Claudia Muehlenweg | When Doctors Say, "We Don't Know" Podcast | Episode 203
In this episode of "When Doctors Say We Don't Know," host Eva Vennari interviews Claudia Muehlenweg, founder and CEO of Holistic Vision, about natural approaches to improving eyesight. Claudia explains that vision is largely a brain function (about 90%) and that the retina is part of the brain, so visual perception can be trained. She discusses common diagnoses—refractive errors (myopia, hyperopia, astigmatism, presbyopia) and early-stage eye diseases (cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration)—and argues that lifestyle factors (diet, smoking, alcohol, stress, sleep) heavily influence their progression. The conversation covers the role of eye‑muscle tension, myofascial release, and relaxation techniques (top‑down meditation and bottom‑up myofascial work) as ways to reduce strain and improve vision. Sunlight exposure is highlighted as a key preventive factor; animal studies and epidemiological data linking outdoor time to reduced myopia are cited, with a mechanistic hypothesis involving retinal dopamine. Claudia outlines her client program: goal setting, self‑assessment with eye charts, tracking "strains" and "gains," relaxation practices, reduced‑glasses strategy, and habit formation (the "10 Habits for Healthy and Happy Eyes" free guide). She critiques the conventional eye‑care industry—glasses as a crutch, optometrists’ financial incentives, and limited acceptance of natural methods—while noting occasional pushback from medical professionals. The episode ends with a call to action for listeners to download the free guide, book a complimentary consultation, and trust their own experience when seeking vision improvement.
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Welcome to the show. My name is Eva Vennari, founder of the Elevate Institute, and I'll be your host for today's podcast. This is When Doctors Say We Don't Know. It's an inclusive conversation, and so many are craving to share their stories and today's experiences. Today's guest is no exception, and our honored guest is Claudia Mellenweg, founder and CEO of Holistic Vision. And you know what? Me too. I never wanted to wear glasses. She always hated her glasses and has made it her mission to help others see clearly, naturally, and just like she has done. And I want to hear more about that. So we have a bunch to talk about today. Claudia, welcome to the show.
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
We were just chatting before hitting the record button and getting into some fun conversation. And before we jump into that, I have to ask, have you been in that position where you were faced with the answer, we just, we don't know?
I personally have not in my vision journey, but I've heard lots and lots of clients that told me, you know, yeah, the doctor didn't know. Like they went blind from glaucoma within a year, you know, under the highest regarded doctor in Los Angeles, and still they couldn't help and they didn't know why they got this problem and what to do about it.
That seems awfully hopeless for someone who's losing their eyesight. I mean, it's one of our major senses. We seem to perceive our world quite heavily through our eyesight, what choices do they have at that point?
Well, you can always— my mission is to say that you can always improve. You can always make changes. Does that mean that every single person can go back to 20/20 vision or perfect eyesight when they had decades and decades of strong glasses or an eye disease? No, right? But you can always make improvement. And, that's really the main important message that I want everybody to remember because eyesight is 90% in the brain and only 10% in the eyes. And we do know from all the research in neuroscience that we can train the brain, that we can make changes.
Oh my goodness. 90% in the brain.
Yep.
That's quite a bit. What in the brain affects the vision like that?
So basically, you know, the retina is actually part of the brain. So when you look at the eyeball, right, the inner layer on the back is the retina. And that is already part of the brain. then it connects to the optic nerve, connects the eyeball or the retina to the visual cortex in the back of your brain. And that's where we actually see, or you might call it perceive, where we interpret what we see, right? I always say the eyeball doesn't know a table from a chair, right? Your eyeball doesn't know anything.
Right.
It's like, you really, you know, you really see in your brain. And that's why people with the same diopters can perceive, or even on the eye chart can see different things because it's all happening in the brain.
Where I'm connecting the dots between what a person might receive as a diagnosis in a doctor's office and where they come to that place of, well, we can't help you anything more unless it comes down to surgery. Are there some things— and I want to— it's kind of a long, convoluted question. What are the things that people can come to you for that have been diagnosed, either they don't want to go through surgery, or there is no option and they're receiving that information of hopelessness. What are the different diagnoses there?
