The Nearsightedness Epidemic

Is is possible that sunlight and outdoor activities reduce stress and the stress is what causes the eye problems?

I guess I'm the exception XD I'm from Florida and my parents had me in preschool from age 2 and piano lessons from age four. I read a lot. Like hours a day. My parents didn't let me watch much TV. I did spend a lot of time outside though especially in summer working on relatives farms. I'm not near sighted but I've been severely far sighted since I was 9. I'm so far sighted I need glasses all the time and even when driving.

I did always wonder how the hell all those ppl with bay eyesight lived in ancient times if they couldn't hunt or gather very well. Turns out it was just less common.
The obvious cheat would be to read or study outside or in a room with huge windows, like a screened porch.

So the "nerd or bookworm with glasses" stereotype might be related to ppl with such interests spending more time inside

...actually my siblings are all near-sighted bar one (probs genetic reasons, half our father's family wears glasses), and the strenght of our glasses does seem roughly proportional to the level of indoorsy-ness. This, at least, bodes well for our somewhat outdoorsy youngest sister, she might not need thicker glasses as quickly as the rest of us XD

Our myopic ancestors were eaten, killed or involved in deadly accidents and were unable to pass on their myopic genes. Now that is not the rule and therefore more and more myopics are passing on their myopic genes.

Huh, dopamine.
So I have near-sightedness because I'm depressed?

Or we could use those bright lights that they used on the chickens to light our indoor spaces.

Well it could also be the case, that if you're outside, you'll "flex your eye's muscles" more than while being inside. If you're outside there are a lot more different distances your eyes need to switch focus between. If you're inside, well, not so much.
(I'm at 5:46 in the video. Maybe this will be brought up.)

Spent all my time outside as a kid. By third grade I needed glasses.

I'm 19 years old and in college with near-sightedness. I was diagnosed with it in 3rd grade and I was a pretty active kid. The weird thing about it is that all 3 of my siblings aren't near-sighted: and I was more active than all of them. Since my mom is near-sighted, I think genetics does contribute to this epidemic one way or another. I could just be miraculously unlucky but it's just too uncanny of a coincidence.

Played outside all the time when i was a kid. My mom told me i had to come in when the street lights came on. Ended up nearsighted anyway.

its from reading maybe? were so brainwashed into just looking down at words on a page when we should be looking up and out into the universe, this is where we will find the answers not looking down we have to look out.

Question: can myopia be reversed to any degree without surgery? My eyesight is somewhere around 20/400 (-5.00 and -5.25 with my contacts), and I know that my brother, who had a far worse prescription, was successfully corrected to about 20/25 with surgery. So surgery certainly is an option for me, but it would be really cool if it can be corrected even to a slight degree by natural conditioning.

Damn he cute

His voice is so relaxing 😴

I'm an elementary science teacher. I'm going to add this information to the list of reasons I am pushing for my school to build an outdoor classroom.

basically useless vid,

Alliance Optikk actually look at this phenomenon on their Facebook site. They are very much mainstream and quote, "too much reading and close screen-work tires the eyes and can lead to shortsightedness." That's official.

You look like Mike Shinoda

So glasses do mean you are smart

Hmmm... I have high myopia and I need to wear super thick glasses. To be honest, I can sometime stay in the house for days...

I would have spent 4-5 hours a day in the sunlight as a kid. This is the norm for an Australian kid. Or was before the x-box playstation etc.

This complicates long duration space travel.

All these YouTube scientists in the comment section, think they know more than actual scientists

👀H
👃e
👄y



T
h
e
r
e
🅱uddy

Sunlight?

I'll take retinal detachment, thank you very much!

I'm near sighted...

don't stare at the sun huh? i did it all the time when i was a kid and i have 20/15 vision. eat it.

Wait so if im smart then....that explains my blur vision? ;-;

If there are so many people with nearsightedness - then why is it so hard for eye glass wearers to find cheap glasses....
It's been a pet peeve of mine... every drugstore or even supermarket have glasses for long sighted ( + ) - but to find cheap glasses for nearsighted ( - ) is almost impossible or they have a tiny supply... why is that???

But...but I stared at the eclipse like Trump and my eyes are damaged!

