
Training Your Brain So That You Don’t Need Reading Glasses (2017) - walterbell
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/27/upshot/training-your-brain-so-that-you-dont-need-reading-glasses.html
======
walterbell
There are presbyopia convergence exercises, no app required, the PDF can be
printed or stored on your phone. Once you can fuse the images at a given
distance, move the image closer to your nose and repeat: [http://www.robert-
silverman.net/presbeninst.htm](http://www.robert-
silverman.net/presbeninst.htm)

You can also use a "Brock String" (available on Amazon and elsewhere):
[http://www.yourfamilyclinic.com/ND/vision/brock.html](http://www.yourfamilyclinic.com/ND/vision/brock.html),
_" One of the most important pieces of equipment for vision exercises when
working on convergence is the Brock String. It offers instant feedback to the
participant if their eyes are working together to focus on an object at
various distances. Children with reading problems or who are slow readers
often have problems with convergence."_ Video:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=71o20wyPsR0](https://youtube.com/watch?v=71o20wyPsR0)

~~~
johndoe491
I learned to cross my eyes way back in the mid nineties during the "3d poster"
craze (and man those posters were amazing, zo SO much better than the crap
images found on the web). I remember they sold them in the tube in London, in
gorgeous color and the depth was fantastic.

But anyway... do we know that convergence actually helps vision? How so? What
is backing this up?

~~~
walterbell
We know that poor convergence affects near vision. Presbyopia also affects
near vision. Are convergence and presbyopia related? Should you ask the person
trying to sell you a pair of expensive progressive lenses?

[http://www.convergenceinsufficiency.org/](http://www.convergenceinsufficiency.org/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyopia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amblyopia)

[http://www.strabismus.org/](http://www.strabismus.org/)

