How to Improve Eyesight Naturally: What Helps, What Doesn't

Healthy habits protect your eyesight, but the fixes for a refractive error, the most common type of vision problem, are glasses, contact lenses and surgery. Refractive errors come from the shape of the eye: an eyeball that grew too long or too short, a cornea with a shape problem, or a lens that has aged. Eye exercises treat a few specific focusing and eye-teaming problems. What protects the sight you have, according to the National Eye Institute, is a regular dilated eye exam, sunglasses that block UV, not smoking, a diet with leafy greens and fish, staying active, and keeping diabetes and blood pressure under control.

Key takeaways

Glasses, contacts or surgery correct nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism, which come from the eye's shape, and healthy habits protect the sight you have.
Eye exercises help with a few specific problems, such as convergence insufficiency, where the eyes have trouble working together on nearby objects.
Regular dilated eye exams, sunglasses that block 99 to 100% of UVA and UVB, and not smoking are among the steps that protect your eyes.
Call 911 for sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes, even if it comes back, since it can be a sign of a stroke.

Can eyesight improve on its own?

Sometimes, when the blur has a temporary cause. After long periods of close work, some people develop a false, or pseudo, myopia: the eyes' focusing system has been overused and can't refocus on distant things. Clear distance vision usually returns after resting the eyes, though constant visual stress may lead to a permanent drop in distance vision over time.

In people with diabetes, blurry distance vision can be a sign of swings in blood sugar, and vision changes from diabetic retinopathy may come and go. Blur that comes and goes with diabetes is a reason for an eye exam.

Nearsightedness behaves differently. It usually starts between ages 6 and 14 and gets worse until the early twenties. Our page on myopia myths covers the advice about it that doesn't hold up.

Do eye exercises improve eyesight?

Not for nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism or the up-close blur that comes with age. For these refractive errors, NEI lists glasses, contact lenses and surgery as the treatments, and eye exercises aren't among them. Exercises do help with a few specific problems in how the eyes focus and work together.

Convergence insufficiency is one of them: the eyes have trouble working together on nearby objects, which can blur or double close-up vision. The condition can be treated with a type of vision therapy called convergence exercises, often practiced with a specialist and at home, sometimes along with prism glasses, and it can take 12 weeks or more to notice a change.

Pseudo myopia is another. The American Optometric Association lists vision therapy as an option when blurred distance vision comes from a spasm of the muscles that control focusing. For ordinary nearsightedness, where the eyeball is too long or the cornea too curved, its options are glasses, contact lenses, orthokeratology (rigid lenses worn for limited periods, such as overnight, that reshape the cornea temporarily) and laser or lens surgery.

Tired eyes after screen time need rest. Every 20 minutes, look at something about 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Our vision therapy, led by Dr. Kevin Cohenmehr, trains focusing, eye teaming and tracking after a comprehensive exam, and convergence insufficiency is a common reason children start.

What habits protect your eyesight?

These are the steps NEI recommends for healthy eyes:

Habit	Why it helps
A comprehensive dilated eye exam	Many eye diseases have no early symptoms, and a dilated exam is the only way to check for many of them early, when they're easier to treat
Not smoking	Smoking raises the risk of macular degeneration and cataracts and can harm the optic nerve. People who smoke are twice as likely to develop AMD and two to three times as likely to develop cataracts, and quitting may lower both risks
Sunglasses that block 99 to 100% of UVA and UVB	They protect your eyes from the sun, even on cloudy days. With a brimmed hat, they're one of NEI's steps against cataracts
Leafy greens and fish	Dark leafy greens such as spinach, kale and collard greens, and fish high in omega-3s such as salmon, tuna and halibut, are among the choices that may lower the risk of macular degeneration
Staying active	Physical activity lowers the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, which can cause eye problems
Protective eyewear	Safety glasses and goggles protect your eyes during sports, construction work and home repairs
Clean contact lens habits	Wash your hands before handling lenses, disinfect them and replace them regularly to prevent eye infections

Table sources: the CDC for the smoking figures, and the National Eye Institute for sunglasses and cataracts and for diet and macular degeneration.

Know your family's eye history too. A family history of eye disease raises the risk of some eye diseases, so ask relatives whether they've had eye problems and tell your eye doctor.

Our optical can make sunglasses in your prescription, and our guide to UV protection and sunglasses explains what to look for. Our page on nutrition and eye health covers the foods behind the diet advice.

How does diabetes affect your eyes?

Diabetes and high blood pressure both raise the risk of eye disease, and keeping both under control lowers your risk of vision loss.

Diabetic retinopathy is damage to the blood vessels of the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, caused by high blood sugar. It can lead to vision loss and blindness and may have no symptoms at first. Keeping your blood sugar in a healthy range lowers your risk, and so does controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Diabetes also makes cataracts 2 to 5 times more likely and nearly doubles the risk of open-angle glaucoma.

