which can be temporary.

No, closing either eye clears it up thankfully.

Actually, lack of stereo synchronization can be more serious than astigmatism which is usually an optically correctable condition.

Causes of diplopia range from the innocuous to the serious, I would investigate a bit further and rule out the easy stuff (diabetes/thyroid) and stay alert for other possibly related symptoms.

> Should you ask the person trying to sell you a pair of expensive progressive lenses?

probably not, but should you ask the person trying to sell you an app with mediocre reviews of efficacy (the placebo effect should cause ratings to be higher than a "true" rating).

There is existing research on vision therapy and behavioral optometry, e.g. here's a 2002 review paper that covers preceding decades, http://www.familyvisioncare.org/2016/research/02_THE_SCIENTI...

If new business models (including software) for vision therapy emerge, the revenue can fund marketing of existing studies or even new studies. The presence of this (marketing?) article in the NY Times at least raises awareness of the concept, so that people can consult the research or ask a professional about non-lens options.

Reading glasses are for lens focusing, not for convergence. Prism glasses are for convergence issues, but are rarelt prescribed. No conspiracy theory needed.

No conspiracy theory was claimed. Here's one of the newer summaries of research on prisms for convergence issues, unfortunately in German, but the abstracts' in English:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00347-014-3037-9

Which states quite clearly that horizontal prisms shouldn't get prescribed, only vertical prisms, and weaker ones than previously thought, which brings us right back to the fact that we need more competent developmental, behavioral functional optometry & orthopty.

Furthermore, you probably want to read this article by Rodenstock:

http://assets.markallengroup.com/article-images/image-librar...

It's unfortunately marketing material, however, it's also the only English resource I know that outlines the problems of:

* Listing's law in its original version only applying to distance vision * 'effective near astigmatism' * tilting of the intraocular lens

inside one document so you don't have to go crawling all over the literature to find them like I had to. Now think of how failing to properly correcting that influences accommodative strabismus via the accommodation-convergence reflex in anisometropic patients... Especially if the glasses ain't iseikonic and thus induce unwanted and unbalanced base in/base out prism.

Of course, Rodenstock has a patent on some of these corrections. While Hoya has a patent on freeform double surface lenses which makes everything way more complicated to optimize when you ain't Hoya, Zeiss has a patent on knocking out convergence using an infrared light source to measure pupil position, and on various multiphoton raytracing technologies for calculating corrections such as the one Rodenstock describes (leading to Rodenstock using a complicated workaround), and so on, dozens of patents locking everyone out of making an /optimal/ pair of glasses. Yes this makes all vendors about equally good, but only by making all of them, relatively speaking, mediocre. Each in their own special way.

And don't get me started up on contact lenses and how they relate to the difference between axial anisometropia, refractive anisometropia, and their hybrid. My point here, and in my other comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195742 & https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195570):

There exists no conspiracy. There only exists cock-up, and lots of it. Hanlon's razor etc.

What are your thoughts on causes/treatment of astigmatism? Could lens distortion (away from optical center of a high minus lens) be a contributing factor over a long period of time? If so, could be an argument for using FF lenses. Apparently the Zeiss FF patent expired this month and Seiko's FF patent expired in 2016.

Rodenstock lenses are not widely available in the US. Looks like the Zeiss Individual SV will compensate for astigmatism caused by pantoscopic tilt, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3e73/2da37ec9e17bd086b32095...

Some quotes from Chapter 1 of an open-access book on astigmatism: https://www.intechopen.com/books/astigmatism-optics-physiolo...

… visual tasks with significant downward gaze, such as reading, can alter corneal curvature owing to eyelid pressure ... Studies on the time course of astigmatism regression have revealed slower recovery after longer periods of reading ... continuous use of the medial rectus muscle, especially during near tasks, imposes a force on the cornea which increases its radius of curvature in the horizontal meridian resulting in a shift towards against-the-rule astigmatism...

… Larger pupil sizes—in low lighting conditions— increase the amount of higher order aberrations such as coma and may intensify the cylinder power in subjective/manifest refraction. Coma has been shown to be correlated with greater amounts of astigmatism …

… accommodative astigmatism is related to lens distortion due to inhomogeneous lens elasticity, variable constriction in ciliary muscles (which itself changes the lens power), and nonhomogeneous tension of the extraocular muscles during convergence (which causes corneal distortion…

… slight changes in cylinder power and axis (towards with the rule) occur during convergence alone … this change is seen in a small percentage of eyes … for those who experience such an alteration, separate spectacle prescriptions for near and far distance vision might be beneficial.

>What are your thoughts on causes/treatment of astigmatism? Could lens distortion (away from optical center of a high minus lens) be a contributing factor over a long period of time? If so, could be an argument for using FF lenses. Apparently the Zeiss FF patent expired this month and Seiko's FF patent expired in 2016.

Pfuuuh. Got a link? I honestly have to say I draw a blank in regards to what you mean by "FF lenses", as I'd assume you wouldn't mean full frame lenses in the photography sense?

