Aging Vision? Watch THIS Before Buying Glasses @HolisticVisionCoach

Can we correct our vision naturally or do we have to have Lasix or wear contacts or prescriptions? And are we doomed to reading glasses forever once we approach midlife? Is this a thing? Or can we actually correct our eyes naturally? This is a topic I had highly requested of me in my membership groups in my programs. And I happened to hear Claudia at a recent event I was at, and she was talking about something else, but she mentioned that she helped people correct site naturally. And I thought, I've got to have her on the show. I have so many questions for her. And I'm gonna have her share a little bit about her story too, because she is the founder of Naturally Clear Vision Institute and the Naturally Clear Vision Method. That is what she does. She helps us with this. So before we keep going here, if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button so you don't miss another episode. And I also have my husband, Brooks Holland on interviewing with me today. And the reason is, I just introduced him to Claudia is because he, he has just now entered the midlife glasses crew. When he heard that someone could help naturally, he was all about it. So, Claudia, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you so much for inviting me, Natalie.

So take us back. How does one even get involved with coming up with naturally clearing your vision? Tell us your story here.

So I got my first pair of glasses at the age of three years old. And I was born in the 60s. And back then it was not cool. There was no Harry Potter. You were basically. And geeks didn't even exist. You were just a total loser. And I, there was one other boy in my class when I started school at six who had glasses. And he was the professor. He would always be like, I know the answer, I know the answer. And I was not very school smart. So I didn't even have that going in my favor. And I was bullied and teased and absolutely miserable. And when I was 12 years old, girl asked me if I want to join the handball team. And we were small head area, like they literally didn't have. They asked everybody because I was clumsy, I was farsighted, I had a squint, problems with depth perception. I was like the worst ball thrower and catcher. But they were desperate. So I joined and the coach told me I can't wear my glasses because they were actual glass, right? It was too dangerous. So after three years of doing this, my optometrist, like I was, my mom took me to the doctor. I was like 15 and he said, well, your eyes are normal now. I'm like, wait, what? And all of a sudden, I tasted this freedom of, like boys would say, you have beautiful eyes, inst of calling me names. And a few years later, high school exams, long story short, super stress crazy, you know, like, studying, studying. And my vision got blurry again, and I was freaked out. I was like, I do not ever want to be back in glasses. And I found a book, and a book searched on the bookstores, and that got me started with vision improvement. And I was able to keep glasses free in my 20s, up to my mid-30s. And then I was back in glasses. I ended up rocky. Marriage ended in divorce, and then I was a single mom. And then in my early 40s, I was like, wait a moment. My vision kept going down, right? I was like, I've done this before. There must. There must be a way. And that's when I really dove in eventually, you know, took private lessons and did my teacher training. And really, it's been 20 years of not needing glasses.

Wow. Wow. No, even reading glasses.

Do you know?

Wow. So when you. In the midlife years, I'm assuming you're in midlife, like, like us, you started also having that other issue where we can't read, is that. And we're also able to correct that.

Yeah. So I want to say a few things to what you just said. So, first of all, I was born, I was farsighted, right? So. So a lot of times nearsighted just means nearsighted is more like an epidemic nowadays where you can see really well up close, but far distance is blurry. And I was farsighted. In other words, even as a kid, like, the middle distance and the near distance was blurry for me. So I overcame, like, even more hurdles because I had, like, what you would think of old age sight already as a kid. And then I wanted to talk about the term correct. I think the idea of correcting vision is a misnomer. It's like when we talk about bones, we can correct a bone, it's broken, you get put on a cast, it grows back together, and then, you know, you do physical therapy and so on. But when it comes to vision and overall health, think of overall health, right? Or fitness, you know, you don't think like, oh, I'm correcting my muscles. I'm going to go to the gym for a month, and I work out like crazy. And then my muscles are corrected. Eyes and the brain, what we actually see are a living, breathing organism. Anything, our stress levels, our emotions, our Nutrition. Everything has an impact on our vision. So, like, my vision has been really great, but when I went through challenging times in my life, my vision gets gets blurry too. And I'm like, oh, so to me, it's like the engine light coming on when the vision gets blurry. Like, what can I change? Like, what's going wrong? You know what I mean? Like, versus thinking of, we do one thing, we correct it, and then we are done for the rest of our lives. We know in health that's not an option. Right? It's.

No, that makes sense. I've never thought of it that way. Because if you think about when we go work out, like you work out to change your body, you're right. It's not one time. You don't just wear a certain outfit that sucks everything in. You work out, and then you have to keep going. And then when you see you're off track with that, later, you go back and revisit and do I need to tweak this? Do I need to do more? Do I need to do longer? What do I need to do? So that's registering that what you're saying about vision and what's interesting is I've never heard anyone else talk about this ever, that you could do this as like a training thing for yourself.

Yeah, that's really. I mean, most people think. And you probably gonna ask me that, and it's eye exercises. And I don't like to call them exercises because our eye muscles are actually overly tight. They're way too strong already. So. And it's not just stretching. Like, you know, sometimes we talk about yoga for the eyes. It's not a bad thing to do. Stretch your eye muscles. It's. It's definitely helpful. But what I work with is really, how do you actually use your eyes and your brain all day long? And based on nervous system regulation, eye anatomy, neuroscience. So that's my approach. So if anything, I would call them relaxercises for the eyes, you know, but yes, the exercise is the idea that we can just train our eye muscles like abs. Right. Like, you know, and I want to. Before you, I want to give a quick story. So I had a client who was a fitness. He owned a fitness gym, and he would approach these practices as like, you know, I've done this a hundred times. And when I asked him, how did your eyes feel like, he's like, oh, I wasn't paying attention. He would do them purely mechanical. And that's not how our senses work. So it's a way different approach than just exercising.

