Pinhole Glasses: Do They Really Help Improve Eyesight Naturally

If you are interested in improving your eyesight naturally, you surely have come across sources advising pinhole glasses therapy. Due to the controversial information circulating around, we have decided to shed some light on this matter: is it really possible to improve your vision naturally by wearing pinhole glasses?

First, let’s see what exactly pinhole glasses are. Pinhole glasses, or stenopeic glasses, are eye glasses that have an opaque material instead of lenses. This material is filled with pinhole-sized perforations. Each pinhole allows only a narrow beam of light to reach the eye. Since the light passes only through the center of the eye lens, any defects of the lens will not take effect while the light is focused in that way. That is why people suffering from various eye disorders, mainly myopia (nearsightedness) and hyperopia (farsightedness), will notice an improvement of their vision while wearing pinhole glasses. However, their peripheral vision will be reduced significantly.

The temporary relief that a pair of pinhole glasses gives makes many people believe that wearing pinhole glasses and performing special eye exercises will eventually lead to a permanent improvement of their vision in a natural way. Unfortunately, there is not enough scientific evidence in support of these statements.

So how to make up your mind if pinhole glasses can help you cure your nearsightedness or farsightedness, help with blurred vision or another eye disorder you might have?

It is a fact that while you wear such glasses you will see much better. This is due to the well known “pinhole effect” of the glasses. As Cherrill Hicks points out in her article published in The Independent points out “…pinhole glasses are used by optometrists (who are qualified to examine vision) as a sight aid where conventional glasses cannot help – in the case of a scarred cornea, for example. But they are not normally used where prescription glasses can be used, because they cut down on light, and cannot give as clear an image.”

It seems the bottom-line is that pinhole glasses may have a positive effect on your vision as they will help focusing the light on your lens and will make the eye muscles responsible for adjusting the lens to work harder and “pull” the lens in the right direction. Vision improvement achieved that way is largely due to the accommodation ability of the eyes and it may help improve vision only while you wear the glasses. However, if your eye disorder is due to some type of anatomical abnormality of the structures of the eye, you cannot expect permanent eyesight improvement by wearing pinhole glasses.