Ask HN: How are you taking care of you eyes?

Can you give a summary of what the "endmyopia" process is?

The website claims the idea is based on peer reviewed research, but all the links and guides lead to what appears to be clickbait styled videos and testemonials. Overall it isn't clear and doesn't really sell the idea to me

I had similar problems.

Eye drops in my case didn't help, it mostly was caused due to producing to little tears at night when I sleep, I can't put eye drops in when I sleep.

But there where some things which did help:

- eating/drinking healthy, while unclear it seems my tear under production was partially linked to a unhealthy diet

- eye hygiene helped a bit not much

- Making sure air humidity is at a good level during winter times helped too.

- And while it sounds ridiculous: Getting used to carefully open the eyes when waking up, like very very carefully. That probably helped better then all the other effects combined as most damage seems to have happened when opening the eyes when waking up.

i earlier dismissed endmyopia as a pseudoscience given doctors are against it. But it does make sense that eyeballs that have elongated beyond their size and hence caused myopia can also come back to their nature size improving vision as well. Gotta try it for myself though.

It helps to understand the mechanism your eyes use to focus. For eyes with normal vision, they are at their most relaxed when you are looking far away and your lens is at infinity focus. When you look at something close up, a muscle pulls on your lens to shift the focus point closer. (Additionally, as you get older, your lens gets harder, so it takes more pull to get it to focus closer , and you may need reading glasses once you can no longer focus as close up.) If you do close work all day, that muscle will be pulling all day, hence the recommendation to look at something far away every once in a while to give it the opportunity to relax.

What I did was to get a pair of computer glasses. I measured how far away I usually keep my monitors, and I took that information to my optometrist. She put the eye chart at that distance and we went through all the questions (is A better, or B?) to figure out the prescription. Now, when I'm at the computer, my eyes are at the same relaxed focus that they would normally be at for faraway things, and the computer glasses are providing the focus adjustment for close up.

I learned one other thing as well. If you have progressive lenses, only the small "intermediate" zone in the middle of the lens is really good for computer use. The top "far" zone makes your eyes work hard to focus close up, and the bottom "close" zone is generally focused too close for the computer screen. The problem is that you can't really scan well across the screen with your eyes while wearing progressives -- instead, you have to turn your head to keep the screen in that intermediate zone, which started to give me neck trouble. The computer glasses took care of that as well, since the whole lens is at the correct focus for the computer screen and you can scan with your eyes instead of your head.

One last thing. If you do hobbies or work that is really close up, I would recommend an Optivisor or a jeweler's loupe. I used to be able to do fine soldering without one, but I'm in my mid-30s now, and it really helps. And check the ergonomics for your setup. A high bench and a low chair, plus a Optivisor or a loupe, is way easier on the eyes and neck than a high chair and a low bench, which will make you crane your neck to get it closer to the work, and then strain your eyes from focusing so close. Look at a watchmaker at their bench for an example. There are plenty of watchmakers who work on tiny little parts into their 60s and 70s without messing up their vision.

My wife, who is three years younger than me, used to tease me when she caught me squinting at something, or doing the old 'look through your fingertips' trick to see read some fine print.

Now she doesn't laugh anymore.

Everyone I've talked to says basically the same thing as you. It sneaks up. You don't realize at first the compensations you are using, unless someone says something. Or when the first thing you do on a new computer is crank up the font size. LOL.