1. Introduction

We experience life through our senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste and touch work together to reveal an intimate connection between us and our world. Like all our other senses, sight is important. We learn, explore, and experience beauty with our eyes. Without it, the world can be a dark, dangerous and lonely place. It is unfortunate that we do not come with an owner’s manual to show us how to care for our body and use our eyes properly because modern life is pushing our body and eyesight to its limits.

Many factors in our modern lifestyle contribute to our vision problem such as near work, stress, emotions, bad habits (working long hours without breaks, tensing the eye muscles to see clearer), diet (refined and processed food, malnutrition), not getting enough sunlight, disease (diabetes, liver disease), and much more. Our body function as an inseparable unit. Everything we do affect our body and mind. This in turn affect all our organs which are responsible for maintaining our body health. Good vision requires two factors, a healthy body to support healthy eyes and the right skills to use the eyes properly.

Many of us go about our daily lives unaware of the problems we causing our eyes. When they do not work properly, we run to the nearest eye doctor for a quick fix so we can continue on with our lives. In our haste to fix the poor vision, we miss the underlining message our body is telling us – we are misusing our eyes.

This misuse can be separated into two categories – physical eyestrain and mental eyestrain. Physical eyestrain is the tension we hold in the eye muscles which keeps it from adjusting properly. Mental eyestrain is the thoughts that triggers the muscles to tense. These two strains feed off each other to build an ever increasing tension in the muscles. Generally the more severe our vision problem, the greater the tension between the two eyestrain.

If we are taught to use our eyes correctly, it could prevent us from developing eyestrain. Even if we have mild or severe eyestrain, learning to use our eyes correctly can help to prevent it from getting worse, to train our eyes and mind to overcome the strain, and to restore good vision. Most eye doctors, don’t offer us more than a check up and a prescription. These eye doctors or opticians offer us a convenient way out with a pair of glasses. We naturally follow their recommendation and use the glasses to compensate for our vision problems. We continue with our lives without realizing that this is only a temporary fix.

The current way of treating symptoms like myopia (nearsightedness) or presbyopia (farsightedness) with glasses does help us to see clearer. However, it does not help us overcome the misuse. In 1908, 5% of Americans were nearsighted. Today 30% of American are nearsighted. More people are developing vision problems each year and they are developing it at a younger age. The longer a person wears glasses, the greater the chance of increasing the severity of the vision problem. Dr. Terri Young in his research article, Dissecting the Genetics of Human High Myopia: a Molecular Biologic Approach warns, “Myopia is the most common human eye disease, and severe cases (high myopia greater than 5 diopters) may lead to blinding disorders such as premature cataracts, glaucoma, retinal detachment, and macular degeneration.” (Young 2004) The blurred vision is fixed but the root of the problem still remains. In fact, we create an additional problem for the eyes – dependence on glasses. As long as we continue to put a band-aid on the symptoms, the root of the problem will continue to grow until the eyes can no longer function properly. Can you imagine how devastating it would be to lose your eyesight?

A friend Margaret (not her real name), experienced the devastation it can cause. She owns a small optical shop where my mother-in-law (MIL) goes for her eyes checkup and to change the prescription for her glasses. On a routine visit, as the optometrist examine my MIL’s eyes, Margaret sat down and chatted with my wife and I. She was glad that we brought my MIL for an eye check, because people tend to dismiss their elderly parent’s complaints of eye soreness, headaches, or inability to see clearly.

Margaret recounts her own sad experience. Her mom had complained of having headaches and poor eyesight many times. The optometrist who examined her mother’s eyes, assured her that everything was fine. Three year later, her mom became blind from glaucoma. Glaucoma is a disease that damages the optic nerve normally caused by pressure in the eye. Blindness devastated her mother, and she now sits at home with her spirit for living sucked out of her. Holding back her tears, Margaret blamed herself. She was in the eye care business and she neglectfully allowed her mother to go blind. Her lesson to us, “Take care of your eyes; if something does not feel right, go for a check-up and get a second opinion; you will not know how precious it is until it is gone.”

Today, more and more people are developing eye problems, and it is spreading like wildfire across the world. Each number in the statistics is a real person suffering from a real problem that will affect their quality of life, just like Margaret’s mother.

Summary

Our eyes are important to our quality of life yet many of us do not know how to care and use them properly. Misuse and neglect will leads to vision problems and eye diseases. We are not victims of an ailing body but rather the cause of it. By taking control and following the Wynning Vision Program, you will systematically develop the correct seeing skills and habits, and the correct way to care for the body. You will have the skills to maintain good eyesight and eye health for a lifetime.