“Get rid of your glasses naturally with these eye exercises.”

“The one thing that will fix your blurry vision.”

“This simple trick will improve your vision to 20/20 in seven days.”

There’s a reason these are popular search terms. Who doesn’t want a simple fix to restore their eyesight? After all, if you exercise your body, you can avoid certain diseases and medications. So why can’t the same be true for your eyes?

Unfortunately, with vision, there’s no silver bullet. 

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Why Eye Exercises Don’t Fix Nearsightedness and Farsightedness

First, let’s examine the eyes and what causes us to need glasses or contacts.

Exercise for the body focuses on strengthening the muscles, including the heart muscle. But the eye has only a few small muscles. These muscles attach to the sides and control the movements of the eyeball.

Not being able to see well is related to the shape of the eyeball and is not impacted by its ability to move.

• In nearsightedness (myopia), either the eye is longer, front to back, or the cornea is more curved than normal. This causes the light to bend and focus in front of the retina rather than directly on it.
  
  
• In farsightedness (hyperopia), the opposite happens. Either the eye is shorter, front to back, than normal, or the cornea is more flat than curved. This causes light to bend and focus behind the retina rather than directly on it.

• Astigmatism, another common refractive error, occurs when the cornea or lens is shaped differently. A more oval, rather than round, shape causes the light to focus on two image points, not just one. This makes both near and far vision blurry.
  
  
• Needing reading glasses (presbyopia) is a natural product of aging. It occurs when the lens hardens and becomes less flexible. This makes it more difficult for the eyes to adjust for sharp vision, especially up close.

None of these refractive errors has to do with the muscles on the outside of the eyeball. Therefore, no muscle-strengthening exercises can help fix imperfect vision.

So now the question is: Do eye exercises help at all? Fortunately, yes. But just for two very specific conditions that mainly affect children. These are amblyopia (“lazy eye”) and convergence insufficiency (“crossed eye”).

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Eye Exercises for Amblyopia: Eye Patching

Eye exercises can help with amblyopia, which affects kids. Also known as “lazy eye,” amblyopia occurs when one eye sees better than the other. Over time, the brain begins to rely more and more on the stronger eye’s vision. This leads to worsening vision in the weaker eye. If left untreated, it can lead to permanent vision loss in the weaker eye.

Treatment includes wearing a patch over the stronger eye or using eyedrops that blur vision in the stronger eye. This forces the brain to rely on the weaker eye, strengthening the brain-eye connection with the weaker eye.

Though you may not think of patching or blurring vision as exercise, it’s a tough workout for the eye. Children with amblyopia are often told to wear an eye patch for an hour a day. They can stop using the patch or eye drops once their vision is balanced in the weaker eye.

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Eye Exercises for Convergence Insufficiency: Pencil Pushups

The second eye condition that can benefit from eye exercises is called convergence insufficiency. Convergence insufficiency is when a person has difficulty focusing on near objects. Symptoms include blurred near vision, eye strain, eye fatigue, and tension around the eyes. 

At home, pencil pushups can help the eyes come together more efficiently to focus on near-distance objects. 

Here’s how it’s done:

1. Hold a pencil (or pen) in your hand an arm’s length away from your face.
2. Focus your eyes on the tip of the pencil.
3. Slowly bring the pencil closer and closer to your nose.
4. Stop when the pencil starts to cross in your vision.
5. Move the pencil back out and repeat.
6. Do this as much and as often as recommended by your doctor. 

Pencil pushups can cause headaches if not done correctly or if you don’t need them. Talk to your eye doctor if you start developing headaches from this exercise.

Keep in mind that pencil pushups and eye patching don’t help with refractive errors, such as near- and farsightedness.

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Does Anything Help Reverse Needing Glasses or Contacts?

Yes. While exercises may not help, vision-correcting eye surgery (like LASIK) can eliminate the need for glasses and contacts. These surgeries reshape the cornea so that light bends to fall directly on the retina, giving you improved vision.

For kids, research shows that spending at least one hour daily outdoors significantly reduces a child’s likelihood of becoming nearsighted (myopic). Doctors believe that exposure to natural light is the key, but other factors may also be at work.