That's Good Parenting

Creating Clear Vision for Kids: Exploring the Bate's Method and Beyond with Orit Kruglanski

• Dori Durbin • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Listen to today's episode,  "Creating Clear Vision for Kids: Exploring the Bate's Method and Beyond with Orit Kruglanski" as Vision Educator, Orit Kruglanski joins Dori Durbin. Orit shares:

  • Can Eyesight Be Improved?
  • The Bate's Method
  • About "Play Your Way to Better Eyesight" Book
  • How to Help Your Kids See Better
  • How Stress Affects Vision
  • Accidentally Failing Your Eye Exam
  • A reading from "Play Your Way to Better Eyesight"
  • Orit's Eye Story
  • Changing Your Vision Perspective
  • How to Reach Orit

Did you love this episode? Discover more here:
 https://thepowerofkidsbooks.buzzsprout.com

More about Orit:
Orit Kruglanski is a visual educator, she helps people of all ages play their way to better eyesight, reducing eyestrain and the need for glasses.

She got glasses when she was 7, and at 38 started improving her vision from -8.5 diopters to her current no-glasses life.

She is the author of "I see clearly", an illustrated Bates Method book for children (and adults who secretly buy it for themselves), and “Play your way to better eyesight, a parent's guide to natural vision”. She lives in Barcelona and works online and in person.

Find Orit's Book:
https://orit-kruglanski.aweb.page/p/2f4bd9f8-8288-4132-b750-6c6774836a11

Follow Orit:
http://www.iseeclearly.org
http://facebook.com/oritkruglanski
http://www.instragram.com/oritojos
email: orit@iseeclearly.org

More about Dori Durbin:
Dori Durbin is a Christian wife, mom, author, illustrator, and a kids’ book coach who after experiencing a life-changing illness, quickly switched gears to follow her dream. She creates kids’ books to provide a fun and safe passageway for kids and parents to dig deeper and experience empowered lives. Dori also coaches non-fiction authors and aspiring authors to “kid-size” their content into informational and engaging kids’ books!
 
Buy Dori's Kids' Books:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Dori-Durbin/author/B087BFC2KZ

Follow Dori
http://instagram.com/dori_durbin
http://www.doridurbin.com
http://www.facebook.com/dori_durbin


[00:00:00.090] - Dori Durbin
Eyesight is a precious thing, and many of us take it for granted. What if your eyesight could be improved from your own efforts? Today's expert guest is a visual educator who specializes in the Bates method, and she also has a kids bookOrit called I See Clearly, as well as a book called Play Your Way to Better Eyesight a Parent's Guide to Natural Vision. So the big question is, what can she teach us about what kids need to know about their own eyesight? Welcome to The Power of Kids Book Podcast, where we believe that books are a catalyst for inspiring and empowering change. I'm your host, Dori Durbin, and today we have with us Orit Krugolansky to the podcast. Welcome, Orit.

[00:00:43.310] - Orit Kruglanski
Hi, Dori. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:45.310] - Dori Durbin
Thank you. Your whole concept I was talking to you before we recorded it just amazes me that we can actually if we follow, we can actually change our own eyesight. So I'm so curious about how you got to this point, how you figured this out, and, of course, what we can do eventually. So could you tell us a little bit about that?

 [00:01:07.750] - Orit Kruglanski
Sure, I'd be happy to. But first I wanted to know, why would you think that eyesight would not improve? I mean, almost any condition in the body, you get sick, you heal, you break the leg, it mands. Almost everything in the body can heal. Why would eyesight be different?

[00:01:24.890] - Dori Durbin
I don't know. I guess we've always been taught that it has to be enhanced and improved outside of our bodies.

[00:01:32.080] - Orit Kruglanski
I know. That's what I was told when I was eight and the first glasses were put on me. And the doctor said, this is for life. It will only get worse. And it did. It did get worse during many years until when I was 38, I found out about the Bates method, and I was like, Wait, why would it only get worse? And it started to improve. I started to improve my eyesight.

[00:02:00.230] - Dori Durbin
Not to give too much away, but I was amazed at how much your eyesight improved. Like, numbers wise, if people have bad eyesight right now, they know the bigger the number is, the worse the eyesight. And yours, was it negative eight?

