Bates Eye Exercises – Hermann Helmholtz vs. William Bates

After investigating if Bates eye exercises are a scam, and you decided for yourself, let see how we got to this discussion in the first place. Where did they come from, and why are the specialists not using Bates eye exercises?

Bates Eye Exercises – It All Started With Helmholtz

In 1855, Hermann von Helmholtz tried to figure out how we can focus near and far objects. He noticed that when an object was brought nearer to the eye, the curvature of the front of the lens increased.  So he concluded that the changing shape of the lens is the way the eye allows us to zoom in close, and see clearly into the distance.

According to Helmholtz, the ciliary muscle that circles around the lens controls the shape of the lens.  When the muscle is relaxed, the lens is flattens and when it contracts, the lens becomes rounder, increasing the focusing power.

The ophthalmic industry has adopted Helmholtz’s theory.  For them the inability to focus on near objects comes down to an incorrect shape of the lens. According to the “specialist” glasses, contacts or eye surgery are the only ways to correct it.

Bates Eye Exercises – The History

Dr. William Bates, an ophthalmologist on the other hand, performed a number of experiments with Bates eye exercises that disproved the theory. He discovered that the shape of the eyeball, which is determined by the external muscles around the eye, is responsible for the shape of the lens.

In other words, when the outer eye muscles contract the eyeball extends and flattens out, much like the zoom on a photo camera, and the changed shape of the eyeball alters the shape of the lens.

So Dr Bates concluded that shortsightedness is due to chronic tension in the outer eye muscles, so the eyeball is not able to assume its neutral position. Farsightedness on the other hand is due to too weak eye muscles that don’t have enough strength to contract the eyeball out.

He discovered that Bates eye exercises used by Native American Indians in his area helped to do both. Strengthen too weak muscles, and reduce or get rid of the tension by relaxing the eyes. He used the Bates eye exercises on many of his patients with positive results.

Bates Eye Exercises - Who Is Right?

If you believe the eye “specialist”, it’s Helmholtz. If you believe results, it’s Bates eye exercises..

Even though Dr Bates did a lot of research around Bates eye exercises, even though he was an ophthalmologist, not a physicist like Helmholtz, and even though he documented his results well, when he presented these to his peers, he got lobbied out. Because selling glasses made too much money. Bates eye exercises made you independent and fixed the issue, which wasn’t nowhere near as profitable. And so it still is today.

Glasses, contacts, and eye surgery are a $50 billion dollar industry in the US alone. That was in 2008. But you get stronger and stronger glasses, and eye surgery often doesn’t last either.

So if Helmholtz was right, then you would get weaker glasses, and eye surgery would last long-term at a 100% success rate.

Even though today you need more than Bates eye exercises to rectify what’s going wrong under the surface, the underlying root cause is in the eye muscles. What keeps them tense or weak, and what you can do about getting rid of the underlying root causes.

So I’d like to invite you to download your Free Vision Improvement Toolkit that does exactly that – show you how to identify and get rid of your underlying root causes in ways that go far beyond Bates eye exercises.

Then leave me a comment below, and read the other parts to this series…