Dear Kevin,

Subject:  Asking and "explosive" question.

There is a body of knowledge, and a group that
object to the "standard" over-prescribed minus.

So call this group of "objecters" -- the second-opinion.

The second-opinion SUGGESTS that prevention
is possible, under specific circumstances.

You can read about this professional judgment about prevention
(at the threshold) at:

www.chinamyopia.org

I am certain that you will hear about how PREVENTION
IS IMPOSSIBLE -- by any method.

This will be presented by the majority-opinion ODs
who disagree with second-opinion ODs on this subject.

Enjoy,

Otis

I'd like to meet some of those. I never had much luck eliminating myopia
with exercises.

The biggest and best one offered in recent years was the "See Clearly"
method. Unfortunately, they offered a satisfaction guarantee, and so many
people wrote in wanting refunds that they couldn't keep up and they went out
of business. Here's a news release from the Iowa Dept of Justice:

DES MOINES.   The Polk County District Court has ordered Vision Improvement
Technologies, Inc., to stop all sales immediately of its so-called natural
vision improvement kit called the "See Clearly Method." The Court also
ordered the Fairfield company to pay $200,000 for consumer restitution.(Copy
of the Consent Judgment.)

Doctors say that many young people have some "muscle tone" that contributes
a little (or a lot) to their myopia. These folks are able to "relax away"
some amount of nearsightedness. But after age 30 or so, natural loss of
flexibility accomplishes the same thing. Lots of myopes "improve"
spontaneously in their late 20s and 30s.

This accommodative myopia is enough to lend credence to "natural vision
improvement" programs, but nobody has shown those procedures to be effective
when compared to untreated controls. If it worked, the benefits should be
easy to demonstrate. Instead, all of the "supporting data" consists of
anecdotes and uncontrolled trials.

The prototype of this quackery is a 1929 book called "Perfect Sight Without
Glasses" by W. H. Bates. If you want a good example of the sloppy reasoning
behind these techniques, track down that book.

-MT

Hi Kevin

To be a fighter pilot you need a certain kind of mental aptitude.  You
can get near to imagining what it must be like landing on a heaving
carrier at night in the rain when you are tired.  Very few people are
able to maintain the mental control to be able to retain their trained
skills and yet remain able to react to the changing and difficult
conditions of such a landing so that they have the benefit of good
habits and yet are also able to remain adaptive.

Exercise alone does not make a healthy body or give an individual the
ability to land jets on a postage stamp in the ocean.   You know that
of course.

The question that is relevant here is there a connection between how a
person reacts and feels and the vision they get?

If you put two apparently similar people in a very difficult situation
one will become dis-stressed and another remains able to function more
or less unchanged.

My advise to you is if you want to become a navy fighter pilot is that
you need to learn what it is these guys and girls are able to do that
currently you cannot do.  And then get better and better at that
skill.    It is related to ability to think clearly and calmly.   It
is related to ability to not get distracted by tiny details but
instead have the ability to also see the bigger picture of what is
happening.  The ability to look forwards rather than worrying about
what just happened or *might* have just happened.  Worry is not an
option!  The past has to be released to focus on the present to get
down safely onto a carrier deck.  How good are you at focusing on the
present moment in a relaxed manner?  Perhaps that is a learnt
skill?     Also projecting bad future outcomes as possibilities that
your mind gets hooked on will not allow you land a jet in bad
conditions or out manoever the enemy.   To fly at that kind of level
all of your mental abilities have to be as best as a human can do be
focused in the present moment for nearly all of the time.

Vision is much more than only an event that happens in your
eyeballs.    It involves a major part of your mental processing.

So.......physical exercise alone is not the answer.    Something more
than just something physical is required.   But healthy mind means
healthy body.  There is a relationship of some sort to the physical
body.

To be a navy pilot you need to like a navy pilot in all respects.
You can potentially do that.   You just need to figure out how.    A
part of the solution is to be comfortable in your physical body
without excessively thinking about that.     Ie less thought and
concern and more confidance and security in yourself while also being
adaptive and ready to change as new information arrives.

Andrew

You don't hear those ads anymore, because the FDA shut them down.