[bretthowell]

I had a similar situation/concern a few years back… went to Dr and Optician got glasses, light therapy etc. No improvement and became exasperated.

What solved the mental focus for me was light movement while reading (walking on treadmill etc) and/or laying down to relax most core muscles. Second, shockingly NOT chewing gum or doing too much downward facing iPhone reading made a massive difference to my vision.

Causality? The impact of posture and/or movement on breathing has a big impact on brain focus. If you have a blood O2 meter you can test this while your are reading. Ironically the more worried you become about not focusing the more you hold your breath and the more clenched your posture. It’s a vicious cycle.

Gum was the shocker, I would habitually chew in the morning for an hour or two (mindlessly) and it turns out it was over taxing the jaw and neck muscles. This caused the eye muscles to be impacted and resulted in blurry strained vision. Cutting out gum for a week almost entirely removed my need for glasses. Lastly, I would still get blurry vision occasionally and finally narrowed it down to iPhone “texting neck”.

I’ll post a couple of refs in a minute. May be unrelated but if there’s a thread to pull on here I hope it helps.

[dorchadas]

I've found this too, even at 30. Walking on a treadmill (or using a stationary bike) while reading makes it so much easier, though I am starting to find it easy enough to read in bed without moving again. It took some time to build back up to it though.

[bretthowell]

Link to comment about phone and gum: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23363566

[bretthowell]

Link to post about breathing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24102829

[jonahbenton]

This is super interesting, thanks for reporting.

[jason_slack]

Thanks. Let me digest this.