 [00:02:14.460] - Orit Kruglanski
A negative eight and a half?

[00:02:15.690] - Dori Durbin
Yes, eight and a half. Wow. And what are you now?

[00:02:19.150] - Orit Kruglanski
I don't know, because really, eyes don't have those numbers.

[00:02:23.040] - Dori Durbin
Okay.

[00:02:23.460] - Orit Kruglanski
But I don't use glasses. I see clearly. Not perfectly, but almost perfectly, and I don't need glasses for anything.

[00:02:36.770] - Dori Durbin
That's amazing.

[00:02:37.480] - Orit Kruglanski
I don't measure it, but I said is really very it changes a lot.

[00:02:42.050] - Dori Durbin
Yeah. So how did you get to the point where you started to use the base method?

[00:02:49.430] - Orit Kruglanski
Wait a second. There's something wrong with the connection. I just need to plug in.

[00:02:53.340] - Dori Durbin
Sorry.

[00:02:58.490] - Orit Kruglanski
Oops, things that happen online.

[00:03:03.370] - Dori Durbin
It's fine. So we can delete and add things?

[00:03:07.400] - Orit Kruglanski
Yeah. Okay. Sorry, can you want to repeat the question?

[00:03:12.800] - Dori Durbin
Sure. So how did you get to the point in your own eyesight that you started to find out and use the Bates method?

[00:03:21.730] - Orit Kruglanski
When I was about 25, I had chronic back pain, and the doctors said I would be medicated for that for the rest of my life. But I decided not to do that. And I started working with an osteopath. And when my back healed, I was like, you mean things can heal? Things that the doctors say can't heal, can heal? And she was like, yeah, everything in the body. The body has, like, great powers of self healing that we can access or not. And she was wearing glasses, and I was wearing glasses, and I was like and the eyes. And then I went and looked for it and found Bates method.

[00:04:06.750] - Dori Durbin
So I'm not familiar with the Bates method. What is it? 

[00:04:10.290] - Orit Kruglanski
The Bates method is just a method that teaches you how to use your eyes in an efficient way, have good seeing habits, and those good seeing habits just help you see well. Again, the premise is that eyesight problems stem from tension in the muscles around the eyes, which is actually the physical manifestation of mental and emotional tension. So it has a lot to do with stress. A lot to do with stress. So if you want to see well, you want to see better, what you need to do is use your eyes in a relaxed, mobile, and detailed manner. That's the whole Bates method. There it is. S relax. Use your eyes, moving them rather than staring, and then look at details and not at big areas.

 [00:05:09.310] - Dori Durbin
Interesting. So in my brain, I always feel like I'm working harder to look at details, but what you're saying is really it's easier on the eyes to focus on those details.

 [00:05:20.190] - Orit Kruglanski
Much easier, yes. And actually, the working hard to see things is what makes you see worse, because you're making an effort. So when you started the introduction of this show, you said, with a little effort, we can actually know if you have to take you have to let go of the effort that you're making to see, and then you will see better.

 [00:05:44.130] - Dori Durbin
That's interesting. Well, I think I want to say probably the majority of the people listening think that the harder you try, the better something works. And so that's, like, completely backwards from what we typically think.

 [00:05:55.970] - Orit Kruglanski
I think that's a very sad idea of our society, that the harder you work, the more results you get. Because a lot of times that's not true. A lot of times, the more you flow, the more you do things with ease, with joy. The more you play, the more you're curious, the more you're having fun, the better things come out.

 [00:06:16.140] - Dori Durbin
That's very true.

[00:06:17.770] - Orit Kruglanski
That's why my book is called play Your Way to Better Eyesight and not Work your way. Sweat your way to sweat your way to better eyesight that sounds more fun.

 [00:06:28.750] - Dori Durbin
In general anyway, for sure.

[00:06:30.910] - Orit Kruglanski
But actually play is the way humans learn. And just when we get into the school system, somebody tells us that repetition and discipline is a better way to do it. But really everything important we learn, speaking, being part of society, walking, understanding the world around us. We do it all playing. And by playing I mean an intrinsically motivated, curious exploration of the world without expecting results. That's how we learn as babies. We like put it in our mouth and then it's like, oh no, we touch it, we explore it or we play and then it's cool. They're like, no, that was not. Whatever worked until now, ditch that. And now let's just repeat and do everything in the rhythm that I dictate to you. And actually playing is much more efficient as a way to learn things.

