If your vision is like most people’s, it’s been sliding with age, especially if your job involves squinting at pixels for hours at a time. Maybe it’s the latter that’s inspiring a jump in the popularity––and accompanying controversy––of workouts for your eyes.

Like the rest of your body gets tense and less elastic without regular movement, so it is with your peepers, say a growing school of ocular experts who teach and preach vision improvement. The field’s pioneer, William Bates, an ophthalmologist who wrote The Bates Method for Better Eyesight without Glasses in 1920, disputed the notion that eyes couldn’t change or restore function. So he developed a series of optical exercises that aim to tone the muscles that support the eyes to lessen (or eliminate) dependence on glasses––and squinting.

Though many traditional eye doctors pshaw the notion, I know at least two people who swear by these exercises and the internet is teeming with testimonials (whether that’s a plus or a minus is your decision). Like most alternative approaches, it can’t hurt to try it whether you believe in it or not, especially if you’ve got “nearsightedness, farsightedness, aging vision, computer eyestrain and astigmatism,” according to one program.

One such program is The Vision for Life, which offers a “specific series of optical drills and eye exercises that stimulate these integral components of the eye in a manner that would never be achieved through normal daily use.” They ask that you devote 25 minutes a day for 30 days––the kit costs around $160 and includes charts, an eye patch and other eye-building accoutrements (you get your money back “including postage” if you don’t see “dramatic” improvement).

For those who want to start slow (and free), check out the National Institute of Health’s eye exercises for computer use. It includes some of Bates’s techniques, such as palming (staring into the dark cups of your palms until all the lights settle down), exposing eyes to natural light with your lids shut, and focusing exercises. This one, off the Vision of Life site, is especially helpful (hint: if you’re good at those Magic Eye posters from the 90s, it’ll be cake).