How Your Vision Could Be Affecting Your Brain and Body with Dr. Bryce Appelbaum

What's the number one thing that people should stop doing for their vision right now?

Spending too long on screens without taking a break. Screen time is the new pandemic. Screens clearly are toxic for our nervous system, and when we're locked in on screens for hours on end, it causes so many maladaptations and functional vision problems that are treatable, they're avoidable if we know what to do so we can do better. But we should not be on a screen for more than 20 minutes without taking a break for at least 20 seconds and looking 20 feet away, but really vision breaks.

Dr. Bryce Applebaum, welcome to Rooted in Wellness.

Thank you so much for having me.

I think I've had goosebumps 10 times since speaking with you this morning. I'm so happy. I've been looking for, for you, I guess, for a really long time. So I'm grateful you're here.

I appreciate you saying that. I also have— that's clearly a good sign that we've got some important stuff we're talking about.

You got it. So this podcast, as I was saying, is really about merging the worlds of ancient wisdom with modern-day medicine. And what I believe— becoming rooted is the ultimate knowing that we can become rooted in our health, our happiness, and our inner knowing and awareness to heal. Um, but I think a lot of people, we have a hard time remembering that. So I always like to kick things off by asking, what are 2 or 3 things that you have in your life, rituals that help you feel more rooted in who you are?

Oh, and these are fairly new for me within the last couple years, but number 1, meditation. Grounds me. I feel so lost if I don't. And I tried for years to meditate and would listen to things my wife and I had been, and I would just fall asleep at night and she'd hit me and go, hey idiot, that's not what's supposed to happen. And then all of a sudden I just realized, you know, trying to find emptiness and space, and then I just felt like so safe and so grounded. And now that is my non-negotiable. Um, I've probably missed one day in the last 3 years.

Incredible.

And I know I'm still a novice, so that's, that's one. Um, two, I would say, is definitely focusing on, on health and what I put in my body, how I train, and really using my brain as the most important organ or piece of me. And so I know so much I can, I can do, when we all can do, to help unlock potential through that. And then number 3, I would say division training that I did as a kid that I continue to do. I'm sure we'll talk about that, but I feel like I've learned how to access, how to get communication between different centers in ways that have really allowed me to show up in the world the way that I deserve to be and want to be.

This is beautiful. I really love owning in on that question because, as I was saying before, I think that we've really overcomplicated what it means to be and feel healthy today. And 9 times out of 10, what the expert answers is, you know, modalities that are often free. So thanks for sharing that. Being on a healing journey yourself, do you notice when you feel uprooted, and do you course correct? And maybe share 2 or 3 things that cause you to feel uprooted.

Great, great question. So I would say stress from our environment is the root cause of so much illness and, and unnecessary struggling. There's times when I sometimes feel, feel dysregulated. And I've learned how to access peripheral vision and peripheral processing as a way to really feel safe and present. And when I feel dysregulated, I literally can flip the light switch almost instantaneously and find that presence, which then allows me to show up and be a better father, clinician, friend, spouse. So I think that's the biggest piece is finding that way to regulate yourself. And for me, it's vision, of course, but that inner vision, that outer vision really supports inner vision and how I can regulate inner vision as well.

That's a big one. We'll spend some time talking on that because learning how to regulate, especially with the stressors of our modern world, I think is really challenging, myself included. And I've meditated forever, but I find that, you know, on some days it feels really hard to regulate.

Yeah.

So before we dive into the, the good stuff, here's some rapid-fire questions. Okay, we'll go deeper on everything.

Hit me.

But I just want to see what comes to mind. So most people think that 20/20 means that their vision is perfect. What does that mean, and what's missing?

So that's looking at eyesight, and one of the big take-homes today is that eyesight and vision are two different things. Eyesight's our ability to see. That's how we focus light clearly. That's a symptom. Vision is brain— how our brain filters, organizes, processes all the input coming in through our eyes, and how we derive meaning from the world around us and then direct the appropriate action. So most people go to the eye doctor, they look to make sure their eyes are healthy, they make sure they get the right glasses or contacts to allow them to see the tiny letters. But there's so much more to vision than just 20/20 eyesight.

I wonder how many of our listeners have never heard that before or made that distinction before. That's huge. What's the number one thing that people should stop doing for their vision right now?

Spending too long on screens without taking a break. Screen time is the new pandemic. Screens clearly are toxic for our nervous system. And when we're locked in on screens for hours on end, it causes so many maladaptations and functional vision problems that are treatable, that are avoidable if we know what to do so we can do better. But we should not be on a screen for more than 20 minutes without taking a break for at least 20 seconds or looking 20 feet away, but really vision breaks.

20 minutes, 20-second breaks. Okay.

And looking 20 feet away into the distance. So relaxing the eyes and disengaging from that locked-in thinking, attention, and focus.

This is a good ritual. True or false, your vision has to get worse as you age?

False.

What's the biggest misconception about what an eye exam actually tests?

Eye exams do not— primary care eye exams, we're all taught in school, do not look at functional visual skills and abilities. Our tracking, our focusing, our depth perception, our peripheral awareness— that is how we navigate through space. That is how we allow vision to give us an advantage in the world rather than the opposite. And most eye exams, you're in and out quickly. You're making sure the eyes aren't going to fall out and that you can see small things, which definitely is important, but We need to pick up where all of those leave off and really look at how the eye-brain connection is operating.

Overrated or underrated: blue light blocking glasses.

Both. Okay. And the reason I say that— good quality blue light glasses are very underrated, but there are so many blue light blocking glasses that don't really do anything. And just like anything, you need to really look at the science behind it, the quality, and what, what you're doing to hopefully, uh, support your eyes. But blue light is really important for us. Natural blue light from the sun, but blue light blasting our eyes and brains from screens all day, that's where the problems are. And blue light is a range. So a pair of glasses could block a certain wavelength and be called blue light glasses. Or blue light blocking glasses. But the $5 ones you get on Amazon, you're pretty much getting what the quality that you're, you're paying for. So we need one blue light glasses that block a healthy range and that allow the brain to not have, uh, so much to have to contend with, because blue light from screens definitely causes challenges to our health, our mitochondria, and even our— how our brain functions.

Are you connected with any blue light blocking glasses that you Trust.

Yes, I think it's interesting you say that. I have two companies that were, were very close to partnering with. There are certain ones out there that are fantastic, and I would say Raw Optics—

what these are—

is awesome. I would say True Dark is awesome.

Great.

Uh, Viva Rays, also very good. And for lower cost options. OcuShield has some really good quality ones as well.

Thank you for that.

And I may or may not be, uh, talking about one or more of these companies more in the future.

Great, great news. Keep me posted on that. What's one vision habit that people think is harmless that you'd actually change immediately?

Screens before bedtime without blue light blocking glasses on. I mean, screens disrupt our circadian rhythms and how our brain releases melatonin, gets you into this hyper-alert state, hyper-aroused state. And in general, we should be off screens in, you know, at least an hour before bed, hopefully longer. But if we do have to be on them, really robust, high-quality screen protection and blue light glasses, which have to be amber or orange or yellow if they're going to be blocking the spectrum and the range that they need to.

Do you have a red light screen on your devices?

Uh, on some of them, yes.

Okay. All right, we'll dive into that. I'm curious for children as well.

Yeah.

So you have said the vision is one of the most overlooked foundations, right? It's funny for me, I was sharing with you when I did my yoga teacher training, there's actually an entire section on eyesight. And here's what was cool about it. And what I loved, and this was actually before I became a nutritionist, Ayurveda recognizes your eyesight as one of your digestive modalities. We digest what we eat, what we smell, what we hear, what we touch, and what we see. We're taking in our environment. And I thought, that's fascinating and so relevant in our world today. But, you know, you're an expert. You've obviously in the past few years had a lot more attention on you. Can you share with us Why is this still in today's world the last thing that people are addressing when it comes to our health and our healthspan?