Okay, now, I'm going to ask you some specific questions about all of this, but I have some clarifying questions first. Can somebody that has done Lasix or worn contacts, can they do your method to help with now the reading issue or something else as our eyes change again?

Absolutely. I always say, like, doesn't matter your age of what you come with, you can always improve. That's my main core message. Does it mean everybody can get back to what we call perfect vision, which is identified as 2020, which is not even necessarily perfect vision? It's almost like one of those, you know, measurements, like, you know, body mass index or paper sizes, where you're like, it's kind of like, who decided that that's perfect vision? And that is visual acuity, right? That's one aspect, one tiny aspect of vision called eyesight is the visual acuity. Now, with Lasik, you already have, you know, something engraved in your cornea, like, you know, so if your eyeball is elongated, for those of you listening, it's if you're near side, your eyeball is, like, elongated. So if you now have the correction on your cornea through Lasik, for instance, that's a different scenario than starting with just nearsightedness without having that. That doesn't mean that we can't make changes. Our eyes are very soft tissues, eye muscles are very strong. And we can also, in the brain, we can learn to perceive things differently. Right. We know from neuroscience that we can make neuroplasticity in our brain. So you're not starting from scratch with Lasik, but it doesn't mean that you're doomed.

Okay, what about reading glasses? I want to talk specifically about that because this is something pretty much everyone I know in midlife is navigating. I see better with them, for sure. And I wonder when we. Because my husband and I both do this, and Brooks, feel free to jump in with the question if I'm missing something, too. I know you probably have some, too. But, you know, both of us, we can read without them. It's just not comfortable and it's hard. So we both have gone through this in our heads with like, well, should I force it? Should I be practicing reading without glasses, or do I go and grab the glasses because it's more comfortable? Do you have an opinion about that? Does wearing the glasses, using that as a crutch, does that worsen your sight?

It actually, it totally does. So everybody that starts reading glasses, I call them the gateway drug. Because if you. Depends on how quickly you know, you. Everybody ends up and progressive. Glasses are bifocal. So what happens?

He just took his off. If you guys are watching on video.

He just took off. What happens? And again, the, the timing depends, right? You start with a plus one, then it's a one and a half, then it's a plus two. Before you know it, it's a plus two and a half. And then at some point you're like, I can't really see that sign on the freeway. And then you realize, you know, maybe you get an eye exam and your doctor's like, well, you need bifocals. Because now your perfect distance vision that you were always proud of is below 2040, which means you have to wear glasses for driving. And I see this with everyone. And sometimes it takes five years, sometimes it takes 10 years. Takes 10 years, but you will lose your clarity at all distances, really. And that to me is super scary. Now when I was in my 40s and I was wearing glasses again, everyone's like, you look like the sexy librarian. You know, it's kind of that Tina Fey, you know, look. But I don't want to look like a sexy librarian. I want to look sexy. Because also, glasses age you, by the way. In studies, they found average five years up to 10 years. And at our age, like, I don't want to look any older than I am.

No, but yeah, you mean they age us the way visually? Like someone sees you with glasses?

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like gray hair. Like, you know, it's like it just immediately we think they're, they're older. So it's not inevitable. Like, you can do things. But yes, it's very common, but it doesn't mean it's normal. So we can definitely do things. And forcing yourself is never the right approach. Straining against the blur is not the right approach. But that's the things that I'm teaching is like, for instance, eye movements. Like, you know, the more relaxed the eyes, the more movements are called psychotic. Eye movements are involved, like little vibrations of the eyes. Convergence. It's when we look up, close our eyes have to kind of think of crossing your eyes. Right. A lot of like, there is definitely things that we might want to be. Want to push things back, you know, and I don't know, personality wise, there's also that level of me as a farsighted person. I was always out there helping everybody else. You know, when I went through my divorce and the psychologists who work with my children ask me, how are you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm okay. You know, it's like it's never about us. It's always pushing things out there. And that's another thing I had to address too. It's like, am I actually even interested in stuff that's close up? Right. Or do I want to be out there in the world and do all that? Because that also is another factor in near study. People tend to be very good with everything that's close up and they don't really deal. You know, like, this is very generalized, but there's more of the sensation of like being in your little bubble versus we are always outside the bubble. Interesting.

Brooks, what do you think of this because you've had glasses since you were young?

I haven't had glasses since I was young.

I thought.

When did you start wearing glasses? Well, you had Lasix early.

Yeah, well, no, I had 2015 vision. And then I guess I was in my mid-20s and it just, it shifted a little bit. And I mean, it wasn't bad. When you go from 2015 to whatever, 2030, it was just still a difference. And then I had glasses and contacts for a little while, but they were very minimal. And then I did have Lasik. But the thing that's got me now is just the reading. Yeah, but I can see that. Cause when I. You do, you get comfortable using them. But even now, after I took my glasses off, even just on this, it just like right when you take them off the first 30 seconds, it's bad, but then it's right. And I guess they're saying, because now with, with phones and computers, we're using our eyes all the time. Whereas if you're just out in nature, you're just doing work, you're not staring at a phone, you're not staring at a computer, you're not reading. Clicking. You know, I think it does make sense. I know we need you supposed to, even on the computer, take breaks, you know, let your eyes focus. But yeah, I'm just. I'm really fascinated by this.

