I think that you could get the nourishment from the sun (i.e. Vitamin D) by just being outside. You don’t necessarily have to sungaze. Sunlight is absorbed through your skin as well, and considering there is a lot more surface area making up your skin, it’s also more effective to expose it to sunlight rather than your eyes.
However, if sungazing for spiritual reasons…good luck with that. Hehe, I personally don’t find the notion of staring at the sun to be particularly pleasant, but if that makes you happy, then go for it.
Yea I definately see your point. Of course I have accidentally looked into the sun for brief moments, but the activity of ‘sungazing’ seems to me to be making a reasonably regular activity of looking at the sun, which doesn’t appeal to me as I feel there’s too much risk and there’s too much that could go wrong. I’m not paranoid about anything, it’s just, it seems to me like this is the perfect situation to apply the ‘never look directly into the sun’ scientists have always said.
I’m not saying it’s bad for everyone! Or “Don’t do it”! just that I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it.
Thanks,
David
Ok, ok xD… I’m not telling you to do this. Actually, if you’re freaked out by this you shouldn’t do it. It’s a way to relax eyes and you won’t be relaxed if you hate it. Other ways are palming (closing your eyes and covering them), swinging (couple of ways of doing it are on sites I linked to), whatever’s your fancy. I don’t recommend doing what Ksíkos described . Eyes all hurting and crying? No, thanks… and blinking is actually encouraged (at least was by Bates).
Some people don’t accept sunning, some are scared by palming (my sister for example xPP)… everyone has different needs.
Hey, I was curious so I did some research into ‘bates.’ I feel it’s prudent to make you and those who read here aware that bates lived from (1860–1931) The ‘method for sight improvement’ you refer to is over 80 years old. In addition to that, there isn’t just differing opinion on this topic.
Essentially, that means there isn’t any form of scientific basis for these assertions, in fact quite the opposite, current observations conflict with his assertions.
I understand that you have found something that you feel works, and that you want to share it, but the point of scientific investigation, is not to put a downer on what you have discovered, but to investigate the causes of this. As far as I can tell at the moment, scientific research suggests that staring at the sun at any time, can cause damage. Staring directly at the sun during the day for more than a few seconds WILL cause irreparable damage to the retina.
This assumes that your eye can get used to it.
I very seriously doubt any exercise you may do will prepare your eyes for exposure to the sunlight in this way. Your pupils simply can’t dilate enough to restrict the light sufficiently. Too much light enters your eye and effectively burns the retina. Glancing at the sun regularly is bad too, for one it takes time for your iris to react.
There is a Sterol in our skin that when exposed to UV light produces Vitamin D. I have to point out though, that is in your skin, not your eyes. They have a very different structure.
There is no vitamin D in suns rays, vitamin D is a by-product of a reaction of UV rays with a part of our skin.
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I no doubt sound like one of the people who are trying to make others fearful, I am not afraid of the sun and if I accidentally end up looking at it, I’m not going to get all upset. I simply avoid looking directly at it, so as to preserve my vision. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, and its certainly not irrational given the evidence. You won’t necessarily see damage immediately, perhaps just problems seeing in the dark at first, blind-spots too. (I don’t mean black spots, just spots where you can’t see movement so well, or objects.) We all have a natural blind spot in each eye, where the optic nerve connects, do you notice this when you walk around each day? Just because you can’t see it immediately doesn’t mean it isn’t damaging.
I obviously don’t know about how it works in-depth or anything, just knew that vitamin D somehow occured during exposure to the sun.
Now I sound like an idiot saying “scientifically proven”! But I guess the reaction thing is scientifically proven anyway.
Anyways thanks for the correction and info - very interesting!
Thanks,
Bodom (David)
Haha. a friend of mine emailed me “Now theres people waning to stare at the sun”
Goodness gracious people, Please don’t look at the sun, You won’t get any vitamin D. Your skin contains a chemical that breaks down into Vitamin D from UVB rays, your eyes won’t get any thing from staring at the sun other than burning your eyes.
