The Hidden Vision Crisis Holding Our Kids Back — Dr. Bryce Appelbaum on How Functional Eye Health Transforms Learning, Focus, and Family Wellness

Hello friends, I'm your host James Barry and welcome to the Everyday Ancestral Podcast. I am beyond excited to introduce you to our next guest, Bryce Applebaum, Dr. Bryce Applebaum. Not only is Bryce a friend, but this is a personal episode for me. We as a family were struggling with my youngest daughter in her learning We did not know what was going on. We were more observing stuff. And Bryce and his vision therapy expertise was what ended up being a savior. So we personally have benefited from what you're about to hear in many ways, as you're about to hear. So if you're finding that your child is kind of stagnant in their learning, if they're younger and they're, you're just noticing that they're not like really getting it reading-wise, then this is the episode for you. There might be other things as well. Maybe someone's trying to diagnose them with ADHD. Before you go down that rabbit hole of pharmaceuticals, please listen to this episode and check out Dr. Bryce Applebaum. So he is a pioneer in neuro-optometry. He's passionate about unlocking life's potential through vision. His expertise includes reorganizing the visual brain post-concussion to return to learn and return to life. Dr. Applebaum is on a mission to change the way the world views vision. He believes there is more to vision than just 20/20 eyesight and has developed programs to retrain the brain to revise the eyes. Please enjoy our conversation. Our next guest on Everyday Ancestral, Dr. Bryce Applebaum. It is such a pleasure, my man. How are you?

I am doing great, Chef James. It is— I'm so psyched to be here. I've been more excited for this podcast than honestly any of the ones I've been on. So excited to get rolling.

I'm particularly connected, not, not only because you're a friend, but also you have really shifted our family, like a lot. And you have absolute freedom to talk about your experience with my daughter, because I want people to understand that it's personal, what we're going to be talking about today. And what we're talking about is the eyes, right? You're going to hear vision therapy come up. You're going to hear about Bryce being a neuro-optometrist. But before we get to, you know, what that is and what vision therapy is, I want to dig into my personal story. experience with you first. And that was that we were seeing our youngest daughter kind of not shifting, like not really learning to read despite her extreme efforts. Like she is a tenacious child and she just wasn't getting over these humps. We were noticing in school that she was just kind of like constantly at a similar level, a very low level compared to her other classmates. We were also noticing she was getting headaches and a lot. And Margaret had the suspicion that it was eye-related, and she thought to talk to you. Can you just share a bit about how you approached that subject? Because you talked about it in a way that no one brought up. Like, you covered things that no one has even suggested. And I really want the audience to— rethink how they, when they hear their child is struggling to sit still in the classroom, when their child is getting headaches at school, like I want them to just start to actually understand that it may not be what your current, you know, conventional doctor is suggesting it is.

Yeah, I would go farther to say it's probably not what your conventional doctor is saying. And, you know, I think I remember exactly where I was talking to your wife for the first time when she was describing, you know, your daughter rubbing her eyes all the time and preferring to be read 2, but avoiding reading on her own and the motion sensitivity and the, like, falling off the curb when you're walking down the side of the road. I mean, all these things that were really sweet made her who she was, but I remember thinking like, oh my goodness, you're giving me the answers to the test. And yet, like, you didn't even know you were— these questions should have been asked and you didn't even know that there was a test out there. And with your daughter, it was really, she hadn't learned yet how to use her eyes together as an efficient team. And she hadn't developed the eye-brain-body integration that naturally occurs for all of us, but often doesn't occur in the most linear straight path because of so many other things. And we can talk about those, but really she had her eyes holding her back from achieving even close to her potential with reading, with learning, with sports, with navigating through space, really with life. And I'm just so grateful I had the opportunity. To help and to work with her. And it's so cool to see the changes. But the main areas we worked on with, with her, no child is born with the ability to track, to converge, to process information, to have their eyes work as a team. It, it's developed through our life experiences. And so it's either learned well or not learned as well as it could be. And that's when some intervention is needed. But this was really a visual developmental delay, yet most people don't even know what to look for to find these kind of hidden signs of, of functional vision problems.

Yeah. And you specifically diagnosed her that she had, and remind me if I'm wrong, but she had no depth perception and she was seeing doubles.

So she had convergence insufficiency, which is just, you know, complicated language to say she had trouble exploring near space to know where to aim her eyes and how to get the inside and outside muscles of the eyes to work together in synergy to then process that information and know what to do with that information. And that impacted her ability to see in 3D. You know, she didn't have the depth perception cells that we're not born with. Again, they come through life experiences and learning from our life experiences, and she hadn't developed those pathways yet. So it made simple tasks so challenging for her. And, you know, she was seeing double for pretty much all near work, reading, writing, desk work, but yet didn't know that wasn't normal. Didn't know other kids weren't seeing like that. And You know, when I started doing the testing and realizing, oh my gosh, look at this fragile eye coordination and how unstable her visual system is, and asking, do you sometimes see 2 of things when you feel like there should only be one of them? Her eyes bugged out of her head and she was like, oh my God, yes. And it was one of these, like, this guy's got an idea of, of what I've been going through. This isn't what you're saying. It doesn't have to be this way. And I mean, that's 9 outta 10 times, that's the exact same scenario that plays out in the exam room because Parents, we don't know what to ask for or to look for other than what we've been exposed to. And, you know, there's so many people struggling unnecessarily with these hidden functional vision problems. And yet we're looking at structure and a reactive model in most of medicine, especially in eye care, where we need to be looking at function and a more proactive model to make sure we've got the right skills in place to thrive.

Yeah. It broke our heart when we learned that she was struggling in those ways, because I think every parent just wants their, their child to be thriving. Well, let's get into— so what is vision neuro-optometry like, and why is it different from what everyone else is doing?