Yeah, so the most common kind of things I work with are so-called refractive errors. And that's basically refraction of light. That's astigmatism. It's nearsightedness. It's farsightedness, presbyopia, which is old age sight. All those kind of challenges are what I most commonly work with. But even beginning of eye diseases can be improved, like cataracts or glaucoma, which often has a higher pressure inside the eyeball. Not all of glaucoma does that. Or macular degeneration is where you lose your central vision where you have the most clarity. So you can improve everything. And in my work, it's like diet is a big part of it, right? Especially with eye diseases, years and years of abuse. And I literally say abuse, you know, bad food choices, you know, smoking, drinking, like all those things that we do, you know, especially when we're younger. At some point, they end up causing damage. And it's often like doctors always call it age-related. And it drives me nuts because it's lifestyle-related and not just that after so many decades, right, there's a consequence when the things commonly show up. But it's not really— just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal.
Oh, that's my line too. I say that all the time. Yes. And we've spoken before, and I've even taken your classes, so I know that we think a lot alike. And that is, that is so very true. And I'm curious about all of that that you just said, and I'm— my mind goes into this whole other place of what could happen to a person's vision, what they perceive as they go through and correct the light refraction. So it's the light, sunlight mostly, that's bouncing off of the things we see around us. Does that affect things like the quality of color that you might see?
Yeah, I mean, there's many, many aspects involved. I mean, it's not just sunlight, any kind of light, right? It could be candlelight, it could be from a lamp. But yeah, the vision— I mean, you do have to have a healthy eyeball, right? I mean, it's like the ears, right? Without the ears, we can't hear anything, right? So it's like your organ of sensory input, right? So there has to— like, if you have a corneal disease, for instance, and I've had students that had to have surgery on their cornea because they had a disease where, you know, the cells, their cells growing, that will affect how the light is refracted and how the light is bent, right? Or your lens. If your lens, if you get a cataract and it becomes cloudy over the years, then it's like looking through a foggy, foggy window, right? Mm-hmm. So that will there will be reduced input into your brain if there's issues with your eyeball. But a lot of these things like refractive errors, basically astigmatism is an uneven shape of the cornea. But when you think about the eye, it's a very soft, squishy structure. It's a, I don't know, maybe an inch and a half. I'm better with centimeters. But it's pretty small and it's soft and it's filled with a gel-like structure called vitreous humor. And without that structure in it, It would be like a balloon kind of deflating, right? So the eyeball, and it's surrounded by 6 strong muscles. And all these muscles are basically driven by our central nervous system, which is in charge of everything we do, right? Is there muscle contraction or relaxation or stress response? So the eye is no different in terms of how it's responding or the muscles. If they tighten, right, they affect the shape of the eyeball. So I hope this makes sense. I don't want to get too much into the anatomy of it, but good vision is basically based on relaxation, to just make it simple.
Well, and this kind of sounds like physical therapy for the eye.
Yeah, I mean, there is— so this is the thing. Most people think that their eye muscles are too weak, right? So that's why most people say, oh, is it eye exercises?
Yeah.
And in most cases, it's the opposite. The muscles are too tense.
Oh.
So they're not too weak. And yes, there is some cases where certain muscles are too weak, but in most cases, it's the muscles are too tense from that stress response, right? So a lot of us living in that constant level of stress, fight or flight, you'd probably know all this or your listeners know about this stuff, right? And so when you've ever, if you've ever been really stressed out, your pupils dilate, your heart rate goes up, your adrenals, like all that reaction, your peripheral vision shuts down. So when you are stressed, Our vision gets worse. But, you know, we have a stress response for a good reason, to keep us safe, but not to be in that level of stress the whole time when there's no reason to be in that stress.
I've noticed that not only stress, but just being like tired. It's the end of the day. The best of my energy is now gone. I'm ready for bed, sleep. I notice that my eyesight is different at that time, too.
Yeah, that's right.
Yes.
I mean, emotions. Emotions have a huge impact on your vision. Like you said, how much sleep you got, what kind of food you ate, how you're feeling that day. Are you— how your mindset. Do you feel excited? Are you interested in what you're seeing? Are you even— or do you get out of bed like, oh my God, this is another dreadful day. I have to go to work. You know what I mean?
Right.
Because vision is based on curiosity. Like, you're only looking at what you're interested in. And if you get up and you're not even interested in the world, like, why bother seeing it clearly?
