Are You Willing to See if You Can Avoid Losing Your Near Vision as You Age (Presbyopia)?
If you are, I will show you a simple exercise that you can try for a few days to see if you notice improvement. If you do, please let us know.
The exercise is simple. All you need is a flat object about the size of a large bottle cap with fine print or numbers on it. I use a wristwatch with a traditional clock face. (A Timex similar to ones I've used for decades.) Either wear it or set it nearby for a few days as a reminder to do the exercise.
Prerequisites
I'm directing this post at people who have recently noticed that their near vision is getting worse. By that I mean that you can't see clearly up close as well as you could. If your presbyopia is well advanced and you're already using reading glasses I don't know if this exercise will help, since it's based only on my personal experience, but it might.
Presbyopia tends to occur in most people starting somewhere their 40's or 50's. Very few people avoid it since it's considered a nearly inevitable part of the aging process. As it progresses, reading glasses are the normal solution.
If you've recently noticed that print is blurred at, say, eight to ten inches from your eyes when you used to be able to see clearly much closer, then try the following exercise. (If you're already wearing reading glasses you can also try it, but you might not notice any benefit.)
The Exercise
Hold the wristwatch (or something similar, small and with print on it) in front of your eyes. Find the range where it becomes clear by moving it away from your face slowly. Note that range by measuring it or gauging it somehow. (I used my hand with fingers spread, my thumb touching my nose and my range was at my extended little finger when I first started this years ago.)
Note: If you wear glasses for distance vision, I would try it with and without glasses. I have no experience in that regard.
Now bring the wristwatch face inside that range moving it closer to your eyes where the numbers become blurred and hold it there. Also, pick out an object at a distance by looking out a window or doing the exercise outdoors.
Focus first near on the watch, then change your focus to look at the distant object you've chosen. It will take a moment or two for both eyes to focus on the distant object. Once they have, quickly move your focus back to the wristwatch. You'll notice that happens faster than focusing at a distance. Repeat this process one hundred times at a rate that allows you to finish between three and four minutes (about 30 repetitions per minute.)
Assessing the Results
When you've completed the hundred cycles of the exercise, wait a minute and then check your range of near vision again. What you're hoping to see is a modest reduction in the range, although that might not happen the first day (or it might not happen at all in your case.)
Give this exercise a chance for several days. If you see no improvement in your near vision, then at least you've tried something that did seem to work for me, but isn't working for you. Actually, that's to be expected since the current thinking is that presbyopia is both unavoidable and irreversible.
What to Expect If It's Working for You
Everyone's results will differ, so I'll share my own. I'm in my 70's and started doing this exercise in my early 40's when I noticed that my near vision was getting worse. I first noticed it when print was starting to blur about eight inches from my nose (the distance from the tip of my thumb to the tip of my little finger when I spread my fingers out and put the tip of my thumb against my nose.)
I found that after doing the exercise I could see within that range, but didn't do them every day. I also found that my range would increase after several days of not doing the exercises, which always brought me back to doing them again.
Eventually, I decided to just do them almost every day. It takes just over three minutes and, who knows, maybe 25 or 50 repetitions would work too? I had the time, so I started doing the hundred repetitions nearly every day.
Now, in my 70's I do have some astigmatism and do wear reading glasses that correct for that or I will get a headache after reading a while. However, using the Timex watch in the picture, without glasses, I can see all the numbers clearly, can read the much smaller word "TIMEX", can read the even smaller "INDIGLO" under that, and can even see clearly the much smaller "WR 30M" under that. Again, I can do this without my reading glasses, especially with my right eye. (My left eye has a left-to-right astigmatism that causes a double image side by side when looking very close up.)
Why I Think It Might Work
Presbyopia is thought to be caused by a stiffening of the lens of the eye that is age-related. The musculature involved in focusing is complicated and works like this: When the ciliary eye muscles (the focusing muscles) are at rest the lens of the eye is stretched thin by zonules, which are connections between the lens and the ciliary muscle. And, when the ciliary muscles are relaxed, that thinner lens allows the eye to focus on distant objects.
As we try to see closer objects, the ciliary muscles contract and, in doing so, reduce the tension on the zonules that were stretching out the lens. (I know, this seems counter-intuitive, but the ciliary muscle action is a strange one, sort of like closing down the f-stop on a camera lens.) This results in the lens of the eye taking on a fatter shape, eventually reaching its resting shape when the zonules are completely relaxed. When we're children, that resting shape is more globular, or rounded, which allows us to focus on very close objects, as close as a couple of inches.
But as we age, that resting shape becomes less rounded, less globular, and therefore thinner, due to stiffening of the lens. This moves the near point of focus farther and farther out over time as we age.