So much to unpack there. I would say, number one, we are in a reactive healthcare system rather than a proactive one, and we're all trained in school to intervene when there's disease and look at structure, but very rarely are we looking at function and we're looking and taking a proactive approach. And just like we can train and optimize so many areas of our body, so many systems, vision, our dominant sensory system, the one that should be tying together input from all of the other senses to, to guide and lead, is often doing the opposite. It's often interfering. And there's so few people doing this type of work, looking at functional vision and really training that eye-brain connection with something like Vision Performance Training, that many people will say, well, this doesn't work, or there's not enough research or literature to support the efficacy of this. And I would say absolutely this does work, kind of like physical therapy works, but you have to be in the right place doing the right work and for the right reasons. And there is not enough research in literature to support the efficacy of what's out there. There definitely is plenty though that shows the proof is in the pudding. But I read somewhere that the average piece of research doesn't get put into clinical practice until 17 years after it's been published. And I will tell you, by the time something's published, we're on a, we're in a new place. In the last 6 years, with the changes that have happened with COVID and, and the different lives we all lead now, digital devices are everywhere. And the problems that we have seen functionally that have emerged are unlike anything I thought was possible. But we've been changing our protocols by the week in terms of what's needed to use the eyes to rewire the software of the brain, to change how we're using vision. And yet most people, well, if it's not in the textbooks or wasn't— if I wasn't taught this in school, I can't possibly go down that path. I'm fortunate in that myself and my team, we learn from our patients and we constantly try and challenge our status quo to deliver the best results in the shortest amount of time. But that means we are reiterating what we're doing daily and coming up with new protocols where we can now reverse so many things that have occurred. We can rewire the brain after concussion or brain injury. We can make it so that even though we get older and our arms aren't long enough and we're holding things farther away, just like any other system in our body, we can train our visual system to not be as dependent on support, but also to open up so much of our world. And I think just going back to what you said initially, we all hold stress in our eyes and certain disciplines and, and different, um, practices around the world do eye exercises and preach them, and they're starting from an early age, versus in this country it's, well, this— they don't work, or there's not enough protocols or systems out there, because I think a lot of people want a quick fix.

Yeah.

And a lot of the really life-changing work, it's small incremental changes day to day that lead to massive realizations and awakenings, but it's usually not a quick fix, overnight fix.

The greatest inspiration for this podcast is the fact that we're not treating the body as a whole, the interconnectedness between everything. And as I said before, we talk about integrative healthcare, but I don't think it's actually happening. And gosh, I think— I don't even remember really doing a lot of eye exams as a kid, but I'm curious, for optometry today, Is training also becoming an antiquated system? Like, neuro-optometry is a very specific niche. Did that happen for you when you were in school? Tell us a little bit about your background and what led to that.

Yeah, so I'm really a product of this work. Uh, as a child, I was an absolute mess. I had visual developmental delays that made it so I was lost in the classroom, struggling on the sports field, really had a hard time even with interpersonal connection. And fortunately, I was born to the perfect parents that made sure that I went down a vision training path, a sensory integration-based occupational therapy path. And I attribute all of my success in life athletically, academically, even interpersonally for what was done for me by using my eyes to rewire my brain. And I went from being a reluctant reader to an avid reader. I went from being the last one picked on sports teams to a stud with eye-hand coordination. And I went from being really insecure and having a hard time just feeling safe to developing this confidence. And to me, it's vision unlocked my potential. That's not taught in school though. And we're going even further down the path of becoming more, more medical and relying on obviously medications and interventions that don't take a holistic approach. And especially from a training standpoint, vision doesn't operate in isolation of other systems. Vision is our— is such a clear reflection of brain function. And yet when, you know, all the, all the clients that you work with who are struggling forever and have brain fog and, um, decreased productivity throughout the workday and, and mental health challenges and are just really struggling unnecessarily. Vision is a piece of that puzzle, yet most people in the world don't even know that yet because they just think again of eyesight and the ability to see. We're talking about what does the brain do with the information coming in through the eyes to now make sense of it and open up the world.

When we think about how many people today suffer from fatigue and migraines and headaches and stuff like that, I work with so many people where they just brush it off and they'll kind of muscle through it. But when we think about that and the communication to the body, then afterwards, that's the instigation of stress that's connected to everything within.

Absolutely. And we are in this reactive medical system that slaps labels on behaviors and on symptoms rather than look at the root cause, right? So, I mean, you bring up migraines. Migraines should be a diagnosis of exclusion. We should be ruling out everything else that's causing the brain to freak out. And so often the migraines that occur are from too much screen time or from motion or from certain areas of our environment where we're not able to respond appropriately to our environment. And very often vision is a piece of that, but so too is, you know, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, a lot of these diagnoses that have visual components that are treatable.

Okay, so let's go back to that distinction, that very powerful distinction between eyesight and vision.

Yes.

Let's break that down.

Okay, okay. So eyesight is whether you can make something clear, right? And that is, uh, every doctor's on this heavy pursuit of seeing the tiny letters in that dark exam room without even looking at the person behind the eyes. And as silly as that sounds, most people listening who've had eye exams, 10 or 15 minutes, you're in and out, you barely even talk to the doctor, and here's new glasses. And I'm not anti-glasses, I'm not anti-contacts, but that just gets you across the start line in terms of having the brain put an image, put both images together to be able to process them. But we're talking about is how the brain then takes that information and runs with it. And so the vision piece is how our eyes move together and converge and track and focus and process information. And really how we can take the signals that are being sent from our eyes to our brain to be able to know how to filter them. Organize them, store them, process them to then make sense of, of yourself in space and the world around you. So many vision problems have nothing to do with eyesight, and so many people with vision problems have perfect eyesight. And yet most people think, well, if I can see something, or if I can see a street sign, or see this, the board in the classroom, then I'm solid. And I would just say that is like the first little piece of the puzzle.

I'm just thinking, you know, I think we live in a society where we're so focused on blaming systems.

Yeah.

And then, you know, as, um, a consumer of information, we get addicted to that. Oh, it's got to be my gut microbiome. Oh, I've got to blame my hormones. Oh, I've got to blame this or that. And when we think about that, and I'm just thinking about the gut brain axis and the gut-brain-eyesight axis, which I don't think I've ever heard before.

Well, there's definitely a gut-eye axis, especially for dry eye and inflammation, but I would say the eye-brain axis and that connection, that is what we're talking about here. And we have so many— we have so much going on in our brains. I mean, there are more areas of our brain dedicated to processing vision than all of the other senses combined. And 2/3 of the neurons entering our brain come from our eyes. So you can't have stress from the environment, you can't have a head injury, you can't have inflammation and not have vision be impacted. It's just a matter of at what level. And then so often the present-day struggles or challenges just become your new normal. And then you kind of forget where things even were, again, without even going back to the root cause. And the fact that we're speaking the same language here for different systems, different areas of the body, That should have everybody listening have light bulbs go off saying, okay, this, this hopefully is making a little bit more sense than just getting new glasses every year and then adapting to those lenses, needing something stronger to maintain that same clarity and going down this vicious cycle. Yeah, it's not the glasses or that are the problem, it's how you're responding to the stress from your environment that's the problem, and then just feeding it with stronger or different prescriptions.

It's kind of like taking a prescription drug, right? It doesn't necessarily get rid of the issue. And I can imagine people just go back. It's a Band-Aid solution. They go back and then their prescription gets worse and then it gets worse and then it gets worse, right?

And something like myopia or nearsightedness, I mean, not enough people are talking about this. This is a massive problem right now.

Yeah.

When we lit, can I share some stats real fast?

Yeah, please. Because I'm one of the people, I swear I turned 44 and I started doing this, moving my phone back and forth. And it's like overnight.

Let's talk about that. Let's hit myopia real fast. Myopia, far away being fuzzy.

Mm-hmm.

When we landed on the moon in 1969, a fourth of America was nearsighted. Right now it's about 44% and climbing. And so to give some perspective, that's 30% of the world. And it's estimated that by 2050, 50% of the world is going to be nearsighted. Oh my God. And that takes into account countries that don't value technology and education like we do here.

50% of the world is estimated to become nearsighted?

In 24 years. And we know the 3 biggest risk factors are not enough time outdoors. So natural lighting is massive, engaging with 3-dimensional space and developing visual pathways. Uh, number 2, too much near work in the dark and too much screen time, number 3. And we now have, you know, the, the rates increasing at an alarming rate and There are certain treatment modalities out there to slow this down that are FDA approved, but so a few doctors prescribe or trained in those. But even more important than that, it is the component functionally that really drives myopia, meaning the focusing system, the inside muscles of the eyes responsible for clarity. It's called the accommodative system. We want that system to be like an old school camera lens that's on autofocus, right? When it's stuck on manual focus, you need more help to maintain clarity, and then you go down that cycle. Well, you brought up about the arms not getting long enough here. That, that is something that everyone in their 40s-ish— there's anatomical changes that occur. The lens inside of the eye becomes hardened. The fibers or muscles controlling it become more rigid, less flexible. But again, just like any system in our body, if you don't use it, you lose it. That applies to vision. And in our 40s, that is the prime time to not jump into the wheelchair because your knee hurts, but to really figure out how do I not allow— how do I make things clearer? How do I lock in my focusing system? How do I learn how to hold clarity for longer so that we don't go down this vicious cycle? And with the right work, right motivation, and right compliance, anyone can prolong the need for needing reading glasses. And I have patients in their 70s and 80s who do work every day who don't wear reading glasses, but just like they train the rest of their body, they train their visual system to be able to handle that. My wife at 42 blew out the candles and all of a sudden she's like, "Brice, I can't see the back of the medicine bottle, do something." We put her through a specific sequence of training and she now has the focusing system of somebody half her age.

