Why didn't anyone ever told me that the ciliary body has muscles both for contracting and expanding?
I only noticed when I started using weaker glasses for near work after two decades of close up vision with full prescription, because when staring at slightly blurred things caused cramps on the atrophized muscles that were trying to relax the permanently contracted ones.
I would have appreciated if they explained this to me when I was a kid instead of just randomly tossing the "take a break, look far" magical suggestion without explaining the science behind it.

Now I'm trying to regain flexibility to my ciliary body, but I'm fucked up by twenty years of abuse, my eyes sting and tear up everytime they make an effort to focus outside the usual zone. But if I do my vision improves a little, as long as I keep the ciliary body active and not static.

How long do you think would it take for my ciliary muscles to regain full flexibility?
The fact that I feel cramps inside the eye and heavy stinging as the counterpart attempts to relax suggests they're in a very bad shape.
How many diopters could I hope to regain if I keep good eye habits?
Would atropine eye drops be useful to release the spasmed muscles or after 20 years they're just too fucked and only actively challenging the muscles can get them back to shape at this point?

Also, why didn't my fucking ophtalmologist warned me my fuckin ciliary muscles were like this in all these years? Did he have to use a different machine from the usual ones to notice this issue?
No wonder my ability to focus was getting so fucking slow and my vision always lost a quarter diopter by late evening. I spent the whole day in front of screens, never moving, ciliary body forever spasmed. Fuck me.