health mind and body

Far and away the most comprehensive book on vision improvement I've come across, this is more of an encyclopedia than a book you read straight through. Mr. Quackenbush - not an eye doctor, but a long-time teacher of the Bates method - goes through the mechanics and physiology of the eye and the eye's natural vision habits in exhaustive detail. He also gives pointers on reducing one's prescription, movement exercises, acupressure, relaxation games, left-brain/right-brain physiology, and holistic health, all geared toward improving your eyesight. Central to his teaching of the Bates method is that there are NO exercises. These are habits which are to be practiced 24 hours a day! And they are so simple, so easy to do, and afterwards you'll wonder why people are still stuck in poor vision.

Tom, who founded the Natural Vision Center, used to teach his courses in the San Francisco Bay Area but is now in Ashland, Oregon. I've taken his natural vision course and I found it to be profound. It's been a year and a half; my prescription used to be 20/400, but now I can occasionally see 20/50 or better. Progress is expected to be slow but steady, and I saw jumps in my vision after only a few weeks in the course.

"Relearning to See" is the largest and most comprehensive book ever written on the Bates Method of Natural Eyesight Improvement Re-Education. The author has taught Natural Eyesight Improvement and Teacher Training classes since 1983. He has recently relocated from San Francisco to the Natural Vision Center in Ashland, Oregon. RTS contains the pioneering work of ophthalmologist William H. Bates, MD. This educational program is *not* about eye exercises---a common misconception of the Bates Method. The most important contribution of RTS is that it concisely describes the 3 principles and 3 habits of natural vision. Yet each principle and habit is thoroughly explained, since all of them are necessary for normal, clear sight. RTS is a 521-page tome containing 60 color plates, over 150 illustrations and eye charts, (not a small booklet like most other books written on this topic), and contains information on how to improve nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia, strabismus (e.g. crossed-eye), amblyopia (lazy-eye), and many other vision problems. Even many serious eye problems have improved with this educational program. RTS covers reading, driving, using a computer, in nighttime vision, flying, light tolerance, artificial lighting and many other topics. Glasses are an artificial crutch, and contact lenses are foreign objects. Both tend to reinforce strained vision habits and make your eyesight worse. RTS educates you about lenses and prescriptions so you can go to your eye doctor and get legal, safe, reduced-power glasses while you are improving your eyesight. One of the most interesting and valuable chapters is called "Brains and Vision," where the author presents a larger perspective on the Bates Method using the modern right brain/left brain model. Bates stated that vision is primarily mental. The sections on left-brain myopes versus right-brain farsights are quite revealing. There are many mental and vision quality benefits to improving eyesight naturally, including memory, concentration, imagination, creativity, color perception, depth perception, contrast and texture awareness. While Dr. Bates did make some errors, his *solutions* of re-establishing correct vision habits are flawless---because they are created by nature. Read Chapter 1, Chapters 2-4 if you have been wearing glasses or contacts; then jump to Chapters 9+ and get started with natural vision principles and habits. You can also read 50+ extraordinary feedbacks on this book (search for "NVCSF"). Then buy this book and begin Relearning to See---naturally and clearly! Also, check out his even larger, second work: "Better Eyesight: The Complete Magazines of William H. Bates," a 550,000+ word compilation of all 132 monthly magazines from 1919-1930.

I did not realize this was such a large book and technical at the same time. But it is concise and thorough and I skipped many of the technical explanations and derived the main geist of improving vision naturally.

Mainly the book conveys the importance of relearning correct habitual seeing at all times as opposed to exercises for the eyes. The book is emphatic and focused on this point.

Mainly the three habits of seeing is blinking, sketching, and breathing and the book goes to great lenghts to explain and convince in many different situations its relevance.

Outstanding reading. Just realizing your erred visual habits will improve your sight to an extent which varies widely but as the book says it will take more time and relearning to undo years or lifetime of incorrect habits that it becomes natural and subconcious as was what you were born.