So I identify as a functional eye doctor, and what that means is I look at vision as way more than just 20/20 eyesight. So we really need to think about eyesight and vision as separate things. And eyesight is really just a symptom. It's what we have glasses or contacts for, and that matters. But vision is so much more complex. Vision is how our eyes move together and converge and track and focus and process information and really how we make sense of the world around us and then direct the appropriate action. So really, vision problems are brain problems and they're manifesting in the eyes. So if we can treat these challenges from brain, from a brain perspective, so much can be done to unlock potential. And as a neuro-optometrist, what that means is I'm looking at the eye-brain connection and how we can train that, optimize that, and allow for a better rapport with space, with life, to be able to drive more efficiently and comfortably, to read, to learn, to play sports, to really just make sense of the world around us and feel confident in space.

So your father was an optometrist, wasn't he?

He was. He was a developmental optometrist, which similar, but, you know, a little different in terms of where we've kind of evolved to as a profession and even a specialty now with neuro-optometry. But yeah, I mean, he, I'm a product of the work that I offer now. You know, when I was a kid, I was, I was a mess. I was lost on the soccer field. I was struggling in the classroom. I had trouble making friends because I had a difficult time even knowing where to look and kind of feeling confident in my own skin. And fortunately, because of my father who, you know, made me do vision therapy and my mother who made me do sensory integration-based occupational therapy, that was her profession. I attribute all my success in life, athletically, academically, interpersonally, to what was developed for me and the hard work I put in to be able to create these new pathways and connections that I really hadn't tapped into on my own.

So really what you're doing is an amalgamation of what your parents kind of like, it's taking both of their fields and converging them, huh?

Absolutely. Putting them together, putting that on steroids, and then also including brain training, visual cognitive work, kind of an aspect of reaction time and, and just overall performance as well. And we've created this kind of hybrid approach where it's really integrative and helpful for so many aspects of life.

I think that's what kind of blows people's minds when I share the work I've done with you, because Margaret and I actually came and did some vision therapy work with you too. And you actually were able to remove, and I'm going to mess this up, but one of her, the aspects of her lens through the vision therapy because she was wearing glasses at the time, but she had these dual types of lenses, right?

She had a few things, but she had prism in her glasses. I think that's what you're talking about.

That's what I'm referring to. Yeah. Yeah.

And so prism just basically moves where something's located in space. And so for her, she had trouble. Her eyes naturally wanted to diverge. So she had prism that moved the world out to where her eyes were so that her eyes wouldn't have to point in the same place and converge. And it, you know, respectfully was kind of like a crutch that she was really leaning on. And, you know, I remember when she had sent me her records from the last kind of 2, 3 years before I had seen her, that prism amount was increasing. And so she was adapting to the help that was given, which is very common with normal glasses as well, just for eyesight, and then needing something stronger to maintain that same level of single clear vision. And literally that was making things worse. Now, there are times and places for prism and for lenses and things like that, but in her case, it was more a brain problem showing up through the eyes and yet being addressed from a glasses perspective. And not allowing her to, to use it. And when we don't use it, we lose it. And so, you know, we did enough work to teach her how to use her eyes to rewire the software of her brain to change how she was using vision, but to eliminate that spatial mismatch so that she can aim her eyes accurately where something is in space because she has a clear understanding of how to use the inside and outside muscles of her eyes in synergy.

I mean, I just remember it was amazing because we went and came to do an intensive vision therapy week with you.

And boot camp.

Yeah, boot camp. And I think by the second day or even later that day, but definitely by the second day, we were at a restaurant. She was reading the menu without her glasses. She's like, wait, wait, wait, wait. And she just, she didn't even, it didn't occur to her that she wasn't wearing her glasses. And then it did and she was blown away. How quickly that process was.

Most people would say, well, that's not possible no matter the timeline, much less in a short amount of time. And, you know, as we age, certain things change in terms of our body, but just like any muscle system in our body, if we stop using it, we lose it. And so for her, she blew out the candles in her 40s, and then all of a sudden arms weren't long enough and things kind of started to recede. But yet with active work, We can make it so at least that doesn't increase for everybody, and our brains can be optimized and enhanced in terms of vision. But for many people, even reverse what's been in place and prevent it from even, you know, changing depending on the situation.

I really want people to hear this, that, you know, the way optometrists go to glasses is similar to the way that doctors just default to antibiotics. Please share with the audience, like, What should the person listening or the families listening be considering instead of just jumping to glasses?

Well, let me start by saying glasses are not always bad. And so it's just one tool in a very large toolbox. And often if glasses are going to fix a problem, you know, that can be helpful. But so often it's, it's again, the brain, how the brain's using the eyes. So we need way more than glasses to To fix what's struggling or what, where the, the challenges may be. But let's hit 5 quick areas. So, you know, a child who you may be wondering, does my kid have ADD or ADHD or dyslexia, right? The symptoms of that, squirmy with desk work, you know, relying on their ears rather than their eyes from the classroom. They're listening to the teacher, but looking like they're not paying attention because they literally can't control where their eyes are pointing and having their brain turn on to that information at the same time. Losing their place with reading, skipping words, skipping lines, even just being resistant or reluctant to reading, you know, wanting the parent to read to them. I mean, those are clear signs that there's very likely a visual developmental delay or functional vision problem. Absolutely. There's not a blood test that says, oh yes, you have ADD or ADHD. It's based off of symptoms and behaviors. And there's a lot of symptoms that go both ways here. Dyslexia, somebody struggling with reading. I mean, these are all incomplete diagnoses until functional vision problems are ruled out first. And it's not like somebody's born missing a portion of their brain that allows them to read. It's faulty integration of the visual processing centers, the auditory processing centers, the language centers, and not creating the right pathways and connections there. A child with an eye turner, lazy eye, rubbing their eyes or squinting. I mean, those are signs the eyes aren't working well together as a team. So much can be done there. Somebody who has a head injury and, you know, screens are hard to look at, it's hard to read, we get sensory overload in, in environments like the grocery store, mall, where there's all this input that we can't filter, or just dizziness, nausea, headaches. I mean, there's so many symptoms there. Symptoms often improve after a head injury because our brain learns to adapt, but the problems, in my opinion, never do. It's just a matter of how we learn to bypass them, and they only get better if we actively tap into the pathways to eliminate the problems. But then even the simple, as we get older, we all think that cognitive capacity drops and vision problems occur. And although that's common, that's not normal, right? And there's a difference between normal and common. So—

