When I entered the Army in 1987 I had 20/40 vision, an astigmatism, and was prescribed glasses and contacts.

I threw away my glasses and contacts 25 years ago and made significant changes in my lifestyle towards being more holistic. I moved to the country and reduced my stress. I began wearing natural fibers, only putting things on my skin that I wouldn’t be concerned about putting in my mouth. I stopped all alcohol, processed sugar, caffeine, and salt.

I did the recommended eye exercises and the Primal Diet.

I went for an eye exam a few years ago because it was time to renew my driver’s license.

The results were my distance vision had IMPROVED. I had 20/20 in my right eye and 20/15 in my left. I was shocked to say the least. So was my eye doctor as he sent me away with NO glasses.

My distance vision is remarkable!

However, because of the amount of time I spend on the computer, cellphone, and use artificial lighting, I still get blurriness, eye-strain, and reduced night vision. I need to continue to be vigilant giving my eyes support as I am not willing to give technologies up just yet. This is how I get these newsletters to you!

To understand eye physiology and natural eye care a great resource is The Bates Method (1992). A modern, user-friendly resource, which I like, is Give Up Your Glasses for Good, by Nathan Oxenfeld. This is a modern version of the comprehensive research and patient care that Dr. William Horatio Bates followed with his eye patients. You will learn how the eyes actually work and how dysfunction is created quite differently from the AMA dogma. 

How Do Our Eyes Work

Our eyes have a lens that directs the focal point of light to the back of the eye. our ocular muscles encircle the circumference of the eye. When we want to shift our focus to an object far away the muscles squeeze the lens which increases the angle of the lens to adjust the focus further away and the muscles relax to focus the up closer. When we have farsightedness or nearsightedness it just means that the muscles are have a difficult time contracting and relaxing. Just like a bicep muscle when you do a curl these muscles can get overused or underused and then need to relax or be strengthened to do their job well. 

Also, just like a bicep, our eyes need good circulation to get blood, oxygen, nutrients into the area and to remove dead cells, lactic acid, and toxins. If circulation is poor or nutrients aren’t fed to the cells, the eyes just like the bicep under-perform. So, most of the time a good exercise and relaxation plan along with healthy food, air, and sunshine is all that is needed to restore eye health.

In the case of my astigmatism, this is just an imbalance of the muscles in my eye, some muscles are weak on one side which distorts the lens like looking through a wavy glass window. And, again, through proper exercise, relaxation, and nutrition, this can be restored as well. If we choose to wear glasses instead of this doing this eye yoga and nutrition program, our eye muscles continue to weaken, become depend on the glasses, and can never improve. 

Bates Method Eye Exercises

Warm-Up

Before you start with any exercise, you need to do some warm-up exercises. Use this warm-up to loosen the ocular eye muscles and improve the amount of blood flowing to the surrounding parts of the eyes.

This in turn will increase the amount of oxygen that is getting to your eyes and help to improve your vision.

Close your eyes and rotate them 10-15 times in a clockwise direction. When you have finished do the same again but in a counterclockwise direction. Make sure that you do this before you start your exercises and ensure that you keep your eyes closed at all times.

Open your eyes and allow yourself a moment or two to regain your focus. You’ll now be ready to start on the next few exercises.

Distant Object Focusing

Hold something close to your face, about six inches or so. This should be something small like a pencil or your index finger. Focus on that object as best as you can for about a minute and a half. Then change your focus onto something about 10 feet away, but don’t change the direction of where you are looking.

Try to look at something directly ahead of you. Once your focus is clear on the distant object, go back to focusing on the object close to your face. Again, look at it for about 90 seconds.

Repeat this process five or six times. 

Arm’s Length Focusing

The premise for this exercise is the same as the distant object exercise. Here you need to extend your arm away from your body and put your hand into the ‘thumbs up’ position. Focus on your thumb and then slowly bring your thumb towards your face and keep your thumb in focus.

When it gets too difficult to focus on your thumb, then move your arm slowly back out to the extended position, but continue to stay focused on the thumb.

Keep going for about three to five minutes. Never take your focus away from your thumb. 

Clock Face Exercise

Do this exercise last and use it as a warm down exercise. Imagine that you have a clock face in front of your eyes. Move your eyes vertically from 6 to 12 o’clock. Do this 20 times. Then move your eyes from 9 to 3 o’clock. Again do this 20 times. After doing this exercise, you should close your eyes and let them rest for a while.

By completing these basic exercises you can enjoy better vision for many, many years to come. As we begin to get older, our eyes will naturally start to deteriorate. To combat this natural process of aging, do these simple exercises every day. This should take you no more than 20 minutes a day. 

Margaret Darst Corbett Ruling Overturned

In late 1940, Corbett and her assistant were charged with violations of the Medical Practice Act of California for treating eyes with the Bates Method. At the trial, many of her students testified on her behalf, describing in detail how she had enabled them to discard their glasses. One witness testified that he had been almost blind from cataracts, but that after working with Corbett, his vision had improved to such an extent that for the first time he could read for eight hours at a stretch without glasses. Corbett explained in court that she was practicing neither optometry nor ophthalmology and represented herself not as a doctor, but only as an “instructor of eye training”.

Describing her method, she said, “We turn vision on by teaching the eyes to shift. We want the sense of motion to relieve staring, to end the fixed look. We use light to relax the eyes and to accustom them to the sun.”

The trial attracted widespread interest, as did the “not guilty” verdict. The case spurred a bill in the Californian State Legislature that would have then made such vision “education” illegal without an optometric or medical license. After a lively campaign in the media, the bill was rejected. 

