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Strabismus and Lazy Eye Exercises: Swinging Saccades for Mastering Peripheral Vision
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Dec 14, 2022
This is a simple exercise that can help improve peripheral vision and saccades which are two VERY important foundational skills for learning to use both eyes. Using both eyes is the most effective and long term solution for straightening an eye turn. If you want to Master Your Peripheral Vision, head over to https://learn.strabismussolutions.com. It will be available Summer 2022.
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Hi, my name is Melissa Daniels, and I have Stramismus
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Stramismus is when your eyes don't point in the same direction, and this is what that looks like
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This was me three years ago, and since then I have done hundreds and hundreds of eye exercises
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trying to help my eyes become straight and stay straight. One of those exercises is something I like to call swinging cicades
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So a circade is when you move your eyes from one object to another, and it's kind of a jump, right
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Swinging is this idea that when you move your body, I might move my body to the right
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and the things in front of me appear to be moving to the left. So that's kind of a swing, and so I combine these two different principles into one exercise called swinging cicades
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So what you do is you move your eyes from one pen or any object
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Really, you could use like two people, two water bottles, just any two items
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And, you know, it's harder when they're really close together. It's easier when they're, you know, about a mid distance apart
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So you move your eyes from one object to the other And while you doing this you notice if there movement with the pens Now at first especially if you have different eye problems you might not notice the swing
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So I'm going to tell you what to look for so that when you're doing the actual exercise
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you know what you're trying to do. So as I move my eyes from the black pen to the blue pen
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so I'm moving my eyes to the right, the pens move just a little bit to the left. There's just the
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kind of swing as I'm moving my eyes back and forth. And it's, it has to do with motion parallax
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And that's basically, when you're moving in one direction, it actually looks like the world's
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going the other direction. You know, when you're in a parking lot and you're parked next to somebody
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and they start backing out and it actually feels like you're moving forward, right? This is
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kind of a way that our brain and eyes can judge depth and notice where we are in
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in relation to other things. So we're just calling attention to that with this exercise
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with a circade. So I'm moving and I'm watching for that slight movement. The reason this is
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such a great exercise and better than just a normal circade or normal like swing looking for the
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movement is one you actually forcing your eyes to really look exactly at something right and jump from item to item That you really it can be a hard skill then the swing helps you keep that other object in your peripheral so a lot of times with cicades when your
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optometrist gives you this exercise you're looking at the blue pen and they say now make sure you can
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still see the black pen in your peripheral and so it's like okay I'm focusing my central vision on the
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blue pen and I want my peripheral vision to see the black pen and then I swap and now my central vision is
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focused on the black pen and I'm noticing the blue pen in my peripheral. Well, this is just a way of
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keeping that peripheral almost, it's more automatic. When you're watching for the swing of the pen
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that's in your peripheral vision, then it makes it more real. It makes that space that that pen is
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occupying more tangible. There are so many different exercises that you can do for your peripheral
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vision. And even though this doesn't seem like a very important part of fixing Strabismis
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I'm telling you this is key. Peripheral vision is the glue and the foundation. It's everything
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that holds the rest of your vision together is getting your vision expanded. It's so important that I
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have decided to make an entire course all about mastering your peripheral vision And you can access that course at learn Solutions and it there with along with all the other products that I have but I telling you this is the one you need because not only does it teach you
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why peripheral is important, what it is, different techniques for making your peripheral vision better
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it also has 10 different exercises that you can do that, similar to this one, this is on the list
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the swinging circades, there are so many other ways that you can improve, stretch, and expand your
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peripheral vision. And I'm telling you, this is going to be a very foundational piece as you are
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trying to fix your eye turn or lazy eye, whatever you want to call it, peripheral is going to be key
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So enjoy. I hope that you are able to see success. Let me know in the comments what parts of this
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exercise are easy or hard or ways that you mix it up. Because you can always
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always use your creativity to make exercises better or tailor them to your own life and lifestyle
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And that's what I've done. I'll see you in the next video. If you want more information about Strabismis and Vision Therapy or my journey, you can check out these other videos
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You can also go to Strabismiss Solutions.com slash actually just Strabismissolutions.com. That'll be good enough
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And be sure to subscribe to this video and I'll see you next time
#Eye Exams & Optometry
#Laser Vision Correction
#Vision Care