If you have cross-sightedness, you have two problems. One is that your brain favors one eye over the other. This causes one of your eyes to do all the work while the other eye relaxes, which is why some people refer to cross-sighted people as having a “lazy eye.”
The other problem with strabismus, or amblyopia, is that doctors do not believe you can improve your condition in any way. Doctors mistakenly believe that, after the age of eight, cross-sighted people can no longer learn how to get their two eyes to work together.
The debate over the plasticity or elasticity of the brain is ongoing, but old concepts are giving way to new understandings. More and more people understand that the brain can change if it’s being exercised properly.
As I mentioned earlier in this book, the oldest person I’ve worked with so far was 101 years old. He experienced great changes from his exercises, and he was able to see better and to improve his brain and eye function significantly. I have also worked with several elderly patients, some in their eighties and nineties, and have witnessed positive changes in their visual systems. There is no doubt in my mind that no matter what age you are, you can change the function of your eyes; there is enough elasticity in your brain to back it up.
The issue isn’t age, but whether or not a person is practicing the correct exercises for his or her age. It may work easier for a five-year-old child to put on a patch for four or eight hours a day as he or she plays in order to get used to the weaker eye working. Indeed, the brain has more plasticity when you’re five than when you’re seventy-five. But, there are good, age-appropriate exercises you can do at any age that can change your visual system completely.
In addition to the exercises in this section, it is essential to do some of the previously mentioned exercises as well. Especially helpful for cross-sightedness is the exercise in the section on astigmatism called “Glow in the Dark.” As I mentioned in the introduction to Chapter 4, it is important to refer back to that chapter for an extensive explanation of the exercises I recommend in this section. In addition to extensively describing the exercise steps, there is important information regarding the benefits of these recommended practices.
One other wonderful practice for you is to lie down twice a day with a warm towel over your closed eyes. One of the recommendations that I normally make is to soak the towel in warm herbal tea. Do not use boiling water, just warm water. Within two or three minutes, the towel tends to cool off, and that pleasant feeling can improve your circulation and increase your level of relaxation when you start to work for further improvement. The reason to do this with the towels is to alleviate the strain you have caused your eyes after doing the other exercises. Relaxation must be something you prioritize after doing all of them. Alleviate the strain with a wet towel!
Also, and this is especially vital for cross-sightedness, make sure you are practicing breathing exercises daily and receiving face, neck, and back massages from a certified massage therapist at least once a month, but preferably much more often.
Exercise Program for Cross-Sightedness:
At Least 90 Minutes a Day
• Sunning: 10 minutes daily.
• Palming: 12 minutes daily.
• Long Swing: 10 minutes daily.
• Glow in the Dark: 10 minutes daily.
• Walking Backward: 5 minutes daily.
• Blink Each Eye Independently: 5 minutes daily.
• Extra Exercise for Cross-Sightedness: 30 minutes daily.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to make these exercises a regular part of your daily routine. Whatever you are doing, you can also practice your eye exercises. While you are waiting for a bus, you can do your sunning. While you are riding the bus, you can look far into the distance. You can always be looking at details. At work, instead of taking cigarette or coffee breaks, take breaks to practice long swinging or palming. Anywhere there is a dark room, you can practice throwing a glow-in-the-dark ball around! Don’t just practice for one hour or two hours at home. Incorporate these exercises into every aspect of your life. That is the way to give yourself good vision for life!
For your extra daily exercise, you may choose from any of the following. The main point with cross-sightedness is to train the brain to use both eyes, not to favor one eye over the other. All of the following extra exercises do just that.
Extra Exercises for Cross-Sightedness
Rotate the Eyes; Look into the Darkness
Sit in a dark room, looking straight ahead. Sit up and don’t lie down for this exercise. Now move your eyes in a rotating motion in the dark. Within a few minutes, even a dark room seems to have some light. Move your eyes from area to area in the dark room. Look up, and move the eyes from side to side in the room; then look down, and move your eyes from side to side while the eyes are looking down. Now close one eye and slowly move the full range of rotation with the open eye: up, to the side, and down. Then switch which eye is closed, and repeat. We do this to stretch the external muscles, which, to some extent, are responsible for the cross-sightedness.
Mirror Images
The next exercise uses a mirror. If your left eye is the one that turns in, look in the mirror while covering the right eye. Normally, when you cover the right eye, the left eye should be totally straight because the two retinas and the two eyes are not competing; but sometimes it isn’t. In this case, tilt your head a bit to the right and look intensively at the left side, and let the right eye be straighter. Do this several times and palm for thirty seconds to relax your eyes.
Now look at the bridge of your nose. Do not look at the right eye; do not look at the left eye. Look at the bridge of your nose between both eyes, and you will see both eyes. If they tend to cross, this is exactly what your brain will correct automatically. For your brain, normally, is not as aware of the cross-sightedness as you may think. You may see it in pictures. You may even sense it from time to time. But when you face the mirror and look in between your eyes, so your central vision is on the bridge of your nose and your peripheral vision is from both sides, you can exactly see the cross-sightedness. It’s amazing how much the brain tends to correct what appears to be wrong, and the cross-sightedness can decrease. If the eye tends to tremor a bit, the tremor will stop.
In addition to this exercise, as you stand in front of the mirror, move your hips in a rotating motion. Don’t stop looking in the mirror while your hips are moving. The movement helps to distract you, but it also helps you to get more circulation to your eyes. If the hips are loose, the ribs will be looser, and your breathing will get deeper. Your neck will get loose as well, and more blood will flow to your eyes.
Quite often, the shortening of one muscle, versus the lengthening of its opponent, has to do with poor blood flow to that muscle. So remember to move your hips in a rotating motion when you look in the mirror. If your vision is good, you can do this in any light. In fact, dim light may be the best light you can do it in, because it rests the eyes. If your vision is poor, you may need a strong light to see your face in the mirror.
By now you know that anytime there is an indication of effort in doing this exercise or any other, you must palm. Palming will help you to reduce the stress and to renew the work. Also, you can look into the distance before doing the mirror exercise.
I found that my mirror exercise was one of the best exercises to reduce my strabismus. You see, I struggled with strabismus from a very young age. In fact, in my case, the eyes never communicated because I was blind around the time that most people have their eyes working together, which is between four and six months of age. Since I was blind during that time, my brain had never developed straight eyes. In 1992, at the age of 38, I received my passport picture, and my eyes were severely cross-sighted. Six months before the expiration of that passport, the Brazilian Consulate issued me a five-year visa stamped on that passport. New pictures were taken in 2002, when I was 48, so I had two passports to compare. I took these passports to my school. Before going to the Brazilian Consulate to verify that I could use both passports, my good colleague and student looked at the passport pictures and said, “My goodness, look how your eyes have improved!” My cross-sightedness had decreased, and my eyes had straightened by 75 percent in ten years. Since then, I laugh at the fact that I lost hair and grew older by ten years, and yet my eyes got straighter. Now, years later, my eyes are even straighter. And so, straightening your eyes is definitely possible between your forties and fifties, but it is also possible in your seventies and eighties. You just need to do the work.