Restoring Your Eyesight: A Taoist Approach

by Doug Marsh

A holistic guide to improving one’s vision both physically and spiritually

• Explains how blurred vision is a reflection of other imbalances in the body, mind, and spirit

• Offers natural methods for improvement of poor eyesight and stress-related difficulties, including dyslexia and ADHD

• Combines the core values of the Bates method of natural vision improvement and Taoism

Fewer than three percent of children in North America are born with visual defects, yet as they become adults nearly two thirds will become reliant on prescription lenses to see clearly. Virtually nonexistent in pre-industrialized cultures, this epidemic of blurred vision can be traced to mental, physical, and spiritual imbalances in modern society. The traditional “quick fixes” of eyeglasses and contact lenses only serve to cover the true cause of blurred vision while increasing eye-strain, and often progressively worsen eyesight as the eyes become trained to work within the confines of the corrective lenses. The advent of refractive surgery carries even more serious risks.

In Restoring Your Eyesight , Doug Marsh offers a natural alternative that shows readers how to improve their eyesight by taking conscious control of their vision health. He combines proven methods pioneered a century ago by eye doctor William Bates with the ancient Chinese wisdom of Taoism. Marsh describes how vision goes deeper than the eyes and optic nerves, extending well into the layers of the mind, emotions, and spirit. Eyesight difficulties are often connected to behavioral and stress-related syndromes, such as dyslexia, ADHD, stuttering, TMJ, and anxiety disorders. He draws upon the core values of the Bates method and Taoism--rhythm, softness, return, balance, and wholeness--to provide guidelines for a holistic healing of outer and inner vision.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published December 8, 2006