And I do want that you said something really important because when we are looking in the distance, our eyes, like just from a muscular aspect, our eye muscles are relaxed, the ciliary muscle which tightens the lens. When we look up close, like, think of the lens getting bulgy and big when we look up close. And when we looking in the distance, it's flat and relaxed. And also when we look up close again, we have to converge the inner. Like the. When you think of the eye muscles, right, we have to kind of tighten the inner muscles around the nose, if that makes sense, and the outer ones. So there is the far vision is the relaxed state of the eyes. And that's what as humans we usually did most of the day. And of course we would do, you know, ancestor would be, you know, picking, looking through berries and mushrooms and weaving and all those things. But most of the time we would be looking in the distance and we would have lots of natural light. So I think science slowly catching up to how important natural light is for our health and our eyes versus, you know, all the artificial light. And with computers, I mean, I can't. We all, I mean, there's no way to say avoid computers. I'm sorry, that's just not realistic. But I have my computer placed at a window so it's really easy for me to just look out and look far in the distance.

That's smart, you know, I mean, maybe.

You heard the 20, 2020 rule that optometrists like. But I'm like, who is setting a timer for every 20 minutes and then sets another timer for 20 seconds to look 20ft in the distance? To me, that's just not realistic.

I mean, Brooks will do that now.

He'll just make your environment easy to work for you, like set your computer up so it's easy to look up. You know what I mean? That's what I do.

That makes sense.

Trying to follow some catchy name rules totally makes sense.

Help us with the reading thing specific, because this is. And I know you have a whole program which we'll obviously link to and everything. And I know Brooks is going to be like the first one wanting this program right away because he's been so adamant about not having these glasses. What are some things that we can do? Like someone listening right now, they're just hearing this for the first time. And you said something important. You said, don't just take them off and force yourself because that's. You're going to create more strain. What is that first baby step? Like, how do we even start to improve our vision? And I'm talking specifically right now about the reading glasses situation, right?

So I always thought, and that goes for everybody, not just for people with reading glasses, but what I call strains and gains. Like what are things that strain you? And that could, let's say, let's even stay with near vision tasks, right? Maybe you enjoy a FaceTime with your kids or your family or your vision is not strained. But now you're looking at an Excel spreadsheet. Like, I always hated these spreadsheets. Like taxes. I immediately like my vision.

Who likes those?

I don't.

Does anyone actually like. Some people like them.

I think accountants like that kind of stuff. But look at, like, things that you're doing. Like, I give you an example. That's to me, was always the most fascinating thing ever. I had a client, and I asked her about the strains and gains, and she said she was near side, actually, but just as an example example. She said going into my garden is a strain. I'm like, really? Most people like garden, like nature. That's like my happy place. Because she saw all the weeds. So for her, going in the garden meant, like, weeding and work. So when we think about a little bit more personal, like, what is. Like, things that make our vision worse and what makes it better. And we haven't talked about it much. You know, Brooke, you mentioned that when you take the glass initially, that your vision is really blurry. That was the one thing that got me to, like, do something about it. But then it relaxes, right? But what are things that make your vision worse and what make your vision better? Because our nervous system, if we are constantly in the sympathetic nervous system state, our pupils are dilated, our peripheral vision shuts down, our vision will be worse. And how many of us are stressed all the time? That was 100% me. I had no idea in my 40s as a single mom how stressed I was. Everything, my muscles were frozen. So when you recognize that, then you can start having little, like, okay, this relaxes me. So you have little hints about what things you can do. Another thing that was really helpful for me is resting my eyes. More like we rest. We don't stand all day. We don't run around all day. So closing my eyes. And we call this palming. You know, you use your cupped hands over your closed eyes. Some people call it cupping. And I would do that for just, you know, yeah, we can all do it together. You close your eyes.

It feels good just doing that, right?

And you just. It's like the darkness. And the key thing is it's not just a restless for your eyes, but also, like, take your mind to a happy place. It's really important to think of, like, kind of coming into that relaxation response, right? Maybe taking a few deep breaths and just giving yourself a little time out, like, reset everything. And I would do that for, you know, you can do 10 seconds, you can do a minute, whatever feels right and want to come out of it. Keep your eyes closed, slowly take your hands away, and then wait. And you notice how Much light comes in through the closed eyelids. And just give yourself a moment. And when you're ready, I like quick five quick blinks, five gentle squeezes. And usually your eyes feel more lubricated and more refreshed and just that short amount of time, just a little reset, right? And then the other thing is definitely I have a lot of different conversions practices. You know, something I teach is called the hot dog, where you have two fingers and when you look in the distance, you should see a floating little sausage between your fingers, like a third finger. Do you see that? When you look at the computer and not look at the fingers, you should see a little. Yeah, yeah, great. Now that's diverging, that's distance. But we can also do it with converging where we cross our eyes and when we also see a little floating hot dog. Wow. So like, we do want to engage, we do want to practice looking near and far right. And I like to make these things games because otherwise you know that it gets boring to me when you do listen as an exercise. But you we do want to engage looking up close. Now I don't start with this. This is like after learning all the basics of movement, of natural light, all the things, right? We get to the point where we look at very small print, like you know, ingredients or you know, the old fashioned, you know, instruction manuals that we would get when we buy a device. We would get everything in all the languages in tiny print, right? Remember those tips. And looking at that very close and not it's going to be all blurry, but you look at this and you're moving ahead and you're really relaxing. You're not trying to read anything. And all of a sudden when you then hold look at a normal text, it will be sharper because now you didn't avoid the near point, but you were also not making an effort, like you weren't forcing yourself. So I have a whole set of practices, but we never start with the worst distance because that's the thing people want to like. If you're nearside, they want to see a mile away clearly. And if you're far side, I want to read small print and candlelight. So starting with a better distance and then slowly realizing how relaxing it is, don't start with the most challenging thing.

