Nitpicking, but training eye muscles to tighten/loosen and thereby change the shape of the eyeball is more along the lines of what the technique apparently claims to do, and OP is asking about. Orthokeratology changes only the shape of the cornea, not the eye ball itself; it's a bit like talking about making a telescope physically longer/shorter vs. simply switching out the lens at one end for a different one.
kerataconus, which involves mild to severe astigmatism and a deformed cornea. from what i've read, it's a bit of both. there's a couple of newish soft contact designs i've heard of, but also there's the cost. at a point, glasses don't even provide sufficient correction.
> For instance, orthokeratology contact lenses improve vision by temporarily squishing the cornea into a different shape, reminiscent of how ancient Chinese soldiers are said to have slept with sandbags over their eyes for the same effect.
This is a fascinating historical tidbit and I'm curious to learn more, but Google fails me. Did ancient Chinese soldiers do this specifically to improve their vision? Was myopia a big problem among those soldiers?
How did I just randomly find this? For the best conspiracy theories EM is based on, Google Scholar for clinical research. scholar.google.com, type in 'pseudomyopia', also try 'NITM' and for the most fun, 'lens induced myopia'. Doesn't make EM right, but the optometrists don't tell you what actually cases myopia.
Anecdote: I saw an article about Native Americans, using a technique of quickly focusing from near to far and back as a means to increase their eyesight range, when I was around twelve years old. Called Eagle Eyes, or something. I have been practicing regularly for eighteen years now, and my eyesight has only improved. I have been looking at computers and books at least a third of my time since. Am I actively preventing myopia? Interesting.
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