Blurry vision, fluctuating vision, headaches, decreased distance vision after near work, attention problems, are all examples of having difficulty focusing your eyes. Accommodation is the ability to focus (flex your natural lens inside your eye), and the ability to relax the focus.

Accommodation can have the tendency to spasm. For instance, if you read or focus at near for long periods of time, you may have difficulty relaxing your eyes to see clearly in the distance. If the eyes are not properly evaluated by your eye doctor, instead of relaxing your eyes, a prescription for distance may be given. This my initially clear the distance vision, but now you need to over-focus your eyes to see in the distance when the should be relaxing. In addition to the over-focusing in the distance, now when you go to read with the glasses on, you need to strain your eyes even more to see clearly. This strain may cause your eyes to become blurry in the distance again, and thus need new glasses for the distance. This can become a vicious cycle, and your glasses may become thicker, and thicker, and thicker.

This is why many times when a person becomes a forty year old, this distance prescription for their glasses may start to decrease. This is due to the loss of ability to focus the eyes slowly. As the eyes relax, the vision becomes clearer with less power in the lenses. Vision therapy can help teach a person to relax his/ her eyes efficiently to avoid the over-focusing that can occur.

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Last modified: April 02, 2002