Meir Schneider runs a School for Self Healing in San Francisco and several years ago I had the occasion to take a seminar from Meir on therapy massage. I asked him to come onto my HGTV show to give us a few tips on how to improve things that prevent us from working around our own houses as we get older, like failing eyesight and stiffening hands.
Meir was born legally blind, and now has functional, though not perfect, eyesight. He has a video out called Yoga for the Eyes, that I use myself and highly recommend.
He also has a great book out called Handbook for Self-Healing which is a very complete book on therapeutic massage and self massage. On the show he gave us some wonderful tips on getting arthritic fingers working again.
Relaxation and blood circulation are the two keys that allow the body itself to heal many of the things that ail us. Working with Meir has allowed me to avoid knee replacement surgery. This work is not fast, but it gives us back control of our own bodies.
I first wrote this entry in September of 2000. Now in 2016 Meir has a complete book dealing with his work on eyes: Vision for life: Ten Steps to Natural Eyesight Improvement and the same book in French: Soignez vous yeux naturellement. I have worn glasses all day every day since I was seven years old, until I met Meir. Working with his exercies for about a year allowed me to get my driver's liscense without restrictions. I now only wear glasses when driving at night to be sure I can read poorly lit street signs.
The "Bates Method", which Meir has expanded to the whole body, is all about simple exercises that we can do ourselves, accomplishing things that our professional eye specialists say cannot be done. Glasses are seen a crutches, that actually inhibit the improvement of eyesigth. Just look through your glasses for a moment and realize that you hardly use your peripheral vision. Now take your glasses off and realize that you tend to see the full field of vision. Removing stress and exercising the full capicity of your eyes can actually improve the coordination between the eyes and the brain. After all, your eyes only receive light stimulation, your brain interpertes that information and gives you vision. Optometry only deals with the light stimulation part of the system. It is time that we began to work with our brain to profit from the wonders of neuroplaciticy -- the ever changing nature of our brains. One rule of thumb in the brain's ability to do things is: If you don't use it -- you loose it. So if you accept that eyes can't change -- they won't change. If you learn how to exercise (your eyes, your week knee, your back....) they can rejunivate.
We have received more correspondance about Meir's visit to my HGTV show than any other single subject we ever covered. You can get more information on Meir's work at "www.self-healing.org" Meir even travels to give seminars occasionally in Canada, including Montreal. Check out the Events Calendar on his website.