>Rodenstock lenses are not widely available in the US.

I know. They recently made an attempt to relaunch in the US but I have no idea if it succeeded.

>Looks like the Zeiss Individual SV will compensate for astigmatism caused by pantoscopic tilt, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3e73/2da37ec9e17bd086b32095....

Yepp, but that's not the main problem. The main problem comes from the cyclotorsion the eyes exhibit during convergence as part of the donward gaze. This fundamentally changes the astigmatism axis.

I didn't go into this in my earlier post (Which I'll link here, since it's in a different sub-thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195742), but actually, to expand on this, I consider cyclotorsion a HUGE problem in the successful measurement of astigmatism.

I've tested this empirically quite a few times, and the traditional cover test fails to fully interrupt the fusional circuit in the brain, the cyclotorsion component remains active until the other eye is closed consciously.

(In fact, I speculate that even then it remains partially active, and in some cases only a temporary concious supression of the [inside-of-your-eyelids] image leads to a full disengagement of the circuit. But this is highly speculative, take this part with a large grain of salt.)

I consider this a problem because:

1. Cycloplegia in fact fails to prevent cyclotorsional adjustment.

2. Incorrect astigmatism correction can lead to amblyopic suppression, which can lead to (micro)strabismus, which leads to diplopia. Now, horizontal prisms aside, which we shouldN't prescribe, ever, except in EXTREMELY rare cases of total muscle paralysis or similar, this can then lead to an incorrect measurement of vertical deviation of the angle of gaze, which leads to an incorrect prism prescription, which... well, you get the point. Bonus if the astigmatism correction ends up so off, you end up affecting distance vision and cause accommodation. Double bonus if the patient already suffered from accommodative cramps [which btw. WON'T GET ANY BETTER if we keep the testing distance at 6 meters, which as, previously state, definitely DOESN'T equal optical infinity.]. Triple bonus if they didn't get cycloplegia to compensate for it at first. Quadruple bonus if the pupil dilation from the cycloplegia fucks up the astigmatism measurement [which is the point where wavefront measurements shine, because they can backinfere about the behavior of the narrower pupil even from the measurement of the widened pupil! But even wavefront measurement can't compensate for cyclotorsion! But of course that gets fucked up by wavefront mesurements that fail to consider the full pupil diameter!]

>Some quotes from Chapter 1 of an open-access book on astigmatism: https://www.intechopen.com/books/astigmatism-optics-physiolo....

>continuous use of the medial rectus muscle, especially during near tasks, imposes a force on the cornea which increases its radius of curvature in the horizontal meridian resulting in a shift towards against-the-rule astigmatism...

Interesting. Didn't know that one yet.

> Larger pupil sizes—in low lighting conditions— increase the amount of higher order aberrations such as coma and may intensify the cylinder power in subjective/manifest refraction. Coma has been shown to be correlated with greater amounts of astigmatism

Yepp, see my point about wavefront measurements.

>accommodative astigmatism is related to lens distortion due to inhomogeneous lens elasticity, variable constriction in ciliary muscles (which itself changes the lens power), and nonhomogeneous tension of the extraocular muscles during convergence (which causes corneal distortion…

True, but this ignores the cyclotorsional element.

>slight changes in cylinder power and axis (towards with the rule) occur during convergence alone … this change is seen in a small percentage of eyes

Small percentage my ass, that's a case of underdiagnosis due to insufficiently precise measuring equipment.

>for those who experience such an alteration, separate spectacle prescriptions for near and far distance vision might be beneficial.

or we can just, I don't know, PROGRESSIVELY ALTER THE ASTIGMATISM CORRECTION AS PART OF GLASSES? Using the same technology we already use for progressives? I know, I know, that'd seem TOO LOGICAL.

Sorry, I harbor the most bitter feelings on this topic.

Any recommendations for 3d magazines? I want to buy on amazon if you have a link.

Search for "stereogram".

When I was a child I had some sort of focusing problem (maybe 'lazy eye'). I recall having two exercises given to me to help:

1. Card with two cat ideograms. Each was missing different parts (e.g. tail and ears vs. belly and eyes). I had to hold it at some distance and merge the two cats into a single one.

2. Rectangular card with a notch in it. Hold the card parallel with the ground, and count down the numbers on the line (10, 9, 8, ...) from the one farthest to the one nearest, whilst keeping the lines crossed next to that number. (There was only one line, but it looked like two everywhere except at the point of focus.)

I don't know if those exercises worked, but I certainly don't have problems with focusing on objects at different distances.

Anyone who uses a smartphone is doing convergence exercises whenever they use their phone. Some of us are so well practiced that we have created myopia (inability to diverge) in ourselves.

Hey, this is really cool to see natural eyesight topic on the hacker news.

I practice this for more than 10 years. Each day I work with computer for ~10 h., drive a car and do other things, and never wear glasses, even though the traditional ophtalmologic measures clearly indicate that I need strong glasses and I shouldn't see even the biggest letter on the Snellen chart, but I see not only the biggest, but sometimes even the 20/20.