Explain that a little bit, because I think that's a really key concept. I mean, I remember my mom hit a certain age and she got glasses. I mean, everyone When I was younger, it's like when they hit a certain age, they got glasses. It's almost like it's just the default. Like, yeah, you're getting your driver's license. So when, then when you hit 65, you get glasses.

So the inside muscles of our eyes responsible for clarity, our focusing system, as we age, and it's typically in our late, mid to late 40s, they become more rigid and less flexible, just anatomically. And most people, the first sign of, oh, it's a little hard to read my phone or to read the menu, they're They just run and grab over-the-counter readers. And to me, that is like the equivalent of my knee hurts a little, I'm gonna go sit in a wheelchair. You literally stop using the system. If that becomes your new normal, then all of a sudden the things you were doing, you're not doing as well without the help and you're relying on the help. And then the help gets stronger and stronger. And so ultimately, I mean, if we're living to 100, 150 years old, we're probably gonna need some help for Up close, but it could be a fraction of the prescription at a fraction of the time if we're intentional with this. So although it may take some effort and some strain, use that system. Like if something's blurry, stop and make it clear. And if you can hold it for 5 seconds, awesome. The next day, try for 6 seconds and then 7 seconds, and you can build reserve, you can build stamina there. But I would say, you know, we want to prolong the need for reading glasses in as many situations as possible. And we can talk about exercises that can help support that, but we're in a very visually dependent world and we're in a world where digital devices are everywhere. And this is just stepping on the wound and making it that much harder for us all to just maintain equilibrium with our visual system.

Do you think that the use of these, you know, screens at such an earlier age than even, you know, our generation experienced, Do you think that's going to result in even more eye straining, more eye issues? And are you, and maybe you're already seeing it.

Yeah, it's not, I think it's 100% happening and time is just catching up now. I mean, it is, kids are being exposed to screens and technology at earlier and earlier ages. Kids are being asked to read earlier than ever before, before they have the visual foundation in place. And so right there, we're starting early on with dysfunction. For adults, I mean, screens are catapulted into every aspect of life. And I'm not anti-technology. I'm actually very pro-technology and I heavily rely on technology for my practice and for our patients to deliver better outcomes. But normal visual systems and normal brains are not built to withstand what we're doing right now, staring at a screen all day long. And what people don't realize is with the right work, with the right brain training, you can get to a place where you thrive in this digital world. But for the vast majority of people, it requires exercise, just like we exercise our body, exercising our visual system. I mean, the average adult right now in America spends 7 hours and 4 minutes a day on a screen. That's average.

7 hours.

And the average 8 to 10-year-old spends 6 hours a day on the screen. Like, James, when we were 8 to 10, there weren't even screens around, right? Like, It's crazy what's happening, and we're now seeing how this is impacting so many aspects of social, I mean, everything.

Yeah, everything, right? Obesity as well, because that means they're not outside playing. It is scary, and it makes me think, you know, I never made this connection, but I don't, and I don't even know how familiar you are with him, but Weston A. Price was a dentist who noticed that the jaw, the size of the jaw, the human jaw was changing. And he was noticing like all these facial features on people that was changing as the standard American diet changed, as more ultra-processed foods came into play. And he was like, this doesn't seem right. And so then what he did is he closed his practice and traveled the world and actually did a whole study on like, well, look at finding tribes before they were influenced by these American foods and how their health was actually better in many ways. I think what we're seeing right now is similar. Like, you're seeing the effects of this technology and how it's negatively affecting us physically and our eyes and our brains. And yet most people are just, you know, acting like an ostrich and sticking their head in the ground going, well, we'll just get glasses. And they're not really connecting. Like, wait a second here. We need to rethink what's— how we're approaching this subject, how we're approaching this technology, because this is not going away.

It's not going away, and it's going to just be more and more. The same parallel with the jaw is occurring with the eyes. So nearsightedness, or the medical term myopia, meaning far away is blurrier than it is up close. When we landed on the moon in 1969, about a fourth of America was nearsighted. Right now it's about 43% of America, and it's estimated that by 2050, 50% of the world will be nearsighted. And that includes countries that don't have access to technology like we have. And when there's myopia, the eyeball actually elongates and gets longer, which causes terrible risk factors for the stretching of the layers and glaucoma and all this bad stuff. And function and structure are very much interwoven here, but it's crazy. I mean, if 2 individuals right now were to have a child and both people were nearsighted, their child would have a 1 in 2 chance of being nearsighted. If one parent is, a 1 in 3 chance, and if neither parent is, a 1 in 4 chance because of the environment we are all in and kids not getting enough Sunlight and be getting outdoors. I mean, it's proven 90 to 120 minutes is protective. Too much screen time and too much near work in the dark. All 3 of those, we now have data and research and literature to show this stuff's bad.

You're a father, you have 3 kids. How do you handle screen time? How do you handle this technology? And then do they have eye issues? I'm assuming if you did that they probably might be susceptible to them. So how are you How are you walking your talk at home?

