The Blurred Future Take care of your Eye vision
In the last decade, people became weight conscious. In this decade, people are focusing on nutrients, posture, and sitting ergonomics.In the next decade, people will focus on their eye vision.
- 🖥️ If you are a working professional who spends most of his time on a glaring screen, you will find this article helpful.
- 📱 If you have children and you are worried about the amount of time being spent by them on phones or tablets, you can make important decisions about the well-being of your child's eye vision after reading this article.
- 👁️ People are not paying attention to their eyes with the same seriousness as they do with their weight/physique. I also neglected proper care of my eyes until the last year. Since I am an indie-hacker, problems associated with eyes like redness increased during the pandemic.
A brief history
Thirteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Myopia (People who have to wear specs to see far distances).
Myopia, nearsightedness occurs in 30 to 40 percent of adults in the United States and Europe, and up to 80 percent of the Asian population. The prevalence of myopia has been increasing rapidly in recent decades, and it's been predicted that by the year 2050, about half of the world's population will be nearsighted.
Source
As everyone does, I got spectacles ( -2, -2 in both eyes), and it looked like the problem was solved.
Every two years, I used to get my eye checkup done and change the glasses if needed. Luckily, my eye power didn't change for the last 13 years.
The doctor told me to put my glasses on even If I didn't do any work requiring focus. I religiously followed that rule except while playing badminton.
While playing badminton, glasses acted as a hindrance to me, and I never felt the need for spectacles to win the game.
The Coronavirus pandemic and work from home
Since the coronavirus pandemic started, I have been working from home. Since everything went online, my screen time increased significantly as compared to pre-pandemic work-from-home. During normal work-from-home, you can go out, meet with people, go for a short vacation on a long weekend, etc. But during a pandemic, work from home is very much limited to your computer or smartphone screen.
Whenever I feel strain in my eyes after a lengthy video call or a long coding session, I follow the usual steps i.e.
- Taking little breaks in between the work,
- Splashing eyes with water to relax them.
- Looking at the distance to calm the eyes.
- Go for a short walk to refresh my mood.
A few weeks ago, when I was working on my computer with my glasses on, I noticed tiny blurriness. I didn't bother too much at that time. But it's been a long time since my last eye checkup; I thought of going for a new checkup.
A strange thing happened!
My doctor said, "You were wearing your spectacles with incorrect power. Your correct power of both the lenses is -1 for the left eye, (-2, and 0.5) cylindrical for the right eye)". I was happy and sad at the same time. Happy because one eye power decreased and sad because it showed cylindrical power in one eye, which was not there before.
At that point, I was not sure whether my left eye's power decreased or was diagnosed wrong for all the previous times I got my eye checkup done. In the past, I had suspected many times that both my eyes had a different power. While playing badminton, if I closed my left eye, I had a problem playing the game. I recalled blurriness in the right eye five years ago and thought it was just a temporary issue.
I decided not to get my next spectacle with correct power as diagnosed by the doctor immediately. I thought of reading more and getting a lot of my questions answered.
The following day while walking on my terrace,I thought WTF, how could my eye power reduce? I have heard it always increases. How could this happen? I again recalled all my past instances where I doubted whether my both eyes had the same power.
But does that mean I was wearing the wrong spectacles for the last 13 years? Or my eye improved automatically even after the smartphone revolution? 🧐
I was perplexed and confused. 
All the memories related to the confusion of my exact eye power came alive.
I have always been a curious person. I started digging. After going through articles and articles, I found the following points.
- ✅ Your eye vision changes throughout the day, just like weight.
- ✅ Your eye vision changes when you are under stress.
- ✅ Your eye vision can be improved to some extent naturally by doing eye exercises.
- ✅ Most people have one strong eye of the two, just like everyone has a strong hand, a weak hand
I got a strange aha feeling
It is the same when you are tired of your job, and someone tells you a million-dollar idea. Why not try these natural eye exercises I found in the books and articles and see whether these work? I didn't have trust in the exercises because I always believed once the cornea's shape is changed, it's changed forever. But I was also thought that there was no harm in trying.
So I decided before changing my glasses, let's wait for two months. Do the exercises and then change the glasses. If I had worn glasses of wrong power for 13 years, what difference can two months make?
So, I ordered some equipment needed for the exercises like:
- ✅ Eye-charts that consists of letters of varying font heights
- ✅ Spectacles with one glass removed and one covered with black paper.
- ✅ Glow-in-dark ball (Not delivered yet to my home).
I have been doing the following exercises for about 15 days.
Sunning
(Video Link)Close your eyes and move your head left-right in front of the Sun
Palming
(Video Link)Rub both of your hands and put them over your eyes, making a cup-like formation. It's a routine exercise in Yoga.
Long Swing
(Video Link)Close your hand and point your thumb in an up direction. Put your hand in front of your eyes at a 1-foot distance. Swing from left to right and vice-versa. Notice the movement in the background. Now close the eyes and repeat the movement. This time imagine the direction of the background.
I have started seeing a tiny improvement in my eye vision. It's been just 15 days, so I can't say anything with certainty that my vision improved significantly. I will certainly tell more details in the follow-up article. But the following things I have observed till now:
- ✅ Eye strain is less. I feel better after doing eye exercises.
- ✅ I have a feeling ( I am not sure) that my vision is improving slightly.
- ✅ I am much more aware of my eyes vision and have changed my lifestyle to accommodate those exercises
The purpose of this blog post
I have written this short blog to remind people that taking care of their eyes is as important as their physique. We are bombarded with light-emitting screens. People generally take things for granted until they lose them. I'll certainly write about my eye vision journey and let you know the results from time to time via social media posts/blogs.
About me
I have decided to go on an indie hacker path. I'll share all my thoughts and learning, which will include Tech, Product, Design, Startups, Indie Hacking, Side-income, finance, psychology, and not-so-common stuff.
Currently, I am building PhotoATM, a quick online graphic generator tool for marketing on social media. It was scheduled to be launched in 2020 but couldn't because of some financial and personal hiccups caused by Coronavirus.
I'll write a lot about my views on various topics in the future.
Let's see how it goes.