Oh my goodness, yes. So all the more reason to find something, you know, work that you, you truly enjoy, whether you have a passion about it, you know, that's sustainable. It's more about, are you committed to it? Does this serve you? Does it feel good to others? Are you in service? I mean, this is what keeps me going, and I, I love, I love all of that. And I feel like it's, it's about finding these little insider, maybe even ancient technologies about how we maintain the body that it unlocks a greater sense of security in our health and our ability to view the world and be, be in part of the world. That is important, and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have the podcast. It's all about bringing back the old ways that don't fall under the umbrella and somehow are lost to society. So I think it's fantastic, and I want you to share. It's like, I know of a few ways that you you work with clients and how you work with them. Can you give an overview of what you commonly do with someone who comes to you with things like glaucoma or with even shortsighted, nearsighted rather? Shortsighted is way different.
So basically, I mean, I always begin with setting goals, like asking them, what is your vision or your vision for your vision? Like, what do you want to accomplish? A lot of times people say 20/20. I'm like, well, what does that mean to you? What does 20/20 mean? It's basically an assessment that was created like 1900 by Herman Snellen, who was a Dutch optometrist who measured the vision of his best assistants, and that was kind of determined to be 20/20. You know, your vision can be much better. And it's also just one aspect of eyesight. It's visual acuity on an eye chart, on a static object, right? We have night vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception. There's so much more to vision. So I asked them like, what do you want? And then we set goals because without goals, people usually don't tend to do anything, right?
Yes.
And then the next thing what I do is I empower them. I teach them how can you actually assess your vision yourself? You literally just need an eye chart and you need a near vision chart. And so you can learn to assess your vision, to track your progress, and also notice that your vision varies. And you mentioned earlier when you're tired, for instance, right? So vision varies for everyone up to every 10 seconds. Your vision can be slightly better or worse and being influenced by all the things we already talked about, right? So I want people to become aware of what I call their strains and their gains. Like what makes your vision worse? It could be light, could be emotions, could be the sleep, but it could also be a task they're doing. Let's say they hate bookkeeping and now they're sitting in front of their computer or maybe they have a job that they don't like, right? So there's already a strain involved, like not fun. So we look at that, we look at like what causes your vision to be better or worse, and then I practice, basically I teach them relaxation from both the top down, which is kind of going from the brain, from the relaxing, like meditation, eye meditations, and then also from the bottom up, which is what I think the class that you took, which is about myofascial release.
Yes.
Releasing tension in the body, any physical tension, especially in the neck, and the head and the shoulders will affect your vision. And then, we basically, I help them find the natural good vision habits that people with perfect vision naturally use without thinking about it. So the practices are all really helping them to come back to that natural way of seeing. And one thing I forgot to say, I always make sure that they get into reduced glasses. So if you are stuck in your full prescription, which I call almost like a wheelchair, like if you want to start walking again, you have to move on to crutches. And then for any distance that you don't need glasses, don't wear them, right? People are often surprised that they can actually see 20/40 or better without glasses. They oftentimes like, oh, I didn't realize my vision wasn't that bad as I thought it was. And legally, you have to have 20/40. I want to say that legally.
To drive?
Yes, for driving. So I'm always— I always make sure that nobody goes and you know, sits behind the wheel without having proper vision. Yeah.
Well, you bring up, I mean, so many, a bunch of points, but I noticed that when I was spending more time in front of my computer screen and less out in the world getting natural sunlight on my eyes, I don't wear sunshades and we can talk about that too. I have my reasons for not wearing them. I want to hear yours, but we'll come back to that.
Yes.
