You’re going to slip up, with your habits.

At some point sooner or later, you’ll find yourself not quite sticking to the routine.  When you start slipping, which happens to most of us at some point.

There are a few things we want to consider here.  There is the matter of bad habits creeping in, vs. just not doing some of the things that actively improve our vision.  These are important distinctions – and with a bit of care, it is quite easy to minimize vision improvement efforts, and still get most of the benefits.

Let’s take a look:

Wearing the Proper Prescriptions

This is really key.  If you go back to wearing full prescription, all day every day, for close-up work as well – then you are in trouble.

It is just about the only thing you really want to avoid, if you find life taking over and you just have no time to think about vision improvement.  As long as you stick with differential for close-up work, and normalized for distance, you are fine.  You remember the installment about the Lock-In.  Wearing the correct prescriptions, keeps you at the level you worked your way up to.

As long as you wear the correct prescriptions, there is little risk that you loose your hard-won progress.

What else can you do, quick and easy, to stay on top, even if you are ‘taking a break’?

  • On relaxed days, consider the middle distance (no glasses, if you are -2D or lower).
  • Keep watch on keeping good distance for all close-up activities (being that this should be a habit, it is not hard to do).
  • Grab a centimeter measurement once in a while anyway – it may help get you re-motivated.

As long as you maintain proper perspective of what you are accomplishing, you are actually not going backwards.  You may be slowing down improvement, but even that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Nobody can go from advanced axial myopia to 20/20 in a single, full-on sprint of myopia rehab.

Sometimes you just re-read previous installments, maybe one a week.  Find something inspiring in it, consider if you could add it to a bit of habit forming effort.

Myopia rehab is like playing the tape (of your progressive descent into myopia), but backwards.

Think about all the things you know now, vs. before you started.

Consider all the things I have introduced you to, over time. It is basically all reversing the course, of what got you into myopia in the first place.  You were wearing your glasses a lot, at full prescription.  Before then, you had a bit lower prescription.  Before then, you spent just a little less time up close.  Lower prescription.  Maybe as far back as twenties or teens even, more outdoor time.  Another optometrist visit, a much lower prescription back then.

There is no magic here.  We just account for your current lifestyle, and then start rewinding the process.

And by now you know it works.  You’ve got the improving centimeter measurements, you have lower prescription glasses.  You have experienced clear flashes, and (probably) more than one lowered normalized prescription.

How fast do you want to (or can you) keep progressing?

So much of it is allowing yourself to not feel stressed by this.  Think of pushing focus.  We don’t go all crazy, far into the blur zone of the screen.  That would be pointless.  We just push, ever so gently, right to the edge of focus.  The same is true for the rehab process.  I don’t want you to jump out of the proverbial window, pushing focus 6 hours per day, and then doing every other exercise we have discussed.

You pick and choose.  Find your personal edge of focus equivalent of all the things on the menu (installments).

Are you comfortable, taking off an hour of your close-up time?  If so, excellent.  But if not, maybe you just choose to do the Sunday Off installment. Or you stopped reading books in bed at night, in a dark room.  Turned up the ambient light when you watch TV.  Any one of these things, paired with your new prescription choices, means you will continue to improve.

I am going to elaborate on some techniques to diversify your focal plane.  At this point, you technically don’t need BackTo20/20, to keep improving.  But I know from experience, that supporting you on this journey with more trick and strategies and updates is more than helpful.  Your odds of sticking with it are notably higher if you keep doing sessions at a rate of about two, possibly three, per week.

What’s Next?

Astigmatism correction and equalization (left eye vs. right eye diopter) are topics we are going to explore some more.  Depending on your current myopia degree and progress, astigmatism correction changes might be valid for your next normalized prescription.

You have the eye patch for equalization work.  Depending on how much you have used it, the degree of difference between your left and right eye, and any progress you have found in centimeter there, we are due for some changes there as well.  Remember we need prescription changes to encourage and lock in improvements.  And we’ll explore why your differential prescription is actually too high.

Hang in there, take this session to internalize that it’s ok to take breaks.  Keep the simple checklist on how to manage “time off” from improving your eyesight, and you’ll be all good.

Cheers,

-Jake

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