This video explains the causes of astigmatism, focusing on how specific eye habits and muscle tension can contribute to its development and worsening. The speaker, Mark Warren, shares his personal experience as a violinist and references eye experts to illustrate how prolonged or repetitive eye movements and head postures can distort the cornea. The video also offers practical tips and exercises to help reduce astigmatism by balancing eye muscle tension and adopting better visual habits.
In this video, we're going to talk about why you have astigmatism.
And stick to the end of the video, we'll give you some tips on what you can do to start fixing it.
Hello, welcome to Myopia Is Mental. My name is Mark Warren, and I help people who have nearsighted vision improve their vision naturally so they can see the world unobstructed without glasses.
I've already done a video on astigmatism, and if you saw my last video, I told you that I played violin throughout my years in middle school and throughout high school.
This was one of the contributing factors of me actually having astigmatism and my astigmatism increasing, particularly in my left eye.
Dr. Elliot Forrest was an eye doctor and had a practice, and he started noticing patterns of his patients that had astigmatism over time.
He was able to make some conclusions about their head posture and how they were moving their eyes that contributed to the astigmatism and how strong it was going to be later on.
Paul Harris took Dr. Elliot Forrest's data, and he started to notice that there were certain patterns that musicians had when it came to astigmatism.
He could accurately predict the angle of astigmatism that was going to be found in certain musicians.
For instance, if someone were playing an instrument that had parts of the instrument that blocked their left side, that means they can't use their left side to actually read the music.
If they're looking at sheet music, for example, so therefore they have to rely more on one eye and depending on the angle of how they're using their eyes, that can contribute to buildup and tension in those extraocular muscles.
Me, for example, with me playing the violin, I constantly had my head tilted on a violin, putting a lot of pressure on my neck and reading sheet music predominantly with my left eye, a lot of side-to-side movement with my left eye being in this tilted pattern.
That produced an astigmatism for me that had me around about 70 to 80 degrees in my left eye.
And over time, the prescription, the power of that astigmatism got stronger and stronger.
After I got out of high school, I really didn't play violin all that much. However, I still had bad habits.
A lot of times when you saw me working at a desk or doing some homework or being at a computer, I would often sit at the computer like this, just like I was playing the violin, and using those eyes and those repetitive patterns, mainly relying on my left eye.
Now, another thing that came from the Bates method was in his book, one of the examples was that he was able to recreate astigmatism conditions in fish by putting tension on the eye muscles, the extraocular eye muscles of fish.
This would produce an astigmatism state.
So for those of you who don't know what astigmatism is, I'm going to explain it to you.
You have the cornea of your eye, and basically, it's very flexible.
And that flexible shape can be changed or stretched in certain directions.
So if your cornea gets stretched horizontally, you'll end up with an astigmatism that's more up and down.
If your cornea gets stretched vertically, up and down, then you'll have more astigmatism that's side to side.
There can also be what they call oblique astigmatism, and that is when the astigmatism is at an angle.
So knowing this, let's show you a few examples of how the astigmatism will look depending on if you're horizontal or if you're vertical or if you have some type of oblique astigmatism.
Now, if you look at this text here, this is how it would look to someone normal, without any astigmatism, any glasses.
But someone with an astigmatism, let's say they have astigmatism, so basically their cornea is stretched horizontally.
The letters or the words, you'll see ghosting stacked in the up and down position.
Now if they have a more of a stretch vertically on their cornea, the letters are going to be stretched side to side.
If you look at where the letters in the text get ghosted, stacked on top of it, this is easier to read.
Now, depending on the power of the astigmatism determines how much of the ghost or how far the ghost is away from the actual letters that you're reading.
So let's say for example, here at -1, it's not that bad. You could still read the text. It just looks a little soft only because the ghosting doesn't extend that far up and down.
However, if you get to, let's say, a really severe case of astigmatism where it's like -5, look how much this ghosting has expanded.
Now let's look at the astigmatism when your cornea is stretched vertically.
So when the cornea is stretched vertically, then basically text will ghost from side to side.
And when the text ghosts side to side, it makes it harder to read.
In fact, in this particular situation, when it goes side to side, it's harder to read than if the text was ghosted vertical up and down.
So at negative one, it's not that bad. Probably enough that you wouldn't even need to have an astigmatism correction in your glasses.
