You must have come across all kinds of mythologies bolstered as truisms in modern medicine. There are all sorts of lies and falsehoods in every medical field, from dentistry to eye doctors and others. Some of these myths are funny, some worrisome, and some are believable.
Everyone must be aware of the biggest myth about eye health, i.e., old people need glasses because the eyeballs change their shape as we get older.
Let’s take the myths related to eye health one by one and see how much truth they hold.
Your Eyeballs Change Their Shape as You Get Older
This scam of “eyeballs change their shape” convinces thousands of people to buy prescription glasses every year. Giving it a thought for a moment will make you realize how absurd this is. How can eyeballs change their shape when the eye sockets are made of hard bones that keep the eyeballs in their shape.
Your skull would have to change its shape for the eyeballs to take up the elongated shape. The human skull only changes its shape in children and infants, and it does not keep changing its shape throughout the years. It can’t be changed unless something drastic like a serious accident happens.
The main reason for older people losing their sight is that the lens muscles become out of shape and get flabby.
What Causes Your Lens Muscles to Get Out of Shape and Flabby
The muscle called the iris controls the pupil that acts like the aperture of a camera lens that controls the amount of light entering the eye. The lens muscles that get flabby are part of the ciliary body of the eye. These muscles alter the curvature of the eye lens to focus on the scene you are observing by making the rays of light falling on the retina.
The human eye focuses on an object by changing the lens’s shape through relaxation or contraction of the ciliary muscles. They work automatically, without you noticing or feeling them.
How to Strengthen the Ciliary Muscles?
Like any other muscle in the human body, the ciliary muscles can become weak, and like other muscles, they can be strengthened. To make ciliary muscles strong, you have to practice changing your visual focus between far objects and near objects. This exercise will challenge them to stay strong. Moreover, it increases the flexibility of your eye lenses.
People who live in big cities have weak ciliary muscles because they do not have to look at things far away as there are no sceneries or vast fields. Electronic gadgets like mobile phones, computers, and televisions have made things worse.
Pinhole Glasses to Exercise the Ciliary Muscles
A pair of pinhole glasses are like exercise machines that engage your ciliary muscles in adaptive exercise to enhance the range of motion of the muscles.
Pinhole glasses have hundreds of tiny holes that alter the light entering your eyes. These holes change the mass of light rays into some low-intensity light rays that give your eyes an organized pattern to focus on.