The exercises are easy to try and have almost immediate (temporary) positive
effect. They work for some people. There isn't an economic incentive to fund
studies to determine why they don't work in others, since this could hurt
various revenue streams. Standard big pharma vs. wellness dilemma. However,
video game software subscriptions for vision therapy may change incentives.

~~~
no_identd
[http://www.strabismusworld.com/](http://www.strabismusworld.com/)

[https://www.seevividly.com/](https://www.seevividly.com/)

And also, I'd like to point your attention to Aniseikonia, an EXTREMELY
underdiagnosed issue:

[http://www.opticaldiagnostics.com/info/aniseikonia.html](http://www.opticaldiagnostics.com/info/aniseikonia.html)

Neither clinical neuro-ophthalmology, nor orthoptists, nor optometricians, nor
opticians, commonly have the equipment to test this, let alone know about it.
(I had to literally have a lens kit dusted off in my case. One that nobody
besides one entire person in the city knew about besides me.)

And the fact that one must consider the current distance and measuring
equipment used for vision tests insufficient:

[http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/acuity.html](http://www.tedmontgomery.com/the_eye/acuity.html)

To quote:

"Traditionally, optical infinity has been accepted to be 20 feet or,
approximately, 6 meters. However, at this distance, there is an accommodative
demand on the eye of about 1/6 D (one-sixth of a diopter). This amount of
accommodative demand can be significant for some people. For very
discriminating observers (such as myself), an accommodative fluctuation during
an eye examination of more than 1/8 D can result in a variable endpoint in
measuring a person’s refractive error (resulting in an imprecise lens
prescription), and 1/6 D is even greater than 1/8 D.

As a result, it is recommended that the viewing distance (d) in an examination
room should be great enough to create no more than a 1/8 D accommodative
demand on any patient’s eyes. I maintain, then, that optical infinity, for
purposes of examining the refractive error of the human eye, is at least 8
meters or 26¼ feet, rather than merely 6 meters or 20 feet."

This combines with the fact that that the human eye experiences "accommodative
microfluctuations" which have a range of about 0,5 diopters (aka ±0,25
diopter), and it does so __even at true optical infinity __.

This then makes any assessment done without cycloplegia problematic, but
assessment under cycloplegia also has its issues:

There exists a dissertation from a German Technical University (Well,
"Fachhochschule", look the term up if you have an obsession with detail like I
do) that beyond the shadow of a doubt proves that Schack-Hartmann sensor based
Wavefront aberrometers can and will do better than humans when measuring the
ideal prescription for a human eye. However, this dissertation, even as good
as it was (they had a huge sample size and accounted for damn near
everything), has several limitations and also points several problems out, and
in addition to these, I'll add a few ones I've observed myself and that one
can find in the literature (this is from memory and reading a lot of the
literature, but keep in mind I can't find the original paper [in German]
anymore, and some of this comes from other papers):

1\. The default setting of most wavefront aberrometers defaults to 3 eye
measurement cycles per eye measurement. However, the study found quite clearly
that at this setting, a wavefront aberrometers will very often do worse than
an experienced human optometrist or orthoptist, even if they do account for
the distance problem I described above, which nearly all of them don't. A 5
measurement cycles however elevate the wavefront

2\. Most wavefront aberrometers lack the capability to do a proper measurement
of a fully dilated pupil as they expect a maximum pupil dilation of about 5mm,
which is ridiculously tiny

3\. Wavefront aberrometers cannot compensate for deeply (or at all) cramped
cilliary muscles, an extremely common issue

4a. To get a dilated pupil, one must apply a mydriasic (i.e. pupil dilating)
agent such as cyclopentolate.

4b. To get a relaxed cilliary muscle, one must apply a cycloplegic (i.e.
cilliary mucscle paralyzing) agent such as cyclopentolate.

5\. Most wavefront aberrometer measurements occur in the office of an
optician, who legally may not dispense cycloplegic & mydriasic eye drops (such
as cyclopentolate).

6\. This is a good thing, because cyclopentolate is an muscarinic antagonist.
Normally relatively harmless, when given to people with various atypical
neurological features such as for example some of (but not all of) those
exhibited by some of (but not all of those) those diagnosed with
schizophrenia, it can lead to acute psychosis.

7\. The above seems doubly unfortunate because schizophrenia seems to have an
- extremely little researched - link to the previously mentioned Aniseikonia:
[http://www.schizo-binoc.de/](http://www.schizo-binoc.de/) [Personally, I
think some of the hypotheses on the neurological mechanisms of this link as
offered by Hildegard Korn seem whack, but if you look at purely her quite
empirical - albeit possibly anecdotal - data, you'll see that the pattern she
describes along with the formal errors in commonly used diagnostical
procedures she outlines quite flawlessly do add up to something and could
probably get easily explained, in terms of neurological mechanisms behind the
observed biophysics, by a more respectable theory on the neurological
mechanisms behind it.)

And then there's the whole patent lockdown between all the big glasses
manufacturers, but I cba to continue typing this out.

I truly despise the optical and ophthalmological industry. They still haven't
heard Sue Barry's message although she's shouting it with all the force she
can muster.

~~~
mistermann
I've recently developed intermittent vertical diplopia (double vision) - it
will happen out of the blue and last for a few minutes (closing eyes and
relaxing seems to clear it up). I've been trying to wear my reading glasses
more often and also when on the computer and it seems to have largely cleared
up, but it still happens now and then. Do you think it's safe to consider it
problem solved or should I be looking into it more? Went for an eye exam and
she said everything was fine.

~~~
Wistar
Do you have bouts of doubled vision with only one eye open? If so, that is
likely astigmatism which can be temporary.

~~~
mistermann
No, closing either eye clears it up thankfully.

~~~
Wistar
Actually, lack of stereo synchronization can be more serious than astigmatism
which is usually an optically correctable condition.

------
dziungles
Hey, this is really cool to see natural eyesight topic on the hacker news.

I practice this for more than 10 years. Each day I work with computer for ~10
h., drive a car and do other things, and never wear glasses, even though the
traditional ophtalmologic measures clearly indicate that I need strong glasses
and I shouldn't see even the biggest letter on the Snellen chart, but I see
not only the biggest, but sometimes even the 20/20.

Doctors can't explain this, and only congrats me on my achievement. Of course,
the eyesight is not perfect. I see clearly in the daytime, but in the
nighttime or low light conditions it becomes much harder to distinguish faces.

The best book I found so far is "Relearning to See" by Thomas R. Quackenbush.
The originator of this theory was William Bates.

Actually, there is no clear unified theory on how to achieve this. Everyone
interprets it differently and the results are inconsistent. There is also a
lot of criticism from the medical establishment.

Natural eyesight improvement really works. And the unified theory, in a form
of an app, or a good book, maybe including findings from neuroplasticity,
would be a great gift for humanity.