Fascinating.

But just like she works out her body every day, she does her eye exercises and two in particular that have allowed her to keep and maintain her her HDI sight.

We'll get into those for sure. And yeah, I refused to take the prescription for the readers because I knew that that was just the beginning of a, a long, long, long run of having to go downhill.

100%. And then when you start wearing them, that becomes your new normal. You literally lose capacity to be able to hold things single and clear the same way that you could. And for some people who want a quick fix, sure, that's, you know, that can be helpful, but Um, we can learn how to explore near space so much more fluidly, especially with the right type of work to get there.

So for listeners, let's go back to sensory integration. If what you see and what you know is all you know, you don't know any different, right?

Yeah.

I'm so curious how you see the world through yours— your eyes versus my eyes.

Yeah. So the most common response to stress is our visual system changes, our pupils widen, and we lock in with this tunnel vision. And that's the autonomic nervous system kicking in the fight-or-flight response. Evolutionarily, that is to protect yourself from the saber-toothed tiger coming at you, so you can block all the noise out and know how to respond. That is now how we're operating on screens when our visual system is locked in. That's how we're operating when there's chaos in our world. If we're driving over a bridge or into a tunnel, all of a sudden you're not aware of what you weren't aware of, and you lock in. And become really focal. So for me as a child, I had an alternating eye turn. I had reduced eyesight in both eyes, something called amblyopia, which is rare to have it in both eyes. I had no depth perception. I hadn't developed the ability to use my eyes together as a team and allow the back of my brain to have the cells that respond to two-eyed learning to, to see in 3D. Went through the right type of work, but then tackled my vision along with all the other sensory processing to the point now where how I see compared to how others see, my world is so open and I can take in so much of space without actually moving my eyes to make a change in attention. And if you think about it, any change in eye movement is a change in attention, whether it's voluntary, involuntary. And if you can't control your eyes and ability to focus, it's really hard to control your mind and its ability to focus. So I can have locked in eye contact with you but still notice everything else in the room and feel totally safe and secure knowing everything is wide open. And that helps balance that autonomic dysfunction that occurs where even just going over a bridge, driving like we talked about, or into a tunnel— I've had so many patients say, this work has saved my life because all of a sudden I was aware of what I was not aware of. It became more locked in, more closed off. And I learned through this work how to look soft, how to have panoramic viewing, how to open up my peripheral vision to really pull myself back into space and into the presence of the situation. And then all of a sudden you can have vision guide and lead like it's supposed to, rather than interfere. Fascinating.

Gosh, you know, I keep going back to wanting to blame the modern world. When we think about this stress response, and I think it's fair to say that most of us, most people listening, are probably experiencing some high levels of stress, but I don't think anyone would actually associate that tunnel vision looking at a screen every single day as something that's fueling their inability to relax at the end of the day.

If somebody's listening recognizes they schedule important meetings in the morning, or the back-to-back Zoom calls and being on screens all day. And then at the end of the day, they're like, I don't even have the patience to engage with my family, or I'm just tired, or I'm reaching for my third or fourth cup of coffee. When your brain is on overdrive, just using your eyes— I mean, as silly as that sounds, like, come on, that's— we can regulate our brains through vision. Because when we are on screens, when we're in near locked-in visual stress mode, yeah, We have to converge our eyes. We have to use the outside muscles. We have to focus our eyes. We have to use the inside muscles. We have to do it fluidly. The eyes have to work together as a team. And then most importantly, the brain has to process that information to be able to make sense of it and be able to handle that over time. Do you know the average American adult spends 7 hours and 4 minutes a day on a screen? The average 8 to 10 year old American spends 6 hours a day on the screen. And the new numbers I'm seeing are way higher than that, but I'm trying to underreport. We're not meant to be staring at screens all day long as humans, and yet so many people, that is the new normal.

Our school systems are advocating for more screen time.

And when brains are not fully developed yet and we're still learning from our life experiences, and when vision, which clearly develops on a continuum, is forced with a barrier, you either— you're adapting or you're avoiding. Those are the two options. No one's avoiding screens. And so the adaptations, those are the functional vision problems.

I read a stat that 1 in 4 children has— what was it? 1 in 4 children suffers from a learning disability that's actually associated with their vision.

Yes.

Okay. Good stuff. Let's dive into that.

Well done.

I was just— I was so blown away by it because I— Just think about 3 friends that I have whose children were diagnosed with ADD or dyslexia, and it kind of just came out of the blue. And thank God they were able to do some testing on it as opposed to just letting the child suffer, because I don't think it would have been communicated by the kid. Let's talk more about that.

So you're gonna— I'm gonna go on a rant here, so you gotta pull me in a little bit. So let's do it.

Let's do it.

Vision's our dominant sensory system. It's estimated that over 80% of what's learned in the classroom comes through the visual processing of information. And like you said, 1 in 4 children has a vision problem significant enough to impact learning. So for a child who has trouble keeping their place with reading or squirming with desk work or is relying on their ears to take in what the teacher is presenting rather than their eyes because it's hard to, to use their eyes, they often get labeled, they often get targeted by the school. And then to make matters worse, those problems are exacerbated by the fact that kids are being exposed to technology and screens way earlier than ever before, being asked to read at early and earlier ages before they're visually ready. And then that child gets slapped with certain diagnoses because it's based off of symptoms and based off of behaviors. So we take ADD or ADHD, for instance. There's no blood test that says you have ADD or ADHD, right? It's based off of behavior profiles and symptoms. And 15 of the 18 most commonly Associated symptoms of ADD and ADHD are the same symptoms of functional vision problems, and yet these vision problems are treatable. Dyslexia— no one's born with the ability to read or to use our eyes to converge, to track, to focus, or even with the ability to see in 3D. It's all developed through the sequencing of developmental milestones. If you have a hard time tracking, focusing, pointing your eyes, you're not going to be able to digest and decode the information like you're supposed to. And reading can go from being something that's fluid and seamless to the most daunting and overwhelming task. It's not like an area of the brain is missing that allows somebody to read. It's faulty communication between the language processing centers, the visual processing centers, some of the communication centers. And even the critics will say, well, dyslexia is a language-based reading disorder, language starts with the eyes. It starts with the ability to take all these symbols, put 'em together into word, a word into a picture, a picture into a story, and then be able to read in your mind's eye. And yet the child who is flipping the Bs and Ds or reading "was" when it says "saw," that's faulty visual processing. Their eyes are pointing, but they're not able to take in information in the right sequence or without with too much effort. And then again, that child is then put in a box and said, well, you know, here's where things are. And then the visual demands of school increase each year and the gap gets wider between where you're operating and where you should be. This is a little hyperbolic, but we see so many adults who come in for treatment. We do these week-long boot camps who are diagnosed as being dyslexic. It's defined them.

Yeah.

Who've literally never read a book in their life. And then we find out they have clearly substantial functional vision problems. And pretty much everyone is reading by the end of the week.

Wow.

And of course, we're really careful with who we're filtering and who's coming in and making sure in the right place and it's the right profile. But any brain can read. And in tens of thousands of patients, I've yet to find one where we couldn't improve their reading ability.

Mm-hmm.

But it's really using the eyes to make sense of all the symbols and turn them into what's required for reading.

Are we overdiagnosing ADD and ADHD in children?

1 in 10 children right now has ADHD. 1 in 36 has autism. Uh, anxiety, I think, is 1 in 3.

It's just so heartbreaking because you can see how this forms identity from such an early impressionable age. Yeah. Right? Um, and then kids can just be mean also, so that compounded over time.

