WHAT ARE THE BEST TOOLS TO TRAIN YOUR EYES?

BY: PETE STAMOS

If you’ve never trained your eyes, start now. Your eyes have six extraocular muscles that need training like any other part of the body. Most people visit an eye doctor to improve clarity, but visual acuity is only one part of vision. Seeing clearly matters, but so do binocular vision, focus, peripheral awareness, and the ability to reduce visual stress.

Glasses, contacts, and LASIK can be great tools for clearer vision, but they don’t necessarily train how your eyes function. Today, we’ll look at two major areas that can help improve visual performance: visual stress and binocular vision.

VISUAL STRESS

Visual stress has become a normal part of modern life. Most people spend hours every day staring at phones, tablets, and computer screens. When you look at something close to you, your eyes move inward together in a process called convergence. Convergence itself is not a bad thing. We need it anytime we read, text, or work on a computer.

The problem begins when close-up work becomes the only thing your eyes do all day. Spending long hours focused on screens can leave the visual system feeling tense, fatigued, and overloaded. The opposite of convergence is divergence, which occurs when we look out into the distance. This is one reason people feel better after stepping away from a screen and spending time outside. Looking into the distance allows the eyes to relax and expand.

Another important part of vision is peripheral awareness. Many people associate peripheral vision with sports performance, but it is just as important in everyday life. Healthy peripheral vision allows you to process the environment around you without feeling visually trapped or overstimulated.

When visual stress rises, peripheral awareness often shrinks. The body shifts into a more narrowed and protective state. Interestingly, upward eye movement is also connected to important neurological functions. In many cases of dementia, people gradually lose the ability to comfortably look upward. This area of eye movement is closely tied to the temporal lobe, which plays a major role in memory and cognition.

Some useful tools that may help reduce visual stress include:

1. Colored glasses
2. Pinhole glasses
3. Binasal occlusion glasses
4. Visual resets such as palming, blinking, and gentle eye massage

BINOCULAR VISION

Think of your eyes as a team. Each eye captures its own image, and the brain combines those two images into one clear picture. For this process to work properly, both eyes must communicate and contribute equally.

When one eye begins to underperform, the brain may start relying more heavily on the stronger eye. Over time, the weaker eye can begin to “check out,” a process known as suppression. Instead of combining two clear images together, the brain starts ignoring input from one eye because the information is no longer reliable enough to use.

Suppression is stressful for the visual system and often goes unnoticed for years. Many people do not realize they are suppressing one eye because the brain adapts to it automatically. Without proper testing, it can be difficult to identify.

Fortunately, there are several tools that can help assess and improve binocular vision:

1. Worth Four Dot
2. Free Space Fusion Cards
3. Barrel Cards
4. Stop and Go Fusion Trainer
5. Brock String
6. Stereograms

These tools help train the eyes to work together more efficiently, improve depth perception, and reduce unnecessary strain on the visual system.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE

Whether your vision is poor, you spend long hours staring at screens, or you simply want to reduce tension throughout your body, training your eyes matters. Your visual system is one of the most powerful systems in the body, and when it becomes overloaded or dysfunctional, the effects can extend far beyond eyesight alone.

Over the years, countless clients have told me they wanted to strengthen their core. What many people do not realize is that the eyes and inner ear reflexively help control core stability. During activities like running, jumping, lifting, or changing direction, your visual and vestibular systems are constantly working behind the scenes to help stabilize the body.

The better your eyes process and interpret the world around you, the more efficiently the rest of the body can function.

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