If you have diabetes, get a dilated eye exam at least once a year. We do yearly diabetic eye exams and send the report to your physician.

Can you protect your child's eyesight naturally?

Time outdoors helps. Children who spend more time outdoors are less likely to be nearsighted, though experts aren't sure why.

Once nearsightedness starts, treatment can slow it. Children at high risk of progressive myopia, because of family history, an early start or long periods of close work, may benefit from treatments shown to slow it: bifocal spectacle or contact lenses, orthokeratology, eye drops, or a combination.

Our myopia control program uses Ortho-K, low-dose atropine drops, Stellest glasses lenses and multifocal contact lenses, and our page on outdoor time and screens covers the daily habits that go with it.

When is a change in your vision an emergency?

A sudden change in your vision needs care right away. Where to go depends on what you notice:

Sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes, even if it comes back; sudden double vision; double vision or a drooping eyelid together with a pupil that looks different, eye pain or a severe headache; or any change in vision with face drooping, arm weakness or trouble speaking: call 911. These can be signs of a stroke or another brain or nerve emergency.
A dark curtain or shadow over part of your vision, new flashes of light, or a shower of new floaters: call us at 310-828-2010 immediately for a same-day exam during office hours, or go to an emergency room when we're closed. These can be signs of a retinal detachment, which NEI calls a medical emergency.
Severe eye pain with nausea, headache or halos: call us immediately during office hours or go to an emergency room, and go straight to an emergency room when we're closed. Sudden intense eye pain with nausea, a red eye and blurry vision can be angle-closure glaucoma, a medical emergency.
A blow to the eye that leaves pain or changed vision: call us right away for a same-day exam, or go to an emergency room when we're closed.
Pain, redness, blurred vision, light sensitivity or a white spot on the cornea while you wear contact lenses: take the lens out, then call us right away for a same-day exam, or go to an emergency room when we're closed.
Blurry vision that comes on suddenly, without the signs above: if it clears right away, call us and come in for an exam; if it doesn't clear, go to an emergency room.

Office hours are Monday 10 to 5 and Tuesday through Friday 8 to 5. Our urgent eye care page explains how same-day visits work.

How we check your eyesight at Cohenmehr Optometry

A comprehensive eye exam with one of our optometrists in Los Angeles takes about 45 to 60 minutes. It covers refraction (the measurement for glasses), how your two eyes work together, eye pressure, a slit-lamp look at the front of the eye, and a dilated or imaged view of the retina.

Scans such as OCT, cross-sectional images of the retina and optic nerve, become your baseline, and next year's exam is compared against them, so changes are caught while they're still subtle.

Most adults should come once a year, and at least yearly for children, contact lens wearers, people with diabetes and anyone over 60. Healthy adults in their 20s and 30s whose prescription hasn't changed can sometimes go two years.

Questions patients ask

Does your vision change as you get older?

Yes. Presbyopia, the loss of close-up focus, is a normal part of aging that everyone gets, usually after 45, and it usually stops worsening after 65. Cataracts, cloudy areas in the eye's lens, become very common: more than half of Americans 80 or older have them or have had surgery, the only way to remove one. Macular degeneration is more likely from 55, and glaucoma risk rises after 60, so we recommend an exam at least yearly after 60.

Can astigmatism be fixed naturally?

No. Astigmatism happens when the cornea or lens has a different shape than normal; doctors don't know what causes it, and there's no way to prevent it. Glasses or contact lenses correct it, surgery that changes the shape of the cornea can fix it, and mild astigmatism may not need treatment at all. Our page on astigmatism covers toric contact lenses and when a changing prescription calls for corneal imaging.

How can you tell if you need glasses?

Blurry vision is the most common sign of a refractive error, the kind of vision problem glasses correct. Other signs include double or hazy vision, glare or halos around bright lights, squinting, headaches, eye strain, and trouble focusing when you read or use a computer. Some people notice no symptoms at all, so keep up with regular eye exams. Double vision that starts suddenly is different: call 911, because it can be a sign of a stroke. Sudden blur that doesn't clear right away needs an emergency room.

Do eye vitamins improve eyesight?

No. AREDS 2, the supplement formula from NEI's clinical trials, can slow vision loss in people with intermediate age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in one or both eyes. AMD is an eye disease that can blur central vision. If you have late AMD in only one eye, AREDS 2 may slow AMD in the other eye. It showed no benefit for people with early AMD or without AMD, and supplements can't prevent AMD. Its large doses can change how other medicines work, so bring your supplements to your exam.

Sources

Written by

Dr. Bijan Cohenmehr, OD

Founder of Cohenmehr Optometry, in practice for over 40 years. He leads the practice’s dry eye care and myopia management. A graduate of SUNY College of Optometry.

About Dr. Bijan →

Can You Improve Your Eyesight Naturally?