And the overdiagnosing— I mean, there's the trifecta of the three words with A that begin with A that I just shared, but even dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia so often have to do with visual memory, visual processing. And again, we're then just putting labels on them and on the children and giving them— pulling them out of the classroom, giving them certain intervention, which oftentimes helps a lot, but then the child associates themselves as negatively, starts feeling they're different, is struggling with reading and learning, and then all of a sudden school is something that's really hard and they feel like they're not good at and they think they're stupid and they believe it. And it's really this— our system not recognizing what all of this means and what other opportunities are out there to avoid unnecessary struggling.

Is this a similar situation with, you know, Western medicine or functional medicine where if somebody were to go to their optometrist, would the optometrist say, oh, you know, you're fine, you're young, you're healthy, you're reading too much, stop using Google?

Yeah, I mean, for the most part, we're trained to do specific tests, to go on a wild goose chase for specific diagnoses.

Yeah.

But literally with this pen on the desk here, We could do 30 seconds of screening tests to be able to recognize, is there likely a functional vision problem impacting somebody's ability to read, learn, and achieve in life? And yet, if we don't know what to look for, if we don't do the testing, you're guessing, but then also you're just not even acknowledging that these issues occur.

Are there any specific signs or symptoms that listeners should be aware of that they could kind of start start searching for?

Absolutely. So I think the simplest is trouble with reading, because reading requires a lot of very intricate, careful eye movements. So losing your place with reading, skipping words, skipping lines, that's really common. Uh, mind wandering with reading, poor comprehension with reading, avoidance of reading, relying on your ears rather than your eyes. You're relying as an adult on audiobooks, or a child who prefers to be read to rather than reading on their own.

Good point.

All of that has neon lights around it, sharing likely a functional vision problem. But then there's some really common ones not even related to reading. Motion sickness almost always has a functional— almost always has a visual component that's treatable. Trouble catching a ball, difficulty, uh, navigating through space, knocking over glasses of water, bumping into walls, hesitant around stairs or escalators. Having a hard time spatially organizing a room or packing the trunk and realizing I need to get all these suitcases in, but you can't get that mental map of where they all fit, and then there's one left over. Or even just fear driving at night. I mean, so much of this has to do with our brain and our eyes not being best friends with each other, and we need them to be.

What about adult onset motion sickness?

So motion sickness, if, if If driving is way more comfortable and less motion sick, but as a passenger or on your phone or tablet, all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, get me out of here. That is always a functional vision problem that's treatable. Most motion sickness has to do with our visual system and our vestibular system sending conflicting signals that our brain can't interpret. So our vestibular system is kind of like our internal GPS and the roadmap of life that lets us know which way is up and down and left and right. And when they're not able to receive the same feedback, we get into this disequilibrium. And that's when we can't tell what's moving, whether we're moving, whether something else is. When we're driving and we can actively open up our periphery, we can plan what's coming, and our body gets the sense of there is motion, but I'm preparing for it. That is, that allows for such better synergy between those systems than in the back seat when you're reading on a tablet or you're having the seat in front of you not moving, but then there's all this optic flow and input of there is motion. It's kind of like, what's going on here? Adult onset can often be related to certain systemic challenges like inflammation, hormonal changes, head injuries that often we just accept as normal. But even with those, you can improve the motion sickness even if those challenges still exist. So we'll see people who have who've had many head injuries but don't even realize it. And then their present-day symptoms or challenges, they can then tie to a prior event. But even without the event, I mean, neuroinflammation that occurs after a certain vaccine or getting a virus, vision is a piece of that puzzle. And then that's usually the most glaring of symptoms because nobody knows what to do with that information. But again, that's a clear sign of brain function.

Fascinating. You mentioned so many symptoms, um, that I would just associate as being part of aging. Spatial awareness, that hesitancy with, you know, getting on an escalator or something like that. We just assume that that's a natural part of aging. And a lot of seniors are given a lot more vaccines and flu shots and things like that. My dad was one of the people in the category who got the COVID vaccine and then got a stroke afterwards, and then now has issues with his eyesight also. So I know that that exists.

I'm so sorry to hear that.

Yeah, it's really frustrating. But I'm also on the side of understanding that the body simply needs to be put back on track and what needs to happen. And I think what you're clearly describing is that a lot of these impairments and symptoms and things that we forecast as being part of truth as we age are actually instilled as programming from when we're little kids. And I'm just going to call it like LAUSD, our school system. My 5-year-old daughter came home with a screen and it was expected that she went on the screen to do homework. And I refused. I could just kept it shut and I kept it in the box. I'd rather she read a book or go play or get dirty. So let's just go here for a second. And this is no judgment to parents who give tablets. Are tablets not great in a really nice way to say it for kids' brains?

I would say tablets are terrible for kids' brains. 56% of Americans, uh, 4 and under have their own tablet. And I have 3 young kids. There absolutely is a time and a place. Yeah, for sure. However, we shouldn't be using tablets as babysitters. We shouldn't be using tablets as ways to connect or interact with people. And there's also so much can be done from a protective standpoint to make it so tablets are less terrible. Even though our brains are not meant to stare at screens all day long, with the right foundation in place, we can thrive in this digital world. I want to go back for a second to what you shared about your dad. So even without having a, a secondary event like a stroke, we have dozens of patients actively in office-based treatment right now who have the exact same symptoms associated with a concussion or head injury. Motion sensitivity, sensory overload in crowded environments, tired, strained eyes, not able— dizzy, nauseous in certain areas when they're reading it on screens. But with all these patients, none of them have had a head injury that they know of, but all the symptoms emerged very closely to either getting a vaccine, a booster, or getting a virus. And we know we all have low-level inflammation. You were the queen at helping people unpack and eliminate their inflammation. But when there's an inflammatory cascade occur— that occurs because of this exogenous stuff that gets into our body, vision then starts toppling over in terms of those symptoms. And just because we get older every year doesn't mean we need to succumb to giving up, but then it also doesn't mean that cognitive decline has to happen or that vision decline has to happen. Even though that's really common, that's not normal. And we now know that decades of poor nutrition and of poor lifestyle absolutely contributes to the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's and certain challenges that often are avoidable.

Mm-hmm. It's really frustrating. You know, I, I catch myself having a conversation with my son around you know, getting lost in a story, falling in love with a book. And I can tell it's still a bit of a foreign concept, which means that that's not being taught in our schools. They're not spending enough time doing that. They're really prioritizing the screen time, whether it's through tablets or coding or even things like Roblox and these games that are keeping kids' brains intrigued in a different way. As an adult, you can just see, well, oh gosh, well, yeah, that would be way more exciting than going to get lost in a book, but I think it's, um, it's against our behavior, and what we're learning is actually working against us as we, as we age.

You're saying being lost in a book? I would imagine most kids who hear that would say, Mona, what are you talking about?

Yeah.

And in my house, we have very clear guidelines for screens, and I know better, so this is just what we do, but my kids get 15 minutes of screen time max, twice a day. When they're on their screens, they're wearing what we call Digital Performance Lenses, which are specialized glasses— and actually brought you a pair today— that relax the focusing system so that our brain responds to visual stress differently. Has a good quality blue light filter, but it really helps allow for performance to be steady over time. Every single child who is on a tablet should be in some form of Digital Performance Lens, which is a specific balance of magnification or prism, whatever it may be, so that the brain can use the eyes more efficiently. But then also with the 2 15 minutes of screen time, my kids know they have to have at least that same amount of time outside, and if they don't, they can't wear them. And my 11-year-old twins are one of the few of their friends who don't have phones and have limits on screens. And whether they understand my rationale or not does not matter to me. But I know I have completely rerouted their vision development, and all three have done vision training, but they're also not wearing glasses. They're all wonderful readers. They're great athletes.

Wow.

Because of what has been trained for them, like what was trained for me.

That is so powerful. We in our house, yeah, we're no screens Monday to Friday. Tablets And then no videos also.

Awesome.

We'll try to get our kids to watch movies from like the '90s.

Yeah.

Things that are really slow.

The really good movies.

Long-form content. But with that said, on the weekends, it's, you know, I'm trying to get them to wear the glasses and, um, the blue light glasses. Blue light glasses. But having this conversation, I really hope empowers parents to just set it as a norm. Do it for yourself. Do it for your children. Model the behavior so that they really understand the power because I think this is the best that we can do. We want to make them empowered learners. We have no idea what the future holds for how they're going to work, what jobs are going to be available. But if they can read and learn and start to like just own their intelligence with their brain function, just necessities.

