Pinhole eyeglasses

I've been nearsighted since the age of 7, and am used to wearing glasses. I bought a pair of pinhole glasses on the recommendation of my yoga teacher. He suggested that they would help me relax.

I'd seen them advertised in various publications, but I found them in a local store that also sells herbs, incense, and spiritual books. So I bought them locally in order to save the postage and handling.

The lightweight, flexible plastic frames of the pinhole glasses were quite comfortable; in fact, slightly more comfortable than my prescription glasses.

I haven't tried, nor would I recommend, driving with the pinhole glasses, unless it was an emergency and no other glasses were available. Even then, I'd be dubious. The fact is, the pinhole lenses block much of the available light, and therefore reduce the field of vision.

However, in non-driving situations, I found that they helped my vision to some extent. I was able to see further when wearing them than when wearing no glasses at all - though of course not as far or as well as when wearing my regular glasses. Sitting on the couch, the TV picture about 10 feet away was quite clear when seen through the pinhole glasses.

This was a big change from the naked eye but also different from the way things look through prescription lenses. My yoga teacher was right: somehow they did give me a feeling of relaxation. Also, my family finds the sight of me in the pinhole glasses to be amusing. Their laughter further relaxes me.

Marisse has been writing and publishing articles about health products. She recently came across a website on pinhole glasses which gave information about this old technique of using pinhole glasses for eyesight correction. Marisse herself had tried the product and found it quite beneficial. Here's an article about pinhole glasses.