Doctors can't explain this, and only congrats me on my achievement. Of course, the eyesight is not perfect. I see clearly in the daytime, but in the nighttime or low light conditions it becomes much harder to distinguish faces.

The best book I found so far is "Relearning to See" by Thomas R. Quackenbush. The originator of this theory was William Bates.

Actually, there is no clear unified theory on how to achieve this. Everyone interprets it differently and the results are inconsistent. There is also a lot of criticism from the medical establishment.

Natural eyesight improvement really works. And the unified theory, in a form of an app, or a good book, maybe including findings from neuroplasticity, would be a great gift for humanity.

> Natural eyesight improvement really works. And the unified theory, in a form of an app, or a good book, maybe including findings from neuroplasticity, would be a great gift for humanity.

It SORT OF works in stable and predictable situations.

What seems to be happening is that your brain, in all of its neuroplastic glory, is learning to make better inferences from the broken information it receives.

The issue is that this works as long as the inferences are correct. That's fine when you are reading a newspaper, using the computer, etc. as the situation is stable and predictable.

The problem is that when you are suddenly confronted by a situation where the inferences are NOT correct--such as a nighttime emergency situation while driving. Now you are relying on the "uninferenced" data coming in from your eyes and that data is subpar with all the resultant problems.

The best solution is both: fix the data coming in with corrective lenses for unpredictable situations, and train your brain to make better inferences so you can deal with predictable situations better.

Before, I also had this theory in my mind for a year or so.

But for example, right now I'm in Thailand, traveling here for the first time. Everything is new, unfamiliar and unpredictable, daytime, nightime. I have no problems seeing things, everything is almost perfectly clear and sharp. I needed some time to adapt to a smaller screen of my laptop (I was using 24 inch before), but now I'm doing fine.

Actually, the more you look, the better you see. Like in Aaron Swartz blog post, if you want to retrain your weak legs, you need to walk more. Same with eyes.

Just bought a domain https://seeing.fun and will try to do something good with it.

I have already written extensively about natural eyesight improvement in my native language, and also I'm a web app designer and developer. I can combine these things into seeing.fun

One thing I know, is that this practice should be relaxed and even fun, definitely not serious. If you become serious, there will be no results.

It's inaccessible over IPv6.

I can say that I have negative 4 dioptri for sure (confirmed multiple times, contacts prescription is for this). Yet I can see street signs better than my friends with negative 2. I often asked eye doctors how this is possible and they don't seem to have a good answer. But that's what it is.

I also have trouble with low constrast settigs and nighttime, vs daytime. I think it may have something to do with the brain recognizing small things even if the image coming in is blurry, and it uses high contrast to do it. That's my guess.

But does Bates method really work, or is it all just placebo effect?

Are your pupils more constricted than your friends' pupils? The lesser the aperture the crisper the image (then diffraction kicks in).

It works, even if it's just a placebo.

I have even more dioptres than you, around 5 for each eye and a nasty cylinder (astigmatism).

I don't use glasses or any kind of lenses (don't even have them) for the last ~10 years.

Actually, I don't even do any eye exercises.

Maybe this sounds to good to be true, but the main principle is that this natural eyesight improvement is not about exercises, but about re-learning the natural seeing habits.

When you re-learn to see things in a natural way (without strain, without fixation), you then see things clearly 24 h/day without any exercises.

It's all about habits, not exercises.

The exercises are needed only as long as you are in the process of re-learning the natural seeing habits.

I would be curious to know if anyone here who suffers from these issues finds my startup's software [1] to be helpful. We launched (on HN, as it happens) as a speed-reading tool, but we've heard from many people with binocular vision difficulties, including convergence insufficiency, amblyopia and presbyopia, that our approach makes reading easier.

Obviously this isn't a training tool like the ones mentioned in the article, but I'd be curious if it eases reading for folks who are affected by these issues. Also, if there are any vision professionals here, I'd love to hear expert opinions too.

1: http://www.beelinereader.com

I just spent 5 minutes (on my Samsung phone) trying to download the app from the link you provided. I clicked on the Chrome icon, the Android icon, and one or two others. The only one that seemed to work was the Firefox icon. But I don't use Firefox, so I gave up.

Yeah, it’s confusing but our Chrome extension is only for desktop. This is because mobile Chrome doesn’t support extensions, unfortunately. But thanks for the reminder that we need to make this clearer.

Sorry the error seems to be on my phone. I seem to be having trouble with it right now. Including the fact that I can't delete my previous comment

Hey, I think I finally understood and it seems worth checking out, but I couldn't find a description of what is it you actually do anywhere on the site. I think the homepage should include a quick description and example if you want to draw people's attention.

Thanks for the feedback. Are you saying we should have a description on the landing page (beelinereader.com)? Or did we not clearly demonstrate/explain what we do even on the separate vertical pages (/individual, /education, and /partners)? Feel free to email contact@ instead of going back and forth here. We definitely want to understand how our (newly-relaunched) website works/doesn't work for visitors!