And we don't know what a lifetime of screen time looks like yet, right? We're starting to. It's, it's not good what's being uncovered. In general, for those parents listening, the bigger the screen, the farther away, the better. So watching a '90s movie on a distance television is an entirely different visual demand than watching that same movie buried in a tablet. And balance, like, is— balance is so important for so many aspects of health, but especially for visual health. Because again, when you're under stress, the adaptations that occur, the roadblocks that, that can— that, that, that then get put into place they stay there unless you actively learn how to eliminate them or reroute things early enough.

So for a parent who has a child who's been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, maybe rightfully so, what additional steps should they be taking to help them understand if this is a bigger sensory issue?

So ADHD and ADD and dyslexia are incomplete diagnoses without addressing vision first, or at least looking into vision first. So the first thing we should be doing when that is suspected is, number one, does that make sense? Is my child struggling? If so, really looking, looking into why they're struggling and how they're struggling. And is it based off of eating a bag of jelly beans, then all of a sudden their attention is worse? Well, that's a little more simple to see, but, you know, especially children who have very different behaviors in a classroom or on weekdays versus weekends. There's something there we need to figure out why. And so even just looking at tracking, focusing, convergence, and eye teaming lets us know, okay, is there something else contributing to the inattention? And again, if you cannot control your eyes and the ability to focus, it becomes really hard to control your mind and its ability to focus. So much of ADHD is not ADHD.

I have a feeling most kids are just getting that old school— is it Snellen? Snellen eye chart?

Yes.

Right, where they have the big E on the top and then they go down, and then doctors will say, oh, you're perfect, and that's it. So should we be advocating for deeper eye exams then from younger ages?

1,000%. Reading the letters on a letter chart is kind of like saying, what's your cholesterol? It's one, one metric. Right, right. So when you figure out that metric, great. Now let's look up, let's lift up the hood and see what else is occurring and figuring out why is far away getting blurrier, why are we adapting to the world that we're in. And that's looking at eyesight. We should all as parents be asking, well, what about our vision? Does my child have the visual system to handle reading? Can they not only know where the ball is but be able to anticipate where it will be? Can they maintain the same amount, the same level of performance over time? And really, this is not rocket science. I mean, these are tests that are at least brought up in most schools, but they're not the sexy tests that allow doctors to diagnose diseases and to prescribe medications. And again, it's, it's being proactive. When you plot and see over time functional skills changing, It's almost medical malpractice to not do something about them or refer out for them. But I think one of the big areas that's a big opportunity here is that there's not many people offering this type of care, especially at a level where they're board certified, know what they're doing, and have the right treatment paths and solutions in place to be able to reroute things.

So tell us then, what is Vision Performance Training?

So Vision Performance Training is more of a methodology than anything else. It takes the best of vision training, vision therapy, orthoptics, sensory integration-based occupational therapy, vestibular-based PT, and kind of creates this holistic approach where we're using the eyes almost as like joysticks to tap into the brain, to rewire the brain, to change how somebody's using vision. And it's a, a model that incorporates movement and balance and thinking and vestibular input because our vision doesn't operate in isolation of these systems. But it's really kind of like PT for the eyes, but really for the brain through the eyes, where we can arrange the conditions for learning to take place, for somebody to know what it feels like, what it looks like, and the depth that ensues when the eyes are working together, and then being able to reproduce that with more dynamic situations. So it's kind of creating life in treatment rooms to be able to then develop the skills and abilities to support those demands. And then with enough practice, with enough of conscious work and intentional work, you can reboot the brain so that this is in the rearview mirror and these problems do not reemerge unless there is a head injury or something like that down the road.

I can imagine that most people, by the time they get to you, they've waited so long. It's, you know, they probably prolong their suffering for a long period of time.

Our average patient has seen 4.5 eye doctors looking for a solution before coming to us. And this stuff is right in front of you when you know what to look for. So even something, something as simple as taking a pen or pencil and holding in front of your child and saying, tell me when you see two of these, try and keep it one, and just bringing it down their midline and having it come all the way in and seeing one as, as effortlessly to their nose. That should be something that is normal to get within an inch or two of the nose for any person at any age. By 6 months old, we should be able to converge to our nose as we're taking food and toys and putting them in our mouths. That's— if you're not able to converge all the way in, that's called a convergence insufficiency, one of the really common diagnoses that is very prevalent. If somebody's diagnosed with ADHD, they're 3 times more likely to be diagnosed as having convergence insufficiency. They're 2 times more likely to have a strabismus or an eye turn. 2 times as likely to have astigmatism or hyperopia. And so what that means is if the eyes aren't working well together as a team, it becomes really hard for the brain to use that information and be able to actively have vision guide and lead in life.

Life just gets so much harder. I'm just thinking about so many people whose, like, lives— things— some things would get easier. I think a lot of us need a little bit more ease, and you've touched on so many topics that—

and vision can regulate our nervous system.

This is what has me just really enrolled. And I'm thinking too, posturally, when you're looking at people's posture, I think, um, you know, your posture brings stress to the body.

Yeah.

I'm sure you see a lot of tech neck coming in, and that must put stress onto the optic nerves also.

And one of the most common, uh, behaviors that we'll see with kids is your child who's leaning in really close with the tablet or on the desk and leaning all the way in. That's the focusing system, the accommodative system, not having the stamina or flexibility it's supposed to. So we're, rather than having bringing the image close with our focusing system, we're having our body compensate to do it instead, right? Um, and so posture, I mean, tech neck is, is huge. People with head tilts or head turns often have one eye that's acting a little higher than the other, so we have our body compensate for that. Uh, so many, so often our visual midline and our body midline are not coincident with each other, not in the same place, and that can impact balance. That can help support unnecessary falls that occur as we age because our eye teaming, our binocular vision becomes less stable, and then all of a sudden changes in elevation. And when the rest of our body is not as strong as it used to be from a bone density standpoint, from a muscle standpoint, so many falls are avoidable if we're allowing vision to be that dominant sense to give us an advantage in the world.

I think a lot of people must feel frustrated because the, the changes that happen with your eyesight over time are so slow, um, that we kind of adapt to living with these imbalances over time.

Yeah.

Sometimes when I'm working with, um, you know, high performers, people, people that are addicted to hypervigilance, I'll actually see a difference in like one eye looks a little bit more shut or compressed than the other. Do you often notice, like, can you visually look at somebody and see how they're compensating in one eye versus the other?

It's a really cool party trick. I would say I can't not see it.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, can't not not see it. I would say one of the most common things we'll see just in terms of appearance is somebody who has a lazy eye or an eye turn. Often unconsciously, their bangs or their hair are blocking one of their eyes, or they're wearing a hat, or they're adjusting their body. And so much of that is really clear signs of the eyes are not working well together and we're trying to protect ourselves. But I think even, you know, how our eyes appear throughout the day— I mean, puffiness and inflammation in the lids and fatigue. We all know that, that kind of glazed-over stare when it's like, I can't do one other thing with my eyes. That's not going to happen on a Sunday when you're hiking all day. That's going to happen from being on screens or school all day long.

Fascinating. Okay, so you not only work then with a lot of athletes for performance, I can imagine how beautiful it must feel for them to walk out onto a field and have their vision completely change.

This is often a secret weapon. We have a guy, uh, who's in— who's a Major League Baseball player He's been in the league for about 6 years, and all of a sudden, his hitting coach was like, "He's having a hard time seeing the ball," and he knew about me and my work, and so he sent him to us. His eyesight was fine, but he had this profile where he was aligning his eyes as if he was perceiving the ball in a different place than where it was and focusing his eyes in front, aligning behind. So when there was a pitch that would come that have— that would be slower or moving away from him in the zone when he swings, he was too early. And so he has very good stats. He's a name that everybody knows. I'm not going to share the name, uh, I can tell you after. But we did 2 and a half months of treatment, and he's now with his team, his new team, uh, for spring training. And he called me right after. He said, the first swing of batting practice, I hit a home run into center field, which is like the hardest place to hit, the farthest away. And he now looks at this as he has this advantage where he can slow down the ball to prepare himself more quickly, but he can actively take in what's in front of him and around him to get into that flow state, which most athletes and high performers know about flow state. Flow state, from my perspective, is heightened spatial awareness. Where literally time and space slows down and you can react and respond fluidly, unconsciously, and accurately. And so optimizing critical areas of performance can allow for more consistent play, can allow potential to really be, be achieved and, and manifested. You still have to have athletic talent to get to that point, but working with with, uh, I mean, we've seen every athlete in every sport imaginable, Olympians, pro athletes. And when you're motivated, as you know, with any aspect of health, I mean, the ceiling is so much higher, especially when this is all trainable and any brain can be enhanced and optimized in terms of how it uses vision.

