Vision Zen: 3 Vision Therapy Exercises to Improve Your Vision
Recent fitness trends prioritize healthy diet and movement as medicine, to promote muscle strength and flexibility. Did you know the same can be applied to your eyes? Though your eyes can’t lift a dumbbell or meal prep, you can strengthen your eye muscles by doing regular vision therapy exercises. Unfortunately, these therapy exercises won’t be much help if you have astigmatism, myopia, or hyperopia. The good news is – if this digital age is getting the best of you, vision therapy might be the answer to provide quick relief and manage long-term vision health.
What is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is a specialized field of eye treatment that optometrists utilize to improve visual abilities, comfort, and processing. Usually, therapy programs are monitored in the office and at home over several weeks to track changes. Like a personal trainer for your eyes.
Because vision therapy is a nonsurgical and preventative treatment, it is highly effective for many common visual problems like lazy eyes, crossed eyes, double vision, and depth perception. Many scientific studies have shown that vision therapy has improved learning disabilities like dyslexia and convergence insufficiency (when one eye drifts outward or inward) in school-age children who suffer from headaches, dizziness, and nausea.
Though vision therapy is a proven treatment, there is a lot of misinformation about its efficacy. So what should you expect if you are prescribed vision therapy (or even want to practice some of these exercises on your own)?
What to Expect During Vision Therapy
A vision therapy session can be done with a vision therapist, your local optometrist, on your own, or even with a friend! Exercises like Vivid Vision developed at Modern Heritage Eye Care, have even been revamped to safely suit our digital age with a virtual reality program to increase and track patient success.
At-home vision therapy exercises should supplement your in-office exercises with your eye doctor. Depending on your treatment plan or your personal needs, you should consult with an optometrist to track your developments and note any undiagnosed issues.
Vision Therapy Exercises You Can Ace!
20-20-20 Rule: Do you dread seeing the screen time notification on your phone? We get it. Our phones have become a part of daily life, we rarely notice when we’ve overdone our screen time privileges. If you’ve noticed your screen time is getting a little out of hand, a vision therapy exercise you can try is the 20-20-20 rule. To help reduce your eye strain from digital screens, take a break every 20 minutes, and look at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Try to notice everything about the object and take in its essence. We never realize the subtle beauties we miss when we’re consumed by the screens.
Figure 8: This exercise is not what you think. We’re not expecting you to be ice skating royalty for this. The “Figure 8” exercise strengthens your eye muscles and increases flexibility. Try this out: Focus your eyes on a point about 10 feet away from you. Trace an imaginary ‘8’ with your eyes along the point, and repeat for 30 seconds. Repeat in the opposite direction. It may be difficult at first, but take your time with the path and your eyes will thank you.
Palming: When we think of therapy we think of relaxation. The “zen” of this exercise is meant to relax your eye muscles and relieve eye fatigue. You could complete this exercise after a heavy screen day or even before bed. Rub your palms together until they are warm. Close your eyes, place your palms over your eyes, and hold until any afterimages (visual sensations that appear after looking at your surroundings) disappear.
What We Get Wrong About Vision Therapy
The general public has some misconceptions about this specialization of visual treatment. Vision therapy doesn’t call for life-changing interventions like glasses or surgery, so many are dissuaded by the holistic origins of a vision therapy program. It’s a fair anxiety, but many vision therapy methods are scientifically proven and highly effective. The National Eye Institute conducted a study that suggests office-and-home vision therapy programs partnered with an optometrist are the most effective treatment for convergence insufficiency, lazy eye, and strabismus.
Another myth preventing people from pursuing vision therapy is that many adults believe they’re too old to correct their vision. Though children respond well to vision therapy, these specialized vision improvement programs have no age limit. The adult brain allows for quicker improvements compared to a child's developing brain.
Vision conditions look different for everyone. Some require medical instruments like prescription glasses or surgery. Fortunately, the right vision therapy programs combined with corrective measures are even more effective than a vision program alone—no such thing as too much eye health. However, it is important to note that vision therapy does not correct refractive conditions like myopia or astigmatism, but rather improves the communication between your eyes and brain to facilitate permanent improvements.
Don’t miss an opportunity to correct your vision conditions because of misinformation. If you have more questions (which is expected) ask your optometrist what might be the best course of action for you.
