Here's What Experts Say About 'Fixing' Your Vision Naturally

Getting to the bottom of something in the wellness world is sometimes like delving into a mixed bag of solid data, areas of research where the dust hasn't quite settled and claims that are flat-out false. 

Vision health is one of those mixed bags, with claims you can "fix" your eyesight naturally, mixed in with real truths about how you can improve the health of your eyes and, sometimes, vision perception.

One social media post in particular gained a lot of eyes recently over the claim your optometrist might be fooling you and that you're able to fix your vision without glasses (or contacts or laser eye surgery). Other theories purport that wearing a weaker prescription can train your eyes and improve your vision.

Unfortunately, there's no natural cure for nearsightedness or farsightedness. But there are kernels of fact in the claims you can fix your vision naturally. For example, stress can increase your risk of certain health conditions that can impact your eyes, like heart disease or diabetes, and a nutritious diet and regular exercise may benefit your vision, as it does your body overall. There are also eye exercises that could be beneficial to some, and bolder takes on the "20-20-20" rule for when you're staring at your computer or phone all day.

And perhaps most important to keep in mind is the fact that children whose eyes are still developing have a real opportunity to reduce their risk and severity of nearsightedness (myopia), which has reached epidemic levels and continues to grow. 

Here's what to know.

Can you fix your vision without glasses?

You can't heal or fix a nearsighted or farsighted eye, according to Dr. Natasha Herz, clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. That's because a near- or farsighted eye has "imperfections in the ocular anatomy that prevent an image from being perfectly focused on the retina," Herz wrote in an email. 

"These cannot be 'healed' through medications or eye exercises," she said. In short, these conditions have to do with the shape or length of your actual eyeball, which you can't heal naturally. 

There's also no cure for macular degeneration, the leading cause of age-related vision problems or central vision loss, though there are treatments approved to slow its progression, as well as supplements that may also help prevent it. (So if you see a medication or supplement promising to restore your vision, don't buy it; instead talk with your doctor about what will actually work.)

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Myopia control: For adults or just kids?

The World Health Organization considers myopia, or problems seeing clearly when things are farther away, a public health problem. Some research suggests about half of the whole world will by myopic by 2050. The reasons for this are not clear-cut, and there is a genetic component, but the rate at which we're all turning four-eyed may be linked to how much of our world is now close-up -- often screen-distance away. 

In children, scientists know that the degree of myopia can be reduced or even prevented through increased time outside rather than indoors. Whether that's only due to the fact that the outdoors requires looking at things at a distance, or if a dose of sunlight also plays a role in vision development, isn't entirely clear. (The tech world, which has more of us on screens and for longer, is aware of this: Apple this year announced features for its devices that aim to remind people to keep iPads far enough away from their faces.) 

In addition to trading some iPads and book time for outdoor play, there are certain medical steps parents can take, called myopia control, to control their children's nearsightedness and reduce "how bad" their vision gets. Treatments can include special eye drops (low-dose atropine) and special contacts that can subtly reshape the curve of the eye. 

Unfortunately, there's not much you can do once your eyes have stopped developing, according to Herz. Though drops and contacts for myopia are sometimes prescribed off-label for adults, Herz added that myopia control treatments that can be effective for kids "have not been proven to lessen or control myopia progression in adults." 

But this comes with a caveat, according to Dr. Tawna Roberts, an optometrist and professor at Stanford University's Byers Eye Institute. While researchers don't have data on myopia control for adults like they do for children, that doesn't mean that one day they won't find more information and adjust lifestyle recommendations for adults. 

For most people, nearsightedness tends to stop progressing in the early 20s (and the proven benefits of outdoor time versus near work would dry up), but more research is needed on the progression and management of nearsightedness. 

"The absence of evidence doesn't mean there's evidence of absence," Roberts said. 

Age-related farsightedness: Are reading glasses inevitable? 

Virtually everyone will need reading glasses once they reach middle-age, thanks to the natural stiffening of the eye's lens that makes it more difficult to see things up close.