Athlete or not, I think all of us performing in day-to-day life, if we can optimize our energy, focus, reaction time also, game-changing for so many of us.

Absolutely. And simply just if our brain is not on overdrive.

Yeah. Yeah.

Using our vision, think about how much more is freed up in terms of critical decision-making, energy, focus, productivity, happiness, consciousness. So many areas that we all deserve to have, um, as solid as possible.

Beautiful. Uh, it's really cool getting to work with athletes and actors and a caliber of client who really treats their body as this vessel for how they go out into the world. I was so excited. I'll share Hrithik Roshan because he shared about it as well as a previous client of mine. It doesn't surprise me seeing him show up at your office because it's his ethos. How can I optimize a part of my body? And he's done things to his body that I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn. You think that he would just like lift and get jacked and be focused on doing these like crazy modalities, but he's got this deep spiritual side also with that integration that we were talking about also. And the reason I bring that up is in a world where we focus so much on longevity and healthspan and stuff like that, how we receive the world when the world seems dark and gloomy.

Yeah.

Receiving the world in a different way. I think you probably Got him really excited about that.

And what's so interesting is, you know, being an actor, I mean, you have to memorize scripts, right? You have to multitask. If you're a director and a producer, there's a lot more involved as well. Uh, he posted about his experience, and, and one of the areas he posted on was his eyesight improved dramatically, which I was a little frustrated by because that's kind of like saying I lost some weight. Like anybody, we can improve— you can get somebody to lose weight, almost anybody can improve their eyesight. But eyesight was a symptom of the underlying problem. So when we treated the problem, that was one of the many symptoms that improved. The only reason I say I was frustrated is now everyone who follows him or knows him thinks, oh, I don't need to wear glasses anymore, and there's, there's fixes out there. And while that can be the case, I always say let's really focus on the vision piece And we can also predict who's going to see improvements in eyesight when their visual system and their focusing system is really locked up. Then of course, clarity is going to improve at every distance.

Absolutely. So maybe we can hover on that for a second because, um, I've had a lot of hormone experts come on the show and we're talking about the shifts that happen during hormonal changes. Um, poor memory, lack of concentration seem to kind of go away overnight. Have you noticed improvements with women in that demographic coming into your office?

Yeah, the, the 45 to 65-year-old female is a large percentage of our practice, and part of that is age-related changes that happen to the focusing system like we talked about. But at a minimum, that can be pushed down the road and improved for pretty much everybody. But hormonally, how our brain uses these systems very much shows up within the visual system. And there's dryness and there's irritation that occurs from hormonal changes to the front surface of the eyes, the lids of the eyes. But then there's still a brain behind the eyes that's trying to respond to the world. And so what we see all the time is, you know, the brain fog, the fatigue, the too tired to do anything. Vision also is almost always in the same boat in terms of sluggish tracking or focusing systems, poor flexibility with, with eye teaming, and just not able to take in what's in front of us and around us simultaneously. And a lot of the hormonal changes that occur make it so that we use our body differently and that we compensate. And always there are visual compensations in place that can be removed as roadblocks.

Yeah, I'll keep hovering on this. It's frustrating as a woman. I'm experiencing all these things. I'm doing everything on paper nutritionally. I'm tapping into all the right things, and I'm still very conscious in a world where women are so desperate for a solution that we're trying to throw everything at the picture to try to, like, just feel better. But imagine for me, I'll use myself as an example. I was an art history major. I could memorize an entire textbook of dates and images, no problem. And now I'm struggling to remember things from yesterday, or even in conversation sometimes on specific days. It's really challenging.

Do you sometimes, when you meet somebody, they say their name and it's just like, whoosh, gone?

Gone.

Yeah. First of all, I'm sorry you're experiencing all of this. I will tell you, I know a guy who can help you. Um, you know, our ability to think in a mental pictorial image, to have visual memory.

Yeah. Yeah.

That's trainable. And so much of our cognitive capacity is trainable. And I would say that's not a reflection of you getting older. That's a reflection of, uh, gravitating towards strengths and then relying on other tools to help support some of the areas of, of challenge. But really how well you're accessing your brain as well in terms of optimizing communication and connectivity, which we know neuroplasticity exists for any brain at any age for vision, even though we're all taught in school that after age 8, there's this critical period for vision development and it cannot be trained or taught. That's for vision loss, not for vision gain. We have a 92-year-old right now developing depth perception for the first time in treatment. So I think from, from your standpoint, it's more I know you juggle a lot. I know you're, uh, an incredible mother, partner, and run a lot of businesses and work changing the world. I think your brain is, is on overdrive. And very often one of the simple ways to kind of help support that is not having to train and practice a lot of what we always did. You know, right now it's so much easier to write down what you need to get at the grocery store on a sticky note or on a note in your phone Rather than going to the store and recognizing, okay, there's 5 things I want to get. I'm visualizing where they are in the store. Here's a sequence of where I'm going to go to get them in what order. Actively doing practices like that allow us to keep what we have for longer, but then allow us to expand our capabilities. But so often it's, it's not the most efficient or easiest way to do it. And we're in a rush and we're just having to get in and get out of the store. So there's so many hacks that we can do to just help. Utilize what we all have but maybe don't always tap into.

Thank you for mirroring that back. Yeah, I think that impacts a lot of our listeners also. And what I'm really conscious of and what you're affirming today is I'm really catching myself when I get to a point where, oh, this is it, this is the hormones, we're going into— let's prepare, buckle up. I'm really conscious of unlearning that and really labeling that because I know that whatever I repeat, I will believe, and that will become my reality. So I think it's important for us to not do that.

100%. And even if somebody has terrible thyroid dysfunction or low energy or just poor sleep, you can still train vision to be that dominant sensory system that stays solid regardless of how exhausted you are. And what instructions we give our brain and our bodies in terms of nutrition matters. What we expose ourselves to in our environment Matters. And with the wrong instructions, that allows vision to become compromised. So there's so much we can all do to help support that optimal use of the eye-brain connection.

All right, so let's set up the stage then for people listening. I can imagine everyone— we can all go through where we spend the most time, whether it's at the office, the podcast studio, in our houses. Um, LED lights, I think, is probably a big culprit for people because we have them on all the time.

Yeah.

Um, I shared my journey at the ashram and the healing that happened there. We spent so much time in nature and being outside. You've mentioned that as well with your children and how that's important. But can you walk us through, if you were to do an audit of someone's house, things that you would look for and make changes with?

Yeah, so light, light is huge. Uh, light grounds us in time and space, and there's There's so much healing in light, as you know. Many houses have LED lights everywhere because they're efficient and they're cheaper, but certain LED lights have very harsh blue light spectrums that just blast your eyes and your brains throughout the day. So I'm not saying replace every single light bulb in your house with incandescent, but lighting, you know, especially in the evening We should be sleeping in pitch black. We should be covering up, you know, any lighting that, that is blasting us, whether it's the, the red light on the screen, whether it's our phones next to our beds, you know, making alerts every time that it, that it, there's a message coming in. I think that's an easy win for people. Um, setting up your work studio or setting up your screen, bigger the screen, the farther away, the better should not be closer than arm's length. We should have it a little bit below. Um, eye level. We should have our brightness all the way down at zero and then slowly increase it till you find that comfortable level. Our screen should be near a window. I mean, this podcast studio is easily the, the sweetest one I've ever been in. You can look out into the mountains and relax your focus, relax your gaze, and come back and re-engage. And when we are able to relax our eyes, we can relax our thinking. We can get into divergent thinking. We can think outside the box. And again, if we bring this back to when we're on screens and we're in that stress state, you're literally collapsing your thinking and your attention and your vision and making critical decisions that matter for the livelihood of your family and yourself in a stress state. And as hyperbolic as that sounds, like, we are in a stress state with vision most of our day.

Yeah.

Um, so I think around the house there's a lot that we can do with, you know, the kitchen, having the right food there, that if we're eating for brain health, we're eating for vision health. And we could talk about some things that are important for vision health as well. But I think screens as well, like, we should have— I'm not anti-screens because that's the world we're in, but there's a time and a place for them. And your child coming home from school shouldn't just go plop themselves in front of the TV or in front of the iPad. We should get them outside. We should get them engaging with with life. Um, and then I think, you know, if we want to get really picky with posture and the right type of chair at a desk, that's really important.