Global Warming?

tfw -6.25D in one eye and -6.5D in the other
i should have gone outside

hmm... going outside works, sunlight could be part of it, better outcomes in sydney than singapore... maybe likely it's the use of far sight that's preventing it? if you stay inside the furthest thing you focus on is the wall, and if you've ever been to asia you will have noticed that the furthest thing you can see is the building across the street, or maybe a bit further if there's a flat and straight enough bit of road, which is very uncommon with the mountainous terrain.

"sunlight and proper day/night cycle is the best idea" the video playing says on my 35% brightness iphone in a completely dark room with closed curtains at 4:00pm

There seems to be some genetic predisposition....but neither parents were nearsighted

It may also be because when outside you focus far away and your eyes are exercising...I am very nearsighted and always did close work...reading sewing embroidery etc. But all my kids needed glasses or contacts. None are as bad as I am

I'm farsighted O-O

\So is it possible to cure or reduce myopia in adults also? (20yrs to 30yrs)

Yes, the quality of the light is a factor, so sunlight is good. But I think it also has to do with what can be done outside. For example, if you are playing catch, you have to focus your eye far away (friend with ball) middle distance (ball in motion) and close (ball entering glove or fast approaching it). This is similar to exercises done to maintain eye strength (focusing on objects at varying distances in succession). I think the fact that the eye gets more exercise outside has to do with its resilience.

7:40 Ahahah ! Parents nowadays are too afraid of terrorists and paedophiles.
They won't let their kids going anywhere without their supervision.

I am very nearsighted and don't go outside and I have little vitamin D in my system
Please watch my tiny nature videos. There is no talking in them. Shhh!

@Sondrex76 As with most things, the truth lies somewhere inbetween
Stereotypes exist for good reason. Unfortunately, dumb-dumbs like to apply stereotypes either to Everyone OR go full PC-Police and say you cant use them at all. Both extremes are, obviously incorrect.

Alas, a childhood spent outside in the lovely mountains of Colorado hiking, horseback riding, and just playing did not save my eyesight. But then again, I'm not blind without my glasses like my mom who spent her Canadian childhood figure skating in indoor rinks.

I don't spend any time outside and my eyes are fine.

I got mine by reading in bed, laying on one side... I'm nearsighted in only one eye...

Well I'm already at 20/300 before I'm out of highschool and I spend a lot of time outdoors so I think I'm just plain unlucky

i like cold hand around my knob - what a waste of money! just jerk off a hard cock!

Why not promote gardens?? instead of baby wars called sports that teach a superior & inferior mindset...

its good that you use green background 😎

so at 18 is it too late for me to do anything about it?

could staying inside correct farsightedness

I wonder if they controlled for the use of sunglasses in any if the studies. Presumably, the wearing of sunglasses would reduce the benefit of the sunlight--unless the dopamine benefit doesn't come through the eyes exposure to sunlight but through some other body part like the skin.

Notably, I am under the impressiln that the use of sunglasses, even in younger people, has become much more prevalent in the last couple of decades or so. In fact, we are encouraged to have our children wear good quality sunglasses to protect their eyes. Could this be contributing to the near-sightedness epedimic?

A lot more likely they are focusing further away more often in A. Maybe that affects light intake too, but use seems more likely than environment sun or not or city light instead of far away light AND genes remember their parents life too.

I never go outside, am nearsighted, glasses, and people call me a nerd. The stereotype has been completed.

(2:48 in the afternoon watching this as a break from chemistry homework) rushes to blinds and lets the burning sunlight inside.

Dam I'm nearsighted but my brother is not and he did spend more time outdoors than me but I was always the smarter one. I never realised but it all makes perfect sense now.

evening, just before sunset when sun is much dimmer than during the day:
look at sun directly for some time. Big sub sized sunspot that make
nothing to be visible in this spot does fade and surprisingly rather
quickly. I watched sun for long ennough to actually make eyes really
feel it as burning. Still it actually made everything look better, not
worse. And it actually took a little while, few minutes of watching sun
and not sunset but actual sun when it was still rather high in the sky.

That's funny because I became nearsighted in 3rd grade and ever since starting to stare at computer screens, smartphones and the like, it has actually stopped becoming any worse! It runs in the family though, so I guess my anecdote doesn't speak for everybody. Still, the only reason I get new glasses anymore is because my astigmatism likes to slightly change its' position over time.