I'm getting an information that the Firefox add-on is not compatible with the newest version of the browser.

Yup, we are working on building a separate version for the new release of Firefox.

This was a big thing in Soviet Russia. The thing is, to show good results required 1 - 2 hours of work per day. The author of this article notes that he, too, put in 1.5 hours a Day.

No credible study I have found has supported meaningful benefits when used the way real people are likely to: for 10-15m/d a few times a week, at best.

And the investment of an hour or more a day isn't worth it compared to glasses or contacts, especially when results may vary. I spend at most a few hours each _year_ at the optometrist, covered by insurance, and then I can instead spend that hour each day on hobbies, cooking, reading, exercising, etc.

A more realistic approach is to incorporate short exercises for a few minutes when taking a break from close-up computer usage. You should be taking a break every 20 minutes.

Yes, that would be realistic. But that hasn’t been shown to work.

Is that 1-2 hours per day indefinitely? Or is there a training period that ends eventually?

It's about good vision habits, which may require lifestyle adjustment. Once that's done, exercises take a few minutes per day. Ongoing, similar to other forms of exercise, use it or lose it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16195629

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16197112

I remember Aaron Swartz telling me about his interest in eye exercises for myopia (not just presbyopia).

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001083

I'm pretty sure there's another blog post of his that goes further into the substance than this one, but I didn't immediately find it. (Other references, including one I wrote a few years ago, suggest he once thought the mechanism by which it could help had to do with oxygen levels rather than muscle development.) Does anyone know if this has been supported by clinical research?

More about it: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000432

"I hope to continue this practice whenever I have time to spare or take a break. I’m sure I’ll report on my findings here."

Did he ever report his findings? This was posted in 2002, so I would expect (if successful in this important discovery) a larger publication by him finding results later on?

Aaron's method has been refined by several people:

https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-improveme...

http://endmyopia.org/active-focus-links/

There are also vision exercises on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/VisualExercises

It is totally possible to improve your ability to focus visually using these. Just doing them on occasion, or once a day for a few minutes can be enough to counter the negative effects of staring at a screen all day.

Wow. Thanks! Just one minute of each of the seven exercises has improved my vision to the point where I no longer need my 1.0 reading glasses to read hacker news on my iPhone 7+. The improved vision seems to be lasting at least a few minutes. Perhaps there’s truth to the “use it or lose it” theory of vision?

“By middle age, the lenses in your eyes harden, becoming less flexible”

Do they harden for a specific reason? Any research underway on how to unharden them? A few drops of something?

[UPDATE]

I did a little research and found that Novartis bought a company that’s working on a drug:

EVO6 - Novartis

https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-bolste...

It might have something to do with a lack of vitamins/minerals, as for most things. Plus, as you get older, your absorption of vitamins/minerals is weaker, too, so you'd need more, even if you consumed the right amount of everything every day (most likely you did not, because it's impossible to get everything your body needs just from food ever day).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693724/

http://www.lifeextension.com/Protocols/Eye-Ear/Eye-Health/Pa...

Perhaps this is related: why is it that for several minutes sometimes after I have been practicing music, my eyes refuse to focus. This only happens when playing by ear, not when reading sheet music. And it doesn't seem to matter if I'm watching my hands or closing my eyes. Is part of my brain shutting down to give another part more capability?...

The effect can last from a minute to 15 minutes sometimes, and it only happens after playing music.

Eyesynth (https://eyesynth.com/media/?lang=en) has done research on using sound fields to convey topological information to blind people. I don't have details, but they have done MRI studies and it appears that parts of the visual cortex are being retasked to process the audio signals.

That is so cool! I had thought of a similar system for blind people but someone had actually went out and built it already. I wish I could look at their source code as it seems like they are doing some really cool stuff under the hood

Interesting, thanks!

> "Neuroplasticity — the ability of the brain’s processing functions to change to acquire new skills — is most strongly associated with childhood. It’s still more pronounced in children than adults, but for some skills, including vision, the brain is more malleable than once thought."

I'm reading the book "The Brain that Changes Itself." I'm not sure if it's The Best book on neuroplasticity, as it's 10+ years old. But I'm finding it very fascinating and am comfortable recommending it for those interested in a deep dive.

http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259

Oliver Sacks (in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) also tells a great story of a blind patient with Cerebral Palsy that was so babied that she never acquired use of her hands. She had been carried everywhere and had everything done for her. She called her hands "useless lumps of dough". At 60 years old he and his team managed to get her to use her hands; she ended up going through all the infant stages of hand use. Despite being 60 and never having used them she was able to become a sculptor, feed herself, etc. He thought it might be a one-off but he ran into another patient with a similar situation (babied, unable to use his hands his entire life) who also acquired the ability to use them.
There is a reduction in neuroplasticity with age but there is more and more evidence that it is a smaller reduction than once though and a lot of the supposed reduction is due to attitude, expectations, and technique.