Parenting is, is amazing. It's also so freaking hard, right? And we all have to pick our battles. And all 3 of my kids know that the mountain that I'm standing on is limiting screen time as much as possible. You know, we're in a house where we don't support screen time at an early age, yet absolutely there's a time and a place. And so for us, it's like if we're traveling on a flight, Or now, as my twins are 10, they now get 15 minutes a day, twice a day. That has to be earned. My 6-year-old gets 15 minutes once a day, and they have to spend the, at least that same amount of time outdoors. But they're also wearing what we call digital performance lenses, or these glasses that they know they can only be on a tablet if they're wearing the, their digital performance lenses. And I let them pick the colors and the sparkles so that it's ones they like. But these are glasses that are therapeutic in nature, not compensatory, meaning they give the brain a better opportunity for the eyes to work together by decreasing some of the visual stress associated with near and, you know, relaxing the focusing system in a way that nothing negative happens. It's more like a spot if we're lifting weights.

I was going to say, I'm so glad you brought up these glasses. They're more than just like blue light blockers, right?

Way more. There's a prescription in them.

And yet, why is that prescription not negatively affecting their eye muscle, whereas sometimes subscriptions do, as you pointed out earlier?

So they're the normal ones that take something blurry and make it clear. That allows the focusing and eye teaming systems to basically lock into that and then almost act as like a way to compensate. Whereas in this case, it essentially relaxes the focusing system. So for some people, they may notice, oh, this actually makes things a little blurrier. And it takes the near focal point. And this is, I don't want to get too technical here, but it moves it farther back. So it makes it so that you have to actually relax your focus and kind of engage with more of your side vision than your central vision. And what's crazy is, I mean, I've been prescribing these for 15 years to all kids that we see in the practice. And about 80% have the exact same prescription, which we've done a ton of, of analytics and data to figure out what is the weakest amount that gives the most improvement. But then the other 20% has to be customized. But we have tens of thousands of data points to show that this takes the visual stress of near and makes it less terrible for us, especially with screens. All 3 of my kids have done vision therapy. My wife is currently in vision therapy for the second time because she wanted to do as little as possible just to make things easier. And now she realizes, oh, you're probably right. Let's just fix this. And my son at 4 years old was showing moderate signs of the exact same profile that I had, an alternating eye turn, reduced eyesight in the distance, limited depth perception, and just complete avoidance of any near work in front of him. Even though I knew exactly what was happening and what to do, I was terrified because with your own kid, it's so different, right? Put him in, in vision therapy at 4. We took a pause at 5. We went back in at 7, and he's now 10 with HD eyesight in the distance, perfect depth perception, and is on an elite flag football team as the wide receiver. And has developed the eye-hand coordination that it's not because his last name's Applebaum. We're not, we don't have the genes for that. This was all trained for him. And so I see every day what happens when, you know, we take a, a structural approach to that case, in which point now he would have a constant eye turn. He'd be in very thick glasses and probably have a very negative association with school and reading and learning because it would've been so much harder for him than it should have been. And normal human nature is we avoid stuff that's hard for us. Even with all that I just shared, I mean, take-homes for everyone listening. The bigger the screen, the farther away, the better. So if your kid's going to watch or you are going to watch something, put it on a TV and this gives you an excuse to go buy the biggest TV you can find on sale and get it on the wall. And then it's less strain on the visual system. And also, you know, if you're going to be saying you can never be on a screen, that's going to make your child want it even more. And I'm sure you have stories about this with nutrition and food, and I would Love to hear parallels with what you've experienced, but there are ways to really be supportive and to allow for moderation and balance, but also a great teaching opportunity for them to recognize the why. And then they can hopefully be making the right decisions for themselves as they mature.

Yeah. Wow. So a couple of things to share on this I want everyone to know. So Bryce, Gave me a pair of these glasses he's talking about when we last saw each other a few weeks ago. I brought 'em home thinking that they were gonna be for me. They were not, cuz that's a different story. But they didn't end up looking good on me. And that has nothing to do with Bryce. That has to do with Margaret.

But she said they look good, so I just turned her around and said, okay.

Yeah, basically Mar— I put 'em on and I said, Margaret, how do they look? And she said, oh yeah, they're really good. And then I looked at Bryce, Bryce, what do you think? And his face went like blank. He, you could tell like, He probably didn't think they looked good, but he was like, well, I'm not gonna supersede his wife.

Yeah, it's whatever you say. Yep. Yeah.

But it was so funny because then when I put them on later, Margaret had the biggest laugh and she's like, I swear they look good then. And I'm like, I don't think they did. But anyway, what happened was I brought them home and they actually looked great on my older daughter, Sia, who normally has like 20/20 vision, right? So she is the case where—

20/20 eyesight. We got to keep those separate. Yep.

Okay. Yes. Thank you for that. So, so 20/20 eyesight. So she is an example of where she hasn't come in for vision therapy yet, but she was getting headaches whenever she was on screens at school. And so she took these glasses, started bringing them to school, and she's gotten no headaches since. None.

That's amazing. And so happy that your wife didn't want to look at you with those on because that means they could benefit her. And also I have the perfect color and style for you that—

Thank you.

