Can My Vision Ever Improve? | The Vision Gallery | Edmonton & Beaumont

Eye Exercises: Can Your Vision Ever Improve?

close up of eye

Wearing glasses or contacts can be a hassle at times, but you do it every day because it helps you see. But can your vision ever improve? There are claims out there about eye exercises and how they can help you do away with your glasses forever! Read on to learn the validity of these claims, as well as what you can do to keep your eyes healthy and strong.

Eye Exercises: Do They Work?

Most people who wear contacts or glasses suffer from poor vision due to a mis-shapen eyeball or cornea. For example, if you’re nearsighted, it means your eyeball is longer than normal. The extra length causes light rays to fall short of achieving a point of focus on your retina.

Exercising your eyes is done through moving your eye muscles up and down, side to side or in a circular motion. Because these exercises work the eye muscles (not the eyeball itself), if your vision problems have to do with the way your eye is shaped, it’s not likely you’ll be able to throw away your glasses after. Plenty of research has been done on the legitimacy of eye exercises, and so far there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that such exercises can correct nearsightedness, farsightedness or other vision problems caused by disease.

What Eye Exercises Can’t Do

  • Change the basis shape of your eyeball.
  • Change the basic shape of your cornea, or the angle at which light enters your eye.
  • Correct the irregular surface of an eye suffering from astigmatism.

What Eye Exercises Can Do

There is some belief that eye exercises can help to train your eyes to see better in different ways. Children with amblyopia, or “lazy eye” will often use a combination of vision therapy and eye exercises to correct the problem. Eye exercises may also help with convergence insufficiency, which is when your eyes have a hard time moving together to focus on an object as it comes closer. Wait! Before you self-diagnose and decide eye exercises are the best form of treatment, make sure you chat with your optometrist as they will be able to propose a specialized treatment plan.

How To Keep Your Eyes Healthy

Even though you aren’t able to cure your farsightedness, there are plenty of things you can do to keep up your overall eye health, like:

  • Eat your fruits and veggies! Fruits and vegetables are full of vitamins and minerals that support eye health.
  • Give it a rest. If you spend the majority of your day staring at a computer screen, make sure to give your eyes a rest to avoid eye strain.
  • Get enough sleep. Getting enough sleeps gives you (and your eyes) a chance to recharge.
  • Visit your optometrist for regular check ups!

 

If you’re looking for an optometrist, give The Vision Gallery a call. We have three locations in and around Edmonton to serve you better.

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