Yeah. I grew up thinking that I was, nearsighted, and so I would look out into the distance and the hillsides would be blurry, you know, the tops of the hills would be blurry. And I decided to stop wearing my glasses probably 10 years ago. And as my fatigue started to get better and I had more energy, I noticed that I— my— you were right, that vision automatically corrected. And now I drive. without glasses and seeing into distances. And I can read people who wear glasses. I'm driving with them. I'll say, oh, that sign coming up, I'll read it clearly. And they go, you can read that? And I'm like, you're wearing glasses, you can't. So it's a little scary, but you're— yeah, your vision can totally change. And I noticed that going back to what I was first talking about, as we are sitting in front of computer screens, business owners are anyways, a lot of people's working from home a lot more. Due to our new normal of COVID the computer screens, they're naturally providing us with all of that blue and, and other light that's coming in affecting our, our stress levels. And so I started to pick up some stress glasses to wear to overcome them. And I noticed that I could last longer in front of the screen with less of that fatigue and eyesight going weird. Anyway, I share all of this to say how malleable it is, and I noticed a big improvement after taking your class and helping the myofascia around the eye, around the temple, down through the neck, and, and all of that area that supports the whole head. All of that, it made such a huge difference. Just, just a few times I went from being able to not read the inside, you know, stamp of a piece of jewelry or something, you know how small those letters are, to being able to again. And that's the kind of change that I experienced personally from, from your work. So I find that really interesting. So I want to go back to sunlight. So I know why I don't wear sunglasses. I want to hear what you, you think about it.
Okay, you just mentioned so many topics. I know I have so many ideas what to say about. I do want to say one thing really quickly because you mentioned that you stopped wearing your glasses and I was actually on a podcast recently, and she had this idea. She wore pretty minor nearsightedness, like it was 1 diopter, a little bit less. And so she said, okay, I'm going to do this experiment. I'm not going to wear my glasses. And she's hiking every day or walking every day with her dog. I'm not going to wear my glasses, and 2 weeks later, let's talk. And I gave her a few practices to do from my challenge that I was running. So we went on this podcast, and she said, you know, crazy thing, I only did the practices one or twice, like one time or two times. Like, I basically didn't do anything you told me to do, but I didn't wear my glasses. And she said, I put them back on and they're too strong. So, right? So that's one thing I do want to say.
Yes.
But I also know that you went through a whole healing journey in general, right? I did.
Yeah.
So it's not just taking them off, because I do see people taking them off and then they're squinting and they're straining and that doesn't help at all, right? So what I do want to say about sunlight, There's so many things I want to say about sunlight. But first of all, also disclaimer. So if you have any kind of condition that doesn't allow your pupils to constrict—
Yeah.
Could be, you know, from recreational drug use, if you get eye drops, if you have eye surgeries, certain eye diseases, you know, I would always use common sense. Or if you're in extreme conditions, you're skiing or you're on the ocean, you know, anything that's unusually bright. then I would always recommend sunglasses. But other than that, I'm with you. I don't wear them. I stopped. I used to be so light sensitive—
Mm-hmm.
That even on an overcast day in Los Angeles, I had to use sunglasses. And what I learned since then is that, you know, basically we have built-in sunglasses. We have pupils. And they constrict very small when it's bright. And when it's dark, they open up, right? And when you now put dark sunglasses on, your pupils actually open up behind the sunglasses. actually letting more light in that you then have to block with the sunglasses, right? It really doesn't make sense.
That's weird. Yeah, right now that you're pointing it out, thank you.
So, I mean, and there's other things. I mean, they actually— there's lots of studies done with the connection, and there's animal studies, there's— what do you call the studies? I'm German, so my English, sometimes I forget the word— where they looked at populations moving to different parts of the world and noticed the difference What do you call those kind of studies?
Oh, migration? I don't know.
Yeah, so basically, so basically I can share just really quickly. So they did some studies with animals and they gave— it was chickens and frogs and monkeys— and they occluded one. And those were baby, like chicks, right? Like baby animals. And they occluded one of their eyes with a basically like an opaque contact lens, and their eyeballs grew long, which is what happens when you are nearsighted. So they became nearsighted. Then they noticed that children that play 2 or more hours outside each day compared to the ones that spend most of their afternoons inside, you know, or their days inside, have way lower rates of nearsightedness. And lastly, they noticed that Chinese— in China and in Asia especially, nearsightedness is rampant. It's like over 90% now of children and youth is nearsighted, up from 25% in the '70s.
It's Insane.
It's not genetics. And they noticed that Chinese children, you know, living in rural villages, or those that moved to Australia, right, where there's lots more sunshine, have again like about 20% of myopia compared to the ones in the cities where it's 80% or higher depending on the exact region. So there's all these different studies connecting sunlight exposure in children especially, right? to nearsightedness, which has an elongated eyeball. And they believe— the science believes that the sunlight stimulates the dopamine receptors in your retina and makes sure that the eyeball grows to the proper round shape. So that is the current research.