There have also been fairly recent studies with kids and adults born blind who receive surgery to correct the problem later on in life. Not being infants, they don't naturally learn how to build up a system of vision. It was long thought that acquiring vision after early childhood was impossible but that turns out not to be true either. It requires intense therapy to walk the person through the infant stages of learning: detecting shapes, matching colors, learning about edges, inside vs outside, recognizing people vs objects, learning faces, etc. Eventually reasonably decent vision can be achieved. We appear to be primed as infants to learn these things automatically so we never really think about how much work it is.

Yes. This is the crux of the book. That is, the brain can adapt and age isn't a factor, most of the time. An exception, for example, is language. It is more difficult for an adult to learn a new language. Not impossible, obviously. Just far more difficult because some parts of the brain are less plastic.

FWIW I've been reading it as a form of self-help book, sorta. That is, knowing how the brain works how best can I unlearn things. One of the takeaways so far is that to ditch an old unwanted habit you'd improve your odds if you replace it (and not just try to avoid it).

Also, the book emphasizes "use it or lose it." That's actually not entirely accurate. He gives numerous examples that are closer to "use it or it will be taken away." That is, brain cells (neurons) in proximity to the unused will slowly creep in and reclaim the unused for something else. Stop using your hand don't "lose it". You literally take away those neurons from yourself for something else.

In other words he's not improving his vision, but getting better at reading out of focus text.

Also as someone who has the issue themselves, you get better at reading out of focus text just by reading out of focus text. Although I have not tried the technique in the article I'm sceptical it would do much better. There are also limits to how well you can correct blurry images with any software or brain processes.

I am 40, with myopia. It is still unclear to me whether it makes sense to correct it with laser; and how this is going to affect my vision for the next... 60 years (I am an optimist!).

I've heard that laser (or lasic?) is essentially an unrelated decision to what happens to your eyes after age 40-45. But so far the three specialists I've spoken to over the last few years have given me conflicting opinions.

Lasik carves a minus lens onto your eyes, same as if you were permanently wearing minus contacts or glasses. When you develop presbyopia, you will need plus lenses for close-up vision. With no lasik, you will use a progressive or bifocal lens (upper portion = distance prescription, lower = plus for reading).

With lasik, you will use a progressive lens (upper portion = plano/clear to avoid interfering with the lens carved onto your eye, lower = plus) or you can use basic reading glasses for near work. Lasik has risks which should be factored into any decision. If you do a lot of near/computer work, you can have a "regression" where your eye needs a stronger prescription for distance, than the lens carved onto your eye.

I'm your age now. When I had LASIK performed some 6 or 7 years ago, the doctor mentioned that the risk of degradation of my short range vision might actually increase due to the procedure (it hasn't happened yet, though).

To my recollection, the doctor said it is currently possible to correct for near vision loss due to presbyopia via LASIK - but it's an all or nothing thing. An eye is either corrected for near vision, or it is corrected for far vision, which means that both eyes will not be able to acheive focus at the same distances; basically, only one will provide sharp focus for near objects, and the other for far objects. Supposedly some patients adapt to this situation, and others do not.

Having had LASIK already I was fully prepared to simply get reading glasses when the problem manifests, but these exercises sound promising and I would love that as an alternative. I was so glad to get rid of the glasses, and it would be wonderful to avoid them in the future.

> I've spoken to over the last few years have given me conflicting opinions.

Some of the confliction will be raised by the strength (minus figures for left and right eyes) of your prescription. Some will be due to a lack of / more knowledge of the technique depending on the practicioner.

I think it's fair to say that no one who has had lasik, has to date lived beyond 100, so it is impossible to tell the final outcome.

I was under the impression that lasik can be used to treat glaucoma, and that glaucoma is more common if you have a -9 (or higher) myopia prescription (please correct if I am misled). If this is true, it may be worth holding off on the lasik until (God forbid) you really need it.

I am not an expert. :-)

Out of curiosity, what is your prescription?

I've heard that having lasik can increase one's glare sensitivity. That is, it may make driving at night more difficult due to glare from the headlamps of other vehicles.

I have some glare at night post Lasik, but it is similar the glare I had from constantly scratched/abraised glasses. A wash for me in that department. The better than 20/20 vision however is a total win for me.

Which are your visual defects, precisely? It's the most important factor, along with age.

Laser correction is essentially gambling; this is the reason why you're getting conflicting opinions.

Being young and having small defects is low-risk gambling; being older and having significant defects is high-risk.

Also, the other crucial factor is what's your purpose. Hoping not to wear glasses anymore, and reducing defects, are very different matters.

I got LASIK at 42. It’s great. Don’t wait.

As an almost-44 year old I find this to be very interesting. I don't know if I am really willing to commit to the full regimen, but I can feel my vision slipping a little every year. I'm pretty sure at my next appointment I won't be able to do 20/20 or better, it was a near thing at my last appointment a few years back. I really don't want glasses -- I wore them growing up and I loathe them. Kids are jerks and I suffered enough abuse for having glasses that I'm irrationally opposed to ever wearing them again. Anything that can delay the inevitable is a huge win IMO.