~~~
EGreg
I can say that I have negative 4 dioptri for sure (confirmed multiple times,
contacts prescription is for this). Yet I can see street signs better than my
friends with negative 2. I often asked eye doctors how this is possible and
they don't seem to have a good answer. But that's what it is.

I also have trouble with low constrast settigs and nighttime, vs daytime. I
think it may have something to do with the brain recognizing small things even
if the image coming in is blurry, and it uses high contrast to do it. That's
my guess.

But does Bates method really work, or is it all just placebo effect?

~~~
dziungles
Actually, I don't even do any eye exercises.

Maybe this sounds to good to be true, but the main principle is that this
natural eyesight improvement is not about exercises, but about re-learning the
natural seeing habits.

When you re-learn to see things in a natural way (without strain, without
fixation), you then see things clearly 24 h/day without any exercises.

It's all about habits, not exercises.

~~~
dziungles
The exercises are needed only as long as you are in the process of re-learning
the natural seeing habits.

------
gnicholas
I would be curious to know if anyone here who suffers from these issues finds
my startup's software [1] to be helpful. We launched (on HN, as it happens) as
a speed-reading tool, but we've heard from many people with binocular vision
difficulties, including convergence insufficiency, amblyopia and presbyopia,
that our approach makes reading easier.

Obviously this isn't a training tool like the ones mentioned in the article,
but I'd be curious if it eases reading for folks who are affected by these
issues. Also, if there are any vision professionals here, I'd love to hear
expert opinions too.

1: [http://www.beelinereader.com](http://www.beelinereader.com)

~~~
kmote00
I just spent 5 minutes (on my Samsung phone) trying to download the app from
the link you provided. I clicked on the Chrome icon, the Android icon, and one
or two others. The only one that seemed to work was the Firefox icon. But I
don't use Firefox, so I gave up.

~~~
gnicholas
Yeah, it’s confusing but our Chrome extension is only for desktop. This is
because mobile Chrome doesn’t support extensions, unfortunately. But thanks
for the reminder that we need to make this clearer.

------
arkades
This was a big thing in Soviet Russia. The thing is, to show good results
required 1 - 2 hours of work per day. The author of this article notes that
he, too, put in 1.5 hours a Day.

No credible study I have found has supported meaningful benefits when used the
way real people are likely to: for 10-15m/d a few times a week, at best.

~~~
walterbell
A more realistic approach is to incorporate short exercises for a few minutes
when taking a break from close-up computer usage. You should be taking a break
every 20 minutes.

~~~
arkades
Yes, that would be realistic. But that hasn’t been shown to work.

------
schoen
I remember Aaron Swartz telling me about his interest in eye exercises for
myopia (not just presbyopia).

[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001083](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001083)

I'm pretty sure there's another blog post of his that goes further into the
substance than this one, but I didn't immediately find it. (Other references,
including one I wrote a few years ago, suggest he once thought the mechanism
by which it could help had to do with oxygen levels rather than muscle
development.) Does anyone know if this has been supported by clinical
research?

~~~
andars
More about it:
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000432](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000432)

~~~
abledon
"I hope to continue this practice whenever I have time to spare or take a
break. I’m sure I’ll report on my findings here."

Did he ever report his findings? This was posted in 2002, so I would expect
(if successful in this important discovery) a larger publication by him
finding results later on?

~~~
walterbell
Aaron's method has been refined by several people:

[https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-
improveme...](https://gettingstronger.org/2016/03/faq-for-vision-improvement-
by-hormetism/)

[http://endmyopia.org/active-focus-links/](http://endmyopia.org/active-focus-
links/)

------
tuxidomasx
There are also vision exercises on youtube:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/VisualExercises](https://www.youtube.com/user/VisualExercises)

It is totally possible to improve your ability to focus visually using these.
Just doing them on occasion, or once a day for a few minutes can be enough to
counter the negative effects of staring at a screen all day.

~~~
chuckledog
Wow. Thanks! Just one minute of each of the seven exercises has improved my
vision to the point where I no longer need my 1.0 reading glasses to read
hacker news on my iPhone 7+. The improved vision seems to be lasting at least
a few minutes. Perhaps there’s truth to the “use it or lose it” theory of
vision?