Aajonus’ Remedies for Eye Problems

Eye Strain and Blurred Vision (p. 262)

• Rest
• Sunshine
• Avoid Chemicals – chlorine, eye drops, contacts
• Reduce Cellphone and Computer Usage
• Primal Diet – Increase Red Meat, Raw Unsalted Butter, and Unheated honey
• Additional Nutrients- Red and Orange Raw Foods – Red Meat, Salmon, Tuna, Carrot and Beet Juice, Tomatoes, Oranges Watermelon, Cantaloupe,
• Detoxify – Pineapple with Beef or Fats will help clean out dead cells in eyes.
• Topical Relief – raw Egg Whites, raw Apple, raw Cucumber, raw Red Potato, Butter 

How to Apply Raw Egg Whites in the Eyes

To extract egg white, save halves of egg shells, and sort out the yolk. There should be a dollop of egg white at the bottom, use as eye wash cup to really bathe the eye. Butter topically at night before bed works too. 

Eye Inflammation, Irritation, and Conjunctivitis (p. 250)

Whites of the eyes are red.

Sip 2-3 Smoothies (each made with 4 raw eggs blended with ¼ cup of fresh unripe pineapple and 8 Tbsp of unheated honey) throughout the day will for several days will help the eyes cleanse this detoxification. Get Rest. AVOID Sunshine. Eat a balance Primal Diet drinking one pineapple smoothie daily for 10 days. Topically apply a poultice of made from blending one raw apple and ½ tsp unheated honey or a poultice made from 1 red potato or yam by itself on your closed eye and letting it stay there for 20 minutes soothes and relaxes the condition while the diet heals the eyes. 

Cataracts (p. 244)

Collection of organic waste clouding the cornea and/or crystallizing on the lens of the eye. Most blindness is a result of cataracts. Most cataracts are found in hyperactive individuals with high adrenaline levels who constantly exhaust blood and body fat levels, or in diabetes as a result of improperly assimilating sugars and medicinal insulin. Their eyes are completely deprived of certain utilizable fats. The body can’t clean debris from the eyes properly and cataracts form.

Consuming 1-3 Tbsp of stone-pressed olive oil every day for the rest of the person’s life stops further development of cataracts, and sometimes reverses cataracts. Eating plenty of raw fat and Alkalizing Foods (p.178), soothes the overall toxic condition of the body due to excess adrenaline. Butyric acid in butter helps dissolve cataracts. Eating raw salmon several times a week, drinking a combination of 2 oz carrot juice and 2 oz beet juice 3-4 times per week speeds healing. 

Glaucoma (p.266)

Edema in the eyeball and hardening of the conjunctiva.

Eat raw meat daily. Avoid cheese for 6 months. Eating ¼ cup stone-pressed olive oil daily, several fresh raw tomatoes blended into puree with plenty of unheated honey and a little fresh live hot pepper once or twice daily, and raw fresh fish at least once daily usually heals this condition in several months. If you are diabetic, glaucoma is probably due to poorly assimilated or metabolized sugars. (see Diabetes, p. 258) 

Cellphone and Computer Usage and Remedies

I’m glad people are thinking about how devices are toxic to our eyes and brains and attempting to improve protection technology. No matter what protection you explore for your computer, it still emits EMFs (Not as much as your cellphone). And, wired internet is much safer than wireless.

Write with pen and paper (Ask your elders if you do not know what these are.)

I find it to be therapeutic as it accesses a different part of my thought process. I love to write and send snail mail to folks which feels much more aligned with my low tech, primal values. I still rely heavily on computers, and try to do as much as I can on the computer instead of a phone, especially reading long documents. I try to only use both during daylight hours and give my eyes and brain a rest and time to acclimate to the night time darkness which calms the mind and improves night vision. 

Eye strain is from focusing in one position for extended periods of time. So…

• TakeBreaksevery hour, 
• Roll your eyes and shoulders and neck around while you are working on your computer.
• Go outside and spend at a minimum of 30-minutes in the sun each day. 2-3 hours is ideal.

Marcia experimented with a bluelight on-screen filter which did not produce any benefit. She did have glasses made by Dr. Same Berne which did work for her in 3 days.

Chris uses Justgetflux- app that adjusts light on his computer.

Keep Your Eyes Naked

Anything you put between your eyes and the sun is HARMFUL. Wearing glasses, contacts, sunglasses even the window glass and the Low-E film on it reduces the ability of the natural sun to enter and do its job – producing Vitamin D. 

Summary

Glasses do not cure bad vision. They only work as crutches preventing them from healing which ultimately makes your eyes worse.

If you have eye problems, most of the time it’s just strained muscles and your eyes need a rest, under- worked muscles and your eyes need exercise, poor circulation and your eyes need movement, dryness and your eyes need lubrication, or undernourishment and your eyes need the Primal Diet.

If optimal health is on your bucket list, do the exercises, make the lifestyle changes, avoid environmental hazards such as radiation and VOCs, and follow Aajonus Vonderplanitz’ recommendations.

In Optimal Health,
Phoenix

Resources

• Full Spectrum Incandescent Light Bulbs – Chromolux 
• Swiftglass.com Float-glass made with soda-lime Bates Method, Dr. William Horatio Bates
• Give Up Your Glasses for Good, Nathan Oxenfeld Dr. Sam Berne
• Mary Darst Corbett, Wikipedia
• Recipe For Living Without Disease, Aajonus Vonderplanitz 
• We Want to Live, Aajonus Vonderplanitz