Too late for you, but schools are full of kids with glasses now and all the pairs I’ve seen are seriously cool. I’ve heard kids asking parents if they could have a pair. It might be just the early levels of schooling, but at that level at least, there is no stigma.

Glasses may be chic, but corrective eyewear is a pain. Glasses need cleaning, can constantly slide off your nose if they don't fit right, and if you require them for driving you're screwed if they're broken or lost. Contacts aren't much better. Every Christmas various family members ask about a contacts case or solution (we now have a large stash). Both also suck for outdoor activities like surfing, camping, etc. It is much better than not being able to see. (As an aside, I'm curious if people who don't wear corrective eyewear are more likely to wear sunglasses?)

I feel like I've seen more people wearing glasses with fake lenses.

> corrective eyewear is a pain

In HN fashion, I'm afraid I have to proffer an alternative, contrary perspective. :)

I've worn glasses almost all my life. I do not find it remotely inconvenient, and if anything adds points to my perceived intelligence, an advantage that I find extremely useful in many social circumstances.

1) Glasses don't have to be cleaned that much (just a bit of soap and water during a shower suffices). Almost no one I know uses solution for glasses.

2) They never slide off your nose (if they do, they were incorrectly fitted).

3) They hardly ever break and/or get lost if you wear them all the time. Most frames are designed to be tough yet flexible. I only replace my glasses once every 2-3 years to get an updated prescription, and never because the frame broke or anything like that.

4) They are no impediments to surfing/camping or even swimming if you use straps. I've never had trouble being active with glasses on. Billie Jean King played tennis with glasses.

I suppose it depends on the degree of impairment. My wife had severe nearsightedness so much that the misplacement of glasses led to near inability to navigate even the house but also near panic when it went on while I couldn't find the glasses. Lasik was a risk but has been a life changer for her. YMMV.

To add to this mix, I do t wear glasses but get them for a small child. First pair was at about age 1.

They are extremely handy for preventing eye injuries. Small children are pretty good at getting things in their eyes and having a pair of +9s in the way makes the eyes basically bullet proof. The cost is alarming though, US$725 approximately. While reasonably child proof, they do break and it sucks having to tell them to be more careful when they are trying to put glasses on.

It sounds like you're just saying, "it's not too much of a pain."

The straps weren't the problem for me with swimming or camping, it was keeping the lenses clean and having a spot to keep them from getting crushed or scratched (the hard cases are bulky and tend to break after a year).

Glasses got way more annoying after having a young kid. They're his favorite toy and he has easy access when you hold him.

> It sounds like you're just saying, "it's not too much of a pain."

Yep.

But from the sound of it, I'm guessing you only wear glasses part-time, so perhaps much of what I said may not track your experiences.

Us full-time wearers of glasses don't tend to carry hard cases -- those get stashed away as soon as we get home from the optometrists. Our glasses are always on, except when showering and sleeping.

Babies love to pull glasses off your face. I've had to train myself to monitor and avoid grabs. Some babies are fast though.

My glasses would fog up on cold morning mountain bike rides. Aside from that, I put up with the scratches. What I wanted was the ability to wear sunglasses (and prescription sunglasses were too expensive). Eventually I got contacts after I had more financial resources. They were freeing and limiting at the same time. Almost not worth the hassle. But I could pick up any pair of sunglasses I fancied. Eventually I got Lasik. It is amazing. In years, there is not a day that goes by where I'm not impressed with the quality of my vision. No daily hassle and I see better than with any glasses or contacts.

I agree, it is a different world today. My daughter wears glasses and it actually made her happy. Nobody calls her four-eyes or anything like that, they're a bit envious if anything because they don't have a fancy pair of colorful glasses of their own. It makes me happy for her, one less thing she will have to deal with (though I've been around her school enough to know that there are still plenty of obnoxious kids doing obnoxious things, that's never going to change)

I have to try this. I did some eye exercises about 3-4 years back called Trataka. No scientific evidence of it's benefits whatsoever but I had nothing to lose. A few minutes of gazing a candle in a dark room. I have worn glasses from age 10 and the only time my eye power went down was when I was doing this Trataka. Now I have terrible eyesight, long sightedness + presbyopia, can't read without glasses. May be there is something to these unscientifically proven methods. It is a pain to find a totally pitch dark room in modern cities. Light creeps in from everywhere.

His last paragraph shows how strongly app prices are anchored to $0.99. He describes how he used the app for tens or hundreds of hours and saw life-changing benefits. The training seemed to take 10 years off his eyes, maybe enough to delay reading glasses for years.

Then he writes:

> As apps go, GlassesOff is not cheap. I paid $24.99 for three months of use — long enough to get me through the initial program. Upon completion, I was invited to pay another $59.99 per year for maintenance training.

The key phrase here is "as apps go". I have never paid $25 for an app, and neither have most people. This pie chart sucks but it seems to imply that < 5% of apps are $19 or more: http://blog.scottlogic.com/2014/03/20/app-store-analysis.htm...

>> and saw life-changing benefits.