[00:07:26.590] - Dori Durbin
Let's talk about your parent book. I'm really curious. How do you use the playing to enhance eyesight?

[00:07:37.010] - Orit Kruglanski
Well, let's say that correct eyesight, good eyesight, joyful eyesight, curious eyesight is looking at details, moving from one detail to another and doing it in a relaxed way. And on the other hand, bad eyesight, stressed eyesight, is staring at one point instead of looking for details, looking at a wider area and just being basically stuck, not moving. So if you think about a traditional classroom, that's like the best situation to ruin your eyesight because you're staring at the blackboard or whatever, the screen, the teacher, you're very tense because maybe they're going to ask you something you don't know or put you on the spot, or maybe the other kids are bullying you or whatever. I don't know. Your school experience and you're not moving. You're not looking at details. And on the other hand, a wonderful opportunity to improve your eyesight is going outside and playing in the park. There's like things coming at you from all directions. Oh look, there's a puppy. Oh no, look at the leaf on the tree, the cloud, the bird, fly a kite, blow some soap bubbles. Everything's moving, it's coming from all directions. You're moving because you're running after the ball and you have to catch the ball and you throw it to somebody else and you're looking where the somebody else is.

 [00:09:07.470] - Orit Kruglanski
So that's like a great situation for your eyesight. And actually when I work with adults, we often do these things as like going to the park and playing ball, which kids already do. So all you need to do is for the parents to understand where these things are already present in their children's play life and just Foment these things rather than saying, okay, sit for 4 hours in front of the screen. The screen is like a fixed distance. You're staring at something. You're not aware of your surroundings, you're just aware of the screen. Bad for eyesight on the other hand, going out to just like take a walk in nature, walking the dog riding your bicycle, playing whatever sport you like. All of these are really good for eyesights. Looking for colors, picking up seashells, building castles in the sand. Good for eyesight. So that's the book.

[00:10:12.950] - Dori Durbin
Okay, so I have lots of questions now. So if I'm a parent and I want to reconstruct my child's life and school is part of that, how do I teach them to improve their eyesight when they're in places where they don't have a choice? They can't just get up and go.

[00:10:35.770] - Orit Kruglanski
First of all, you can teach them that even in the classroom, they don't have to look in the same direction all the time. They can look out the window, look at some stuff that's hanging on the walls, look at their companions, not just be stuck in the same direction. You can tell them to blink and breathe and be more relaxed in the classroom. You can tell them to look for details, like these horrible pimples on the teacher's face and the funny pigtails on that other girl's head. Look for details. And actually, Dr. Bates of the Bates Method, he was really interested in kids. He was great with kids. He loved kids. And he did this experiment in New York schools of just hanging the letter chart, the typical letter chart that you see at the eye exam. And he told the teachers to ask the kids to just look at the letters one by one, twice a day with one eye and with the other, and then just look at the eye charts whenever they're feeling whatever, stressed, unhappy. And the experiment was an amazing success because most of the kids I don't remember the statistics exactly, but most of the kids did not get worse or got better in the classes where that was done.

[00:12:02.890] - Orit Kruglanski
But after a while, the teachers coming from traditional education started thinking that maybe the kids are cheating by learning the eyesight chart by heart. So they started hiding it. But actually, the idea was to look at details and to remember them is a great idea for eyesight. It's not a problem. So by not understanding the Bates Method, the teachers hindered the usefulness of this Bates experiment, and finally it stopped.

[00:12:37.640] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, but just that it probably gave the kids a sense of comfort, too, right? Like, it kind of triggered a relaxation. They knew what was on. There was something familiar, right?

[00:12:50.630] - Orit Kruglanski
The familiar things that we see relax us while unfamiliar things tense us. And actually, Bates, who was a very experimental person, he measured people's eyesight and found that that even people that have great eyesight that have totally normal, perfect eyesight would go up and down on four diopters during just a normal day by looking at something that's unfamiliar. That would make their eyes, just for a fraction of a second, not see clearly. But then they would recuperate it. But just like he noticed that the unfamiliar things would make you see worse, and also things that make you feel good, make you see better, which is one of the things in the parents book is what Bates called the visual optimum, which is think of something you like and you will see better.


