No matter how great your eyesight, with age it starts to deteriorate. It’s just a fact of life, and the result is most people over the age of 40 eventually need to invest in some glasses in order to keep up with daily activities like reading. But there’s a growing body of evidence that says this doesn’t have to be an inevitable fact, and we can actually turn the clock back and improve our eyesight with some proper training.

Glasses Off is not like most eye training apps or systems, because it’s actually not focusing on improving the eye muscles, but instead it tries to improve the brain’s interpretation of the information that comes in via the eye, and so reduces the need for reading glasses after a period of practice.

The program works by running through a series of increasingly difficult ‘games’ which involve various timed image sessions based around visual acuity and interpretation. The games start off simply enough, with E and reverse E tests, but soon graduate to very fast timed flashes which you have to accurately identify as quickly as you can.

The result is you’re actually not so much testing your eyesight, as testing your attention (or the executive attention network of the brain), because you have to really concentrate to spot the variances. It’s very clever, and we can definitely see how it works over time.

As with all of these ‘gamified’ systems, you are awarded encouraging stars and points as you progress, and in fact the program offers 3 fee weeks of sessions as long as you continue with using the app regularly each week. It’s a nicely judged incentive. Eventually we suspect you’ll have to buy something like an extended course if you want to keep on progressing, but the free starter pack is definitely enough to get you going and keep you interested. And we suspect you’ll see results.

The app makers claim that running through the course can help reduce your reading eyesight ‘age’ by up to 8+ years, and that 12 mins use, three times a week over 3 months will be enough to improve you reading eyesight by some 80% over your start point. Sounds good to us. The app is available for free from the Apple iTunes store and Google Play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12dlMyjatKI

Oh and to get the best out of the program, you’ll need to commit to reducing or stopping your reading glasses use while things improve. Which could be a challenge to some.