Reviews

[Quratulain · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Taoist Approach to Vision:
There is no such thing as problem-free technology. The difficulty with evaluating the pros and cons of new technology is that the benefits are always immediate and obvious but the negative consequences are speculative at best. We don’t have the knowledge base to be able to predict precise negative consequences and so we are stuck sounding vague.” David Suzuki
The rash of health problems is a strong message that we have a huge imbalance in our harried and hurried lifestyles. The general decline of visual acuity.
The lower animals when subjected to civilized conditions respond to them in precisely the same way as do human creatures. I have examined many domestic and menagerie animals, and have found them, in many cases, myopic, although they neither read, nor write, nor sew, nor set type.” Nate’s
Bates maintained that myopia worsened as children strained to adapt to the glasses— an iatrogenic outcome.
Progressive myopia- opinion that myopia is result of genetics (abnormally long eyeball) the environment (too much close work) or a combination.
Nearsighted , myopic people have better visual acuit under bright light, so glasses prescribed for poor indoor lighting are automatically too strong outside.
Nearsighted glasses are prescribed for just one distance- twenty feet. There is a direct relationship between the distance and the stress: at ten feet the glasses are 2x as strong, at 5 feet the glasses are 4x as strong; at 1 foot the glasses are 20x as strong. The eyes cannot compensate without being hurt. This is what causes progressive myopia.
High myopia: cataracts, glaucoma, detached retina, macular degeneration
The patient has been a lifelong victim of ignorance and exploitation.
General Adaptation Syndrome: response to distress is 1) alarm reaction, 2)the stage of resistance 3) stage of exhaustion.
The myopia is a temporary demand on the eyes caused by stress and is reversible relatively quickly if caught soon enough through NVI relaxation methods. If the myopia is not reversed by NVI, another alarm stage hits at the first wearing of prescription lenses to neutralize the blur.
Serious complications can arise from contact lens solutions .
The power of seeing is greatly lowered by distressing emotional states and conscious effort can interfere with the processes of seeing even at times when no distressing emotions are present.”
In the science of ophthalmology, theories are often states as facts and have served to obscure the truth and throttle the investigation for more than 100 years.
Glasses severely restrict the natural range of eye motions for normal functioning. The more powerful the lenses, the greater the impact on eye mobility.“
Perfect sight can only be attained by relaxation
Sleep doesn’t rest the eyesight, not does avoidance of eye use for certain close activities during the day.”
Quiet the conscious strain and mental effort in conjunction with proper movement to achieve more efficient functioning.
Shifting, blinking, swing, concentric focus
That means the eyes shift focus about 3-5 times a second.
People who began to improve their eyesight by means of relaxation invariably strained if they attempted to consciously shift too rapidly.
What you perceive will happen is your reality at that moment. Perception is reality.
Swing- oppositional movement
The more rapid and short the shift, the more subtle the illusion of the swing. The quicker and shorter the illusion of the swing the more relaxed the vision.
Eccentric focus=blur
Those with good vision can observe that only a tiny spot at the center is clearest. But for those with visual blur, this ability has to be regained gradually •
The eyes are only at rest when they are shifting.
The links should be done softly every couple of seconds or so.”
Inward activity refers to closing your eyelids to shut out the external light and surroundings while using your imagination to keep your eyes in motion, dynamically relaxed. Rest your eyes by avoiding distracting external stimuli that tempt the stare in the first place.” Also known as palming.
Palming- few minutes to 30min or more. If done properly a person should be able to briefly see better than before starting.
Palming: With relaxed vision the field should be as black as can be. Mentally shift constantly to keep your eyes mobile. Use your imagination. Mental shifting is done the entire time of palming. Feel the blink reflex.
Mentally shifting a small object with the eyes closed achieves such relaxation that a hypnotic state can be induced.
Sunning: eyes closed. Face towards the sun. sway gently
Outward activity of the eyes- done without wearing glasses. Incorporate movement without stare and concentric focus and swing.
Sway: initiate action that unlocks the stare, permitting the natural reflexive eye movements to take place without strain. Standing from foot to foot or seated in tick-rock fashion. Rocking Chair. Swivel chair. The eyes must have the feeling of tracing or sketching smoothly in the pattern of the swaying motion.
Sway: whatever direction you move, you want to see the apparent movement of stationary objects in the opposite direction of your sway. Universal swing when walking.
Shifting: when the text is at a distance just into your blur zone, practice shifting from the top of a letter to the bottom of the same letter.
Palm and see into the distance. Do repeatedly for better eyesight over time.
Mentally see a black period swing by shifting from one side of it to the other side, back and forth.
Mentally see the black letter O by shifting from one curved side to the other.
Have a small text or chart at a distance where it is slightly blurred. Close your eyes and Imagine a letter very sharp and black. Open eyes and look at actual letter while still imagining it to be black and shifting.
If they are under 12 years of age, or even under 16, and have never worn glasses, they are usually cured in a few days, weeks, or months and always within a year.”
You’ll be amazed at how your eyes act as a type of barometer to gauge your level of strain under various circumstances.”
Balance is primarily dependent on three systems of senses: 1) the inner ear (vestibular system) 2) eyes (vision) 3) muscle and joint awareness (proprioception)
Blindsight
Peripheral and subliminal aspects of vision are essentially subconscious and reflexive.
Defects in nystagmus are such a frequent by-product of vestibular dysfunction that they are the most accurate means of diagnosing this dysfunction. The eyes automatically react to a change in balance, regardless of whether or not they actually see that change. Nystagmus is a visual aid but not vision dependent.”
Belly breathing
Eye massage, palming
Bodywork, postural improvement techniques
Balance- move with eyes closed. Tandem walking
Release neck muscle
Alexander technique
Rolfing
Feldenkrais method
Craniosacral therapy
Without even looking at the body of a nearsighted person, one can predict confidently that he or she will have pronounced tension in the forehead, jaw, neck, shoulders, upper arms, lower back and CALVES.
Donna Finando
Bonnie Prudden
Janet Travell and David Simons
When the sight is artificially cleared, the external environment becomes distorted. The off-balance effect continues- hidden from awareness.
Ian Waterman”

[Clay Mabbitt · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was a huge disappointment. First of all the references to Taoism are tacked on as an afterthought. There are a few quotes sprinkled throughout, but Marsh doesn't do much to draw parallels between Taoist philosophy and the Bates method and NVI he references throughout the book. The opportunity is definitely there to draw some parallels, but he just doesn't.

The "Restoring Your Eyesight" is also misleading in the title. This book is really a love letter to Bates and a rant against corrective lenses. Anyone who wants to read a book with this title is going to be willing to go along with him on both of those major ideas. (It's a little like reading a Rush Limbaugh book. If you're reading it, you probably already agree with him.)

So I was on the hook and primed to learn how to apply these techniques to restore my vision. Unfortunately the book gives only the most cursory description of the Bates method.

Without specific, applicable ideas on improving eyesight or really delving into the connections between Taoist thought and NVI, I can't see why this book needed to be written.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting deep dive into a decades old method of improving vision through the lens of a Taoist, a scientist, and a practitioner of the method. At times the author appeared to stray off topic as he explained or told a story but each time he nicely tied the story or explanation into the chapter subject. He takes time to explain how the Bates Method worked in the author's experience as well as sharing stories of other success stories and some not such success in a way that taught this reader about the method and ways to practice it. Should a reader choose to they can easily become fluent in the topic from reading this book.

[Oleh Myroshnichenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book touches upon many subjects and “wonderfully” doesn’t delve deeply enough in any. I could do better reading on the topic actually written on the cover.

[Sandeep Panesar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly philosophical gibberish rather than guidance.