------
melling
“By middle age, the lenses in your eyes harden, becoming less flexible”

Do they harden for a specific reason? Any research underway on how to unharden
them? A few drops of something?

[UPDATE]

I did a little research and found that Novartis bought a company that’s
working on a drug:

EVO6 - Novartis

[https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-
bolste...](https://www.novartis.com/news/media-releases/novartis-bolsters-
ophthalmology-pipeline-through-acquisition-encore-vision-inc)

~~~
mtgx
It might have something to do with a lack of vitamins/minerals, as for most
things. Plus, as you get older, your absorption of vitamins/minerals is
weaker, too, so you'd need more, even if you consumed the right amount of
everything every day (most likely you did not, because it's impossible to get
everything your body needs just from food ever day).

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693724/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3693724/)

[http://www.lifeextension.com/Protocols/Eye-Ear/Eye-
Health/Pa...](http://www.lifeextension.com/Protocols/Eye-Ear/Eye-
Health/Page-01)

------
blunte
Perhaps this is related: why is it that for several minutes sometimes after I
have been practicing music, my eyes refuse to focus. This only happens when
playing by ear, not when reading sheet music. And it doesn't seem to matter if
I'm watching my hands or closing my eyes. Is part of my brain shutting down to
give another part more capability?...

The effect can last from a minute to 15 minutes sometimes, and it only happens
after playing music.

~~~
walterbell
Eyesynth
([https://eyesynth.com/media/?lang=en](https://eyesynth.com/media/?lang=en))
has done research on using sound fields to convey topological information to
blind people. I don't have details, but they have done MRI studies and it
appears that parts of the visual cortex are being retasked to process the
audio signals.

~~~
Hextinium
That is so cool! I had thought of a similar system for blind people but
someone had actually went out and built it already. I wish I could look at
their source code as it seems like they are doing some really cool stuff under
the hood

------
chiefalchemist
> "Neuroplasticity — the ability of the brain’s processing functions to change
> to acquire new skills — is most strongly associated with childhood. It’s
> still more pronounced in children than adults, but for some skills,
> including vision, the brain is more malleable than once thought."

I'm reading the book "The Brain that Changes Itself." I'm not sure if it's The
Best book on neuroplasticity, as it's 10+ years old. But I'm finding it very
fascinating and am comfortable recommending it for those interested in a deep
dive.

[http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259](http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259)

~~~
xenadu02
Oliver Sacks (in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) also tells a great
story of a blind patient with Cerebral Palsy that was so babied that she never
acquired use of her hands. She had been carried everywhere and had everything
done for her. She called her hands "useless lumps of dough". At 60 years old
he and his team managed to get her to use her hands; she ended up going
through all the infant stages of hand use _. Despite being 60 and never having
used them she was able to become a sculptor, feed herself, etc. He thought it
might be a one-off but he ran into another patient with a similar situation
(babied, unable to use his hands his entire life) who also acquired the
ability to use them.

There is a reduction in neuroplasticity with age but there is more and more
evidence that it is a smaller reduction than once though and a lot of the
supposed reduction is due to attitude, expectations, and technique.

_ There have also been fairly recent studies with kids and adults born blind
who receive surgery to correct the problem later on in life. Not being
infants, they don't naturally learn how to build up a system of vision. It was
long thought that acquiring vision after early childhood was impossible but
that turns out not to be true either. It requires intense therapy to walk the
person through the infant stages of learning: detecting shapes, matching
colors, learning about edges, inside vs outside, recognizing people vs
objects, learning faces, etc. Eventually reasonably decent vision can be
achieved. We appear to be primed as infants to learn these things
automatically so we never really think about how much work it is.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. This is the crux of the book. That is, the brain can adapt and age isn't
a factor, most of the time. An exception, for example, is language. It is more
difficult for an adult to learn a new language. Not impossible, obviously.
Just far more difficult because some parts of the brain are less plastic.

FWIW I've been reading it as a form of self-help book, sorta. That is, knowing
how the brain works how best can I unlearn things. One of the takeaways so far
is that to ditch an old unwanted habit you'd improve your odds if you replace
it (and not just try to avoid it).

