How to reverse myopia

Is there a way to reverse myopia? Traditional ophthalmology doesn’t seem to think so, but in China, there is lore of eye exercises that, if done daily, will slow or even reverse myopia over time. My parents have always encouraged me to do them – three times a day, 2 to 3 minutes every time, if not to improve my eyes then to simply give me a quick break from work. I’ve compiled the guide to doing Yan Bao Jian Cao here.

This will help your eyes relax, reduce stress, and stimulate blood flow. You want to aim for accuracy and consistency. Do these once in the afternoon and once at night. Every 2~3 hours, you should

also go outside to look at far distances.

Remember: no one else can improve your health but yourself. You are your own best doctor. It requires determination and persistence, and you may not show results in a week – or even a month – but positive results will happen after years.

Taken from: http://baike.baidu.com/view/66516.html?wtp=tt#4

Yi Ching Eye exercises: It exercises the muscles, blood vessels, nerves and meridian by expanding and contracting the surrounding tissues.

 
All of the exercises are done with eyes closed. Each step should be done 4x8 times.

1. Keep your eyes closed. Then open them as much as you can. 
2. Look to the rear left side - return to normal - look to the rear right side - return to normal 
3. Look up - return to normal - look down - return to normal 
4. Look to the upper left corner - return to normal - look to the lower right - return to normal 
5. Look to the upper right corner - return to normal - look to the lower left corner - return to normal 
6. Turn your eyes counter-clock wise up-left-down-right 
7. Turn your eyes clock wise up-right-down-left 
8. Relax and keep your hands on top of each other and put them on your belly button. 
9. Relax and look as far away as possible, with your back to the sun.

If you really don't have time, just close your eyes and rub your face until it's warm, and rub your hands until they’re hot, then put your hands on your eyes with the middle of your palms on the eyeballs.

Life is Friends, by Jeanne Martinet (Miss Mingle)

On the shelves at Abrams books, I discovered a lovely pastel-colored book slouching on one of the shelves outside my desk. During a free lunch, I slipped it out and started reading. "Life is Friends," by Jeanne Martinet (aka Miss Mingle), is a self-help book abashedly disguising itself as a treatise on lifestyle. It's not a horrible book, but its premise -- it's a guide on how to connect with others -- seems a bit pedantic and unnecessary. Would you readily admit that you didn't know how to talk to people? Not many people seem to think so: one week this summer, Nielsen Bookscan recorded less than 10 total sales across bookstores in America. 

I'm a connoisseur of social tips, though, and I skimmed through the pages trying to uncover nuggets. Here's what I excavated.:

When people start a conversation, there are just three types of starters.

1. Ask for help: “How long have you been waiting for the bus?”

2. Commiserate: “Can you believe how long we've been waiting?”

3. Observe: “Thank God we have air conditioning here.”

A good social life should not be static: you should always be meeting new people. PL Edit: I think this means couples should have friends over for dinner more.

People want to hang out with positive people. A corollary: surround yourself with positive people. 

Test the waters with a potential new friend: “I’ve never been biking – I want to do that sometime.” “I can’t wait to see that new movie.” It gives them the chance to make the leap and suggest an outing without the awkwardness. 

During dinner parties, introduce people to each other. "Mandy, did you know that Joanne makes handbags? They are so totally your style"; "This is Gary. He's the one who I was talking about that worked at the steel mill." In general, remember that you're responsible for everything: make toasts, ask guests if they need anything, and if it's silent, joke about it. Change topics when one is about to die out. Offer them drinks, don’t make them feel guilty about having one. 

For texts and emails: "For some reason I was thinking about you today. How are you?"

When you’re at an art gallery, you don’t have to talk about the art.

Unless you’re good friends with someone, avoid patronizing them by pointing out their flaws.

Day 9: The Simple System

9:30p.m., October 10^th, 2011

I’m not intimidated anymore. My complete wipeout lasttime taught me a valuable lesson: leave when I'm on tilt. That's it. After today, I'm basically exactly even after 4 nights playing. 2 all-in hands, one after day 1, and one after day 5, was the difference between being +5000 and -100, like I am now.

I walked in tonight planning to be less tricky and more solid. No more bluffing; no more playing loose I was content to be totally predictable, try not to steal the blinds (no point in a cash game), limp in in position to wait for a big hand, and double up when I have the nuts. Not exciting, I know, but after last time, it's time to return to the basics.

