In the early part of last century, Dr William Bates spent years of his life following his passion - to study vision problems.
He graduated from Cornell University and became a researcher and teacher of ophthalmology in the New York area.
He believed strongly that anyone could see without glasses.
He went on to create many vision improvement methods to teach the eyes ways to improve and heal themselves.
The Bates Method was originally developed to help school children learn more without causing strain to their eyes.
Dr Bates discovered that most of our bad habits and eye problems began at school age.
When we were children, we had a natural curiosity to learn new things.
However, when information is constantly forced upon us, as so often happens in the school environment, the mind gets tired and the eyes start to become strained.
The more repetitive and uninteresting this information is, the greater the eye strain caused.
The eyes also become strained when they are required to look at new information which has to be committed to memory.
This happens all day every day in the school classroom, and nowadays at home on the computer.
Our kids are presented with huge amounts of information that they have to process on a daily basis, whether it is of interest to them or not.
The pace that our modern world moves at none of us has a chance to give our eyes much of a break.
This is where the time honored Bates Method comes in to play.
The method that Bates used was relatively simple compared to our high tech fast paced world.
He was able to create a chart of common shapes and letters.
The chart was placed on the wall in the front of the classroom and the kids were encouraged to look over at the chart whenever they felt overwhelmed.
Bates believed that looking at the chart for even 3 minutes a day was enough to take the strain away from the eyes.
In the early 20th century Bates' method was implemented into a few schools.
Teachers noticed a vast improvement in concentration and progress of the children.
Their eyes were able to relax and the strain was improved.
Interestingly the School Board felt that the method itself was too distracting and the method was no longer used.
China is the only country who actively teaches their students vision training.
As so often is happening in our modern world, we are looking to our past to find techniques that may be able to help us.
The Bates Method is such a simple process and can be used by anyone, anywhere.
You can create your own chart and place it in your workplace.
Glance over at it several times throughout the day to keep your eyes relaxed and reduce the strain on them.
Training your eyes to relax will help improve your vision for the rest of your life.