What if I told you that you have some kind of superpower and don't even know about it? Let me remind you, this has nothing to do with flying or reading your mind; it's that strange ability to blur your vision on purpose. Sounds strange, right? Well, Dr. Karan Rajan, a renowned NHS surgeon (Imperial College, London) and social media personality, claims this weird ability is more common than you may have thought. He seems to delve deep into the science behind this magic trick in one of his viral Instagram videos and highlights the possible side effects one comes across.
In the video, Dr. Rajan explained that when you deliberately un-focus your eyes, you are actually overriding this automatic process. You consciously relax your ciliary muscles and by doing that, flatten the lens, thereby reducing its refractive power, creating a blurred image. This is called negative accommodation—a conscious way to loosen your eye muscles and break focus.
When you focus on an object-be it your phone screen or a distant mountain-your eyes are working quite hard. The ciliary muscles in the eyes actually contract, pulling the lens and making it thicker and rounder. All this increases the refractive power of the lens, allowing the light to be focused more sharply onto the retina so that a clear vision may be enabled.
But do you know that the human eye can differentiate approximately 10 million different colors? This astonishing capability is partly related to our ability to focus and defocus well.
Being able to consciously make your eyes un-focus is like wiggling your ears or flexing your toes-a cool party trick that gives evidence of your control over your body and doesn't offer any practical advantages whatsoever. It is also known as intentional divergent squint, and it does just that: your eyes will go out of focus and slightly drift apart.
The interesting thing, though, is that in our screen-dominated lives, where adults average more than 7 hours of screen time per day, defocusing acts like a quick reset for the brain. While generally harmless, this trick has a number of drawbacks when used too frequently. Research indicates that too frequent intended defocusing of one's vision may be linked to eye strain and overstimulation of the ciliary muscles.
According to the research by the Mayo Clinic, by nature, our eyes are made to rest in a manner that keeps their vision focused on objects at a distance.
The continuous change between sharp and hazy states can lead to eye strain and fatigue. In relation to this, chronic use of such a function could overstimulate the ciliary muscles and hence could lead to discomfort in the long run.
Also, more than 70% of people suffer from some sort of digital eyestrain that can range from dryness and irritation to blurred vision. It's time we learn to control our focus.
The moment one willfully sets eyes out of focus, they naturally diverge, and with time this can meddle with the depth perception and eye coordination.
While this might be a tempting thing to do for fun, one must use it in great moderation. The trick works by overexciting those muscles, which continuously switches between the modes of focus, creating a fatigue problem, according to findings from the Mayo Clinic. Think of this skill like a glitch in the matrix-a neat party trick you can actually control, but one you should not overuse. Your eyes are for sharp, clear vision. Let them do their job with as little intervention as possible.
While it's not quite flying or shooting lasers out of your eyes, defocusing on demand is quite an odd and interesting superpower. Just make sure to "glitch out" in moderation. Keep those eyes healthy-let them focus naturally so that you can enjoy a full-clarity world around you. Supported by the investigation of overstimulation and visual fatigue, it is always wise to save your vision from overuse, no matter how fun the magic trick may be!
Mayo Clinic. (n.d.). Eye Strain: Symptoms and Prevention. Source- Mayo Clinic website.
American Academy of Ophthalmology. (2020). Research on Eye Muscle Overstimulation and Binocular Vision. Source- American Academy of Ophthalmology website.