Stop Wearing Glasses and Improve Your Vision

If you’re sick and tired of wearing your glasses, I know where you’re coming from.

If you think it’s possible to see clearly again without them, you’d be right.

 

What happens when you stop wearing your glasses?

For some of us it’s scary to get off our meds and see what happens. They’re the only thing keeping us from falling apart, right?

The same goes for glasses. You’ve been taught that you need them. You take them off, look around, and sure enough, it looks like you need them. You wake in the morning and can’t see a thing until you put them on.

You think about how to get out of them, but you don’t find a lot of encouragement.

Your parents tell you that your eyes will get worse if you don’t wear them all the time.

But is that what your eye doctor said? Maybe. Maybe not. If you have myopia (nearsightedness), some doctors believe that glasses will stop your eyes from getting worse as fast as they would have otherwise. There’s no doubt, however, that in almost all cases, people’s vision gets worse and worse if they keep wearing glasses.

But there’s a little more to it than that. Your vision can also get worse without glasses. Perhaps not as fast, but glasses aren’t the only factor.

The biggest factor is how you use your eyes. There are aspects to this that you’ve never thought about. Your habits either promote good vision or bad vision. There are real changes you can make that will have an impact and lead you towards good vision again, without glasses.

Glasses do some nasty things to prevent your good habits from taking over to improve your vision back to normal. See my article The Problem With Glasses.

So what happens when you don’t wear your glasses? It depends. Maybe some eyestrain and tired eyes. Certainly a lot of blur. Anxiety.

What also happens is your eyes are given the freedom to learn to see without glasses. It doesn’t mean they automatically will. They’ll need some help.

 

Cold Turkey

So how about the good old “cold turkey” approach. Usually that term is used to describe an abrupt and complete end to a drug habit, but glasses are a lot like a drug.

I could tell you to stop wearing your glasses now and be done with it. If you work in a profession where it’s all about near work, and you can manage this, and you can find your way around and do everything you need to without glasses, sure, maybe that will work for you.

Is this necessary? Do you have to just quit immediately?

Nope. Whether you sometimes wear your glasses in moments of weakness or an important immediate need to see something, that’s not what is going to determine what happens to your vision. So don’t worry about it. Don’t make any big commitments in going cold turkey that you’ll stress yourself out trying to keep.

 

Weaker glasses may be a temporary solution

The whole point is to learn to see clearly without glasses and not ever be dependent on them. Until then, you’ve got life to deal with, so weaker glasses might be a good interim solution. You probably you want to be able to drive, and it would be nice to be able to still recognize your friends, read signs, and generally be able to do things without feeling disabled.

Your eye doctor is already familiar with issuing a reduced prescription for patients who want a pair for reading or computer work. The reason for that is myopic glasses are calculated to give you clear distance vision. For any distance closer than 20ft (which is close to optical infinity as far as focus adjustment is concerned), they’re stronger than necessary. People complain about eyestrain with their glasses, and eye doctors have figured out it’s partly because the eyes have to over-focus for near work through the distance glasses, and reducing the strength of the glasses helps.

So you can request a reduced prescription from your eye doctor, telling him you intend to use them for reading and computer work… which is also true, right? No need to tell him you will be using them for everything if you think he’ll react badly to the idea.

Or you can try your luck at simply ordering new glasses online, a little weaker than your old prescription, and type in your doctor’s info. They might contact him for verification. They might not. Worst case, they’ll refuse your order and your eye doctor will give you a tongue-lashing for going behind his back. But it probably won’t be so bad as that. Your eye doctor is there to provide a service that you want and should have the sense to value your business and treat you well.

 

Do the exercises without glasses

All of the exercises I give should be done without glasses. They’re all doable without glasses, even if your myopia is pretty high. In many cases you can move closer to the eye chart on the wall to be able to see enough to make the exercise doable. There’s always a way.

The thing is with your glasses on you wouldn’t be able to notice the changes in your vision as you do the exercise. They give bad feedback. If your eyes improve their focus as you’re doing an exercise, your glasses will make your vision look worse instead. So it’s going to be really confusing and I don’t recommend it. And these moments of clearer vision are so important for your morale and confidence. You have to have the opportunity to experience these moments without your glasses and see how easy and possible it is for you to see without them. Your clear vision is just right there waiting to be activated, it’s right there within you, totally accessible, it’s really nothing special, and I want you to have the opportunity to experience this.