Because start with the most challenging. That makes sense.

That's what I see when people don't see results because now they're not relaxing at all, they're just forcing themselves.

What's coming up for me is I think our bodies are very smart and they tell us when we need a break or to recharge. Like I'm a sensitive person, like I really feel things all the time. So I'm wondering, as we age, it's such a commonality that all of a sudden it's hard to see your phone up for close and read up front. Maybe that's our body's way of telling us you shouldn't be doing that as much and you need to be taking those breaks and you need to be looking further. I'm just wondering innately if that's what's happening. And now we're, you know, we're using this crutch to overcome that versus listening to our body. Because what you're saying with these exercises even is giving your body a break, is letting your eyes rest, is looking far. It's doing really what naturally we're intended to do anyway.

Exactly. And I looked at some statistics. So they compared third world countries in the study and I forgot the exact study name or who did it. But it was like Africa, India and Brazil. And they looked at people that in the rural areas and they had about 60% of what's called presbyopia, the old age site with reading. And the developed world has 80% of people over 40. And when they looked at the towns and the cities in these countries, it was the same 80%. So higher education more, studying more, looking up close more. And it's not just looking up close. It's also like, you know, when you're studying and learning, it's not a relaxed way to look up close. You know what I mean? It's not just like you're letting your eyes relax, your brain is fully engaged. So there is a correlation to higher education and more like vision problems up close, both myopia and presbyopia. But we can do things. And that's really what I'm all about. It's about learning things. Everybody that starts with my courses in my advanced program, my natural vision program, we always step down the glasses too. That's super important. Like I always say, when you have a cast on your arm, how are you supposed to improve strength and mobility? Like you need to get, you know, into like reduced glasses. And one thing I want to say about this, I think you might be aware of this. When you have your reading glasses on and you look up into the distance, you know that that doesn't work, right? It's blurry, right. Near sighted people mostly, but they kind of use their distance correction all day as contacts. And I Don't know. Brooke, if you were near side or far side, you said it wasn't a big correction. But a near sighted person, what they need for 20ft is very different than they would need for 2ft being at the computer. Right. So diopters, which is the strength of glasses, doesn't matter if they're far on your side. Diopter is a measurement of the strength of the lens. It depends on the distance. So it never works for all distances. And that's why later on they do the progressive glass in the bifocals, which is partially a nightmare and something I don't recommend.

That's what we both have.

So do you have bifocals or progressives?

I don't know if they were called progressive. Yeah, like if you look up, it's different than if you look down. Yeah.

Oh, no.

So we have the wrong things. Okay.

Yeah, that's. It's related to astigmatism, to postural issues. Yeah.

Wow, Bricks. We got to change it up.

Well, here's the thing. I mean anybody that does my programs, we get like, if you, any distance you can be okay without glasses. You don't wear glasses, period. Right. Driving is always the number one thing because you, if, especially if it's in your license, you need to have 20, 40 or better vision. That's absolutely very important for safety. But if you can be on a hike, if you can garden, whatever you can do, cook, you know, without glasses, don't wear them. And then you wear them only when you really need them. And sometimes I rest my eyes or you do some practices. And I always say the best reduced glasses strength is the one when you start the day, you're sitting at the computer, you know, whatever it is, maybe you're wearing a plus 1.5 reader and everything is fine. And now you're an hour into your work and now, you know, maybe you had a stressful email or something and now things get a little blurry. That's the engine light. It's like, okay, let's not push through and put stronger glasses on. Let's take a little break, maybe go around the block, rest your eyes, whatever it is to take, you know, to. So that's what we want. We want the feedback that we need to, that something needs to change versus wearing those strong glasses that we allow us to have the worst habits and still give us clarity.

What's wild to me is I have three different glasses. I have my reading glasses and for computer and reading, and then I have driving, I have sunglasses and then nighttime glasses because my eyesight was starting to change at night. But here's the thing. I could still see far. I can still see well. I'll still pass a driver's test. I just thought, oh, they're changing. Let me get. Maybe I need glasses. Which the eye doctor confirmed. Right. So I have driving glasses. But I notice when I wear the driving glasses, yes, it's clearer, but it feels weird to me. My brain's not used to it. So innately I have not forced wearing them because I thought if I force wearing them, then I can see how then I'm going to really need them without it. So I already, I think I subconsciously knew not to do that. But I'm definitely guilty of the reading glasses. And before this interview today, I was about to go up a number. So I'm not going up a number.

No, no, no. Can I say something about driving? I think that's really important. So good vision is both central clarity, which we like the visual acuity, the central vision, which is a tiny size of a pinhead, perfect spot of clarity, by the way. And then we have the near periphery, the middle periphery, and the outer periphery. And in driving periphery, like in real, I mean, everywhere. But especially in driving, peripheral vision is absolutely key. Like to be safe. It's actually more important than reading a license plate, you know, from like a distance away, is to make sure you don't kill that pedestrian. So when we wear glasses, we kind of. There's a couple of things with glasses. First of all, we have this idea that where the glasses are, everything is sharp and everything outside, which is never a shop for anybody on the periphery, but we kind of ignore the periphery a lot. Glasses also create distortion. So when you are farsighted, everything gets distorted bigger. So there's a magnification aspect in farsightedness. If you're nearsight, everything is smaller. So it distorts the world. Right. And that's why your body. Like when people tell me when they first got their progressive glasses or the, you know, the body immediately said, no, this does not feel right. Like I get dizzy, leads to falls. Yeah.