Yeah.

Um, and ideally like natural lighting. I mean, natural lighting is so huge for regulating our circadian rhythms and helping our brain process, uh, not the junk that is out there with junk lighting.

Yeah. Thank you. You're, you're a great doctor. I wanted to start with that because I know the next question everyone wants to know, well, just tell me, Is there a supplement I should be taking? Are there foods that I should be eating? And I'm often asked if people should take lutein as a preventative supplement for aging. And you, you can answer that, but I would say, you know, if you're not doing anything else and kind of doing an audit of your house and how you're spending your time and your light exposure, then you're kind of just throwing up one of those Band-Aid solutions. So supplementation, do you put people on supplement protocols?

Oh, every single one. So lutein, which you bring up, and its cousin zeaxanthin. Zeaxanthin. Okay, they're macular carotenoids. Okay, so the macula is the sweet spot of our, our retina that allows us to see the tiny letters far away that we were talking about. Uh, lutein and zeaxanthin can almost act as like internal blue light blockers that help the UV damage that we're all experiencing be less harmful. So I think that's huge. Uh, antioxidants really, really helpful, especially A, C, and E. And for lutein and zeaxanthin, it can be in supplement form, but green leafy vegetables have a lot of that. Eggs, I think, are phenomenal for the lutein that's in the yolk and the choline. Yeah, my number one supplement though for eye health and the eye-brain connection definitely is omega-3 fatty acids. You knew I was going to say that. And for so many reasons. But, you know, how we— what we— how we tell our brain to function matters big time. And especially from a vision perspective, like having our tear film be viscous and fluid, omegas help support that. There's, uh, areas of our retina that do really well with omega-3 fatty acids. And I don't— I would love to hear your thoughts. I mean, you can't really I think it's hard to have a diet where you don't want to supplement on top of it, even if you're super clean and intentional. Would you agree?

100%. Yeah. And even with children, I don't often love supplementing kids, but I think we just need to face the fact that our kids today are not getting the variety that we need and the quality of our soil, on top of the inflammatory markers that they're exposed to, whether that's screen, lack of time outside, the food that they're exposed to at schools because they serve Doritos in our school systems. Stuff like that drives me insane. So my kids, I do put them on an omega-3 fatty acid every single day. Sometimes I'll mix in some probiotic. I try to be food first as much as I can. But, um, yeah, I think just food imprinting from the time kids are really, really young. So they understand, like, the colors that come from veggies and phytonutrients, they have a purpose to support our physiology. And I think that that's something that is not taught at schools at all. Like, they need to understand that that's nature's multivitamin. Right.

And just as important as there's stuff and supplements to take, equally as important, there's a lot to avoid, right? And from an eye perspective, seed oils, sugar, gluten, dairy, processed foods for adults, alcohol— those can often trigger the inflammatory cascade that causes a lot of these functional vision symptoms.

Yeah.

And, you know, macular degeneration and cataract formation with high doses of antioxidants, with the right type of lutein and zeaxanthin can be protective and slow things down, in some cases even reverse some of that. So I think that's really helpful. Um, there's a lot we can do for those same challenges with red light. There are certain things we can do with, um, eliminating toxicity from our environment.

Yeah.

But it's, I think it's, we should be taking both paths of like, what do I stay away from? And then what do I really try and introduce? And then you're going to get a combined benefit from that, from both angles.

All paths lead to lowering inflammation to the body, lessening our toxin exposure, and really supporting the body in functioning optimally, right? Taking weight off.

1000%.

There it is. So what about genetically? I look at a lot of genetic tests for my clients, and they might have a predisposition to macular degeneration or to glaucoma. I don't want them to believe that, but prevention-wise, are the things that we're talking about today the things that will support them long-term? Yes.

Especially for macular degeneration. I mean, it's the decades of damage that really compound. Right. I think for the vast majority of people, macular degeneration can be a choice. Glaucoma is a little different, and I'm not the world's expert on glaucoma, so I don't even know if it's worth talking about. But macular degeneration, I mean, there's people that say that's type 3 diabetes. And the same damage that occurs to the rest of our body shows up in similar and also different ways within the eyes. And so much of that is, um, from what we just talked about that we want to avoid.

Too much sugar and stressors on the body, right?

Yeah.

So what are some simple things that our listeners can start doing? Maybe can we go through those key exercises that you share? You're such a great teacher. Um, Dr. Bryce has all these videos also on YouTube that are available, and I'm imagining through your website as well.

Yes. And on, uh, social media, on Instagram, we have a lot.

Beautiful. So let's go through some of them.

Yes. Um, do we want to talk about what's great for everybody? Do you want to talk about specific profiles or just like a top 3, top 5 for everybody to—

let's go through like a top 3 or top 5 for all of us who are looking at our screens every day.

Okay.

Yeah.

So easily number 1 for me is what I call eye push-ups, which is near-far focus. This has gone viral a dozen times because it's simple, it's easy, and it works. So let's do this together. So cover up an eye with a hand, and then I'm going to make this simple so that we don't need any equipment. There's no excuse to not do this. Take your thumb like you're giving somebody a thumbs up. Hold it so the fingernail is facing you, and then you're going to look at the fingernail and bring your thumb as close to you as you can until it gets a little blurry. And then when it gets a little blurry, you want to stop, make it clear. Think about looking hard. Think about locking in your focusing system. Anybody watching you will see your pupil getting smaller as it's locking in. Hold it for 5 seconds. Then you look out into the distance as far away as you can for 5 seconds, and then back at your thumb for 5 seconds, back into the distance. So this is a gross stimulation relaxation, stimulation relaxation. So it's kind of like push-ups.

I can actually feel that in my brain.

I mean, it's, it's not easy, especially as we get older. Yeah, you want to do it the same amount of time right eye as you do left eye. And most people will notice that one of the eyes can hold the thumb a little closer than the other, which means under two-eye conditions you're likely focusing your eyes at slightly different planes because of a binocular rivalry or competition over which eye to use. This is the type of thing that if you can get that thumb 2 millimeters closer in a week— okay, weeks add up, millimeters add up to centimeters, centimeters that add up to inches, inches add up to much more. If you do this every single day, you literally will not need stronger reading glasses. In many cases, you'll be less dependent on the pair that you have, maybe even be able to get by with a weaker prescription. But this is the type of thing that you're countering the age-related changes that occur, and you're getting your brain to get the feeling tone and the awareness of locking in close, relaxing far, and building back and forth. Um, this is— there's way more advanced protocols that are done with lenses and prism and techniques and things like that, but this is something we can all do every day. And I would say try and tie this to something we regularly do.

Habit stacking.

Yes.

Okay.

And this may be TMI, but I was on a podcast recently where he was talking about— I said, what's something you do every single day? He says, well, I go to the bathroom every day, I go number 2. I said, good for you, you're regular, that's awesome. So he's calling this pooping push-ups.

Oh, that's great.

But he— I saw him last week, he literally does this every day. Make sure your hands are clean and, you know, you're doing this, but that'll give you Even a minute each eye is better than nothing.

Can we just say, how many of you are looking at your screens when you're on the bathroom? There is no point. That's like a rule in our house, especially for my kids. No screens ever go into the bathroom. This is a perfect opportunity for that.

Think about how dirty those screens are too when you're in the bathroom, right? So great thing to do. Anyone can do this.

Okay. Um, and is that like 3 to 5 cycles, 3 to 5 minutes?

I'd say ideally like 2 minutes per eye would be amazing, but even doing 30 seconds per eye is better than—

you can feel the difference. Wow.

And you definitely want to do this one eye at a time, because if you do it with both eyes open, you're adding in convergence, which is helpful but more advanced. And then we can take in— it becomes a little bit more challenging with eye coordination. Okay, so eye push-ups, number one. Number two, peripheral pointing. This is probably the second most powerful one, and this is what we were talking about previously about actively engaging periphery. So what you want to do here is pick something across the room. So I'm going to look at the camera here and point your eyes right at the camera. Don't look away from what you're looking at. And then you want to notice with your side vision something off to the side. So I'm going to see the doorknob here of the door that enter the office or the studio. Point to where you think it is. And then when you think you're on it, make the eye movement over and see how close you are. If you're right on the money, awesome. Bring it down, go farther out. If you weren't right on, come back and try and get it.