Uhhh,... maybe it's not so much that reduces nearsightedness but, being outside in the daylight effectively gives your eyes more distant things for your eyes to focus on?

i also wonder if the fact that cities like Beijing, China have a lot of pollution also contributes to this. for example, when the pollution days are really bad, kids are kept indoors at school and at home. and if the pollution gets bad enough, school is canceled. this would account for a lot less exposure to sunlight than someone who lives in a less polluted city. fascinating!

What about actual squinting? Being outside often causes one to squint to protect their eyes from bright light and this puts pressure on the front of the eyes. Maybe myopia is prevented by reshaping the eyes by putting pressure on them?

Could this also be influenced by childhood dipression?

We are evolving

every day as a kid I sat on the right side of the bus, something just felt wrong sitting on the other side. I always took the window seat and had the right side of my head leaned up against the window. this was how I did things every morning and every afternoon for about 13 straight years. now my eyes have two different prescriptions - the left eye is a little worse than the right. could this be related?

Woah where's your white hair

I'm nearsighted

100% of kids born in the UK are nearsighted.

I hate this jacket on Michael. Please take it off. And your shirt too.

So, if you already have myopia, even as an adult, can spending more time in sunlight help it from getting even worse?

*looks at eclipse*

6:20 *turns up brightness*

Well, looks like I’m going to go blind. xD

So looking at the eclipse might have helped?

The kids in Sydney did more work than those in Singapore? Really?

Simple solution- conduct class outdoors.

So could it be possible to reverse myopia by spending more time in the sunlight or is it just good to prevent myopia?

Does that also mean that people in northern countries are more shortsighted? Because you obviously have less sun when you live in Scotland compared to someone living in Italy!

So kids spending much less time outside then they used to. Thus eyesite is getting worse

Now what I want to see is a study of the kids who actually played outside during recess vs the kids who played Pokemon on their Game Boys under the playground equipment.

It's amazing to see just how many people in the comment section completely missed the point the video was making, even though you covered it multiple times.

I quite agree with this study. I experienced this during a drastic change to my lifestyle where I have to stay indoors pretty much 95% of the time for a year already. I found that my vision for long distance has been noticeably impaired at a far distance with artificial light. Though it is not too bad in good light such as during daytime.

I was virtually always indoors as a child (and nowadays too) AND I'm the firstborn. No wonder I have Myopia.

Seems probable (to me) that the benefits of being outside have as much to do with the eye focusing on far away objects, from trees over the fence to the sky itself, as it has to do with sunlight. Almost certainly its a combination of sunlight and the long range focusing.
The way to test this theory is fairly simple and also difficult to achieve. Find children that spend a lot of time outdoors at night but rarely go out during the day. Astronomy fans perhaps.

Being outside sucks. Let's find something better.

I played outdoor sports all throughout middle school and high school and still developed -4.0 myopia with little to no genetic influence from my parents.

Brighter stimulation of the Iris prevents blindness? Interesting.

How can he say video games don't cause it when the reason kids aren't outside is because they're inside playing video games!

So dopamine helps the development of eyes, Ritalin reduces dopamine levels. So having been on Ritalin, it may have very well played a role in me becoming nearsighted.

Just stare at the sun. Got it.

If I stear in to the sun I will not need glasses

so that's the reason why I wear glasses, because I don't play that game that's called outside

QUESTION! If sunlight can help reduce the effects of myopia, does that mean too much sunlight can cause hyperopia (far sightedness)? Both of my parents are far sighted and I'm near sighted. Which is weird to begin with with the genetics of the problem. However, both of my parents were raised on farms and were exposed to plenty of sunlight for the vast majority of the developmental part of their lives. I on the other hand stay inside reading a book or on some form of an electronic, giving me next to no sunlight. Does too much sunlight cause hyperopia?

sunlight? try going out for a in singapore and tell me that kids in singapore are not getting enough sunlight

Only 3 hours in the sun a week?

Is it because of the sun or because you have multiple distances to focus on all the time while you are outside?

So it begs the question, do kids that play outdoor sports less myopic?

Could it simply be that playing outdoors 'exercises' eyes with frequent changes of focal length, causing the shape of the eyeball to be rounder over time?

So should I not wear sunglasses?

I stared at the sun today, NOW IM BLIND, Thanks Obama