I always used to pride myself on having perfect 20-20 vision. I had excellent long range sight (I could spot an ant walking across the road from 100m away – nearly) and I never needed a magnifying glass to look at something small – like I said, I had 20-20 vision. Well, those days are long gone.
About 18 months ago I started to feel really tired. I was playing a lot of football and running quite a lot so I assumed it was that. So I had a relaxing weekend and felt fine come Monday morning. But by Friday I was feeling knackered again. Once again by Monday I was fine and the following Friday I was ready to drop. The thought of my eyes being the problem didn’t enter my head, I just assumed that it was my bright monitor at work so I turned it down to be a bit darker. This didn’t work.
Eventually I relented and went to the optician to have an eye test. After the test the guy gave me a frame with the lenses that were my actual prescription and I was amazed. I looked at some writing in a book and it was perfectly in focus. My eyes didn’t have to work to zoom in on the text. But the thing was, I never realised how much work my eyes were putting in until they could see properly again. It was great, but terrible. Now I’d need to wear glasses whenever I read or used a computer. Although on the plus side they’d make me look more intelligent – which they do.
But just lately I’ve been having the same eye-strain problems. Feeling tired. Struggling to focus on distant objects when driving home. But the strange thing is that I’ve been wearing my glasses when sitting in front of a computer or reading the paper. So I went to have my eyes tested again (thinking my prescription might have changed in the last year and a half). But alas no. My eyes are just as they were. The optician suggested that I might like to spend less time in front of a computer screen and that I probably just had old-fashioned eye strain. Well, changing career is not an option. So I tried to stare at the screen less and look out the window more. It didn’t seem to work though.
But then I tried something else. I just stopped wearing my glasses altogether. And you know what? It worked. No eye strain any more and I’m not having any problems reading books either. Bizarre. It just doesn’t make any sense to me but it seems to be working. My working theory is that without the glasses I spend less time staring at things than when I’m wearing them. This strains my eyes less and Bob’s your uncle. Funny how sometimes doing the opposite to what you think will work can sometimes give you the desired effect…
Very Zen, John!
U dont need glasses. Glasses will lead to your eye sight going from bad to worse. Believe it or not you can actually exercise your eyes and there are plenty of books on amazon.com about this. But do the opticians want u to know this .. of course not .. since they’d be outta jobs .. conspiracy .. and u know it .. 🙂
Ah, that makes sense. Just like chiropractors and back treatment. Cheers, I’ll never wear the glasses again!
You’re right… The little aliens that are being hidden in Siberia come out at night and squish your eyeball in an attempt to knock the lens out of focus. It works in a lot of cases, mine included, as just look at how many people wear glasses or contact lenses. I say we rise against the russians (who are concealing these aliens) and bring these little aliens to task. Oh – these aliens developed the science of Ophalmology (however it’s spelled) and trained certain humans in the science to go out there and raise funds for their bid to take over the world. It keeps me awake some nights.