I do not see any "life-changing benefits" claimed in the article.

Looks like the only improvement he got was reported by the very application that he was using. Quote:

"Yet, after a couple of months, the app reports I can read fonts nearly one third the size I could when I started and much more rapidly. According to feedback from GlassesOff, my vision after training is equivalent to a man about 10 years younger than my age "

Since repetitive mental effort changes the brain, wouldn't the general decline in neuroplasticity itself be reversible if one put time and effort into learning and exercising new and different things?

It seems to me that as we age, we spend less mental energy on processing and analyzing new information and more energy on pattern matching and end-of-pattern refinement. It's an optimization of thinking which allows us to get more done quickly, but it means we strengthen the skills of, well, pattern matching and optimization rather than on gathering and processing broadly.

However, I don't understand how any mental effort can reverse a hardening of a physical material (lens). Maybe it allows us to process visual data based on different rules, such as how the right kinds of image processing can make sense of images that are totally "out of focus".

There are various theories about the causes of decreased accomodation in presbyopia, hardening of the lens being one. Other possible factors are axial elongation and ciliary muscles, e.g. https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219573-overview#show...

Like many things age-related, you want to be doing vision therapy before there is irreversible damage. Use it or lose it. Since the decrease in accomodation is gradual, vision therapy can be done before reading glasses are strictly needed, at the current accomodation limit.

Behavioral optometrists take a holistic view: http://www.mccrodanvision.com/vision-development-education-c...

Anything for long distance vision? I noticed since I bought my first smartphone 3 years ago my eyesight has gotten worse.

Of course it could be age related, but glasses aren't in my family and my friends would ask me to read distant signs because I always saw furthest.

Probably best to get an eye exam.

Read about ciliary spasm: http://endmyopia.org/the-ciliary-pop-a-simple-trick-for-heal...

More info on eye health & computers/smartphones: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16146106

This related item got flagged off the front page back in November: http://www.instructables.com/id/Eye-training-system

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631074

http://hnrankings.info/15631074

Unfortunately "Hacker News Transparency" is 500-ing. https://hn.0x2237.club

Learning to deconvolve?

I went for several years without glasses for nearsightedness, which I needed pretty badly. The first day I put my prescription glasses on, there was a strange halo around anything with high contrast, like where a dark mountain meets the sky. It looked exactly like an artifact from this. It faded within 10 minutes or so.

There was an interesting page, maybe 15 years ago, that was experimenting with this method for vision correction when reading text on a display. I can’t find it on Google anymore, but it was really neat, with working example images that became clearer when you would blur your eyes. From what I remember, poor contrast was the biggest issue, since you can’t have negative light.

MIT and UC Berkeley announced some work on vision-correcting displays in 2014, but nothing since.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/529191/prototype-display-...

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2490626/emerging-techn...

Can anyone tell me if it's viable to use "collimator glasses" so eyes would be focused on infinity when using computer monitor? VR headsets use collimators.

Yes. This is exactly what reading glasses are. If you want to do it on the cheap, just go to a drug store and get a pair of weak reading glasses.

Otherwise, go to an optometrist and complain of eyestrain at a computer. You'll end up spending a few hundred dollars.

You can buy reduced-myopia glasses for less than $50 from Zenni, Eyebuydirect, etc.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16147020

As a young person that cherishes his good vision, is there anything I can do to ward of presbyopia?

Definitely interesting; I wonder how LASIK and PRK fit into the picture.

So, I never post on here - but this made me very curious about whether anyone else here reads with one eye?

I'm 26 and have been reading with one eye closed for a long time. It seems like that would mean presbyopia wouldn't affect me, so perhaps doing exercises to read with one eye would also be a viable approach to overcoming the condition without using reading glasses.

I do something similar, when reading stuff around 15 feet (typically text on TV screens). In my case, it's because I have one long-sighted eye and one short-sighted (so I use one for close-up stuff like reading and the other for far stuff like driving, while effectively ignoring input from the other). In the cross-over zone, it's easier to close one eye than to let them compete for dominance.

Are your eyes naturally like that, or are you wearing monovision contacts, https://www.eyehealthweb.com/monovision/?

Naturally, always been like it. I got some glasses back in my 20's to correct it, but the effect was to put everything into the zone where each eye would struggle for dominance (maybe I should have persisted, to see if my neural circuitry would eventually adapt and give me binocular vision).

Interesting link to monovision, thanks! That's pretty much describes where I am - entirely by chance.

Take a look at Sue Barry's notes on Frederick Brock's work on binocular vision, http://www.stereosue.com/brocks-lecture-notes-on-strabismus-...

Traditional Yoga contains a set of exercises for the muscles surrounding the eye. Many problems seem to be caused in part by constantly focusing on the same distance/angle; which leads to lack of muscle tone, which in turn affects eye sight.

It's clear now that the physical changes (deterioration) in the eye correlates to insufficient UV exposure. So that's a good place to start, particularly if you're young. Sunseekers live longer, too.

You are thinking of myopia. The article is about presbyopia. They are quite different.

