Jake Steiner Discusses Myopia and How Habit Changes Rather than Lenses Are the Best Way to Overcome It

Jake Steiner used to have severe myopia (shortsightedness) and wore glasses with a very extreme refractive power. However, he has overcome his myopia on his own, and he now teaches others how to do so as well. In this episode, he talks about how lenses can actually worsen myopia over time, and how to restore your eyes’ functionality by changing habits and lifestyle choices.

Top three takeaways:

1. The eye will adjust its axial length based on what it sees in the environment. Placing a lens in front of the eye will cause the eye to adjust and change its axial length, which will alter its focal length. In this sense, minus lenses can potentially induce myopia by causing the eye to elongate more and more.
2. Myopia is not a medical condition, but a refractive state. The eyeball elongates because there is a lens in front of it. People who have myopia have healthy eyes whose axial length has the ability to shorten back to its normal length.
3. The word shortsighted is used both literally and metaphorically, and when used metaphorically, it can refer to the things that can make us literally shortsighted. Due to the culture of instant gratification and quick fixes, it is easier to go out and buy a corrective lens than it is to reduce screen time and change bad habits that strain your eyes.