And they tell you that's normal headache, all of it.

No. And also think about it. When you look down in your progressives or bifocals, that those are the diopters for reading depends on how tall you are. Now you go on a hike or you walk down a flight of stairs, you look down, but is that reading distance? No, that's why people trip and fall. And when you see this at the computer, I always see people like this because now they're looking through the lower part of the lens because the computer is closed and the bifocals are progressives. Assume when you look straight, you look far, and that leads to astigmatism and tension in the neck and all kinds of problems. So, yeah, it's definitely. That's the first thing we get everybody out of.

I have a quick question.

Yes.

So what are your thoughts on increasing your font size on your phone? Because I used to see people, and I would laugh because it's like, it would be a short text message, and it would literally take up their entire screen because the letters were half inch high.

But that's where we are.

I've kind of thought doing this. Is it okay to move it up a little bit or. No, just keep it where it is and, you know, get your program and do the exercises and. Or the. Whatever the things.

Yeah, I know. Okay. I love this question. Brooke. That was perfect. Because here's the thing. I. Obviously, my goal would be that you don't enlarge it, that it's small, because when the smaller the text, the more your eyes are moving and healthy. Remember, healthy eye movement, when we have a big, huge font, and like you said, it takes up the whole screen, it's easy to stare and not move your eyes. Right? Because you can read the whole thing without moving your eyes along the line of text. So that said, in the beginning, when I work with clients, I'd rather have them make the text a little bigger than work instead of glasses. And then we slowly improve and we make the text smaller because eye movement is very important. But we don't start with small print. We start with, like, bigger movements to create that sensation of movement, improve those eye movements. But yes, I love that question. I always say, in the beginning, do favorable conditions increase the brightness of your screen or your environment? You know, make things bigger. But that should not become the crutch because at the end of the day, we want to come back. I have my iPhone actually set to the smallest settings that. Even smaller. But I have days, I tell you, I have days when I'm really stressed. You know, whatever. Like, something bad happened, right where I'm like. Or if I do an Instagram live, especially when I do it outside the beach and the sunlight shines, and it's, like, hard to read, you know, in the bright light. So in that case, I make it larger, and then afterwards I make it smaller again. But so I think.

And this is why it's really, it's like taking an escalator versus a stairs. Like, it feels more comfortable to take the escalator, but we know we're gonna lose our fitness if we don't take the stairs more. So it's, it's.

I never want to take the escalator because you're.

Whatever, you're carrying a lot of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it makes sense. What about light? So when I go to a restaurant and we have a menu and if I don't have reading glasses with me, I can't see the menu, so what a lot of people do is shine their flashlight on the menu, is that okay? It doesn't change font size, but it's adding light.

Again, as an initial crutch, I think it's totally fine. I mean, obviously the goal would be to see that, but I 100% think that's a better option than putting on your reading glasses, using a flashlight, using a brighter light. Those are definitely things you can do to kind of help you while you are working on improving your vision. But I do want to say something about light. You briefly mentioned sunglasses. I think that's a very important topic that we also should cover.

Yeah, but I'm imagining you're going to say because we're changing the spectrum from the sun. Is that what you're going to talk about or.

Well, there's a lot of things I'm going to talk about, but yeah, but basically, eyes are light receivers, first of all. Right. The light hits our cornea and then the cornea and the lens and the virtuous humor, the gel in the eye, they kind of bundle the light and focus it on the retina. You all remember those school drawings where the light, you know, the beam kind of gets bundled into a little point on the retina. And so that's the first thing. But basically. And then the optic nerve connects to the brain, to the visual cortex where we actually interpret the data that we see. Now, light sensitivity, which I was so light sensitive I couldn't go outside even on an overcast day without sunglasses. Now, light sensitivity and so called refractive errors, which is near side of fasci astigmatism, are highly connected. So we need to reduce light sensitivity. It's like my ears are so sound sensitivity. Like, let me put these big earmuffs on. Like we would be like, that's stupid.

Right?

So we need to reduce light sensitivity. And my thing, I stopped wearing sunglasses 20 years ago. Except for like sometimes skiing or extreme conditions. I'm on the ocean or anything that has extremely bright light. But let's face it, most of us have a deficiency in natural light, which is super important for eye health, for overall health. We know from hormone health.

And your cortisol.

Yeah, your cortisol, everything, right? So again, I usually wear a cap or a head. Sometimes it's just like you, just the angle of the sun is weird. So I don't recommend sunglasses again, except for extreme conditions. And if you are built in sunglasses, which are our pupils, right, when it's very bright, they're small and when it's dark, they open up. But let's say you took some drugs or you had to take some drugs or you were at the eye doctor and they put atrophy drops in your eyes and your pupils are wide dilated, then 100% put sunglasses on, right? But nature is smart. Our eyes are designed in a way to adjust the light levels. And that's why sunglasses, basically, first of all, they make you more light sensitive over time. Like it was my case. And what dermatologists now found out is that the brain calibrates how much melanin to secrete in the skin based on the feed from the eyes. Now you wear sunglasses, the brain thinks, oh, if, if they're really dark, it's, it's dark time, it's nighttime. We don't really like, there's no need to secrete melanin. I mean, that's just the oversimplified version of this. So basically, sunglasses screw up with our whole system of how our body works, with everything. Melatonin, melanin, hormones, everything.