The eye has a range in which it can focus. Myopia is a shift of the range due to the shape of the eye, while presbyopia is a shrinking of the range due to hardening of the lens.

                 zero        infinity
    --------------|-------------|--------------
    ----------------|            |------------- < normal focus range
    ----|            |------------------------- < range of myope 
    ----------------------| |------------------ < range of presbyope

Only some people get myopia. Everyone gets presbyopia.

Yep. Myopia move the focus of the eye from infinity to 1m/diopters. I'm myope with 4 diopters, and my focus is at 25cm. This means that even being also presbyope, I can read a book without lens if I put it at 25 cm from my eye.

Both are collagen disorders, both seem to correlate to UV light exposure (lack of same.) Do drop a study citation if you know of a study showing otherwise, I'd be most interested.

On the contrary, I'm not aware of any evidence for UV providing protection against presbyopia (though I haven't done extensive research). This article seems to suggest the opposite. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2677104/

You may have flipped the meaning, or it's more complex. The abstract is unclear. To quote: "Of all factors reported to affect the onset of presbyopia, UVR has the most scientific support..." Of course, if this is similar to other effects, such as longevity, intermittent UV exposure will be harmful, and constant exposure helpful.

This comment is great: it corrects a common misconception with detailed technical information, ASCII art, and the word "myope"!

I can't find a single source to back up insufficient UV exposure leading to eye damage. Do you have any for further reading?

From what I can tell, the sunseekers claim is based on a study[1] where people were surveyed about their sun exposure, and then mortality was examined years later. The most likely causes identified for the longer lives of those with more sun exposure was vitamin D preventing heart disease. I feel like there's more to the story, since vitamin D is also available in other forms that don't involve UV exposure.

[1] https://bottomlineinc.com/health/longevity/more-sun-longer-l...

Can't vouch for the articles, or UV-ness, but a very little googling got me these.

K. A. Rose, G. Morgan, et al, Outdoor activity reduces the prevalence of myopia in children, Ophthalmology, August 2008

P. C. Wu, C.L. Tsai, Outdoor activity during class recess reduces myopia onset and progression in school children, Ophthalmology, May, 2013

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kids-exposed-to-more-sunlight-l...

Awesome, thanks. My searches must have missed these, as I was focusing on UV radiation rather than outdoor activity. It looks like there's still a ways to go to understanding the causes of myopia.

There's a feedback model which claims that under-correction can help reduce myopia, which is especially relevant for extended computer usage:

Antonio Medina, Detecting the effect of under-correcting myopia, 2015: https://www.academia.edu/29691342/Detecting_the_effect_of_un...

Peter R Greene and Antonio Medina, The Progression of Nearwork Myopia, 2016: https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-progression-of-n...

Does this model DIRECTLY account for the research from this paper:

http://journals.lww.com/optvissci/Abstract/2013/11000/Spheri...

Last time I checked, most myopia research didn't and sidelined it although it explains so much, I consider it an extremely underrated paper.

Not sure. A couple of other studies below. More info in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16147020

Scott A. Read; Michael J. Collins; Beata P. Sander, Human Optical Axial Length and Defocus, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, December 2010, http://iovs.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2126435

Significant changes in optical axial length occurred in human subjects after 60 minutes of monocular defocus. The bidirectional optical axial length changes observed in response to defocus implied the human visual system is capable of detecting the presence and sign of defocus and altering optical axial length to move the retina toward the image plane.

Vasudevan, Ciuffreda, Ludlam. Accommodative Training to Reduce Nearwork-Induced Transient Myopia, Optometry and Vision Science: November 2009, https://journals.lww.com/optvissci/Abstract/2009/11000/Accom...

Training of the accommodative system in these progressing myopes resulted in improved dynamics in both laboratory and clinical measures. This is consistent with earlier reports in the literature of improvement in symptomatic myopic subjects.

Outdoor activity also involves focussing at longer distances than indoors.

https://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/increased-uvb-exposu...

Thanks for the source! It looks like this one looked at a large number of people and controlled for various factors. The skeptic inside me is still saying "Correlation does not imply causation," but this is a great start in showing a connection. Personally, I'd still say that it is far from clear that insufficient UV radiation causes eye deterioration.

[citation needed]

I think it was general light intensity, not specifically the UV component. Prolonged UV exposure causes cataracts.

Yes, e.g. bright, quality (e.g. LED), indoor light (without UV!) therapy can have benefits.

https://www.comsol.com/blogs/calculating-the-emission-spectr...

https://glarminy.com/2016/06/15/reduce-computer-eye-strain-h...

Are you guessing what the studies controlled for, or did you review them?

The article is behind a paywall so I'm not sure of the content.

However, I hope this is sarcasm. 30 somethings that get suckered into the sungazing myth are some of the saddest patients.

Sungazing? You're replying to someone who said "sunseeker"

> a person who enjoys spending time outside during warm weather, especially one who travels to a destination for its warmth and sun.

> "thousands of sunseekers flocked to Britain's south coast on Sunday"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com