A lot of gold has been piling up in the forum. Where to start?
First perhaps, the Q&A.
This one from the airport during the ride out to Malaysia. A bit rambling, but I want to get you more than just text on a page.
Thumbs it if you likes it:
Next, the forum.
I won’t post all of the questions here, head over for a visit if you haven’t been in a while. Lots of good topics that merit a quick read.
Shannon: #dryeyes
With the dry eye thing – I work on the computer all day. It is summer now, so I’m not sure if this is the difference, but since I started this program and found the correct prescription, and started taking more breaks etc., I find that my eyes aren’t nearly as dry as they used to be. I think I was literally staring at my screen all day and not blinking with the really high prescription. I stopped wearing contacts completely because they were so uncomfortable. Now, with this program, I find the lowered prescription to be much more comfortable, and my eyes much less dry. I am very happy to be wearing my contacts comfortably once again!
Steve follows-up:
I have had a similar experience as you. After I started working at a new desk job a few years ago, dry eye started bothering me. I started using drops, but that was just masking the underlying issue of too high prescription for close-up, strain and not taking breaks. I started wearing my full script glasses for a while, but that only made things worse. After I found this site, I started lowering my prescriptions and taking breaks. I tried wearing glasses for a week at a time, but I found the limited peripheral vision really played tricks on my head. From wearing contacts strictly for over 10 years enjoying full peripheral vision to wearing glasses took a toll on me mentally.
I started wearing contacts at work again about 80% of the time and wearing glasses outside of work about 50% of the time. Dry eye isn’t nearly as bad now, especially since I am habituated to taking breaks and try to wear +1 readers over my contacts for extended period of close-up work.
It being late Spring and soon going into Summer also means you can enjoy the beautiful world with full peripheral vision. Even working a day job, the longer/warmer days allow me to get in a lot of active-focus and distance viewing after work. Really puts a good end to the day with super-relaxed eyes.
I find when I lay down in bed at night and close my eyes, I feel a soothing (almost euphoric) tingling sensation in my eyes. It happens whether I wear glasses or contacts during the day. Not sure exactly what is happening, but I assume its the ciliary muscle fully relaxing after a full day of active-focus and strain-free work.
Peter asks about active focus:
Hi again Jake,
so I’ve been trying to experiment with Active Focus, I’m not if I’ve gotten it down. Sometimes, the images clear up a bit, but blurs out again. Other times, they just don’t seem to change.
Any tips on how to make it more consistent?
My cm tend to vary trough out the day, from day to day, ranging from around 47 to 54. Is this good or bad?Also, I’ve gotten myself a -2.25D, just from the convenience store, per recommendation from the last session, is this okay?
My comments:
Peter,
Yes, active focus is definitely going to be a little challenge, exactly how you want it to be. Whenever your eyes clear up the image and then go back to blur, that’s the range where you’re challenging your eyes.
If you back off from there just a little bit (easier done during close-up), you get the same effect, but less defocus. From there you can slowly start to dial in your distance to moderate how much challenge you want.
Just a little bit, most of the time, works best.
CM can vary quite a bit. It makes sense to start looking at what else has changed. Was the previous day particularly long on close-up time? Did you sleep well? Is the lighting different (lighting plays a bigger role than we give it credit – see the 1000 lux rule in the blog). Once you get some time and numbers together, usually a picture emerges that tells you what causes the lower centimeters, and what gives you higher ones.
Once you know that and affect your environment accordingly, centimeter tends to level out a bit. After that it’s mostly noticing a bit more or less challenge to clear the same distance.
Yes, drug store -2 is fine. Note that longer term the quality of those lenses is probably not going to be what you want. Once you feel confident about that correction it’s usually worth getting a higher quality lens.
Check out Reto’s amazing optometrist. Prepare to feel a little jealous:
Hi Jake
Thanks for the video that I’ve just seen about this topic!
Now I can add some more information: I went to my optometrist two days ago. I told him what I wanted, and he had absolutely no problem with it. There was just one thing that I didn’t thought of: my actual prescription from June is not a prescription to see 100% – but theoretically for 60% (but we have tested the new glasses: with the snellen chart at the optometrist I see about 90%…).
The “full prescription” (100 or 110%) ist R: -6.5, cyl -1.25 and L: -8.75, cyl -2.0. We ended up like this:
We added on both sides + 1.5 sph. And then we added half a diopter cyl on both sides (instead of halving the astigmatism on both sides), and compensated this with – 0.25 sph on both sides.
Result for the differential prescription: R: -5.25, -0.75 and L: -7.50, -1.50. We tested that with the test lens kit, and added again + 0.25 on both sides. When I then asked the optometrist to measure my “old in-house glasses”, the result was: R: -5.00, -0.75 and L= -7.25, -1.00. Because this is nearly what we found out before, I use now my old glasses for close-up (what I did anyway already before).
The optometrist has been working a hour for me for free – I’ll send him a bunch of flowers next week!Cheers, Reto
Definitely not fair to throw all of optometry under the bus, like I usually do. That guy is a treasure.
Then there’s Gerdt, improving quickly:
Hi jake,
the normalized distance prescription should allow you to see 20/50 on the Snellen. I have improved and see now 20/30 with this prescription. When should I lower the normalized again? If i go from 20/50 to 20/40 should i already change prescription (-0.25 lower) that allows me again to see 20/50 or should i wait and go down to stable 20/25 or 20/30? If so should i then reduce the next prescription 0.5 to be at 20/50. Could you please give a suggestion about the timing in prescription change?
By the way I love your videos- they are great !!!!!!!!!
My comments:
Gerdt,
Take your time with prescription changes, give your eyes and brain the reward of seeing clearly again. I always give it time to at least be back to where I was with my previous prescription, and then even a few weeks more.
A bit part of the “locking in” of improvement happens in that stage where the eyes and brain don’t have to work hard to get focus and correct vision. That sort of relaxing, not having to change part of the process is really important.
If you skip that and rush it, you end up with really long plateaus. Best to avoid.
4-6 weeks, minimum time between prescription changes.
Thanks of the video thumbs up. I’m actually really self conscious about them. I don’t feel that my video skills and presentation reflect my expertise and every time I see one I think …
People are going to judge my eyesight work based on these videos. I look like a mumbling amateur.And then I really want to stop posting them publicly, till I get appropriately better at it. But then if I do that, I probably never will. Hence the current process of just posting them, regardless of the potential credibility adverse effects.
Anyway. Encouragement definitely helpful and much appreciated.
There are several more great threads since I left the forum unattended all day yesterday. Head over check them out, leave comments if you got ideas from any of them.
Leaving comments on other’s observations tends to be encouraging. Encouraging tends to mean more insightful posts. So a little bit of tending to the seedlings is likely going to get you more valuable insights from the respective posters.
I’m also posting random unrelated pictures on my Instagram, if you’re into that sort of thing.
On an unrelated note, thinking of doing a few experimental podcast type of scenarios. Chat with students. Chat with *you*. Want to be part of a little podcast? Drop me a line (e-mail or forum).
Last thing.
I keep seeing horrid advice on YouTube for eyesight, as suggested videos (ugh) after mine.
Somebody wise tells me that more thumbs up may help raise better ideas over all the palming and sun gazing (seriously, the. worst. idea. ever.) videos out there. So when you click that little thumbs button, you’re actually doing your part in saving the future of humanity from all that nonsense.
And #14 is also ready to go, pending you pretending that these things are worth watching.
And it’s about sunglasses for better eyesight!
Cheers,
-Jake
