In this video, Greg Marsh introduced the philosophy and theory behind the Bates Method, and Natural Vision Improvement in general. He leads the viewer through a guided activity in which he invites viewers to discover any sources of strain affecting their vision.
Based in Fort Collins, Colorado, Greg Marsh teaches Natural Vision Improvement including the Bates Method. Greg came across the Bates Method when he was extremely nearsighted in his 20’s.
Marsh learned that poor eyesight is a well-established part of how we “see” the world, and his progress was slow until he began to learn from other Natural Vision Teachers about the subtleties and “secrets” of regaining your vision naturally.
Thanks to Otis Brown in the I-SEE Yahoo! Groups for pointing out this invention – a pair of adaptive, “universal” eyeglasses – demonstrated below:
If sold to the general public, I could see this being perfect for use as undercorrecting training glasses. No longer would NVI practitioners need to persuade the eye doctor to underprescribe a pair of glasses for training purposes, and they could be easily adjusted as one’s vision improves.
While they do look a bit odd (!), I could see them being used mostly around the house.
The glasses are being developed by a company called Adaptive Eyecare, whose mission is to “provide affordable corrective eyewear in the developing world.” This could prove to be a negative if these glasses are used to lock people into stronger and stronger prescriptions, but could also be a powerful tool if used alongside NVI principles.
There is no strong evidence that nearsightedness, or myopia, is genetic, as previously thought. In fact, there is some compelling evidence to the contrary.
The “Alaskan Eskimo” Study
In 1968, Dr. Frances Young led a research team to Alaska to study Inuit families who were being assimilated into a modern American lifestyle.
The parents in the study were mostly illiterate and followed the traditional Inuit lifestyle of hunting and fishing, their children had entered standardized public schooling, reading and writing for hours a day.
It would be expected that if myopia was hereditary, the children and their parents would have relatively similar percentages of nearsightedness. But what Dr. Young found out was astounding.
Only two out of 130 parents were myopic, and the amount of myopia was very small. Of the children tested, over 60% were myopic! Dr. Young concluded that this was caused by the long periods of reading as the children went through school.
Recently, the National Eye Institute issued a report that basically states the following: if you weren’t myopic as a child, your myopia probably isn’t inherited.