However, as the power gets higher, that ghosting gets stretched more and more horizontally.
So when you get into, let's say, a -3.5, it makes it very, extremely hard to read without some type of correction in your glasses.
Now, let's take a look at an example of a diagonal astigmatism.
Let's say your cornea is stretched 45 degrees diagonal.
That means the text is going to ghost diagonally in the opposite angle.
And again, this can make it very hard to read.
At a negative one power, it may not be so hard to read, but as your power of your astigmatism increases, it makes it even harder to read.
And that's probably the worst condition is when you have those angular astigmatisms, those degrees of numbers that are angular.
Now, let's talk about conditions that increase your astigmatism pattern.
Like I said, I played violin, constantly leaning with my head over to the side and reading sheet music in this pattern at this angle, eyes constantly moving across the line.
That's a lot of tension that you're using to make this muscle go look this way and then push to go that way, and this one's looking that way and then pushing to go this way.
And you're doing that over and over again.
At what point have you ever stopped and said, "Okay, I need to move my eyes in a different direction so these can get a break?"
There's a thing that I learned when it comes to muscles: any muscle that is constantly used is eventually going to end up in injury.
And if you look at people in sports or anything like that, if you're constantly overusing maybe an ankle muscle in the wrong direction, or you're constantly using quad muscles, they're eventually going to end up in injury.
Even knees, if you're constantly using muscles and the knees incorrectly, you're going to end up with some type of an issue.
And the same thing can occur in the eye. Eyes themselves.
So if I've constantly just been looking, head tilted, and just doing this side to side, and not giving these muscles the break and the relaxation that they need, doing this for two hours or an hour, just practicing music, that's not good for the eyes.
And that's going to create these types of conditions.
Same when it comes to people who read, their heads down into a book, and they're constantly looking down.
A lot of times they don't even move their head down, they move their eyes down, their heads up, and they're constantly reading side to side.
That's going to create conditions that can lead to this astigmatism problem.
So what can you do? At some point, if you know you've been constantly using your eyes in a side-to-side motion, maybe reading, then maybe you need to start looking up and down to balance that equation.
The other thing, instead of just moving your eyes side to side to read, how about moving your head and your eyes together as you read?
This takes the tension off of using those extraocular muscles, which is going to distort the shape of your cornea.
So these are very simple and easy fixes that you could do to help correct your astigmatism condition.
The other thing is that you can do to also help to improve your astigmatism is to make sure you keep your head in alignment with your body.
So you're not leaning forward, you're not leaning backwards.
You're keeping your head, and you want the thing that you're looking at in reading, you want it to be square in front of you.
So instead of reading your books down here and looking and doing this type of motion, put your book up on a stand.
Get your monitor at your eye level, or whatever it is that you might be doing, even if it's on a tablet or something like that.
Get it at eye level and start reading this way.
And actually, not even moving your eyes, I just made that mistake. Not even moving your eyes.
Read this way. Takes the pressure off of those extraocular muscles.
So these are some tips that can help you reduce and improve your astigmatism.
But you have to be consciously aware of it.
I'm going to give you one more tip that can greatly help you improve your astigmatism.
But before I do that, on January 13th, I'm doing an Improve Your Eyesight Challenge.
This isn't going to be just another webinar where you're sitting back and listening to someone talk for two hours.
Not only am I going to educate you on how to improve your eyesight, but we're going to actually walk through some of the techniques that I use daily to keep my eyesight light, sharp, and the goal is, by the end of the session, you'll see improvements in your eyesight just that quickly.
You can find out more details about the webinar by clicking the link up here or click the link in the description below.
So my last tip to help you improve your astigmatism is learning how to balance the tension in your extraocular muscles.
So you're not stretching the cornea this way, this way, or this way.
And that is a simple drill that you can do a couple of times a day.
Pick a spot on a wall that's in front of you at eye level and look at that spot.
And all you're going to simply do is rotate your head in a circle while you keep your eyes on that spot.
Do this slowly. Take your time. This isn't a race.
This isn't going turbo speed trying to do it like this.
You're going to simply keep your eyes on that spot and rotate slowly.
Start off with small circles. And the reason why I say start off with a small circle to begin with is because your eyes may not be used to that tension in all the directions, getting those muscles stretched.