It was already, already set aside. The frame doesn't matter. It's what's in the lenses that matters. But yeah, if you want your partner to look at you and, and with a smile, right, she'd throw you under the bus like mine did. But I mean, that's, you know, I think even with, with Sasha initially, like the terrible headaches that she was experiencing, I remember asking like, are these all the time? Are these on school days? And like weekends she's kind of solid? And it was like, actually, you know, And now that we think about it, yeah, it's just on school days and it's from the visual stress of school and what's, what comes with that. We don't have the stats yet, but I would imagine the vast majority of kids who are stuck inside with the junk lighting on screens where so many school systems now are just giving tablets or Chromebooks to all their kids and, and saying, yeah, hang out on this for a while. Vast majority of kids aren't visually ready for that. And the vast majority of people aren't visually ready for that. Yet as adults, we kind of accept status quo and recognize, yeah, I just, you know, back-to-back Zooms, it's taxing and my productivity decreases as the day goes on. And when I get home, the last thing I want to do is read or look at my phone or computer. But yep, that's just life now. It doesn't have to be that way.

Yeah, that's so powerful, everyone. So I'm telling you, these glasses work. And it's different than what you see on the market. It's not just blue light blocking. And I, and when I did try them on at that conference and we had been all day under those specific lights, I wasn't necessarily looking at screens, but I put them on and I did notice my eyes relaxed. And then I tried them on later that night. And I also, and I was looking at a screen and I noticed the same thing. My eyes were very relaxed and I felt I could easily then go to bed. Even though I was looking at a blue screen.

Blue light is, is not bad for us. It's gotten all this attention these days. I've been joking and saying blue light's the new gluten. Everybody's like, get this out of my face. I don't want this near me. We need blue light. We need natural blue light from the sun to help set circadian rhythms and to regulate hormones and mood and alertness. It's the junk blue light from the screens that are blasting our brains and eyes all day long. that trigger the receptors in the back of our eye, whose sole job is to respond to light and send the signal to release melatonin and everything that helps set our circadian rhythm. When those are always overstimulated, the brain freaks out and starts suppressing the release of melatonin. And then it, there's this negative feedback loop and things go south very quickly. But blue light glasses, you know, that block blue light that are really high quality, that block a wide range, those are helpful. But these, these digital performance lenses, I would say the prescription that's in there is way more important than just the blue light. And it's a combination of high-quality blue light filters, the prescription, and then the anti-glare filter specific for near screens. You know, for distant screens, these don't work because it's different systems are involved with near work versus resting in our natural position in the distance.

Yeah, I was very clear with Sierra. I was like, you only wear these when you're looking at screens up close. But they're working it, y'all. So we'll put links and whatnot where you can get these glasses, but highly recommend them if your son or daughter are coming home from school and talking about having a headache. Try these glasses. It's a good first entry, but we're going to share some other really good entries as well from Dr. Bryce. But now you mentioned something. that I talk a lot about is human nature and how it's kind of in our nature to not want to do the work.

Oh, yeah.

You're talking about basically like a gym for our eyes, you know, and many of us are just like, oh, man, another gym, like another exercise, another this, another that. I'm sure you face this with your own kids. How do you recommend we kind of overcome this human nature?

I think there's 3 subsets of people. There's the people who have pain points, have the symptoms, and they will do anything possible to make life better. There's the other end of the spectrum who it's like, everything's fine, but I'd like to optimize and improve anything I can. And then there's the middle chunk, which is the vast majority of people where they're just kind of lost. They don't know what's normal, what's not. They're not able to self-regulate or self-monitor. Maybe they're not able to kind of check in with their body and how they're doing, and they're just on the go, go, go mode throughout the day. And it's that middle group that's really, I think, the group you're talking about here where, like, at times it's a lot easier to grab over-the-counter readers to read the bill, to pay the check, to get out of there, to go home and do bedtime and deal with all the stuff. Versus figuring out how to do the work so that that area of life, that area of health is optimized. So, you know, for people with substantial vision problems, they need office-based training and they need to work with a doctor board certified in this and they need to reboot the brain. And then once that hard work is done, then it's a matter of just maintaining, which maintenance is very different than. Doing something for the rest of your life. And, you know, all the pro athletes I work with, like, we have a top 3, top 5, top whatever exercises that they do as a pregame ritual to kind of prime their brain for, for action in their craft or in their sport. I think in those cases, it's just part of their, their pregame ritual and just what they do. You know, for people who, who want to do things more days than not and just kind of be more proactive, tying specific procedures or exercises with normal habits that you always do makes it so you don't have to think about it. You don't have to feel guilty about not doing it. You don't have to have it be on your to-do list that just keeps getting pushed off and off until the end of the day. So, I was actually on a podcast late last week, and we came up with pooping push-ups, doing focusing flexibility work. We call those eye push-ups. Every time that you poop. And if you're regular and if you're eating pluck and you're healthy and you're— that's helping support digestion, which I know it has for me. Doing near-far focus exercises every time you're in the bathroom, 2 minutes right eye, 2 minutes left eye. We can talk through what it is. That's at least one thing that you just know, okay, I'm gonna be on my phone for 4 minutes less. And I'm actually gonna do this and do something to help me, or You know, eye stretches when you're brushing your teeth and you're looking in the mirror. I mean, certain things that's just like, yeah, this is just what I do and I'm doing this until I'm not doing this.

I love this. And it's true. Most people are sitting on the toilet just looking at their phones. So if anything, they're doing the thing that's making it worse.

Exactly. And then your phone gets all dirty and yeah, it's all, it's, you don't want any of that.

And the only issue with connecting it with poop though, is there's so many people that have issues around You know, going to the bathroom that, I mean, like, I think of this one person, I'm related to her. So she was like, okay, I only poop, you know, every other day and I don't want to talk about it. Like, that's how, like, she was so closed off that that's how she kind of said it to me.

But, but, but doing a near far focus every other day is better than not doing it any day.

All right. Good point. Okay. So you just gave 2 examples. One is when you're on, when you're pooping and one is when you're brushing teeth. So what is the one exercise you would recommend they do? While they are pooping?

Eye pushups. So everybody take one hand, cover up one of your eyes.

Okay.