[00:13:42.900] - Dori Durbin
Interesting. So when you're in a situation that is stressful I've been in the car before and felt super stressed and was looking for the signs, trying to find and felt like I couldn't see them. And I wonder how much of that is that emotional mental connection to all of the stress in my body not being able to find the spot. Right.

 [00:14:09.890] - Orit Kruglanski
Right. Stress is totally the factor for the number one thing that makes eyesight worse. So in a moment that you're tense, your eyesight will be worse.

[00:14:23.490] - Dori Durbin
So this takes us to something we said right before the podcast about exams, eye exams. And I was sharing with you that I personally get so stressed during eye exams because I'm so afraid to find out that I'm blinder than I thought when I came in. And I know that that's like a shared experience for a lot of people, too. So putting all this together, that means if I go in stressed and become more stressed, probably they're going to tell me I need a stronger prescription, right?

 [00:14:50.500] - Orit Kruglanski
Yes. And probably when you relax, you won't need that stronger prescription anymore. And that's why in the parents guide, I have a section dedicated to that eye exam, to how to relax before the eye exam. It's really important. Sometimes you go to the specialist, and the specialist is like a monster, and the kids get scared and they're uncomfortable, and they do worse on their exam. And then if you manage to find another very good professional eye doctor who's like a fairy who's who's a sweetheart, then the kids will do better on the exam, and you can do it in the same day and still do it. The results will be different. So it's really important to be prepared for the eye exam in the sense of going when you're relaxed, not that kind of burn the house before you go hell. Sort of like, okay, come on, let's go. We're going to the exam.

[00:15:48.640] - Dori Durbin
We're good, and we could be late, whatever.

 [00:15:50.990] - Orit Kruglanski
It really needs to be an experience that's relaxing and that's relaxed, and you will do better, both for adults and kids.

[00:15:59.060] - Dori Durbin
That's amazing. So, okay, here's a really crazy question. What happens if you currently have glasses and maybe even your prescription has just gone up recently? How do you try to bring yourself back out of that so that maybe your prescription could be less the next time? How do I start to strengthen my eyes? I guess I feel like I have to work. I guess it goes back to our other conversation. Right?


[00:16:27.210] - Orit Kruglanski
Right. If you think about strengthening the eyes, you're already like going to the gym, and it's the wrong direction.

 [00:16:34.910] - Dori Durbin
I need a brain transplant. 

[00:16:37.970] - Orit Kruglanski
For that you need to go on. Vacation, you need to take your eyes on vacation. And actually, people who go on vacation often find that when they come back, they have a lower prescription. 

[00:16:48.930] - Dori Durbin
Wow.Interesting.

[00:16:51.250] - Orit Kruglanski
I'm not going to say that this is something that you can just do because most people need some guidance. So I'm not going to say, oh, just relax and it will go away. You kind of need to know how to do it, how to practice looking at details, what it means to be moving your eyes constantly, what it means to not be staring. But there are a lot of great books, of course there's mine for kids and parents, but there's a lot of other books that explain the base method and there are a lot of teachers who teach this.

[00:17:23.220] - Dori Durbin
Wow.

[00:17:23.870] - Orit Kruglanski
So if you really want to do this, I would advise to look for someone who can help you be they written or live. And the other thing is just take off your glasses a bit. Taking off the glasses is really relaxing for the eyes as long as you're not straining to see. So most people can get to breakfast without putting on their glasses unless they live in a crocodile infested house or have really dangerous partners. So just give your eyes these breaks and you can just do some simple things to relax the eyes, like palming, which is just covering the eyes with the palms of your hands, giving some darkness and that will already reduce the strain in your eyes. Interesting.

[00:18:16.830] - Dori Durbin
Is that why some people get the eye migraines? Is that stress the tension in the eyes?

[00:18:22.880] - Orit Kruglanski
Yes, it's related to the eyesight, yeah.

