Case Histories & Testimonials - Integral Eyesight Improvement

20/20 Eyesight After 7 Day Vision Retreat

My name is Ilya from Queens New York. I am the happy student of Nathan Oxenfeld whom has improved his vision greatly and making further progress in a goal of optimal 20/10 vision which Mr. Oxenfeld achieved. Working with him has been a breeze as he is truly a person who cares about you and your quality of life that can be gained through better or perfect vision.

I wanted to learn from him because getting his book, I saw that he was someone who started with glasses of about -3.75 and has now 20/20 or better vision with the Bates method. I was amazed at the amount he gave away for free. I actually became his first VIP student to fly down to North Carolina and work one on one for a week. Yes I was able to get to that 20/20 line on the chart with the techniques he taught and helped explain to me.

My biggest takeaway is the process of centralizing vision to a certain point and understanding that is the point you are always supposed to see the clearest. We are almost tricked into believing that we are supposed to see everything sharp at once. A good way of explaining perfect sight are professional head-shots of people where the person’s face is sharp and the background is blurry.

Now my everyday vision is my everyday vision practice. I am really grateful for being able to enjoy more the immense beauty of the world that surrounds us from nature, to buildings to people. What he helps you with is also overcome the psychological barriers that keep us from seeing clearly. Remember to see blurry is to strain, and once you let go of it, clear vision appears, a very counter-intuitive proposition as we are used to think we should force things to happen.

My understanding of how vision works now also has progressed with another realization being that when we wear glasses that we are actually looking at the world through two tiny screens on our eyes, and that because the eye does not have to focus on various objects over time, it becomes a crutch that makes the adaptive muscles of the eyes weaker, combine those tiny screens over the eyes with the tiny screens of our phones and computers, we have a recipe for terrible vision.

You may think that getting private lessons is too expensive, however I believe you can’t afford not to as it is a quality of life issue. Having owned almost all the books on natural vision improvement and reading them all, I have found Nathan’s book, teaching technique and care about his students, being a guide to help you unlock the perfect vision you already have, but need that guide to a whole new and improved life. Could not recommend more highly. What are you waiting for? A better life awaits.

Ilya Zlobin

Queens, NY

Dropped 2 Diopters In 2 Years

Before I started the Bates Method my prescription was -4.25 myopia in both eyes. I mostly wore contacts. One of the biggest reasons I was looking for natural improvement was my eyes were getting extremely dry. I was putting in 8 hour days working on my computer and at the end of the day I was started to get dry, bloodshot eyes. It got bad enough that I had a hard time sleeping at night as they were so itchy. Also, many times my eyes would hurt at the end of the day, which I just assumed was normal. When I found Nathan, I literally had 2 days until my scheduled LASIK eye surgery. I knew I needed to do something and thought that the contacts were the real problem. (I was mistaken, strain was the real problem) After hearing some testimonies and hearing Nathan’s story, I decided to give the Bates Method a try. What’s the worse thing that could happen? It’s now been almost 2 years since I started. I’m currently wearing -2.25 glasses and am seeing near 20/20 with them! There have been many ups and downs, but I have had many revelations of what healthy use of my eyes should “look” like. Besides my vision improving, I have made positive changes to my diet, my stress levels are much lower and my eyes don’t itch anymore! I have more energy at the end of the day too.

Nathan has been great to work with. His understanding of the Bates Method is very deep and always responded well to questions that I asked. This is such a foreign concept to people, that you can heal your eyes naturally, that it seems impossible to think that someone could do this totally on their own. Nathan has been a great encouragement and example to follow.

I’m confident that I will see more improvement in my eyesight. There certainly have been ups and downs, but the improvements speak for themselves.

Seth Nelsen

Apple Valley, Minnesota

Insights From Surfer’s Paradise

“I would like to express my gratitude for the excellent vision walk on Sunday the 13th January at Surfer’s Paradise beach. Even though I have your book and regularly watch your videos, I still gained a number of insights from your explanations on Sunday.

I would also like to pass on an observation. I have been a classroom teacher for 25 years and can thus appreciate good, clear instruction when I see it. The way you sequence the content of what you want to say, the way you succinctly word your explanations and the way you modulate your voice all combine to make your teachings extremely clear and concise. You are a fine model of how to teach anything, let alone natural vision.

Myopia has been not only a physical impediment in my life but even more so, a psychological one. It has been your wonderful gift of teaching that has given me reason to now firmly believe my myopia is coming to an end. The world I’m now seeing is beginning to look like it would have when I was a child. It is difficult to express the joy I am now experiencing, both through how beautiful the world is visually, but also through the satisfaction of having stayed the course and followed your practices and methods consistently.