Other hand, take a finger, bring the finger as close to your eye down your midline as you can until it gets a little blurry, and then stop and try and make it clear. So if you're under 40, you can probably get it pretty close. If you're in your 40s, 50s, probably a little farther back. You wanna hold it as close as you can and, and really get to a point where you can see the The fingerprint and kind of the pad of your finger and get the detail there. Stop, make it clear, hold it for 5 seconds and really think about looking hard, constricting the focusing system, stimulating it. You'll notice your pupil gets really small when you're looking close. And then you're going to take your focus and throw it out into the distance and look as far across the room as you can for 5 seconds and relax the focus and kind of look soft. And the pupil will get real big. And then come back to your close finger for 5 seconds. And then back in the distance for 5. So it's kind of a gross stimulation, relaxation, stimulation, relaxation. Same amount of time, right eye, as you're doing it with the left eye. And most people will notice that the distance where they can hold that finger is probably a little closer with one eye than the other, which means under normal life conditions, you're probably focusing one of your eyes at a slightly different plane than the other because it's hard to focus on both at the same time. And our brains are phenomenal in terms of how we can adapt. To not have to do something that's hard, to not have to use our eyes together as a team.

Which I have one on, if you remember correctly.

Yeah, absolutely. You do this literally 2 minutes each eye, more days than not, your finger will be able to get closer and closer and closer. And even if it's a millimeter a week, you're not going to maybe notice that, but then years are going to go by and you're not going to have stronger reading glasses. You're probably going to be doing a lot more without your reading glasses. And this is like as simple as it gets. This is like low-hanging fruit. This is doing pushups. Now, if you're trying to say, I want to get in great shape, I want to look great naked, just doing pushups is not going to get you there. But it's taking one system and getting you to have a much better rapport with it and building flexibility and stamina with it.

Okay. What's the exercise they can do when they're brushing their teeth? A different one.

I said, eye stretches a few minutes ago, but I think a better one would be what I call a VOR. So, it's a vestibular ocular reflex. Don't worry about the name. Cover up an eye, look at your eye in the mirror, don't look away from your eye, and then you're going to slowly turn your head to the left, slowly turn to the right, but holding fixation the whole time. And it actually kind of looks a little weird for some people to see their eye steady as everything else is moving. And so you're going to go side to side, you can go up and down. The more you do this, you want to add in the diagonals, rotations, same amount of time right eye as left eye. That for many people can significantly improve motion sensitivity and sometimes even car sickness with a few other things as well that, you know, the vast majority of car sickness has a visual component that's treatable. But, something like that, you're brushing your teeth probably not long enough in terms of what we're supposed to. And, you do this for 30 seconds, a minute each eye, your teeth are going to be cleaner because you're brushing for longer, but also you're developing a much better relationship between the vestibular and visual systems and also the cervical system as you're doing it.

These are very practical, very doable exercises. And I love that you're using what you're in front of, right? So you're in front of the mirror when you're brushing your teeth. So boom, that's what we're using. Love it. Now, these are just kind of like DIY, you know, first steps.

Yep.

You have the more robust step, which is your online program. Can you talk about that?

So it's called ScreenFit. And a lot of people think an online program to help with digital eye strain, what the heck are you doing here? I know. There's 2 different courses. Each course has 30 lessons. Each lesson is literally a video of me explaining what to do, and then it's put your phone down or put your tablet down and do the exercise. So it talks through the sequence of 30 lessons. Ideally, it's 1 lesson a day, 4 or 5 days a week. So we're talking 6 to 8 weeks per course. And it's a program designed to do specific exercises to help support digital eye strain and all the symptoms and problems that come with staring at screens for too long. Along with reducing symptoms and promoting mindful visual habits for extended screen use. We've had 100% of people who've gone through it have seen a reduction in symptoms, and we've had as young as 5 and as old as 89 go through it successfully. And like you said, this is a DIY program, but a much more robust one, and it's kind of the equivalent of like following an app to do bodyweight work at home. To get in better shape. If you follow the work, if you do it, and if you don't come up with excuses not to do it, you're going to get in better shape. Your visual system is going to get in better shape. But ideally, it's going to a gym, or in my case, going to the Eye Gym, working with a trainer, in my case, a doctor, but with all the equipment, with all the tech, with all the tools we have available to just get into better results faster. But not everybody has access to that. And so it's a nice way to help the world in a way where really everybody would benefit from it, but not everybody needs it.

And everyone, we're gonna give you a special deal for this. So everyone that uses the code ancestral is gonna save $200 off this. So you're gonna turn, what is it, nearly $500 item to a below $300, correct?

Only because it's, you're the Barrys and I love your family. And absolutely. I mean, it, it, We want to make this as easy as possible to do it. And $200 off is pretty solid, but you got to do the work. So don't just buy it and let it sit there.

And that's really key. I mean, I think it's really important to think about that with anything is we don't want to pay almost too little for something because then we definitely won't do it. We want to make sure we do it. And this is something the whole family can do, correct?

Absolutely. It's lifetime access. I'm not supposed to say that, but we're not going to take it away from you. If you have a family of 10 people, if that's the case, God bless you. I, it's hard to handle my 3, but you know, everyone can do it. And it's almost like a, a way to hold each other accountable and I'll go through your vision exercises before dessert.

So really great option. And thank you for that discount for everyone. I think that's gonna help a lot. And then you have kind of a more, like truly like you won the golden ticket, you're paying for it, but it's like, this is like, Everything's accelerated, right? This is the Ferrari of what you offer because you basically take, what is it, like a year's worth?

So it's about 3 to 4 months of work minimum in a week's time.

