6 Tips to Naturally Improve Your Reading and Close-Up Vision

Are you tired of realizing you forgot your reading glasses at home and now you can’t read the menu? What about squinting to read the new text message on your phone? Losing your close-up vision can be frustrating. You’re not alone.

Most people start to notice their near vision starts to get less clear and blurrier in their 40s. It’s a common trait of getting older. As the other muscles in your body start to lose their tightness, so do the muscles in your eyes. Not being able to see objects near you, but being able to clearly see objects far away is called farsightedness.

Farsightedness is another word for hyperopia: clarity loss in your vision due to weakened eye muscles and decreasing eye coordination. When you’re young and have healthier eyes, you’re able to focus clearly on what’s in front of you. As you age, the ciliary muscles in your eyes weaken and can’t bend enough to direct light onto the retina properly. If the light is bouncing off different parts of your eye when it’s supposed to be directly hitting the retina, you will suffer from farsightedness.

Not to worry, farsighted friends! We have six tips to naturally improve your near vision and prevent increasing hyperopia.

1. Blink More Often

You may be thinking, “I can’t control my blinking, my body just does it.” And on one hand, that’s true. But there are certain activities during which we blink less than we should. For example, staring at a computer screen while focusing on typing a report or when watching a movie. Our eyes require lots of blinking to keep them hydrated, so during those activities when you blink less, your eyes become uncomfortable. The drier they are, the less function and coordination the muscles can provide. Be conscious of when you’re not blinking enough and change it.

2. Rest

The other muscles in your body can take a rest whenever you sit down or lay down or lean against the wall. Your eyes, however, never get to rest unless you’re sleeping. That’s a lot of time to be working consistently without a break! Overworking the eye muscles will lessen their strength resulting in not being able to focus on things up-close.

Try following the 10-10-10 rule: For every 10 minutes, you spend staring at a screen, spend 10 seconds staring at something 10 feet away. The change of focus distance from close-up to far away stretches your eye muscles and retrains them to see both clearly. It will vastly improve your close-up vision.

3. Eat Foods High in Vision-Benefiting Nutrients

There are a variety of nutrients that directly benefit your vision and should be incorporated daily. Vitamins A, C, and E are extremely beneficial, as are antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids. You can get all of these nutrients through your diet, or if you’re too busy to prioritize it, start taking natural supplements. Supplements are a natural way to give your body the nutrients it needs without eating foods you don’t want to.

4. Adjust the Lighting

When you’re trying to focus on something in the dark, your eyes squint and strain to see it properly. This causes your eye muscles to be weakened and unable to see objects up close even in the light. Prevent this from happening by always ensuring there’s adequate lighting when you want to read a book or be on your phone. When you’re on a plane, bring a book light. When watching TV at night, keep a lamp on in the room so your eyes don’t have to strain to see. Why make your eyes work harder than they have to if it’s going to damage your vision?

5. William Bates Method

This method of improving your vision was created by an ophthalmologist from the early 1900s who discovered that doing different light targeting techniques could improve your close-up vision. There is some controversy as to whether his methods work because there is no scientific proof that they do. However, anecdotally, some claim it works. Here are the two methods:

• Cover your eyes with your palms, creating total darkness. Focus on the darkness and feel your eye muscles relax. Do this for 10 minutes every day to relieve the habitual strain you put on your eyes from squinting.
• Focus on an object in the distance, 20 feet away. Begin swaying your body, or rocking from foot to foot, while maintaining focus on the object. The gentle swaying and focus on a distant object give your eye muscles a break from straining to see things up close.

6. The Pinhole Effect

Here is another eye exercise you can practice to help improve your close-up vision. For your eyes to focus directly on the object in front of you, the light needs to enter the eye and directly hit the retina. As your eye muscles weaken, they are unable to ensure light only goes to the retina and instead, it bounces off different parts of your eyes causing blurriness and lack of focus. This method will retrain your eyes to focus together and your muscles to help direct light.

Clench your hands into a fist and lift them up to your eyes. With your eyes open, look through the tiny hole created by your fists. Doing this allows the light to go directly into the center of your eye and land on your retina perfectly. Use the pinhole effect for 15 minutes every day to improve your farsightedness.

Now that you have some tips to improve your close-up vision, get ready to throw away those reading glasses for good. No more forgetting them at home when you go to a restaurant! No more getting made fun of by your kids for squinting at your phone!

Improving your vision is a life-changer for many people and completely worth working on naturally. You don’t necessarily need to get surgery or wear contact lenses to be able to see clearly. A simple supplement and eye exercise regimen should vastly improve your close-up vision. Just follow the tips mentioned here and watch your hyperopia disappear and your perfect vision reappear.