Oh my goodness, there's so much to keep up on. And I'm sure that doctors are— do you feel like— I'm asking you to speak for doctors who, you know, ophthalmologists. Like, I know that you're not one, but it's like Do you feel like this information is getting to today's eye doctors so that they're aware of what's going on out there when they're helping to have conversations about eye health with their clients and patients?
I mean, I think it's— I mean, I just came off a 5-day vision conference, and we have several colleagues that are optometrists and eye doctors, and some of them are retired. And, one of them is Jacob Lieberman, who's written a whole book about light. And he cured his own myopia in the '70s. So there is, I think most eye doctors still believe that sunglasses are the only option. And there is, I mean, there is indeed, like if you, I mean, there is this thing such as snow blindness, right?
Right, yes.
There is extreme conditions. And so I usually recommend wearing a hat or wearing a cap. Usually it's the angle of the sun, or if you're like say in Greece and all the buildings are white and everything is reflected, that's a different condition. But I feel most eye doctors completely ignore this. And, you know, it's a billion-dollar industry. And actually funny, there's a book written by Aldous Huxley in 1943 who was treated or had lessons by a student of Dr. Bates, who was the original founder of the whole vision improvement. Dr. Bates was an ophthalmologist. He wrote a book 100 years ago. He noticed vision can get better or worse. And anyway, like, you can research the Bates Method. But basically, Aldous Huxley, you know, he had a congenital disease. He was basically blind. Even with glasses, he couldn't really read anything.
Oh, wow.
And so he had lessons and he still needed glasses. It wasn't like, again, he wasn't like getting back to 20/20, but he was able to read and write and do all this stuff that he cared about. And he wrote a whole book called The Art of Seeing. And he bemoaned in that book, he said, you know, in 1943, he talked about how this, the wearing of these dark spectacles has become a fashion, like a fad. And, you know, Hollywood was really a major contributor, like Hollywood stars. really started wearing them in the '40s, '30s and '40s. And he said, you know, when I was a kid, like before World War I, like I barely remember anybody wearing sunglasses unless it was like, you know, what he called it, he had a weird word for that, but you know, basically a blind person, right, that wanted to kind of shield their eyes because maybe they looked ugly or they didn't have eyeballs, you know what I mean?
Oh, right, yes.
He was basically saying, you know, back then it was just blind, the afflicted, he called it the afflicted, would wear the dark goggles, you know. So I think it's interesting that we have come around. When you— and sorry for my long excursus—
That's good.
But when you look at sunlight, you know, when you look at sunlight, you know, Josephine Nightingale noticed that sunlight actually is disinfectant and helps cure tuberculosis, which they couldn't, you know. And then I think we've been going from like sunlight is great and healthy and important for bone strength and for vitamin D, and then we went into this whole other thing like, no, sunlight is all we have to avoid it, like we have to— we should never be in the sunlight.
Yeah, it's poison.
Right, it's poison. And I think it's kind of going in these cycles of, you know, I mean, there's so much to talk. We could fill 3 hours just talking about sunlight.
I know. Well, yeah, even from my perspective, but I really want to keep it focused on what you're doing. And I think it's so interesting because you're able to do some things outside of what we consider traditional You know, what you go to the ophthalmologist for and finding great success. And I think that's really awesome. So do you ever receive pushback from people who haven't heard of what you do? Does it seem strange to them or what do you normally, or what can you hear from people who are unfamiliar with your work?
I mean, mostly I feel like some people are like questioning it or doubting it or they're not interested. I feel like a lot of times people are simply not interested. They like their glasses. They haven't had a major decline yet. The people that do feel what I teach is really valuable and that become my students are the ones that either heard from their eye doctor, there's nothing we can do, or notice that every single time they go, they end up with a stronger prescription, which makes their vision worse. And even when they say, these glasses feel too strong, the doctor's usually, oh, don't worry. Just wear them for 2, 3 weeks. You get used to them. And I say, what you're basically doing is you're making your vision worse to get used the glasses. But I have heard, like just today actually, which is interesting, I just have heard somebody who's a doctor who's basically accusing me of, you know, being— he's basically telling me I'm crazy. And even though I have— he didn't even give me the chance to send him all these hundreds of links on PubMed and all these studies about the work that I do. He was just basically saying, you know, you're doing medicine without a license. I'm like, no, I'm an educator. I'm not a medical doctor. I never— I don't prescribe. I don't diagnose, right? I just teach people. And what I always say is like, don't believe what I say. See for yourself. Do it and see for yourself.
