William Bates (1860-1931) was born in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Medical Degree in 1885. He practiced privately and also in various hospitals in New York City. He was also an instructor in ophthalmology at the New York Postgraduate Hospital and Medical School.
He became increasingly dissatisfied with the conventional ophthalmology practice and began his own research. The main reason that he was dissatisfied is because once a patient was prescribed glasses there was nothing that could be done except prescribing glasses. There was no way to make your eyesight better.
Bates realized that people put a lot of strain on their eyes. He has developed various eye strain exercises to bring the eyes in a relaxing state and developed what is called the Bates Method eyesight improvement. This was back then when there were no televisions, computers, video games and smartphones. Today we have a lot more strain in our eyes. Bates started to teach people from the 1890 how to see without glasses.
Bates developed various methods. Palming is one of them and it is an eye relaxation method when you close your eyes and place your palms over your eyes without any pressure. If the eyes didn’t strain it would be pitch dark. Illusions of light and colors are a sign of strain. He found relaxation was the key to be able to imagine and see clearly. Eye movements affect the way we see. By doing eye movement exercises we can improve our eyesight. Sunning is a controversial vision exercise. Never look into the bright sun but there are benefits in looking at the sun at sunrise or at sunset. Birds are doing that and they have very good eyesight.
There are many followers of the Bates Method. Today there are a larger number of eye improvement exercises. Ophthalmologists are not interested in telling you about eye exercises and companies who make glasses, lenses, frames and contact lenses want you to depend on them.
Doing Bates method eyesight improvement doesn’t mean that you want to throw away your glasses when you drive your car but it will teach you that you can depend less and less on them if you teach your eyes to see better.
Learn more about how the combination of Eye Exercises and Healthy Diet can restore and maintain Healthy Eyesight.