In other words, it's the original condition of the young lens that makes near vision possible, not the strength of the ciliary muscles themselves. The lens is fattest (most globular) when the ciliary muscles have removed all the tension from the zonule connecting fibers. But, over time as we age, the lens doesn't pop back into that fatter shape as easily as it once did due to the lens stiffening, possibly because we spend most of our time looking out at a distance of at least a foot or so, and usually farther.
My theory, and it's just that, a theory, is that the exercise I've described keeps the lens flexible due to it bouncing back and forth between thinner and more rounded one hundred times in succession. That theory could very well be wrong, however, because there's another competing explanation for how the ciliary muscles and the zonules interact to focus the lens. That explanation relies upon the ciliary muscles remaining effective and strong, which would lead to an entirely different theory on why the exercise works, i.e., because it's retaining the effectiveness of the ciliary muscles. More on that at the end of this article.
Where the Matter Stands Today
Do a web search on presbyopia and you'll find three nearly unchallenged assertions. One, almost everyone experiences it as they age. Two, there's no way to prevent it from happening. Three, it can't be reversed by exercises, diet, supplements, etc.
However, my experience has led me to believe that not only can it be prevented, but it can be at least somewhat reversed (because at one time my near range was getting worse and is now better than it was, and because I was noticing almost immediate reversals years ago when I first started doing the exercise.
So I figured why not put this out there for people to try, especially those just starting to experience presbyopia. (I have no idea what would happen in the case of more advanced presbyopia, as mine was just getting started.) Of course, I hope people do find it effective. I mean, according to the experts, of the 8 billion people in the world, over 7 billion of them will experience presbyopia, so if the exercise only works for 1% of them, that's 70 million potential beneficiaries.
Conclusion
The exercise is non-invasive, cost-free, and you can probably learn if it's working at all after a total time investment of about 30 minutes (one weeks worth of daily 100-repetition exercises.) I can't see any harm in putting this out there for people to try and, if it works for many of you, I can see a whole lot of good in it.
All I would ask is that if it does work for you, please let me know. If it turns out that it does work for many of you, possibly some sort of formal process could be worked out to give more credence to this than simply my own personal experience.
Another Possible Benefit
If, as I've hypothesized, the exercise works because the lens of the eye remains more supple, and therefore able to return to its original youngish shape, then maybe it has other benefits to the lens itself. In particular, cataracts form within the lens in many people as they age. So far, in my 70's, I don't have cataracts and can still drive comfortably at night.
Maybe that's due to thirty years of doing the exercise, or maybe not, but I think it's at least a possibility. My sibling is over ten years younger and has already had cataract surgery, so maybe it's even a good possibility?
More on What Might Be Happening
There are competing theories on what the ciliary muscles do when we focus very near. The oldest theory is that the contraction of the ciliary muscles around the eye loosen the tension on the zonule connections around the lens, allowing the lens to assume its fatter globular shape.
In this theory, presbyopia occurs because the lens becomes less and less able to assume that fatter shape as the lens stiffens with age. The reduced ability of the lens to assume its most globular shape moves our near focal range farther and farther out over time.
If this is the correct theory, then the exercise I've described probably works because it helps the lens regain its original flexibility. Imagine a large water ballon being tugged on the sides by several kids. The balloon would flatten out some as they tugged. That's the shape of the lens seeing at a distance. Then imagine all of them letting go at once. The balloon would seek to return to its original resting, more globular, shape, but in doing so it would first overshoot, becoming even fatter than the resting shape. This is what I suspect happens when you suddenly look from far to near as you switch focus to the object you're holding (which, remember, is inside your normal focus range.)
Doing this on a regular basis just retains that original flexibility and allows the eye to continue to focus at near objects, i.e., no presbyopia.
The second, competing, theory on how the ciliary muscles focus the eyes is complicated, but essentially the muscles are tugging on some of the zonule connections and relaxing others. If this theory is correct, then the most logical explanation for the exercise preventing presbyopia is that it exercises the ciliary muscles on a daily basis and keeps them in shape.
While I personally favor the first explanation, either one could be true, or maybe there's yet another explanation. Regardless, if the exercise helps you to reduce your presbyopia, you will hopefully find it useful enough to incorporate into your daily living.
And, again, please let me know if you find this exercise works for you.
A Short Note on Astigmatism
If you spend enough time with this exercise, you're likely to end up testing each eye individually someday. When you do this you might notice that you're seeing not a blurred image, but a clear but doubled (or even tripled) image. That's astigmatism. What happens is that your lens isn't perfectly formed and is creating two focal points (or more). If one image is stacked above the other, squinting can remove one, leaving one clear image remaining. However, if the doubled image is side by side, squinting won't help.
Regardless, if you have such an astigmatism, you will probably benefit from getting prescription reading glasses, even though you've managed to keep your near vision with the exercises.
In my case, for example, I can read very fine print without my prescription reading glasses, but will soon experience visual stress if I try to read for more than a few minutes without them due to my astigmatism. But it's still nice to be able to be able to see near for a time without having to dig out my reading glasses.