I was on it.

And so you're actively painting in the periphery. So you want to do on the right side, the left side, all over, kind of actively being aware of what you're not aware of. And this is something that we can do on walks when you're noticing there's a mailbox here, there's a house here, but without intention it's hard to see both simultaneously because we selectively attend to one or the other.

Okay.

When you're driving, be aware of everything on the road, not just where your eyes are. When you're in a classroom or in a work setting Be aware of everything else other than where your eyes are pointing. This is the activity that many patients have said has saved their life, because doing this enough and making it be accessible, they've learned how to pull themselves out of that tunneling effect that often occurs. And then anxiety gets tapped into and mental health challenges, where we can literally pull back from the stress response and regulate our nervous system through vision. Vision, which every single time there's a fight or flight response, vision is a piece of the puzzle.

We've never talked about that on this show. Fascinating. I love that. And imagine starting your day with that practice. And I'll just say, for those people who do have a hard time meditating, using your eyes as a form of meditation— there's actually something called trataka meditation. Do you know about that, where you're staring at a candle for meditation? Yeah.

So we talked briefly before this started, but we're actually in the process of creating tech that can allow us to use the eyes to tap into different areas of processing. And even— I'm going to say it out loud— I think we can access our third eye, and I think we can have imaging to show when we're doing that, to be able to allow the inner vision and the outer vision to really become aligned. So every time that I've been in neurofeedback or done anything that was heavily meditation-based or not in the present space-based. I'm always exploring with my eyes on what my eyes are doing and what that allows. And we'll have protocol soon of like how much to converge your eyes or where to look in order to get— go from alpha to theta, let's say, in different brainwave states. I mean, there's so much that we're on the cusp of, of uncovering and putting out there that I think is gonna be really fascinating.

You were talking my language. Um, one more story that I want to share with you because I now understand how and When I was given my spiritual name at the ashram, you sit and you meditate and you chant for like 60 minutes with a Swami. One of the experiences I had afterwards was not only when I walked back down this long path, I couldn't feel the ground beneath me, but when I was looking up, I could see the definition on every leaf on the tree. It's like my eyesight just improved. I was looking up. I had no desire to look down. It just felt like I wanted to look up at expansion. So this doesn't surprise me because if you— the way that I was in that state digesting the world, if I could take that with me out into my day every day.

I'm going to correct your language. When you can take that with you. I mean, that's something that, you know, it's now possible, right? You did something. You're not really maybe sure if you can reproduce it, but that's that heightened sense of clarity is when you're so secure on where things are in space, your brain's actually processing information more fluidly.

Right.

I've noticed when I've done deep breathwork, I mean, what I could— how I could see myself elevate out of my body, how I could then see the entire room or space, but then have that transfer with me forward. I mean, I don't know about you, but I see different colors when I meditate, when I do breathwork. And there's absolutely something there that I think other cultures know about, other societies that we don't hear, but we're gonna figure out what that is and how to make that accessible for everybody. Um, that's beautiful. All right, so that was two.

Great. I love that you're talking about it.

Uh, let's do one, one more for motion sickness, which is really common.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna go against what I said to make this easier for people to do. We're gonna use our phone for this. We'll call this, uh, selfie eye movements. So what we're gonna do is Pull up your phone, pull up the camera so that you see a picture of yourself.

Okay.

And let's do it one eye at a time and we can pretend we're doing this. We don't have to pull our phones out. But you're going to look at the— look at your eye on the screen. And without looking away from your eye, I want you to slowly turn your head to the left, to the right. So you're— it's going to look kind of neat to see what your eye and your head are doing as you're doing this. So you can go side to side, up and down. Even some rotations clockwise, counterclockwise, various speeds. But this is helping your visual and vestibular systems communicate with each other. Ideally, this would be done in a mirror. Okay, so when we're brushing teeth at night, we do this. But so there's no excuse, you can also do it on your phone.

Yeah.

Okay, hopefully with your blue light glasses on. Um, but that's a great way to help, uh, these systems start providing feedback for the brain to interpret on. When I turn my head in a different position, my eyes in a different position in my orbit, and I'm able to now see the world shift and everything around where I'm looking moves in the opposite direction, but where I am looking doesn't move. It raises your awareness what you're doing, so it becomes easier to self-correct and self-monitor. Again, same thing, right eyes, you do with left eyes, the amount of time.

I think doing this as a family would be really cool. I could already see my kids being enrolled because it's gamify it a little bit.

Oh yeah, I mean, we have a, uh, an online vision training program called ScreenFit that so much— so fun when I hear about this, but families will say this is the appetizer for dinner, where the exercise of the day they all do together and then have dinner. But it's a nice way to kind of, number one, gather together, make sure you're all hanging out and sharing your days with each other, but taking the journey of vision improvement together, where it's going to be more beneficial for certain people, the family, depending on the exercise. But really nice sequence program for that.

I love it. Again, you just have to ritualize it in your house. That's it.

Absolutely.

It doesn't take a lot of time. Make it cool. Make it cool. Yeah. So, uh, ScreenFit, is this something that people can be part of or have access to?

Absolutely. So this is, uh, I created this to make this type of work more accessible for the world. I didn't realize it would turn into a monster. We've had as young as 5 and as old as 89 go through it successfully. Um, we didn't talk about this, but I would love to give your audience a massive discount if that's something you're cool with.

Absolutely.

Um, let's use Mona.

Code Mona.

M-O-N-A. And it'll drop it 40% off in terms of the, uh, the enrollment. And it's— I'm not supposed to say this either— it's lifetime access.

Incredible.

So you buy it once, it's not expensive. We're in the process of actually turning it into an online app. Should be out in about 2 months. But right now it's, uh, 30 different lessons. Each lesson is a video of me describing an exercise, very sequentially, very carefully sequenced to build from a more broad to fine-tune foundation. And great way to help improve visual skills for reading, learning, driving, certain areas of life where we need our eyes working together.

So generous. Thank you. So which is your website?

Uh, myvisionfirst.com.

myvisionfirst.com. Use code Mona. Let's all do this.

Uh, so for the code is for ScreenFit. That's for fit.com, screenfit.com, code Mona Sharma.

Great.

Um, we can hopefully, we'll send it to you, put in the show notes if that's easier too.

Absolutely. Thank you for that.

My pleasure.

Yeah. I just think, uh, one, as a family, two, around projecting a brighter future for our children in a world where they're gonna be addicted, hooked to their screens. Yeah. It's, it's inevitable. It's part of all of our futures.

But, and this is like doing body weight work instead of going to the gym. It's like sit-ups, air squats, pushups for the eyes. You're going to get in better shape faster if you go to the gym, but not everybody has the ability to go to the gym.

Absolutely. Um, I love this conversation. I can't wait to have you back. I can't wait to share more of everything that you're doing. Thank you for all the goodies. Um, let's close off with two things. Tell me what excites you about the future of vision health and neuro-optometry.

Oh, I would say the technology that we are creating that is gonna really make this more accessible, but allow us to understand the eye-brain connection so much more deeply. There's no denying this work when we actually show the brain changes that are occurring in a short period of time. And I think from that piece, it's going to allow, uh, so many more people to have the opportunity to train their eyes and their visual brain to be able to unlock so much of their potential. So I think from that standpoint, The timing could not be better. We are in a world where screens are everywhere and we now have solutions to make it so that your prescription doesn't have to increase every year. You can get rid of your headaches, your eye strain or fatigue from being on screens. You can go from avoiding reading to actually being something that you feel like you're pretty good at with reading. There's so much that we can all do. So to me, that's the most exciting piece is that vision is now part of that conversation for optimal longevity and wellness.

When we think about longevity, something that I hope my audience unlearns is the fact that they need to fix something about themselves or that they're constantly working to become somewhere else, someone else. When what you've done today is really showcase a beautiful picture that our body already knows how to do all of these things. We came into this world with this wisdom and with this potential. We just have to learn how to access it. So finding a practitioner like you has been such gift. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared. The fact that you can take that into spirituality— spirituality is huge. Um, so thank you for that. It was just such a beautiful reflection.

It is an honor, and I, I really feel like this is me living my purpose to help change how we're looking at vision. And when we know better, we can do better. So I love the not fixing piece. This is— we all have roadblocks. Let's remove the roadblocks, and then we're using our brain the way in which it's wired. We're not having to, you know, tell us that, that something is wrong necessarily.

You are the healer. That's the motto. Thank you for that.