This is how I ended after my first 20 minutes up 2000 pesos. I had pocket 4s I limped in the pot with in late position; a 4 came on the flop. He bet 275; I doubled it. On the turn, I bet ½ pot, and he called. On the river I put him all-in. Too easy. None of the other hands were very exciting. One guy came in with 2000, went up to 6000 in a matter of 10 minutes, and then went broke 10 minutes later. Gotta love the visitors. When I left the casino, after a solid 6 hour set, broken up with some work (brought my computer), I was up 1,500. Nothing special to report. Conservative play is a little too methodical.

These points formed my game-plan tonight. None of these points have been disproven yet, so I might stick with them as my "fundamental theorems" and tweak around them. Note: this is for cash games.

• People usually bet what they have. I saw one bluff in 3 hours.
• If you have a small hand that’s not going to improve (high reverse implied odds), you want the pot to be small. If you have a big hand, you want the pot to be big. It’s too risky bluffing to make a top-pair into a huge hand, even if you think the other people are on nothing/draws.
• If you’re in early or late position and don’t hit on the flop, c-bet half the pot and then get out if someone calls you. If you win 1/3^rd of these hands, you’re still coming out on top.
• When you have the best hand: (1) and you think the others have nothing, bet small to encourage action; (2) If you think that they think they have the best hand, bet strongly.
• If a good player checks in early position, they usually have either nothing or the nuts. There’s hardly ever in-between.
• Only bluff if you think the other players with you are playing weakly.

Not a long post, but one of the most important. I feel like this is one of the inflection points to my game: I'm getting the hang of a basic system that I can use to stick around for a long time.

Yes, and: Enablers and the people who love them

As a freshman in college, I was easily pursuaded. Free food! Bright t-shirts! People! Nowhere did this manifest itself more -- in an activity that I had absolutely no interest pursuing -- than the improv groups on campus.

I was intrigued, of course, by their gregarious attitudes, and their implicit promise that they could make anybody funny. And it was free! Free shows in WLH, free workshops on Cross Campus, myriad opportunities to laugh and learn how to make other people laugh. I was intrigued -- but I was also pretty terrified. 

Figures: I never tried out for sketch comedy or improv. I did go to their shows – until, um, I realized they weren't funny (to me). As another enclave in the Yale creative scene, improv was just another form of art I couldn't quite appreciate. So, after attending three shows freshman year, I didn't attend another one ever again. My most significant interactions with the troupes were figuring out how best to avoid their glances, their hands, those flimsy pieces of paper shaped like purple crayons.

I'd like to think I was funnier than average in college -- though, of course, that means absolutely nothing. I'd like to think that during my best days, I could be wry, sardonic, and completely whimsical. I'd like to think I surprised people with my sense of humor. But really, I'm pretty sure that only my roommate thought I was funny, and even now, I still can't be sure he wasn't faking it. It wasn't until graduation that I realized what a loose, unleveraged place college was: it gave me consequence-free opportunities to fail. I should have failed at learning improv; college had been my best chance. 

This thought became blatantly clear when I read Tina Fey’s Bossypants. She talks about the golden rule of improv: “Yes, and.” Always agree, no matter what. If I tell you there’s an alligator in my boots, and you say, “No there isn’t,” our conversation has just ground to a halt. If you tell me, “Yes, and there’s a snake in mine,” we're moving. That's progress. It's a simple and powerful idea.

And yet, for its Occam’s razor-like quality, “Yes and” is so neglected in our everyday lives. Our friendly neighborhood John Song describes it this way: There are two types of people in this world – enablers and blockades.

It’s a Friday night, and you’re with three friends, ready to hit Roosevelt Bar. Then it starts raining. Jesse looks at the group and says, “Should we still go?” Here are three responses:

•  “Yes! And I have an extra umbrella I can lend someone.”
•  “I don’t care…I’ll go if everyone else goes.”
•  “Nah, I don’t like getting wet. And I’m kind of tired.”

There’s nothing wrong with any of these statements; each one could be a truthful representation of what you're feeling. But in terms of social momentum, only the first response – the enthusiastic one – builds good standing among your peers. Say yes, and people will come to you, because they want to hear it again. Say no, and people will stop bothering you, because they wouldn't rather not be turned away again.

Another way to say it: The more you enable others, the more changes you'll have to enable others. It's a positive feedback loop that will just keep giving. And really, being a "Yes, and" kind of guy (or gal) is the way to go if you want to maintain your optionality. The blockade who says no will never get invited to anything again. The enabler who says yes will always get invited -- but he can also choose not to go. If you say yes, your options proliferate.

I realize this isn't a jaw-dropping thought. But it's a thought I too often find myself not remembering until it's too late. We can all do a better job of enabling each other in our lives. 