If you go too big in the beginning and you try to do this and those eye muscles aren't ready for this, you're going to get sore eye muscles, your eyes will get sore.
So just do that small little circles.
Do this for about 3 to 5 minutes. Start off in the morning, maybe once at midday, maybe once at night for about 3 to 5 minutes at a time.
And again, and I have to stress this all the time, if you want to do things to help improve your vision, you've got to get your glasses off.
So take your glasses off while you're doing this.
This isn't a drill about trying to see clearly. This is a technique about trying to balance that tension in all of your extraocular muscles.
So you're going to just do this slowly in a circle.
If you've tried this out and it's working for you, let me know how it goes. Drop a comment below.
And if it's not working for you, just remember this: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
In other words, if you don't make a change, there won't be a change.
| Topic | Tags |
|---|---|
| Astigmatism Causes | astigmatism, eye habits, cornea shape, eye muscle tension, violin playing |
| Astigmatism and Vision | ghosting, blurred vision, double vision, eyesight correction, vision loss |
| Bates Method and Eye Health | Bates Method, natural vision correction, eye exercises, eye strain |
| Cornea Distortion | cornea, eye anatomy, refractive error, eye health, vision problems |
| Eye Muscle Exercises | extraocular muscles, eye strain relief, eye relaxation, eye movement |
| Astigmatism Correction Techniques | astigmatism tips, improve eyesight, glasses-free vision, eye care |
| Violinist's Eye Health | musician health, repetitive strain injury, eye strain, posture |
| Understanding Astigmatism | types of astigmatism, oblique astigmatism, myopia, vision science |
| Habits Affecting Vision | screen time, reading habits, posture, eye strain, digital eye strain |
| Natural Vision Improvement | improve vision naturally, eyesight challenge, eye health tips |
The Bates Method is mentioned in the video as a source of information regarding astigmatism. Specifically, the speaker references Dr. Bates's book, where an example illustrated the recreation of astigmatism in fish by applying tension to their eye muscles. This example was used to support the idea that tension in the eye muscles can lead to astigmatism. The video does not go into extensive detail about the Bates Method beyond this reference but implies it aligns with the idea that eye habits and muscle tension can affect vision.
The video suggests a specific exercise to help balance tension in the extraocular muscles, which can contribute to improving astigmatism.
Here's how it's described:
The purpose of this exercise is to gently stretch and relax the eye muscles, reducing the strain that can cause the cornea to distort and lead to astigmatism.
The video explains that you can infer the type of astigmatism based on how text appears distorted:
The speaker notes that vertical ghosting (from horizontal corneal stretching) is generally easier to read through than horizontal ghosting (from vertical corneal stretching). The severity of the astigmatism determines how far these "ghosted" images are from the actual letters.
The video suggests that habits and the way we use our eyes can induce or worsen either horizontal or vertical astigmatism. Specifically:
For Astigmatism with Vertical Ghosting (Horizontal Corneal Stretch): This can be induced by activities that cause a horizontal stretching or tension on the cornea. The example given is playing the violin, where the head is tilted and the eyes might move predominantly side-to-side while reading sheet music. This repetitive side-to-side motion, especially with one eye being more dominant due to the instrument's position, can lead to this type of corneal distortion.
For Astigmatism with Horizontal Ghosting (Vertical Corneal Stretch): This can be induced by habits that cause a vertical stretching or tension. The video mentions reading with your head down, where you might move your eyes down without moving your head, leading to a vertical strain.
Essentially, the direction of the strain or tension placed on the eye muscles, and consequently the cornea, can induce a specific type of astigmatism based on whether that tension is primarily horizontal or vertical.
No, the video does not suggest making the computer monitor or working window go into a circular motion.
Instead, the exercise involving circular motion is for your head (while keeping your eyes fixed on a spot) as a way to balance the tension in your eye muscles.
The advice regarding computer monitors and reading materials is to:
The circular head movement exercise is a specific technique for relaxing and balancing eye muscles, separate from the positioning of your visual aids.
The video advocates for rotating the head in a circle while keeping the eyes fixed on a single spot for the described exercise. The reasoning provided is:
In essence, the exercise uses the movement of the head as a tool to create a subtle but effective workout for the eye muscles, promoting balance and reducing the strain that can lead to astigmatism.
