The sham that is ‘eye yoga’ has been back in the news this week thanks to a segment on This Morning and a worrying follow up article in The Mirror. It’s a hard job title to write without giving it some sort of legitimacy, but eye yoga ‘instructor’, Jess Parkinson appeared on This Morning to extol the benefits of the exercises, which included enhancing vision and reducing the need for corrective lenses. Reducing the symptoms of modern-day eye fatigue was also a topic of conversation.
It goes without saying that there is no scientific evidence to show exercising eye muscles improves any visual deficiency and while the eye care sector rightly dismisses eye yoga out of hand, there is always the risk that it will still resonate with the public. This Morning still carries a certain amount of gravitas, and it would be easy for a member of the public to assume that because something has made it to broadcast, then it must be true. Interspersing language about improving visual acuity with more recognisable conditions, such as eye fatigue, only serves to blur the lines between reality and falsehood.
A follow up article in The Mirror, written by Rom Preston-Ellis and Lucy Domachowski took the claims one step further. ‘Multiple studies have confirmed that practising eye yoga regularly can result in noticeable improvements in myopia, hypermetropia and astigmatism, thus enabling many to depend less on glasses or contacts,’ said the authors.
Now, this could have been put down to inexperience and exuberance, had it not been for the following statement: ‘Often mocked by sceptics, eye yoga is becoming increasingly popular as a sought-after exercise for individuals looking to permanently ditch their spectacles.’
Is optometry really in a place where those that challenge misleading claims and fundamental lack of any evidence are dismissed as mocking sceptics? I know we live in something of a post-truth world these days, but peddling falsehoods like eye yoga carries the real risk of people thinking that rolling their eyes and taking deep breaths might be the answer to a change in their vision.