May 20, 2023 - EyeClarity Blog
If you’ve reached your 40s or 50s, chances are good that, at some point, you have found yourself pushing
your reading material away from your face to see it more clearly. In this classic sign of aging, your
eyes have begun to lose their ability to focus close up. Several conditions can cause this loss of near
vision, collectively called “farsightedness.” The two most common conditions are refractive errors called hyperopia
and presbyopia. Presbyopia is a more advanced form of hyperopia that increases with age.
Hyperopia, or farsightedness, is a refractive error where images that are closer to your face will appear
blurry, whereas at a distance, your vision may remain sharp. Most cases are mild enough to correct with a drugstore
reading glasses, and most people only use them on occasions where they work up close. However, some people
may have such severe hyperopia that it affects their vision near, far, and all the time.
Presbyopia is a more advanced form of hyperopia. As the hyperopic eye ages, muscle imbalances worsen. The
ciliary muscles that surround the lens of the eye are responsible for reshaping it to focus on a process
known as accommodation. Most doctors attribute the sole cause of presbyopia to old
age. The word itself comes from the Greek “presbys,” meaning older person, and “opsis,” meaning vision or eye.
Since our natural eye lenses are soft and flexible as children, but with age, they tend to harden and
become rigid, resulting in blurry vision up close. But laying all the blame on age ignores the preventable
damage that happens along the way. One of the leading causes for the rapid
growth in presbyopia cases is our excessive digital device use. Focus for extended periods at one distance hardens the
lens and reduces muscle flexibility. If we’re wearing progressive or multifocal lenses while we do our computer work,
this puts even more stress on our eyes and brain to make seeing possible. Through these lenses, we narrow our
focus even more to fit through even tinier windows in our focusing system, increasing visual stress and accelerating
the presbyopia. People often make the mistake of using the same corrective lens for multiple distances, including
when they work on a computer. Using a lens that corrects at 10 to 15 inches for lengths over 20 will accelerate the
deterioration of your eyes. Always take your magnifiers off when you look across the room, or your eyes may also begin
to deteriorate for distance. Oxidative stress can also accelerate presbyopia. When you’re not getting enough
oxygenation and hydration into the eye tissue, especially the lens, which causes waste to accumulate, further
dehydrating the eye and blocking the vital nutrients that could help improve your vision. Monovision corrective lenses,
where one eye is corrected for distance, or one eye corrects for near, puts incredible stress on the near eye to do all the
focusing. Doctors may prescribe monovision corrections through LASIK or cataract surgery, but I never recommend
getting them. Particularly in concurrent cases with presbyopia, which will accelerate the deterioration of your
near vision and lead to conditions like cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration.
Another significant risk is using magnification lenses. I know what you’re thinking: “But that’s what they give us to
correct our farsightedness!” Exactly. Those same reading magnifiers are why your eyes continue to
have blurred near vision and what keeps that vision deteriorating further. Mainly when you use them
while doing computer work, this will put excess stress on your eye muscles by making them work harder.
The Emotional Connection To Farsightedness
The emotion behind farsightedness, on the other hand, is anger. The mind is always looking to the future,
and the behavioral compensation is to push the world away. In Asian medicine, the central organ associated
with anger is the liver – the organ with energy meridians that most influence eye health.
With all farsightedness, the programming behind our eyes are pushing the world away from us, just like we
hold the newspaper out farther away from our faces in order to read it. We want the world to be bigger and see
a broader picture, but our arms need to be longer. You’ll first notice the onset of presbyopia as blurred
vision at an average reading distance, and you’ll instinctively push it away to try and focus. Either from weakened
ciliary muscles or a hardened lens, your eyes have lost the ability to accommodate without magnifying
glasses. farsighted behaviors will also show up in our movement and posture, our thoughts, preferences, and
emotional reactions. Farsightedness is a type of mental flaccidity and aversion to detail. The mindset for
farsightedness is: “I’m a global person who can see the the whole picture, but it’s hard for me to manifest my vision
into detail and steps towards taking action.” farsightedness is, “I’m a global person who can see the
the whole picture, but it’s hard for me to manifest my vision into detail and steps towards taking action.”
What Can I Do About It?
Remember, your diagnosis is not a life sentence! While common wisdom says farsightedness is incurable and
vision loss is inevitable with old age; I believe that vision therapy can not only slow down but even reverse the
progression of both hyperopia and presbyopia If you already have multifocal lenses, remember only to
wear them in circumstances where you need to shift your focus back and forth between near and far. Never use
them for extended periods or during activities that need concentrated focus, like driving, reading, or using a computer.
Instead, a single-vision lens will help your eyes access much more of their peripheral vision,
supporting better depth perception, visual memory, and body balance skills.
Go to the drugstore with a book or your laptop and try on the different diopter
strengths until you find the lowest possible magnification a lens that provides both clarity and comfort at 14
inches. For example, if you can read print books at +1.50, you can use even less for the computer screen because
it’s usually another eight to 10 inches away. You can also expand the size of on-screen fonts and get an even lower
prescription. Another option that corrects your farsighted vision without a prescription or side effects is pinhole
glasses. Another option that corrects your farsighted vision without a prescription or side effects is pinhole glasses.
Diet:
Adding more plant-based foods to your daily menu gives you a boost of antioxidants, eye nutrients, and fiber
for a healthy gut. Eat more nutrient-dense foods for eye health, like bilberry and asparagus. Flavonoids are critical
for reducing UV-induced oxidative stress, and quercetin is a common flavonol with potent antioxidant effects.
Studies have found quercetin to be effective in reducing oxidative stress and inflammatory biomarkers
Changing vision is a process, not an overnight success, but if you’re diligent and disciplined, you’ll start to wean
yourself of the powerful plus lenses. When you’re ready and disciplined enough to stick with it, you can start my
eye exercise protocols for reducing farsightedness and begin the process of healing your vision.
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