In a week's time. Yeah. And we had done this for Sasha, and this is why we saw such accelerated results for her. I think we did 3 weeks total broken up. There were many months in between them. Because we would do them during her school breaks and we saw, I mean, major results. I think the last time she was there, she was, didn't you say it was like she had gone from like zero depth perception to, wasn't she at like 70 or high 60s or something like that?

I think by the end of the week, she was at like 60, 70% accuracy of where it should be for her age. And that's from it being Like nothing. Respectfully, nonexistent from day one. I mean, most eye doctors, most doctors in general would say that's just not possible. You can't retrain depth. We now know that's not accurate and we, you can, and we've interpreted the research in the correct way now compared to what was there in the past. But any brain at any age can be taught new tricks.

And we saw it, we witnessed it, and it's been miraculous. And then you also even What you gave us was a blueprint that we could then give to her teachers, to her school, to her counselors to support her specific needs in the classroom as well, which was an incredible tool. I don't know if you even are aware of how powerful that tool is and how important that is.

Thank you for sharing that. To be able to, to level out the playing field and say, here are some accommodations that are going to give her the best chance for success. And she needs larger print and she needs instructions that are verbally told to her as well as written. And she needs to be in the front of the class and all the things that just make it so that she has the best opportunity to do her best and to not strain and struggle unnecessarily. So that's great to hear that that was helpful.

Really helpful. But we'll just share a little bit about what is that accelerated program look like?

So we call it a kind of a VIP intensive bootcamp, and it's a week of work. We need at least 5 days, ideally 6 days, evaluation beginning of the week, evaluation end of the week to highlight all the wins and areas of opportunity for improvement and what we're going to continue on at home. And then it's 12 hours of work during the week. It's a lot, but it's a lot that, you know, is very carefully sequenced in terms of the learning And spread out over time. And then end of the week, we put you on a, a home program for usually about 3 months with every activity kind of tailored to where you were and where we're going with ways to increase the level of demand. And then we're also now doing customized virtual reality vision training, which is such a game changer where we give each patient a, a VR headset. It's yours to keep when you're done. And then we're programming in on the backend the work you did here where our doctors go in each week and adjust the settings. Wow. And, you know, for your daughter, maybe it's like she's chopping up fruit that's flying at her in this virtual world. But what she doesn't realize is we have the ocular set so that she's having to converge every time it comes close and then diverge as it goes far and kind of adjusting the settings where one eye's a little blurrier than the other. And then we shifted. And so we're really just arranging the conditions to raise to her awareness what she's doing so she can learn how to self-correct, self-monitor, but Get the feedback of, this is what it looks like when my eyes are working together. And the only way I can see the fruit popping out is if I flip the switch in my brain that now is accessible and automatic for her.

And it is an investment, everyone. I mean, I'm not going to soften that. It is an investment, but it's one that we have positively experienced. I mean, it changed my daughter's life in terms of it's also changed our lives. Now, what is interesting is getting her to do these exercises. So, what we found, at first, she was really keen to do them. I mean, when I say at first, for the first few months, very keen to do them. We created a check-off sheet for all of us.

Right.

So, we're all participating in like, these are the kind of things we have to do on a daily basis. And, using what you talked about earlier, how your kids have to earn their screen time, this is how our kids earn their screen time. Make your bed is one. For Sasha, it's her eye exercises. For Sia, it's, you know, movement. She's gotta— she's gotta have some kind of exercise. For me, it's— 'cause I'm, I'm on a specific plan right now, like a health plan. So mine's like counting my macros and like exercising daily. I can't remember the third one right now, but I'm doing it.

Telling your wife you love her.

Yeah. Point is, is that this is how they're earning their screen time, if they even Get it. What I have noticed though is that Sasha, when those eye exercises, there's a few of them that are really hard for her. And when she gets to those, she tries to avoid it. She wants to just do the ones she knows how to do and that are easy, the low-hanging fruit. This is maybe interesting for you. I remember when I was in your office, you talked about throwing a ball to her to have her catch it with her hand is actually a form of vision therapy. And so recently when we were at that conference, we got those little juggle balls. I said, hey, Sasha, instead of doing the work you're normally used to doing, let's just do this. And she's loving it. It's just like switching it up. She's like now reconnecting with her vision therapy.

That's vision therapy for her because she's taking what she's learning and developing and applying it to fast-moving space. And a normal child who doesn't have this awareness of vision that's forming, it's more just like, yeah, I'm just playing catch. And still you have to make conscious decisions on where I think the ball is and how to prepare my body to respond to where it will be. But for her, that's literally the gel that's kind of solidifying what she's doing. And so, you know, maybe it's a type of thing that you're alternating hands or you're calling out the hand a split second before she has to make that decision. Or, you know, we're doing 2 at the same time. I mean, there's so many ways to increase that level of demand, but that's awesome. And way to— Way to kind of be flexible and just figure out ways to trick her into doing the work. That's great.

Honestly, what's working the best is, yes, switching it up like that. So, so, so whereas it used to be kind of more, I don't know, visual, for lack of a better word, now it's both visual and physical. She's using her more of her body. But then the other is, I, I think she's craving participation. So something that's really powerful when they come to your office is they're actually with one of your people, right? They're actually actively doing it with someone else. And so sometimes at home, she's doing it alone, and I think she's really wanting more connection. And so the way we're solving it is either we're doing the exercise with her because we need it too, right? So it's not like it's a disadvantage for us, or we're doing the throwing the ball back and forth, but we're still participating. And I'm finding that that's reconnecting her a lot to it.

That's awesome. And maybe that even gets her excited about ball sports and wanting to take a chance because she's not worried about whether she's going to be successful or not. She's worried about more like, is this going to be fun?