Literally.
Right? Literally see for yourself. Like, you don't have to believe me. I don't want to convince anybody. Yeah, you know, but most people that find that it's— that work with me have already experience that glasses and contacts and surgery, that's a whole other topic, has really left them like with worse vision. Really, like, you know, like no other field in medical, like no other field would accept, you know, like if you break your arm and you get a cast and the doctor would say, hey, you know, you have to wear this for the rest of your life, it's going to get thicker. Everybody would be like, what the heck, no. But with, you know what I mean, with eyes, we have somehow accepted that, you know, there is no way to improve our vision. It's just basically—
Yeah.
crutches or, you know, and surgeries don't last, right? I mean, LASIK especially, that leads to— that's a whole other can of worms.
Oh my goodness, yes. I haven't heard all the stories about that, but I just had a small taste of the information people, you know, it's fairly new in the world of medicine as it goes. I remember they were, you know, can lead to blindness just by having the surgery, and so it's a high-risk thing to embark on, but we have options. And I think the reintroduction of these ideas is vital. So I just want to ask for those who are listening and they like what you have to say, and maybe they don't want to experience that major decline and wait to make a difference in their vision and they want to contact you, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?
So yeah, I have a little gift for your listeners. It's called 10 Habits for healthy and happy eyes. And if you go to— it's, for some reason, we need the www. I don't know why, but you have to put that in there.
No.
NaturallyClearVision.com/10habits, and 10 as the number 10. So 1-0 and then habits. Yeah. And you can download my free guide. And then on the thank you page, you can also— you're invited to book a complimentary consultation if you want to find out more or especially for your specific scenario.
I think that's, that's very helpful and very generous. So I appreciate that. Thank you. We'll go ahead and put that link in if you're driving or if you simply can't find a pen right away.
Nice.
We're going to put this information in the show notes so we'll have it handy for you. But, well, before we go, because we're running out of time, I want to ask you a final question. So what do you feel is the most important thing to remember when searching for answers?
The most important thing is, and I kind of said that before a little bit, like, see for yourself. Like, you have an experience. If you've been wearing glasses, you already know that they don't make your vision better, right? You just get more and more dependent, especially if you're somebody who started with— who had always had perfect vision, and then you're in your early 40s or 50s and you start with readers innocently enough. Before you know it, your perfect distance vision is gone and you're in progressives. So I always say trust your own experience. And when an eye doctor tells you, you know, get used to those glasses, and they don't listen to you, then don't listen to them. Go find somebody else. Because at the end of the day, and this is one last thing I want to say, optometrists, and they're not all evil people, right?
No, they're not.
A lot of people want glasses, want contacts, but optometrists make money by selling you glasses and contacts. They don't make money with the eye exam. A lot of times they even offer it for free. So just know, like, trust your own instincts. That's really what the big thing that I want to say. And see for yourself, like when you download my free gift, see for yourself the few things I'm suggesting, if they make your vision better, if you feel better or not. And that's what I would say.
Beautiful. I like it. And that's really important information that we tend to forget with eye doctors. We just take it at face value. Oh, I have this prescription now. I have to go fill it. And we don't think about— I know I didn't for a long time. We don't think about things we can do to naturally improve it. And then not have to deal with glasses at all, which is a gift. I mean, that's fantastic. So thank you. Thank you for being a guest and sharing all of this with us.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah. And thank you for listening in on this episode of When Doctors Say We Don't Know. This has been an engaging conversation, and my goal for those of you listening will hear a message of hope so you too can turn your experience of pain into triumph. If you're driving or simply can't click on the links to the show notes right now, remember you can always hop on theelevateinstitute.com and follow the podcast links for today's show. There's more to talk about. Tune in next week for our new episode of When Doctors Say We Don't Know. This is Eva Vennari reminding you to question everything.