 [00:18:26.390] - Dori Durbin
Interesting. Well, okay, you have two books, I think we decided to read the parenting one just because your children's book is beautifully, by the way, beautifully illustrated, and it has more illustrations than text that's easy to read. So I'm thinking, let's have you read a little bit of your parenting book, the play your Way to Better eyesight and we can hear some of that.

[00:18:51.630] - Orit Kruglanski
Okay, let's see, I'll just read this part, the beginning, that's called one thing you should know before we start eyesight can improve. When I was a child, I was fitted with glasses. I was told from the very start that eyesight could only get worse, that I would be stuck with glasses or contact lenses or operations for the rest of my life. No explanation was offered, nor did my parents ask for one. I was simply born this way and there was nothing we could do about it. We could only keep track of my deteriorating eyesight by going for regular checkups, hoping that at some point it would stabilize. This is what we were told and this is what we believed. Why wouldn't we? I started out with a -125 diopter at age seven. I was told to never take off my glasses least my eyesight get worse. So I never did take them off. And my eyesight kept getting worse until it finally stabilized at minus eight and a half diopters around my twenty s. I wore glasses for some 30 years until I found out about the Bates method at 38 and started improving my eyesights.

 [00:20:02.740] - Orit Kruglanski
I am now 50 and I no longer use glasses. Despite what the doctors said. From my own personal experience and that of my students, my colleagues, and their students, eyesight can certainly improve. Many thousands of people have improved their eyesight, and so can you and your children. And why wouldn't eyesight improve? Like any other function of our body, it is affected by our lifestyle and habits. Proof of that can be found in the steep rise in eyesight problems over the past decades. This cannot be some genetic destiny. If genetics were the only factor, we would have maintained a stable percentage of eyesight problems over the centuries. But we haven't. Eyesight problems have been on the rise.

 [00:20:46.910] - Dori Durbin
Wow.

 [00:20:47.570] - Orit Kruglanski
1 second. Just two more lines.

 [00:20:49.490] - Dori Durbin
Yeah.

 [00:20:49.860] - Orit Kruglanski
And that's actually great news. If our habits and lifestyle can make our eyesight worse, wouldn't it stand to reason that by changing them, we can improve it? Let me show you how.

[00:21:01.410] - Dori Durbin
Wow. I kind of don't want you to stop, but we're going to just for the sake of time. So that's just so amazing. So how long did it take from the time that you started the Bates Method to the point where you felt like your eyesight was improved enough not to use your glasses?

 [00:21:22.970] - Orit Kruglanski
It took about three years for me to stop using my glasses, but it was kind of a kamikaza thing. Most of the people who do this do a more gradual process, but at some point I was like, oh, whatever, I don't want to wear them anymore. And I stopped at a point where most people would still be, no, that's too blurry. The last time I wore my glasses the last time no, the point where I decided to not wear my glasses anymore was one day where I was traveling. I went to the airport, a very stressful situation, and I had forgotten my eyeglasses because I was using them so little that I just forgot to take them with me. And I was kind of stressed. And then I was like, okay, I have a lot of time. I'm going to do it slowly. Everything's okay. And I went to the passport control, and there was a long line, and there was this guy who was like, excuse me, excuse me, I'm losing my flight, I'm losing my flight. And he had glasses on, and he just like, everyone let him pass. And he got to the check point, whatever.

 [00:22:25.870] - Orit Kruglanski
And then he turned around and came back because he was at the wrong line. He was just and then I was like, okay. So people can be totally lost even if they're wearing their glasses. I'm going to just take this easy, and I guess I'm good to go without them.

 [00:22:43.410] - Dori Durbin
Wow. So that was kind of the proof you needed just to say, yes, they're done?

 [00:22:48.130] - Orit KruglanskiYeah, just the proof that what I assumed was something that I couldn't do because I wasn't wearing glasses was just something that happened when people are stressed that you go to the wrong place and you get lost and you get confused. I just decided that I would rather stay with my true eyesight and see how that looks.

[00:23:15.140] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, that's amazing. I keep thinking about in my own mind, I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to take my contacts out when we're done and just walk around and see how bad it is. Because I don't think that we let ourselves do that, because we do believe that lies so tightly. And the other thing that I was thinking was with kids, especially with parents, with younger kids who are starting to enter school, that would be the time that you would start to really worry about their eyesight and whether they're going to see the board. Right. So it's just really fascinating. You've pretty much blown my mind this morning.