Also, the book emphasizes "use it or lose it." That's actually not entirely
accurate. He gives numerous examples that are closer to "use it or it will be
taken away." That is, brain cells (neurons) in proximity to the unused will
slowly creep in and reclaim the unused for something else. Stop using your
hand don't "lose it". You literally take away those neurons from yourself for
something else.

------
naner
In other words he's not improving his vision, but getting better at reading
out of focus text.

~~~
tim333
Also as someone who has the issue themselves, you get better at reading out of
focus text just by reading out of focus text. Although I have not tried the
technique in the article I'm sceptical it would do much better. There are also
limits to how well you can correct blurry images with any software or brain
processes.

------
simonebrunozzi
I am 40, with myopia. It is still unclear to me whether it makes sense to
correct it with laser; and how this is going to affect my vision for the
next... 60 years (I am an optimist!).

I've heard that laser (or lasic?) is essentially an unrelated decision to what
happens to your eyes after age 40-45. But so far the three specialists I've
spoken to over the last few years have given me conflicting opinions.

~~~
u801e
I've heard that having lasik can increase one's glare sensitivity. That is, it
may make driving at night more difficult due to glare from the headlamps of
other vehicles.

~~~
sethammons
I have some glare at night post Lasik, but it is similar the glare I had from
constantly scratched/abraised glasses. A wash for me in that department. The
better than 20/20 vision however is a total win for me.

------
rootusrootus
As an almost-44 year old I find this to be very interesting. I don't know if I
am really willing to commit to the full regimen, but I can feel my vision
slipping a little every year. I'm pretty sure at my next appointment I won't
be able to do 20/20 or better, it was a near thing at my last appointment a
few years back. I really don't want glasses -- I wore them growing up and I
_loathe_ them. Kids are jerks and I suffered enough abuse for having glasses
that I'm irrationally opposed to ever wearing them again. Anything that can
delay the inevitable is a huge win IMO.

~~~
lostlogin
Too late for you, but schools are full of kids with glasses now and all the
pairs I’ve seen are seriously cool. I’ve heard kids asking parents if they
could have a pair. It might be just the early levels of schooling, but at that
level at least, there is no stigma.

~~~
pfranz
Glasses may be chic, but corrective eyewear is a pain. Glasses need cleaning,
can constantly slide off your nose if they don't fit right, and if you require
them for driving you're screwed if they're broken or lost. Contacts aren't
much better. Every Christmas various family members ask about a contacts case
or solution (we now have a large stash). Both also suck for outdoor activities
like surfing, camping, etc. It is much better than not being able to see. (As
an aside, I'm curious if people who don't wear corrective eyewear are more
likely to wear sunglasses?)

I feel like I've seen more people wearing glasses with fake lenses.

~~~
wenc
> corrective eyewear is a pain

In HN fashion, I'm afraid I have to proffer an alternative, contrary
perspective. :)

I've worn glasses almost all my life. I do not find it remotely inconvenient,
and if anything adds points to my perceived intelligence, an advantage that I
find extremely useful in many social circumstances.

1) Glasses don't have to be cleaned that much (just a bit of soap and water
during a shower suffices). Almost no one I know uses solution for glasses.

2) They never slide off your nose (if they do, they were incorrectly fitted).

3) They hardly ever break and/or get lost if you wear them all the time. Most
frames are designed to be tough yet flexible. I only replace my glasses once
every 2-3 years to get an updated prescription, and never because the frame
broke or anything like that.

4) They are no impediments to surfing/camping or even swimming if you use
straps. I've never had trouble being active with glasses on. Billie Jean King
played tennis with glasses.

~~~
pfranz
It sounds like you're just saying, "it's not too much of a pain."

The straps weren't the problem for me with swimming or camping, it was keeping
the lenses clean and having a spot to keep them from getting crushed or
scratched (the hard cases are bulky and tend to break after a year).

Glasses got way more annoying after having a young kid. They're his favorite
toy and he has easy access when you hold him.

~~~
wenc
> It sounds like you're just saying, "it's not too much of a pain."

Yep.

But from the sound of it, I'm guessing you only wear glasses part-time, so
perhaps much of what I said may not track your experiences.

Us full-time wearers of glasses don't tend to carry hard cases -- those get
stashed away as soon as we get home from the optometrists. Our glasses are
always on, except when showering and sleeping.