I have really heard this and I've really been working on lessening sunglasses. In fact, we just did a whole segment on hormone stuff, talking about how that affects us. Where I sort of landed on that, which I think you would approve of, is it's for extreme or when I'm driving in, the sun is literally right in my eyes and I feel that's dangerous. So I use them more as a comfort thing in extreme versus everyday. And I try first thing in the morning to walk without them to get natural light in. So I love that you're sharing that. Brooks, what are your thoughts on that? Because you got super sensitive eyes when you don't wear sunglasses in Arizona.

We were in California, just that. I mean, I have blonde hair, blue eyes. When it's just the super bright, it's hard. I mean, people like take a picture and it's like I can't really open my eyes all the way when it's just, I Mean, we're talking zero clouds. It's just pure sunshine. Like, the last two days, I was doing seven and a half hours a day of mountain biking. And so then also, you got stuff, camps. I did have, like, a wraparound, but it helps a lot for the clarity in the desert as well as the sun is intense. But, I mean, I've gotten that way, too. As far as where I don't wear them first thing in the morning. If I'm just. I mean, this morning I took them for the walk because half of the walk, the sun's at my back, and then part of it's just the sun. Completely zero clouds right in the eyes. It's just.

I agree, when you're mountain biking or when you do those extreme, like I said, but a lot of times on walks, if you just wear a visor or cap. I live in Los Angeles, so we have pretty blue skies and bright sun, too. But, yeah, there's extreme conditions. But here's one thing that was a huge game changer for me and many of my clients. I had such trouble with night driving because my pupillary reaction time, which is the time that the pupils take to either constrict or open up, was really sluggish from just wearing. My eyes were never exposed to light, ever to bright light. So when you think about those bright headlights nowadays. Right. They would blind me to the point where, like, I would flip the rear mirror and kind of hide behind the.

Yeah, I love that too.

Right.

Me.

And when I stop wearing sunglasses, my night driving is not an issue anymore at all. I don't need to, like, I can look into the brightest headlights. Not that I look into them on purpose, but that. And I hear that from a lot of clients. So that we do want the eyes to be able to tolerate light. But yes, there's always extreme levels. There's also depending on the type of sport you do like. You know, there's always exceptions, but generally speaking, right. For most people's daily lives, we should really, like, reduce the amount of sunglasses. Totally.

That makes sense. So we just want to do better, just improve. And I know a lot of reasons cosmetically, too, like, we don't want to squint, we don't want to get wrinkles. I mean, I'm guilty of that. So I don't want wrinkles. I don't want to squint. Give me sunglasses. But I'm working on being better. So not. Not perfect on it.

Or, like, don't wear the super dark ones. And because the light sensitivity makes you Squint and when your light sensitivity gets reduced, which can also help with headaches and so many other problems. But I'm just saying like you know, make have common sense. And if it really doesn't feel right because I see people without sunglasses and then they do this the whole time, that is not. That doesn't make sense either. So we have to find the right balance for our needs. But know that when you think about it like the more light sensitive an eye is, how can it possibly see?

Well, totally. What are your thoughts on blue light blockers? Or like I recently interviewed the founder of Viva Rays because I, they, they. I don't know if you're familiar with them, but it helps optimize light. What are your thoughts around those types of things?

Yeah, I know Rudy really well. Okay, so I think here's the thing and Rudy says this too. It's only when we are exposed of artificial light. So we would never want to wear them outside.

Yeah, he doesn't wear them outside.

Yeah, it's very important. I don't really wear them at the computer. I have blue blocking software on my screens. I just hate wearing glasses. Generally speaking, however, in the evening I have the orange ones. So when I use like watch TV in the evening and I barely ever use the red ones because I mean the red ones also at that point you lose 50% of the brightness. And I already have like Himalayan salt lamps or I have orange lights in the evening. We want to make sure we want to mimic nature again. No bright overhead lights, you know, like orange lights, incandescents, which we can't get anymore. But even orange lampshades or these salt lamps are great. And at that point my environment is so kind of dim already that I don't really use the red ones much. I mean but I 100% agree that it's important because our macula, if we eat a healthy diet, we get lutein, zeaxanthin, all the healthy plant pigments that absorb the blue light. Our eyes are designed for the circadian clock of the sun. Only when it's 12 o' clock do we get the most amount of blue light. Right. We don't get blue light all day in nature, but from the computers we do, I think so being smart. Yeah.

What I liked about what he said is it wasn't just blocking the whole blue light. It was like it was optimizing. So it was adding yellow. So you more like outside where I find his glasses express extremely helpful for me is at night at the wind down and I notice A big difference in my deep sleep and in how I sleep, if I wear them or if I don't. So last night, for instance, I completely forgot and I didn't wear them. And I was watching TV until I went to sleep. And Mike, I can see on my aura ring, my sleep was different than the two nights prior where I did. Yeah, where I did the orange glasses and I actually put the red ones on 30 minutes before bed.

And it.

I fell asleep quickly. So I like that. But it makes sense what you're saying too, if you're doing a lot of this in nature anyway and you're mimicking at your house that you might not even need.

