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Why Haven't I Heard About This Before?   Surprisingly, training your eyesight for vision improvement isn’t something new. It has been used since the early 1900's.   It all started when Helmholtz published his paper about accommodation and lens focus in 1885. According to Helmholtz, when the eye needs to focus on something close by, the ciliary muscle surrounding the lens contracts, causing the lens to expand. An expanded lens can focus on nearby objects.   What is wrong with the picture that Helmholtz painted for us all those years ago? It assumes that when the eye focuses, only the ciliary muscle is involved in the process.   Let us look at something like walking. A combination of muscles work together to make it possible for us to walk. Not only are the muscles help you move, they are also maintaining your balance while you do.   All the activities are coordinated by the brain, which controls the various muscles by signaling them when to contract or relax an

Principles of Vision Training

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Principles of Vision Training When it comes to vision training, not all optometrists seems to be on the same page about it. It is admittedly baffling and for many, it is an inference that could make them go out of business. Hundreds of near sighted patients including children are restoring their natural eyesight and omitting their dependence on glasses totally.   Near sightedness or Myopia is an incredibly common medical problem that causes the patient difficulty in seeing objects at a distance. Data shows that the incidence of Myopia has increased in the past few decades. In the 1970s, only 25% of the population had Myopia. But now, about 42% myopics exist.   Myopia is a leading vision problem Myopia can be genetically determined or environmentally determined. Heredity plays an essential role. If the parents have myopia, then the children are at a high risk of inheriting the condition as well.   Additionally, children who spend long durations of time engaged in near s

More about the Bates Method

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Peter Mansfield in his book “The Bates Method” (1998) introduced Dr Bates this way. The primary tool of Dr. Bates research was the retinoscope, an instrument of elegant simplicity, which allows direct assessment of refraction of the eye. The instrument was coming into regular clinical use while Bates was a student. He was intrigued by the possibilities of this new tool and made it his specialty. Bates was particularly interested in observing animals, children and adults, in normal activity in daylight, as opposed to the artifi- cial surroundings of the consulting room. As his observations continued he began to suspect, then became certain, that the eyes of people seeing normally behaved differently from those who saw abnormally. Further more, whether the vision was on the whole normal or not, the refraction of the eye was constantly changing. Bates then realised that the changes reflected, among other things, the state of mind of the subjects, so the vision would always be n

More about fluorescent lights

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Fluorescent light tubes was introduced by General Electric at both the New York and San Francisco World Fairs in 1932. Compact Fluorescent Light CFL was also developed by General Electric in 1973, but the 25 million dollars needed the build a factory was considered too expensive at the time so it was not produced outside the laboratory. The design was eventually copied by others. In 1995, helical CFLs, were manufactured in China and became commercially available. Since that time, their sales have steadily increased.   In 2005 the EU began phasing out incandescent light bulbs in favour of CFL’s the US followed in 2014. The rationale is energy sawing since the CFL are using less energy than the old-fashioned Edison incandescent lamp. However, the newer solid state Light Emitting Diodes L.E.D. technology is far more energy efficient. L.E.D lights use 80% less energy and has a lifespan approaching 40 years of continuous use and has no mercury. Naturalness of fluore

Light, Color Perception and Temperature

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This is the second in the series of articles on light. In this article, we will be discussing about how our eyes perceive light, as well as, colour temperature. Previously, we discussed that there are three standards that are used to measure daylight. Of the three, the D55 standard is used for measuring light at noon. Units of Light Measurement Different units are used for measuring light. We will be discussing three of them here. A foot-candle is equal to the light from a candle placed one foot away. A 23-watt bulb produces light equal to that produced by 125 candles. Lumen actually measures the power of light that our eyes perceive. A 23-watt bulb will produce light equivalent to 1,600 lumen. The unit that you should be concerning yourself with is the Lux. It factors in the area that a light source will illuminate. That is why, most public places have their minimum lighting requirement specified in Lux. If all this talk of units has you confused, here is an easier w