Babies love to pull glasses off your face. I've had to train myself to monitor
and avoid grabs. Some babies are fast though.

------
deepGem
I have to try this. I did some eye exercises about 3-4 years back called
Trataka. No scientific evidence of it's benefits whatsoever but I had nothing
to lose. A few minutes of gazing a candle in a dark room. I have worn glasses
from age 10 and the only time my eye power went down was when I was doing this
Trataka. Now I have terrible eyesight, long sightedness + presbyopia, can't
read without glasses. May be there is something to these unscientifically
proven methods. It is a pain to find a totally pitch dark room in modern
cities. Light creeps in from everywhere.

------
troydavis
His last paragraph shows how strongly app prices are anchored to $0.99. He
describes how he used the app for tens or hundreds of hours and saw life-
changing benefits. The training seemed to take 10 years off his eyes, maybe
enough to delay reading glasses for years.

Then he writes:

> As apps go, GlassesOff is not cheap. I paid $24.99 for three months of use —
> long enough to get me through the initial program. Upon completion, I was
> invited to pay another $59.99 per year for maintenance training.

~~~
Invictus0
The key phrase here is "as apps go". I have never paid $25 for an app, and
neither have most people. This pie chart sucks but it seems to imply that < 5%
of apps are $19 or more: [http://blog.scottlogic.com/2014/03/20/app-store-
analysis.htm...](http://blog.scottlogic.com/2014/03/20/app-store-
analysis.html)

------
blunte
Since repetitive mental effort changes the brain, wouldn't the general decline
in neuroplasticity itself be reversible if one put time and effort into
learning and exercising new and different things?

It seems to me that as we age, we spend less mental energy on processing and
analyzing new information and more energy on pattern matching and end-of-
pattern refinement. It's an optimization of thinking which allows us to get
more done quickly, but it means we strengthen the skills of, well, pattern
matching and optimization rather than on gathering and processing broadly.

However, I don't understand how any mental effort can reverse a hardening of a
physical material (lens). Maybe it allows us to process visual data based on
different rules, such as how the right kinds of image processing can make
sense of images that are totally "out of focus".

~~~
walterbell
There are various theories about the causes of decreased accomodation in
presbyopia, hardening of the lens being one. Other possible factors are axial
elongation and ciliary muscles, e.g.
[https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219573-overview#show...](https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1219573-overview#showall)

Like many things age-related, you want to be doing vision therapy _before_
there is irreversible damage. Use it or lose it. Since the decrease in
accomodation is gradual, vision therapy can be done before reading glasses are
strictly needed, at the current accomodation limit.

Behavioral optometrists take a holistic view:
[http://www.mccrodanvision.com/vision-development-
education-c...](http://www.mccrodanvision.com/vision-development-education-
centre/what-is-developmental-or-behavioural-optometry/)

------
jiggunjer
Anything for long distance vision? I noticed since I bought my first
smartphone 3 years ago my eyesight has gotten worse.

Of course it could be age related, but glasses aren't in my family and my
friends would ask me to read distant signs because I always saw furthest.

~~~
walterbell
Probably best to get an eye exam.

Read about ciliary spasm: [http://endmyopia.org/the-ciliary-pop-a-simple-
trick-for-heal...](http://endmyopia.org/the-ciliary-pop-a-simple-trick-for-
healthy-eyes/)

More info on eye health & computers/smartphones:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16146106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16146106)

------
j_s
This related item got flagged off the front page back in November:
[http://www.instructables.com/id/Eye-training-
system](http://www.instructables.com/id/Eye-training-system)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15631074)

[http://hnrankings.info/15631074](http://hnrankings.info/15631074)

Unfortunately "Hacker News Transparency" is 500-ing.
[https://hn.0x2237.club](https://hn.0x2237.club)

------
im3w1l
Learning to deconvolve?

~~~
nomel
I went for several years without glasses for nearsightedness, which I needed
pretty badly. The first day I put my prescription glasses on, there was a
strange halo around anything with high contrast, like where a dark mountain
meets the sky. It looked exactly like an artifact from this. It faded within
10 minutes or so.