In an episode of Andrew Huberman's podcast Huberman Lab earlier this year, Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, chair of ophthalmology at Stanford's Byers Eye Institute, discussed to what degree you can put off wearing reading glasses, or if using readers too early in your life makes you more dependent on them. Theoretically, you may use eye exercises to strengthen some of the muscles in your eye (more on that below) and slow your progression into the reading glasses zone a smidge.

But while the "jury's a little bit out" on whether using reading glasses "accelerates the progression of dependence" on them, Goldberg said, there's really not a good reason not to use them if you find yourself straining to see. It's a good idea to give your brain and retina "the sharpest visual signals as you can," Goldberg told Huberman, who is also a professor at Stanford and neuroscientist. 

"Just enjoy your best vision," Goldberg said.

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What about eye exercises?

Roberts said that if someone is interested in trying to put off reading glasses for a little while, there are some eye exercises aimed at improving focus during near work that may be helpful in the "very early stages" of age-related blurry vision. (Here's a video tutorial for improving focus using a hart chart, and here's one of how to do monocular "push-ups.") 

She describes these exercises as "yoga activities" for the eye. But she stressed the importance of first seeing a doctor for a complete eye exam, which would pinpoint the cause of visual problems and also provide a screening of your overall eye health. And, in general, all of the eye health experts we spoke with said that there's really no evidence backing the benefit of at-home exercises for most people, though your eye doctor may recommend vision therapy for people with some types of eye muscle control problems, Dr. Ronald Benner, president of the American Optometric Association, wrote in an email. (He also stressed that people shouldn't take eye exercises into their own hands to the point they neglect a proper eye examination or a potential eye health problem.)

And if you do choose to try some focus exercises at home, don't expect them to heal your need for readers. "You can only avoid it for so long," Roberts added. 

If you need reading glasses as a natural part of aging, you can also consider using special eye drops that temporarily serve as reading glasses and help you see up close. The drops, called Vuity, were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2021. 

Another group of people that may have some vision symptoms and may be looking for "eye hacks" are people who do a lot of near-work for school or work, such as studying, writing, drawing or using a screen. If this is you, you may be more prone to developing symptoms of lots of eye teaming, which is a vision skill that helps you focus up close.

"Symptoms commonly associated with focusing and muscle teaming anomalies include blurred vision, headaches, ocular discomfort, ocular or systemic fatigue, diplopia, motion sickness and loss of concentration during a task performance," Benner said.

With all that eye strain, eye health experts recommend you take breaks from your screen to lubricate your eyes by allowing them to blink (Herz said blinking may be down as much as 50% while eyes are reading from a digital device), and allow them to release their focus onto something in the distance. Commonly, this is referred to as the "20-20-20" rule, which has you taking 20 second breaks every 20 minutes to look at something 20 feet away.

Looking beyond the '20-20-20' method

The 20-20-20 rule help may help to reduce symptoms of eye strain and dry eye associated with near work or digital device use. However, some research has found that 20-20-20 might not be sufficient in children in terms of reducing nearsighted risk. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that information from animal studies suggests that instead of 20 seconds, breaks should be "at least on the order of 5 minutes each, although they likely need not be as closely spaced as every 20 minutes."

This teases at the question of how much time we should be taking off screens in order to get the best benefit for our vision. With or without concrete answers, however, we can keep our eyes healthy and our vision as "optimized" as possible by doing things that benefit our overall health and reduce our risk of health conditions that go hand-in-hand with vision problems. 

"In as much as stress can cause poor sleep, high blood pressure, poorly controlled blood sugar, flare-ups of rosacea and blepharitis, stress can affect aspects of your health that can cause changes in vision," Herz said. "These medical conditions can cause changes in the ocular surface as well as the lens, blood vessels and retina that can blur the vision."

Because taking a longer break from your computer or stepping outside to look around your neighborhood shouldn't have any real health risks, and also carries great overall benefits for your circadian rhythm, sleep, mood and more, this is one of the rare times in wellness it may be a safer bet to start with more, not less.