My goal is to remove my prescription from my driver’s license. I believe it may not be that far away now. When I do, I’m going to make it known to many people I know who wear prescription lenses and I’ll be informing them about you. Nothing convinces people more than hard evidence of results on paper. They can then buy their own book from you, because if they truly want clear vision, they will gladly spend the money.

I wish you all the very best with your wonderful work. Over the past 18 months, since starting my vision improvement journey, I’ve looked into quite a number of vision teachers, but none of them possess your genuine desire to bring the method of vision correction to people everywhere nor do they possess your skill in imparting that knowledge.”

Robert Simpson

Brisbane, Australia

Dropped 1 Diopter in Less Than 1 Month!

January 2019

“I have worn glasses for over 9 years and the last couple of years I was prescribed a -2.25 and a -2.50 on my eyes and I have myopia and astigmatism. I just went in for an eye exam and tested at -1.50, which I have not had since 2010 so it is a mayor improvement for me. I think I achieved this result so quickly because I took this as serious as wearing braces, so I changed my whole perspective on the exercises by doing them all of the time. I also labeled staring just as bad as smoking so I decided to move my eyes with the nose drawing techniques as often as I can. I started meditating a year ago, so body awareness is not a new concept for me and it helped me achieve a nice state of relaxation. I also noticed that the more I was trying to focus on an object, the more my eye would strain and the effect would diminish, so I forgot about seeing the image and just focus on relaxing my eyes. The nose drawing technique worked amazingly well with the corners of the frames, TV, walls, clocks and every object around me, this worked incredibly for my astigmatism. I follow the lines of the walls and makes me turn my head in different anglers, and helped my eye feel like a sphere instead of a circle, so I felt my vision like a spherical vision, seeing everything just like when I am wearing my contact lenses. I hope my story helps your students understand the key relaxation, continuous movement of the eye and consistency of the exercises played on my quick success. I am in tears of joy everyday, I am forever grateful.”

October 2019

“I sent you an email in January with my vision improvement testimony. My vision has improved so much that I do not wear glasses at all and my night vision has improved so much I feel like a bat. I do not know if you ever get follow up from other people stories, I just hope mine can be an example of your teachings. I want to say thank you once again.”

Diana Rascon

Chihuahua, México

Astigmatism Gone

Yesterday I had my eyesight checked and my astigmatism is all gone. Yay! That was fast. I wasn’t even practicing all that much. I still am very nearsighted and have been since I was 10, but I am experiencing a lot less strain. Hey, my life just got better! I want healthy eyes as much as I want healthy joints.

These vision improvement moves are so relaxing, such a nice way to start and end the day. Glad I found them. I like Nathan’s calm voice on his podcast. It’s very soothing. It gives me a feeling peace. Ahhhhhh.

Madora Pennington

Less Flexible

Huge Improvement in Two Months!

Dear Nathan,

I will keep this as short as possible because I am hoping you will have time to read it and I’m sure you get many emails. I’m 56 and have worn glasses since the third grade. My prescription was O.D. -3.50 and O.S. -4.00 for the last six years and my lenses were progressives and had sunglass tint added to them.

In following your program the last two months, my prescription is now O.D. -2.50 and O.S. -2.75. Even this prescription seems a little strong.

I want to thank you for making so much information available. I’ve watched most of your YouTube videos and listened to most of the podcasts. Your book is an excellent resource, so thank you so much. My eyes feel alive now and I feel free without glasses on my face all day! And, I haven’t even started chapter 7 yet which is the vision building!!

I just wanted to mention a few of the things that have been most helpful to me:

Just taking off the glasses
Palming
Visualizing and understanding the mental part of vision
Getting rid of the stare
Your podcast that does a 40 minute vision session
Your podcast that introduced the alexander technique and the importance of neck and shoulder and breathing relaxation
Vision stretching, at first my eyes wouldn’t even look to distant objects
Positive affirmations and believing my vision can improve.

I look forward to even more improvements and I wish you the very best!

Karen Pill

Jen Impressed Her Ophthalmologist!

Hi Nathan,

It’s been a while since I last did my practices after I got occupied with our newly adopted son last year and working, but I had to share great news that is motivating me to get back into my practice. I finally had an eye check up after 2 years today. My last prescription from 2017 was…

R: -9.75

L: -9.00

My most recent glasses are…

R: -7.75

L: -7.50

after only doing the first 3 weeks of the 6 week course. I’ve just been wearing these glasses and ensuring I don’t squint the past year. Today, I was tested at only slightly above my most recent glasses! My ophthalmologist, who is so supportive, was very impressed. She said to keep doing what I’m doing.