Yeah. I was actually living with Rudy and his sister in Mexico for a few weeks, and we had. At the right of the beach, we had Himalayan salt lamp. Nobody used artificial lights. And at that point, it's almost like unless you are on the screen. And sometimes I was guilty of watching Netflix, like just, you know, the last. After the sun went down. And I would put the orange glasses on. But other than that, when you live with the circadian rhythm, you know, you might. And you're not exposed to, like, lots of blue light, you know, obviously on the computer, you want to be careful. But otherwise, if you don't watch TV or those things, you might not need that much. But we definitely want to make sure that we live by nature's laws, which makes so much sense. And that's actually the winter month coming. That might be more of a challenge for many of us. I'm going to go see my family in Germany for Christmas. And it's literally, it gets light at 9 and gets dark at 3pm and sometimes when the sun doesn't come out, it's like you have to have indoor light on pretty much all day. Right. So three, if you live. Right. If you live in, like closer to the equator, because. Yeah. I mean, you can't just. We need artificial light at that point. Right.

So if it gets dark at 3pm, is it the opposite in the summer there, where it doesn't settle?

Super. Yeah. It's like it gets light at like 3am and dark at like 10.30pm, which is nice. I like that.

Wow. But it makes me wonder about our own bodies and then all the manmade things that we've done. Right. Before computers, before all this stuff. Like before reading glasses, like, what did people do? Their eyes probably naturally did start adjusting and getting. I mean, reading glasses have been around forever, but not the reliance that I see now with it. I mean, it's really like, I don't know anyone my age that doesn't pull them out to read.

It's very common. I actually there's a great book that was written by several behavioral optometrists that was all about vision improvement, which is a rare book. It's still out there from the 90s. And they do talk about how there's no proven like record of safety for glasses. But I learned from that book that I think it was in the 12th century or the 13th, I don't remember exactly. But monks reading, like they were studying all day, you know, reading Bible, like that's when jewelers first started creating these magnifying glasses. And then all of a sudden that became a big industry and that how the opticians were born and the optometrists and then the medical doctors were like, wait a moment, this is like. So then the separation was made between medical doctors, ophthalmologists and lens prescribers, if that makes sense.

That's amazing.

Wow.

Yeah, I didn't know any of that. So this is so fascinating, all of this. I'm curious how you figured out what you teach these. You call it Relax. What did you call it? Relax. The size.

Relax.

Did you figure them out by trial and error with yourself? Was this trial and error with lots of people, like, research? Like, how did you even figure out this method?

So I started obviously on my own vision. And my work is based on the Bates method, which was created by an ophthalmologist a hundred years ago because he was A Columbia professor, Dr. William H. Bates, and he noticed that some of his patients improved their vision. And he was like, he was the person who was curious. He said, I didn't learn that in ophthalmology school. And then his method is kind of the foundation for all vision based improvement. And neuroscience has really confirmed all his findings. Even though you might go on Wikipedia and they say it's all crackery when you think about it. We know we can improve the brain. We see in the brain, we don't see in the eyeball. And 90% of your vision is really brain based and not eyeball based. So that's the foundation. And then I added like, over the years I studied yoga, I was teaching yoga. I noticed my own tension in my body. So I discovered myofascial therapy balls that I'm now using in my programs. Because everybody is tense and if we are like in breath practices. Right. So I added on all these different things. And then working with, you know, one on one initially and working with Lots of clients. I'm like, oh, this techniques work better than this one. But, you know, I get inspiration from all kinds of things, so I think it's important to keep learning and observing and. Yeah, this is wild.

Brooks, what am I missing? What questions do you have for her? He was so excited about this episode.

I already made this. The font smaller on my phone. Again, it wasn't too big, but I already made that smaller. There's two things. One, I was listening to a podcast. I didn't catch the whole thing, but I guess there was an expert on there saying that because of the phones and the computers, that in a certain amount of generations, basically, we're losing our peripheral vision. Have you heard anything about that or any thoughts on that?

Not really, but it's peripheral vision. Is this. Like I said, especially when we wear glasses, because we didn't talk about it in much detail, but we can actually do a quick little exercise. So put up your two thumbs and then look at the left one and notice that you see that even if it's a little blurry, look. Notice that the left one you see better than the right one. Right now we have them about, what, like, a couple inches apart? Now you look at the right one, move your head, and then notice that you see the right one better. Are you all getting that? That you see that? Okay, now move them closer. And when you look at the. Whichever one you look at, you basically see it better. It doesn't mean the other one is completely blurry, but you see it better. And then you go closer, closer, closer. And then you do one thumb, and you look at the side of the thumb, look at the left edge of the thumb, and notice how you see that better than the right one. So the point is that our visual perfect clarity in the fovea, which is in the retina, is this. This tiny spot, which blew my mind. And the more we understand that that that idea of trying to see a huge picture clear is not possible from the anatomy of the eye. Do we see the whole IMAX picture? Do we see. I see my whole room here. Yes, but do I see everything clearly? No. So even when we look at somebody in the eye, when you do eye gazing and you. You kind of. You can't see both eyes clearly at once. You would move from one eye to the other looking into the eyes. So once you understand that, you understand how important it is to have healthy eye movements. And the peripheral vision is just an expansion. It's like peripheral vision is actually only there when we are relaxed. We can only feel relaxed when we feel safe. So understanding all these connections is very important. In addition, we do some exercises where we block the central vision. We can use shields or occluders to block both eyes. Central vision, or one eye at a time. That's a really amazing way to wake up the profile vision, because then we're taking that central vision out of the picture. So sometimes we do that with clients. And, you know, that is really important for everybody, especially if you work a lot in the computers, especially if you have glaucoma, where you lose your peripheral vision. So 100% Brooks. It's like, I don't know if that's future generations. I just wrote a newsletter for this month, and it's all about children's vision. And I'm giving parents and grandparents some simple tips what they can do with their kids. Because, honestly, I don't want to be a parent right now. I don't know if you guys have kids, but, boy, I mean, I don't know how hard it must be nowadays to, like, make sure that these kids don't spend all day long on screens.