Don’t be stupid, just don’t. But hey, people do coffee enemas and ear candeling too, so go ahead! Stupid people don’t need to see anyways.
t
Ehh, GreenDragon, when did I said I think it’s scientifically proven? I didn’t claim anything like that. What I personally think, though, is that this whole Bates thingy is just plain fascinating. If you’d actually read Bates’ own book instead of random wikipedia article (so wikipedia is scientific authority now?..) you could find out how he got this whole idea (that errors of refraction are caused by strain to the eyes - so yes, technically none of these exercises are bound to work, they’re just designed to help you learn how to relax your eyes 24/7 and this relaxation is what is meant to help). In his book he describes how he learned from the beginning, for himself, how eye actually works - and he came to different conclusions than general scientific opinion on this in his times. He was testing eyes of different people and animals under various conditions and while they were expressing different emotions. He actually came to conclusion that testing with Snellen card is so stressing to patients that some of them show different error of refraction than they really have xP.
Could you not offend me by claiming I don’t know Vitamin D? xD Thanks in advance. Jesus Christ, Mary it’s so basic that I’m wondering who wouldn’t know this.
(I just meant that I don’t know of other oh-so-bad-unscientific uses - like I dunno, something for sleeping? It’s LDing forum, after all…)
I know what you’re getting at , I actually like to make fun of people that way sometimes (‘lol, it’s old!!1 you want to do it retro style? xD’)… but you’re missing the point. Newton’s physics is old (now, I’m not claiming I’m not quantum mechanics fan… which isn’t 100% new either). Hatha Yoga is old but it works (even some doctors admit that preventing stress, gentle stretching and whatever are just good for you). Most math/physics/chemistry or even biology theories have been invented long time ago (ever heard of Darwin?..). So really, this method’s age is just irrelevant. Heck, our cool and awesome modern medicine offers option of putting copper tube into your… uh… um… if you don’t want kiddies. Hello wikipedia. So yeah - hurray medicine, hurray science. I’m skeptical enough to be skeptic both about religions AND science. Most of the time it’s all about someone wanting your money or wanting to put something that looks like medieval torture device into your…
But I don’t want to argue too much, really. I just wanted to share due to this whole Internet pseudo-anonymity thing. IRL I’m all moral, nice and promoting true science and medicine even if I don’t really think it works (hey, I won’t risk destroying my future career xP).
Evidently you haven’t read the topic, or even my post fully, since another member was mistaken about the process by which Vitamin D is absorbed and I quoted them directly below the paragraph you quoted from my post. It’s not taught in schools so it’s not liable to be common knowledge. Incidentally, its not unreasonable for me to assume you don’t know about how we produce Vitamin D when exposed to the sun, when you said “I don’t have a clue about the uses of sunning than sight improvement” Since that is probably the most major thing it gives us. (Lack of it causes rickets, a real problem for those which don’t get adequate exposure, it has to be compensated by diet.)
I think you missed what I was getting at to be honest, its not the age of the theory alone which is of note, its the fact that it is 80 years old and considered to be wrong by pretty much every expert on the subject. It’s not like this is a new theory which conflicts with the current perspective, its been around for quite some time, considered and rejected.
Newtonian physics is no good example here, as it tecnically is wrong (Before I get arrested by other pysics-geeks: I DO know it is correct enough as long as the speed is well below the speed of light). There’s actually quite logical that most science is old: they thought of it first, as they were first to start think about it! Thus the basic-est stuff is the oldest
As for the staring into the sun thingy: as long as they don’t talk people into doing harmful things and/or claim it is a proven fact that it works on something measurable: sure. It might even be pleasant or beautiful! On the other hand, people trying to use science in their favor, while science screams that they are wrong are annoooooying!
. Eyes all hurting and crying? No, thanks… and blinking is actually encouraged (at least was by Bates).
it’s so basic that I’m wondering who wouldn’t know this.
, I actually like to make fun of people that way sometimes (‘lol, it’s old!!1 you want to do it retro style? xD’)… but you’re missing the point. Newton’s physics is old (now, I’m not claiming I’m not quantum mechanics fan… which isn’t 100% new either). Hatha Yoga is old but it works (even some doctors admit that preventing stress, gentle stretching and whatever are just good for you). Most math/physics/chemistry or even biology theories have been invented long time ago (ever heard of Darwin?..). So really, this method’s age is just irrelevant. Heck, our cool and awesome modern medicine offers option of putting copper tube into your… uh… um… if you don’t want kiddies. 