I can’t wait to continue to improve once I start the course again. I should have never stopped the practices!

Thank you!!!

Best,

Jen

Jen Soccorsi

Finally worked after 13 years!

I am Bhavesh from India. I started doing the vision practices in your book from December 2018. Today I got my eyesight checked at ophthamologist and was happy to know that my left eye improved by 0.25 diopter. I had been trying various methods to improve my eyesight since the last 13 years. But what worked was the routines and the principles you have presented in your book. Now I have a prescription proof for that. Thank you.

Bhavesh Shingare

"I started the Holistic Vision Program on July 13. I have an eye chart which I look at as I'm rebounding. Previously, out of my right eye with the advanced cataract, I could not even see that there was a chart on on the wall! A few days ago I started seeing a dark "blob" where the large letter E is. Today, I started getting flashes of the actual letter E!

Another thing is that my optometrist prescribed a set of single vision glasses to give me something for driving, a -4.00 in both eyes. I also ordered a pair on Zenni for -2.00 in both eyes. Now, a month later, she wrote a new prescription for -1.00, because the -4.00 and the -2.00 are too strong! -Betty V.

"I took Nathan’s group class and then did a series of individual lessons with him. I find I always learn something when I have a lesson, sometimes subtle, sometimes quite remarkable. Nathan has been a good guide for me and I will continue to make use of my sessions with him. After about 10 lessons I made my vision practice my own. One month later I was able to easily pass my Driver’s License Vision Test so now after 15 years I no longer need to wear glasses when I drive!

The biggest help to my seeing clearly has to do with relaxation. I pay a lot of attention to any subtle tension in my eyes when I’m working with the chart or reading cards. I spend a lot of time doing exercises to relax my eyes: for me that’s sunning, palming (lots of it), picket fence, long swing and vision stretching. After about 2 weeks on my own I noticed that I could easily see the 20/20 line on the chart and it was immensely pleasurable. There was absolutely no effort involved. I let my eyes simply take in what is on the chart or the reading cards, rather than going out after it. I just let it come in with no resistance or need to figure it out. I let my eyes do what they do best, see! I don’t try at all. And when I do notice that I’m trying to read or see a particular letter, I take a deep breath, do a couple exercises and relax back into myself. This creates a great ease in seeing. I have no concern about what is not clear, I simply enjoy what I'm seeing, with a sense of easy wonder. This relaxation is allowing me to see both far and near. Thank you Nathan!"

-Nancy Pope, Plant-based Nutritionist, Yoga Teacher, Reiki Master, Massage Therapist - http://www.ashevillehealing.net

When I began studying with Nathan my prescription was around -2.75. I had been getting reduced myopia prescriptions for about six or seven years, starting out at -5.75. After a year of working with Nathan my slightly reduced prescription (which I prescribed for myself and ordered from Zenni) is -.75. I use it only for driving at night and during rain or snow. I dumped my ever-present sunglasses after my first lesson with Nathan. Nathan has opened doors and blown away blurry clouds for me in many ways in the past year. He is clear and approachable in his teaching and prepares his students well to continue with the practice of relaxed seeing. I appreciate very much his holistic approach that weaves relaxation techniques from other modalities into relaxed seeing. Thank you, Nathan, for reminding me that my eyes are integrated with the rest of my body/mind.

-Gwen Diehn

Artist and art teacher

“Hi Nathan, I had a vision exam today. I am happy to write you that in less than one year my vision has improved from 20/70 to 20/30. The Optometric Physician almost fell off his chair as he told me my astigmatism is completely gone. He told me that he has never seen that before. Thanks again for all your help. I hope to write you again as my vision continues to improve from my (almost) daily vision work outs.”
-Andre Stellingsma

“Dear Nathan, Thank you for the excellent Bates Method Vision course. I passed the motor vehicle 20/30 vision test for the first time in 30+ years. Good-bye to ‘corrective lenses driving restrictions’. Now I am working toward 20/20 vision. Thanks again for your good vision training and coaching.” -Andre Stellingsma

"I started working with Nathan in less thank three months ago. I noticed significant improvements in the first few days and weeks. I moved from being able to read just the first two lines of my distance chart right down to the 7^th line in just a few weeks. Now I can read the 8^th and sometimes the 9^th line.

On the near sight chart I can now read some of the smallest print. I am getting to the stage where I can start to use my computer without my glasses. I have progressed from the almost largest print on my Kindle to the 3^rd smallest.

I can easily read shop signs and road signs.