There was an interesting page, maybe 15 years ago, that was experimenting with
this method for vision correction when reading text on a display. I can’t find
it on Google anymore, but it was really neat, with working example images that
became clearer when you would blur your eyes. From what I remember, poor
contrast was the biggest issue, since you can’t have negative light.

~~~
walterbell
MIT and UC Berkeley announced some work on vision-correcting displays in 2014,
but nothing since.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/529191/prototype-
display-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/529191/prototype-display-lets-
you-say-goodbye-to-reading-glasses/)

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2490626/emerging-
techn...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2490626/emerging-
technology/vision-correcting-display-nixes-your-need-for-eyeglasses.html)

------
hawski
Can anyone tell me if it's viable to use "collimator glasses" so eyes would be
focused on infinity when using computer monitor? VR headsets use collimators.

~~~
gwbas1c
Yes. This is exactly what reading glasses are. If you want to do it on the
cheap, just go to a drug store and get a pair of weak reading glasses.

Otherwise, go to an optometrist and complain of eyestrain at a computer.
You'll end up spending a few hundred dollars.

------
Invictus0
As a young person that cherishes his good vision, is there anything I can do
to ward of presbyopia?

------
reboog711
Definitely interesting; I wonder how LASIK and PRK fit into the picture.

------
blaike
So, I never post on here - but this made me very curious about whether anyone
else here reads with one eye?

I'm 26 and have been reading with one eye closed for a long time. It seems
like that would mean presbyopia wouldn't affect me, so perhaps doing exercises
to read with one eye would also be a viable approach to overcoming the
condition without using reading glasses.

~~~
hazeii
I do something similar, when reading stuff around 15 feet (typically text on
TV screens). In my case, it's because I have one long-sighted eye and one
short-sighted (so I use one for close-up stuff like reading and the other for
far stuff like driving, while effectively ignoring input from the other). In
the cross-over zone, it's easier to close one eye than to let them compete for
dominance.

~~~
walterbell
Are your eyes naturally like that, or are you wearing monovision contacts,
[https://www.eyehealthweb.com/monovision/](https://www.eyehealthweb.com/monovision/)?

~~~
hazeii
Naturally, always been like it. I got some glasses back in my 20's to correct
it, but the effect was to put _everything_ into the zone where each eye would
struggle for dominance (maybe I should have persisted, to see if my neural
circuitry would eventually adapt and give me binocular vision).

Interesting link to monovision, thanks! That's pretty much describes where I
am - entirely by chance.

~~~
walterbell
Take a look at Sue Barry's notes on Frederick Brock's work on binocular
vision, [http://www.stereosue.com/brocks-lecture-notes-on-
strabismus-...](http://www.stereosue.com/brocks-lecture-notes-on-
strabismus-3/)

------
sifoo
Traditional Yoga contains a set of exercises for the muscles surrounding the
eye. Many problems seem to be caused in part by constantly focusing on the
same distance/angle; which leads to lack of muscle tone, which in turn affects
eye sight.

------
Nomentatus
It's clear now that the physical changes (deterioration) in the eye correlates
to insufficient UV exposure. So that's a good place to start, particularly if
you're young. Sunseekers live longer, too.

~~~
modeless
You are thinking of myopia. The article is about presbyopia. They are quite
different.

The eye has a range in which it can focus. Myopia is a shift of the range due
to the shape of the eye, while presbyopia is a shrinking of the range due to
hardening of the lens.

    
    
                     zero        infinity
        --------------|-------------|--------------
        ----------------|            |------------- < normal focus range
        ----|            |------------------------- < range of myope 
        ----------------------| |------------------ < range of presbyope
    
    

Only some people get myopia. _Everyone_ gets presbyopia.

~~~
Nomentatus
Both are collagen disorders, both seem to correlate to UV light exposure (lack
of same.) Do drop a study citation if you know of a study showing otherwise,
I'd be most interested.

~~~
modeless
On the contrary, I'm not aware of any evidence for UV providing protection
against presbyopia (though I haven't done extensive research). This article
seems to suggest the opposite.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2677104/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/2677104/)

~~~
Nomentatus
You may have flipped the meaning, or it's more complex. The abstract is
unclear. To quote: "Of all factors reported to affect the onset of presbyopia,
UVR has the most scientific support..." Of course, if this is similar to other
effects, such as longevity, intermittent UV exposure will be harmful, and
constant exposure helpful.