Well, and I'll share just as we end, you had mentioned earlier that how she used to trip a lot and she really did. I mean, she used to fall on her knees so much and she would get so angry because she just Didn't understand why she was always falling. And now after the work we did with Dr. Bryce, she is on a cross-country and track team. She loves it. I'm watching her do these things where she has to jump over through hoops, jump over things, and, and stay within the lines as she's running. And she's doing it all. And what's exciting is she's doing it all with a smile. She's so excited. while she's doing it. She may not be the fastest, you know, beating everyone, but she is loving it. And I guarantee she would not have been able to do this without the work that she did with you. So thank you so much, Bryce.

Beyond my pleasure, and, and so grateful to have the opportunity to help her and your family. And it's just getting started in terms of how, how much better life's going to be for her. So just So amazing that, that we got to meet and that you recognize the importance of this type of work for her. So thank you.

And I got to say, I recognize it for her and I recognize it from my own experience as well. It does make a difference. And I will fully admit that I struggle with doing it. And I think though, that you have created a lot of really great options. And I think those 2 exercises you gave us today will, are even Also really great options. And I think the thing that is, I'm going to really take away too, is that these are things that I can do while I'm doing something else. Like I can connect the habit. I'm finding that really does help me adhere to all these habits I'm trying to support within my own life. So I encourage everyone, if you're going to start somewhere, start at least with these 2, these 2 exercises Dr. Bryce shared with us today. The glasses are another one that I cannot recommend enough. They have changed my oldest daughter's life in a way that I didn't know they were going to do that. She's a happier kid. She's more enthusiastic about school now too.

That's awesome.

And then, of course, the work you did with Sasha as well and Margaret. So thank you for doing what you're doing. Where can people find you and continue to dive deeper into your mission and your offerings for this world?

So appreciate all the kind words. You can find us at My Vision First, which is the name of the practice in Maryland, right outside DC. We've got an office in Bethesda and Annapolis, Maryland. ScreenFit is on there. It's also at screenfit.com. And then we're all over social, but Instagram is probably the best one. And it's just Dr. Bryce Applebaum. But my ancestors wanted to make life difficult for us and Applebaum is spelled E-L, Not LE like the apple. So sometimes that, that you have to check that. Can I share a quick story with your audience?

Yeah. Yeah.

So I'm from Maryland, born and raised. I now live in Maryland. And if anybody has, has seen the movie Wedding Crashers, there's a really famous line in there about football and crab cakes. That's what Maryland does. So I pride myself on making a Ridiculous crab cake, and it's gluten-free and it's dairy-free, and there's no filler. It's all crab, and then a beautiful mix and assortment of spices and sauces and all of that. I'm not going to try and pretend like I know what I'm doing to the master chef here, but I will tell you, I recently started adding pluck to it without telling anybody, and my father-in-law, who is. The pickiest person I've ever met, who I can't even count the amount of meals he sent back at restaurants, which is so uncomfortable and not okay for so many reasons. But he was over about 2 weeks ago, and I made the crab cakes, which he's never even agreed to try because he says, I don't like crab. Put extra pluck in there, and he said, this is the best crab cake I've ever had. You better make this every time I come into town. And honestly, it's the pluck. Thank you for that. And now I can finally feel like I've, I've crossed that mountain with him and I don't have to now prove it to anybody else.

Now he'll finally let you marry his daughter. Right.

20-some years after first meeting me. Now I got—

Finally accepts you due to pluck.

Yes. Pluck and diabetes.

That's awesome. Wow. Yeah. It's so funny when I, when I, when I created Pluck, I did not know that it was going to do that. I didn't know that it would make food taste better, but now we've gotten so much feedback from people that say like, that's the only thing I did differently. And that night my family wanted to eat seconds. Everyone complimented me on the food. So yeah, I joke now, like, yeah, if you want to be perceived as a better chef, just use Pluck.

There's no spice. Or combination of spices that comes even close to the boost that this gives literally anything you put it on. So, I know you're always fine-tuning it and making it better and searching for excellence. You're already there, man. It is incredible. And, I feel so much happier knowing that my family is getting the nutrients that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise and that they deserve by sprinkling some of that into everything.

Which one did you use, by the way, for the crab cakes?

So I've done several. I've done the spicy, I've done the zesty. This is the original.

That's awesome. Well, thank you again, brother, for coming on the show. Cannot speak highly enough about the work you're doing. It's just, it's truly beneficial. I have to ask, I mean, before we get off, 'cause I'm just so curious, like you mentioned, you know, you struggled a lot as a kid, as someone who was experiencing this. My daughter, and I've noticed this about you as well, is that you approach these kids in a way that I'm now realizing it's because you were that kid. You're so gentle with them and you're so on their level. And I feel like you really understand what they're going through on a level that maybe someone else who didn't experience what you did as a child wouldn't.

Thank you for sharing that. I really feel like The opportunity I have is massive, and if I'm not changing every person I work with's life for the better, like, one of us is doing something wrong. And I know the safer of an environment it feels like to be able to take chances and to share what they're experiencing and also to communicate where the areas of opportunity are just allows us to help that much more. I think my superpower is, is connecting just in that environment where I really get where the struggles are and all the emotions that come with it. And also recognizing the other side of that is so freaking beautiful. So to be able to help somebody get there, that's kind of my purpose.

Yeah. Well, keep living your purpose because you're doing great.

I appreciate you.

Thank you again for joining us. And thank you for joining us. Vision therapy, y'all, check it out. It works and it's different from what most people are talking about. So please check it out before you make any decisions, you know, about glasses, about ADHD medication, about any pharmaceutical that someone's recommending about your child. Like potentially just be open that it could be an eye and brain miscommunication that's happening, check out Dr. Bryce Applebaum's work because he's seen amazing results with his vision therapy with these kids that would normally be diagnosed in harsher ways. So thank you again.

Appreciate you.

Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit Subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You could find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K dot com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.