Not only that but my eyes feel relaxed for the first time in years. The stress around them has gone and I am still seeing daily improvement.

Nathan’s logical approach and clear explanations of what to do and why it works distinguish him from many of the others I’ve tried over the years."

-Nancy Slessenger, Owner of Vinehouse LTD

"Great content and practice. I especially loved how much real practice we got. Lots to work on. I've already noticed myself treating my eyes and my vision differently."

-Michelle Smith, Ordained Inter-faith Minister - http://www.ashevillecelebrant.com/

"I want to thank you for all you have provided online for people like me. A few weeks ago I truly thought I was losing my eyesight, I could hardly even read a book no less the computer screen. Whereas my left eye has been consistently way worse than my right eye and the astigmatism marked, when I asked the gal taking my order for new glasses to compare the new prescription to the previous prescription, she stunned us both when she announced that 'your eyes seem to have changed shape, your astigmatism is much improved and there is a more equal correction for both eyes.' I am so thrilled, words are hardly enough to thank you (and Dr. Bates) or even express my full gratitude for what this feels like. I hope you have heard this before. I know I am without a doubt sold for life on your work and plan to continue to meld the practices you recommend into my life as well as spread the word. Since my life is already about learning of, furthering, and working with alternative health options, again I have to tell you this is the most wonderful discovery I can think of, that there is hope to improve and restore eyesight."

-Stephanie Wozniak

"Nathan presented a great workshop today. He is very knowledgeable about improving your eyesight. I knew it was a sign that I was to take his classes when my eyeglasses dropped on the floor a couple of days ago and I could not find one of the lens. I am looking forward to better eyesight!"

-Dawn Westmoreland, Life Coach, Hypnotist & Energy Healer

"I've known for years about the possibility of vision improvement. I'd read books, bought gadgets, and made halfhearted attempts to free myself from the glasses I've worn since second grade -- to no avail. But by working with Nathan, I have absolute belief that I can see clearly without glasses! My nearsightedness is noticeably improving, thanks to Nathan's encouragement and the clear practices he's taught. His manner is gentle and unhurried while firmly committed to my progress. It is a pleasure to learn from him and to achieve such concrete results in improving my vision."

-Michele Drivon, Teacher of the Alexander Technique - http://www.alexanderasheville.com/

"So in amazement today, I can actually see things. Stuff goes in and out but it feels so freeing in my eyes and my brain. My eyesight did something in sleep and I woke up seeing trees, flowers, details, sharp edges. In comes in and out but I can't even remember when I could actually see....was wearing glasses at age 7. Bates Method class with Nathan gave me a huge boost to my efforts of 20 years. Now the world looks amazing. Noone can ever appreciate who has lost then regained their eyesight. I plan to keep going for 20/20 this year."

-Patrick Clark, Inventor of Footloose and Chairfree - http://footlooseandchairfree.com/

"Thank you so much Nathan for the vision lesson on Friday. My eyes were so tense and scratchy. I had been working on my computer too much and knew I needed some help. After you worked with me and we did swinging, palming and more, my eyes have felt so much better. I can see more clearly too! Plus I have started to incorporate some of the tips you shared with me. The 5-10-15 and the 20-20 exercises are helping as well as the centralization process. Thanks again! I look forward to working with you again!"

-Alicia Swaringen, Massage Therapist & Bodywisdom Therapy - http://www.bodywisdomtherapy.net/

“Nathan is an excellent, accomplished instructor who inspired confidence every step of the way. The course went beyond anything I could have imagined to touch every area of my life – a profound and enlightening experience – what joy.”

–Carol Wilson, Retired Professor

"I highly recommend Nathan as your wholistic alternative to regaining your eyesight. He's knowledgeable and passionate about vision and has a simple, yet comprehensive step-by-step program for you to follow. What adds even more credibility is the fact that it has so dramatically helped his own vision as well."

-Tony Balistreri, President of Roaring Lion Publishing - http://www.roaringlionpublishing.com

“This course is a real eye-opener in more ways than one. Nathan teaches great new ways to improve vision. He is a good and effective teacher with much compassion for people’s eye challenges. He knows how to guide you skillfully toward improved vision and has a gentle and kind approach to this issue that all of us face at one point or another in our lives. Many thanks, Nathan, for bringing this to Asheville.”

–Maariah McAndrew, Massage Therapist - http://www.atranquilhaven.com

“This course was excellent. Nathan teaches in ways that are engaging and helpful. Each class was well-paced with ample time to learn and practice the new material. The handouts were excellent, in content and professional design. Nathan’s dedication to teaching the Bates Method comes across in a style that is clear and confident. Highly recommended.”