Jake here, dropping in for a quick tip for you, great if you are struggling to reduce your daily close-up intake.
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You know how it goes. You had a long day at work, and the only way you really want to relax is in front of the TV. Or if you are progressing with all of today’s changing tech, you are grabbing your tablet, your smartphone, and browsing the Web and watching YouTube with the TV on in the background.
This easily adds three or more hours absolutely less than ideal close-up strain to your vision. You already had a long day at work, close-up all day, and now while you are relaxing, your ciliary muscle is being pushed well past its limit.
No matter how much you follow Alex’ suggestions, this sort of thing will keep you from getting ideal results.
Remember, #1 problem to conquer, is close-up strain.
In my experience with clients, the basics are relatively easy to cover. There is a month or two learning curve for the initial basics. Then you’ve got a couple more months to make sure that there is progress and motivation, that questions are covered, that the self confidence is there. Pretty straightforward, and well covered in Alex’ course.
But knowing all of what you learn there just introduces some difficult questions. How do you get rid of close-up time? I count my close-up hours for every day, and I have an actual app to track my close-up exposure.
Those “relax in front of YouTube” hours really can add up fast.
Especially the end of the day is a problem. What you really need there is a walk, or socializing, or going out, or just about anything besides sitting on the couch, focused up-close. I’m not superhuman though. I love my tech and the Internet distractions. I’m not from Alex generation, where that temptation wasn’t so ever present. Alex doesn’t even own a smartphone or a tablet, or a TV. Easy for him to say, reduce close-up time.
Here is one that helped me shave off a good two hours for most days, replacing a lot of game and YouTube time. Ready?
Podcasts. Yes. If you listen to podcasts already, this isn’t news to you. But I never did. Nor do most of my clients. It’s actually rather excellent, since you get that distraction, flow of amusement or education or whatever else you want, without having to look at a screen. It sounds so simple that it’s almost silly, but you want to try it out. Take some time during the day to download a good podcast app, type “best (whatever your genre of choice) podcasts” into Google. Load up a few promising ones. Try a walk, or relaxing with your eyes closed, listening to something good. It could be meditation related, or comedy, or sports, TedTalk, there is a near infinite range.
For those of us who pretty much forgot about radio, this is where it’s at. In pre-myopia global epidemic times, people would listen to the radio at night. That’s some hours of not being focused up-close. Save a couple hours a day, especially at the end of the day, you’ll really reduce eye strain quite a bit.
You can grab podcasts easily from iTunes, or get a podcast app for Android.
An hour less close-up a day is 30 less hours a month, 360 hours a year, equal fifteen whole days! That the equivalent of the annual average vacation time in the U.S.. Give your eyes the equivalent of a year’s vacation, with just a little podcast habit.
#2 suggestion, if you are into reading at night, try audio books instead. I’m not a huge fan, since usually the narrating speed isn’t anywhere near how I like to read. Still it’s worth a try, remember you are looking for a reasonable compromise to squeeze those close-up hours down.
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I also now have an ebook (physical print available early next year), discussing myopia prevention in some detail. It’s nothing new if you read every last bit of this site, have taken the course, and are immersed in the subject. Otherwise it can be a handy guide for those of you looking to keep your eyes healthy (friends, family, kids, etc). If you’d like to be part of a small group of volunteer editors, I’d be glad to share a copy in exchange for feedback and help cleaning up the contents. Drop Alex a quick e-mail for my contact info.
Cheers!
– Jake
