myopia

Myopia: Is sunlight a cure?

Ritesh Bawri

26 Feb 2026 — 2 min read

Photo by Vivek Doshi / Unsplash

In 2000, roughly 23% of the world's population was myopic. By 2020, that figure had climbed to 34%.

By 2050, projections suggest nearly 5 billion people, half of humanity, will be unable to see clearly at a distance.

Something changed. And the evidence increasingly points to what we stopped doing rather than what we started.

Spending time in the sun.

Myopia develops when the eyeball grows too long. Light entering the eye lands in front of the retina instead of precisely on it, blurring distant objects.

So obviously we would love to know what regulates the growth of the eyeballs?

In large part, a neurotransmitter called dopamine, released directly within the retina itself.

Bright outdoor light triggers the retina's photoreceptors to stimulate specialized neurons that release dopamine as a direct response to high-intensity illumination.

Yes bright light.

This retinal dopamine acts as a growth brake, signaling the eye to stop elongating. Research across multiple animal models consistently shows that blocking dopamine receptors eliminates the protective effect of bright light entirely.

Light and the dopamine are inseparable.

Here is what makes this remarkable. Even a cloudy day outdoors delivers light at roughly 10,000 to 25,000 lux.

A well-lit office rarely exceeds 500 lux.

Your retina, shaped by millions of years of outdoor living depends on sunlight to calibrate the muscles of the eye. A signal it rarely receives anymore.

A child genetically predisposed to myopia is approximately three times less likely to need glasses if they spend more time outdoors.

Spending time in the sun delays onset rather than reversing existing myopia. The sooner you develop myopia as a child, the more severe the progression.

So what can you do?

Two hours in the sun daily is the threshold most widely supported by research.

Get your children out in the sun. Go with them. The sun was always part of how your eyes learned to see distance. Your retina is still waiting for that signal.

Twitter @rbawri, Instagram @riteshbawriofficial, YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain.

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