My final thought: being an enabler isn’t analogous to being positive. It’s not just saying, “Yes.” It’s saying, “Yes, and.” Encouragement is only effective insofar as you seed future potential. It's not just "Good job" – it's "Good job! Have you ever thought about this, too?" Add value by being positive; go above and beyond by offering a space for that positivity to grow. Be an enabler, in as many contexts as possible. Broaden and build, because in the long run, you’ll be paid back 10 times over.

How do you overcome the fear of failure?

I think a major reason I chose to study Psychology at Yale was because, at 18 years old, I wanted to answer this question for myself.

I'm 22 now, with a degree and a head full of facts, and this summer, I worked as a street fundraiser in New York City in order to develop a willingness to fail -- and I've come to one central conclusion: developing a resistance to rejection is impossible. 

No more computer: my one-hour rule

I've had one sublime mentoring moment in my life. It came on my FOOT May training trip in 2008. His name was Joe. I looked up to him as soon as I got to know him: He could talk NBA (and apparently was sick at basketball), had worked in finance, had an older girlfriend. He was also half-Asian, which might explain everything.

On the trail, our group carried no technology save our cell phones, buried at the bottom of our packs and relegated to emergency-use only status. The setting was the perfect backdrop for Joe's story of how he gave up his laptop. As we hiked through the Connecticut wilderness, he told me how he managed: In lecture, he took notes by hand. For essays, he used the Morse computer cluster. To read sports news, he popped onto public terminals between classes. By keeping The Internet away from the unstructured time in his day, Joe had become more productive, and, it seems, happier, offline.

I was struck by the idea. In high school, I'd regularly spend 6 hours a day on my family's computer, checking my fantasy sports teams and chatting on AIM. My first year in college, I spent roughly 4 hours a day online, engaging in activities -- Facebook, ESPN -- that I unconsciously marked as inevitable. Joe's spartan online diet made me realize there was a way to extricate myself from the Internet.

5 days after the FOOT trip, I flew to China. I left my laptop behind. It was the best decision I made all summer. Without a computer chaining me to my room, my social life burgeoned. It wasn't just that I saved pockets of time before dinner and after class; being off the computer begat an instinctive tendency to seek out interactions with others. The 5 minutes I would have spent online  instead turned into a 5 minute conversation with an acquaintance, a subsequent invitation to lunch, and plans to go out this weekend.

When I returned to school for sophomore year, I vowed to continue my online asceticism. I locked my yellow laptop under my bed, and, later, even cancelled my text messaging plan. But back at Yale, the combination of peer expectations and tempting accessibility ruined my plans. I would sit down in the Berkeley computer cluster to finish a small assignment or complete a chore, and, before I knew it, would gorge myself for an hour on sports and Facebook before even opening Microsoft Word. Sometimes, after satiating my hunger, I'd forget what I'd come to do.

The addiction wasn't just to information; it was also to a self-perpetuating recording of information. Hanging out with friends in real life was ephemeral; once the conversation was over, I couldn't replay it. Talking to someone on Gchat meant etching a permanent record, one I could revisit as many times as possible.

I eventually capitulated. My laptop came back junior and senior year with a half-hearted compromise: I would use K9, a website blocker, to limit my usage. Being the resourceful fella I was, I managed to get around the self-control mechanism. I eventually convinced myself I simply needed a computer with me: to stream music on Grooveshark, to write my YDN articles, to access information, to respond to time-sensitive email. No doubt I would feel worthless after waking up from an online reverie, but try as I might to take steps to stop my computer usage, I couldn't shake the habit, and a part of me thinks it was because I just didn't care enough.

After graduation, I moved to New York, where, without public access computers, my laptop turned from convenient to crucial. My second weekend there, I spent an entire Sunday inside my room, surfing the web. The next week, it happened again. Blame it on the comfortable, alluring promise of the online world. OkCupid, New York Times, Facebook: I had everything I needed to survive. But when I went to sleep those nights, I never wanted it to happen again.

Being outside leads to experiences outside; being online leads to time online. But whereas a night or afternoon out leaves me flushed with a groundswell of humanity, spending a day inside pushes me deeper down the damp, musty well of online interaction. Being outside expands my vision; being online narrows it. What I learned during my summer in Beijing, and my summer in New York, was that offline time has a multiplier effect that isn't replicable in the solitary, walled-in gardens of the Internet.

So. I realize I need to be kept accountable for my time online. So here's the deal. I'm imposing a 1-hour-a-week rule on this damn machine. I'm going to be on the Internet for no more than one hour. The only exception is blogger.com, so I can keep writing and editing these posts. I'm convinced the human race was happier before the Internet. Less productive, and maybe more bored, but definitely happier.

Call it one of my moods, but this is happening. Now. Bye bye, online world. We'll stay in touch, infrequently.