[00:23:54.570] - Orit Kruglanski
I want to say two things. First of all is if you take off your context, don't look at how bad it is. Try to look at how good it is, because whatever you see or think you see, you probably see a lot more than what you don't see. So you see colors, you see shapes, you see the world around you. You don't see clearly. Okay. But you see a lot of things. You have depth, vision. You have a sense of shapes, forms, colors, movement, a lot of things that you can see. And the more you're focused on what you can see, the more you see. Because that's when you're interested in looking for details. Because if you're like, oh, no, I can't see a thing, then you're not really looking because you're like, I can't see a thing. But is that really true? Can you not see a thing? Or is there a thing there that you can see and say, oh, look, the thing, it has ears. Maybe it's a person. And then you start noticing little things, and you're already on your way to seeing better. The other thing about the parents and the worry I'm not a big fan of worry.

 [00:25:02.440] - Orit Kruglanski
I don't think it's very useful. If your child needs glasses for the blackboard, that's okay. Let them use glasses for the blackboard. And you can tell the child, use the glasses when you feel you need them. And they will self regulate. They will put the glasses on when they need to see a word on the blackboard. And the rest of the time most kids will take them off because they're not so comfortable and they'd rather go out and play without them because they can see the whole playing field, which is something that the glasses limits in a sense, because you're only seeing through the front, through the part that's like in front of you. And so if you just use the glasses for what they're good for, which is at a certain moment seeing something clearly rather than using them all day long for just like everything, you will find that I say deteriorates less and that maybe it even improves. And maybe your child doesn't need glasses in a year or two or stops using them. And I have, I have actually a lot of not clients of mine, but friends who I just gave this piece of advice, not wanting to try to fix my friends.

 [00:26:21.070] - Orit Kruglanski
I was like, oh, just tell them to self regulate. And then years later they're like, oh no, he doesn't use glasses anymore. He doesn't need them. Because we really as parents, we want to do the best for our kids. And sometimes we think the best is either put your glasses on or if you go to the other direction, you go into natural vision. You're like, take your glasses off. And neither one is the best solution for every situation. You really have to be softer and kinder to yourself and to your child and see how every situation has a different best solution.

 [00:26:58.710] - Dori Durbin
Yeah, I love that. And that would be much more relaxing too. So you're probably going to see better too, right? For both of you.

 [00:27:06.520] - Orit Kruglanski
Both for you and for the kids.

 [00:27:08.790] - Dori Durbin
I'm getting it. Or it, I promise. So I know that people are going to want to find your book. They're going to want to find you. Where can they find you?

 [00:27:19.290] - Orit Kruglanski
Okay, my website is IC. Clearly just like the way it's written in English, no weird stuff. Iclearly.org.

 [00:27:27.770] - Dori Durbin
Okay. And is your book on Amazon or where could they find that?

[00:27:31.790] - Orit Kruglanski
Both my books are on Amazon. Yes, you can find them on Amazon. And I think that's it.

[00:27:39.410] - Dori Durbin
And then if for some reason the parent wanted to contact you, are you open to that?

[00:27:43.900] - Orit Kruglanski
Yes, they can contact me. I'm probably going to do some sort of training for parents soon. For parents who want to help their children improve their eyesight naturally now. So I have a couple of courses. I have an audio course for parents. That's it.

[00:28:06.970] - Dori Durbin

That's awesome.

[00:28:08.590] - Orit Kruglanski
I have an audio course that's really like 5 minutes a day, one game idea and one eyesight advice that's really fun and easy. So it's also a good introduction into the world of natural eyesight improvement.

[00:28:24.910] - Dori Durbin
That's fantastic. Well, I will add those links into the notes underneath your interview so people can find them. And I just want to thank you. Like I said, this was mind blowing for me and I hope very helpful for our parents as well.

[00:28:40.630] - Orit Kruglanski
I hope so too.

 [00:28:42.150] - Dori Durbin
Thank you so much.

[00:28:43.570] - Orit Kruglanski
Thank you.

 

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