Blur adaptation
Blur adaptation (or blur desensitization, or blur habituation) is where someone has become used to lower levels of correction on either a psychological or physiological level.
It usually occurs after someone has been wearing significantly under corrected glasses, or no correction for long periods of time when they should have been wearing more correction. This causes active focus to fail, as the demand is too high, and is fixed by increasing to an appropriate level of correction.
When you live next to the train tracks and the train always goes by, people say "you get used to the noise." Blur adaptation is the same thing but with blur instead of train noises.
Avoiding Blur Adaptation
There is no benefit to living in excessive blur, many people do this thinking that it will give them a larger capacity for improvement, and/or the ability to improve faster. This is not only not the case, but frequently the opposite of this notion is true and the excessive blur slows progress, if not stalling it altogether. It is highly important to be sure you are getting good stimulus by using correction that provides only a little blur that you can actively clear with active focus; and be sure to be mindful to clear that blur to avoid becoming accustomed to its presence. Remember, correction is a tool, and EndMyopia principles require that correction is leveraged properly for improvement.
Resolving Blur Adaptation
If you are, or suspect you are, already blur adapted because you over reduced or even quit using correction, or else have been in a much lower correction than you need for some time; it is a good idea to address this issue first, before trying to move forward with EndMyopia. This usually means wearing full 20/20 correction for a time to give the visual cortex a clarity reference. This might require a gradual increase to work your way up to that correction if you have been a long time without correction. For low myopes in particular intermittent use of correction, particularly in low light might be enough.
Differentials should still be used, if you require them. Depending on how low your under correction has been until now It might be a good idea to assess the correction you are accustomed to as a differential. If you can make them work as diffs then you will need one less focal change.
It is not a good idea to try to reduce to normalized before you have spent that time in the higher correction, a few weeks is likely all you need. Without that clear reference and sufficient correction you might have a very difficult time finding/using active focus. Without active focus your eyes are unlikely to improve.
Another important note:
Almost everyone using stronger correction to combat blur adaptation observes the same "changes" in their vision. That is that their eye seem worse after using the stronger correction. Things seem more blurry than previously upon removal of the stronger correction and centimeter measure measurements often take a hit. THIS IS NORMAL. In fact this is a sign that your cortex has adjusted it's standard for what it perceives to be clear. It can certainly feel like a step in the wrong direction but once again active focus depends on the goal of clarity, the cortex needs to remember what clear is if your biology is going to understand that it needs to clear blur. The biology will only change with the right stimulus (repeated demand for more clarity). Vision improvement depends on the right stimulus.
𝗦𝗲𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝘀𝗼
- Guide:Not reducing too quickly
- Blur Horizon explained | Jake Steiner
- Fixing Low Myopia Blur Adaptation if you never wore glasses | Jake Steiner