What if you could spend a few minutes a day to make your nearsightedness disappear?

You can.

About 20% more Americans have been diagnosed with nearsightedness as compared to 30 years ago. While I’m all about blaming the industrial food complex for just about everything else, this one I’m going to have to largely blame excessive time on computers, video games, and watching TV.

I’m a pretty hard-core geek, remember fumbling around in DOS, have done my share of computer programming, and never leave town without my laptop, so this is NOT a rant that all computers are evil. Instead, it’s about taking the couple minutes a day it takes to undo what I call “computer eyes” – or the effects of spending hours at a time staring at what is largely a fixed spot.

So, how does this happen?

The eyes are controlled by muscles – just like the rest of our moving parts. In the case of our eyes, there are six oculomotor muscles that allow our eyes to look up, down, left, right, track moving objects, and let us glance from the speedometer, to the rearview mirror, and back to the road. And, just like the rest of the body, it’s a use it or lose it proposition. When we spend a lot of time doing one activity, in this case staring at a screen that is virtually always the same distance in front of us and in the same position, our muscles get really good at holding that position – and that’s about it.

Fortunately, alleviating computer eyes is more simple than you might think. Move your eyes!

I recommend:

1) Eye tracking drills

2) Eye massage

3)  Vary your work environment so you aren’t always staring at the same point

Interested in learning more about vision training and eliminating computer eyes? Drop me a note and let’s get started!