I mean, yeah, my daughter's 17, and yeah, she's addicted for sure to screens, so it's hard.

It's hard. My kids are now in their late 20s, so we were just at that threshold when the iPhone came out. And I was. We. They were in a world of school and they. The school was thankfully also, you know, no screens, no nothing. Yeah, so they were really. We were really strict until they were like teen. At some. At some point, they're teenagers, and it's like a lost cause.

And then. Can these things also help with things like cataracts?

Yeah, I was just going to ask that. Great question.

So cataracts, you know, it's. It's actually really interesting. I just did an Instagram post because I keep seeing these I vitamin ads like cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, reading problems, floaters. Take these capsules or drops, and all the problems will disappear. Total scam. Because these are all completely different things that affecting your eye. So cataract is a clouding of the lens. Basically, the perfect proteins that create the crystalline lens get kind of out of whack. Think of stabbing into a honeycomb and like, so the perfect pattern is interrupted, and that creates that cloudiness. Now, lens. Remember where we talked about moving? Right when we move from near and far, our eyes, that is kind of creating movement in the eye by the lens, like flexing, like, let's. Like your Biceps flexing and relaxing, that's one thing. Diabetes, blood sugar, it can even start with metabolic syndrome or pre diabetes. Puts you at a 60% higher risk for cataract. Right. Smoking. I used to smoke. I fess up. I, you know, grew up in Germany. We all smoked. But, you know, all those things will contribute to cataracts and it probably. And, you know, toxins like mercury and lead, all these things that, you know, we all know in the health world. So I think when they say it's normal at age 65, it's just decades of accumulating toxins and probably eating a poor diet and eventually that catches up. So there is really no, like, supplement that affects the lens so much that I know of. We have a lot of things we can do for retinal health, which helps with, you know, macular degeneration, like vitreous detachment, like all the retinal basic, you know, challenges. But the cataract affecting the lens, it's really about having a great metabolic neck system, like being super clean. It's really the number one. And then moving your lens, like anything that near, far where you create movement in your eye, that's it. I know, I get that question a lot. Same with floaters. Bloaters are those little things when you're moving your eyes. They're like little, you know, flying backs in your eye. So in a study in Taiwan, found pineapples to be helpful. I think it's the enzyme, the bromelain. I tried this for a while, but pineapples really spiked my blood sugar. And then I just tested the enzyme as a capsule, and I can't say that I noticed huge difference. But so I think it's one of those things where there is not really, you know, a cure. I think living healthy, doing all the things that we're doing is going to be paramount for.

And it makes sense what you just said about the blood sugar thing too, by the way, when I notice with me, if my blood sugar goes higher, then my vision gets more blurry too.

Right.

So that's interesting that they would say that.

Yeah, yeah. And same as glaucoma, 40% higher risk. So glaucoma is an optic, is a pressure disease. There's many forms of glaucoma, but that's what when you lose your peripheral vision. And they say it's like I heard eye doctors say this, which to me is crazy. 40 readers, 50 bifocals, 60 cataracts, 70 glaucoma at 80, you have AMD macular degeneration I'm like, no, we don't want this. No, let's stop this.

This is fascinating, Brooks. What did I miss?

It just seems like this is a common thread where you get cottage industries that are great for generating billions of dollars, but it's not really the best thing for the customer. It's great, you know, and I think people go to school, they're taught this is the way we do it. And so somebody comes in, there's a prescription. I mean again you get, I mean, contact lenses. I mean this was years ago when I was like, that's an annuity of thousand dollars per year at least that someone's going to spend for contact lenses and then glasses and then exams where.

It'S an example of treating the symptom, not the cause.

Right. And it's just, I think just as society as a whole, we, you know, people find ways to make money, but I don't know that it's at the overall benefit of society.

I want to add to that. I think in no other thing other than vision, we have a accepted to pay thousands of dollars every year to make our condition worse somehow. We have normalized. Right? It's like, oh yeah, yeah. And then I see glasses prescription. That's something I do in my natural vision program. We I explain to everybody, what does your prescription mean? What do those numbers mean? How you can measure your own vision, your visual acuity. You can't measure all the things yourself, obviously, right. But you can measure a lot of things yourself. So understanding all the pieces and then sometimes I see prescription where there's a quadiopter more or less somewhere where it's literally not going to make a difference when they look through the glasses and they pay another 500, 600, 700 bucks. And it just makes me mad. I think we have accepted this for too long. Thankfully, there's more and more integrative functional medicine trained eye doctors that are realizing that things have to change and that they've been doing a disservice. I feel like I have hope that more and more eye doctors are like learning, especially those that had their own health challenges, studied functional medicine or other forms of food based medicine and that are realizing that there is a lot of things they can help their patients with as well and not just glasses and contacts.

Wow, this is fascinating to me, all this. I'm so happy you came on and you did this. I'm sure that my audience will have more questions that I am missing. Where do people learn about your program? I know Brooks is like going to run right now to look at your program.

So I'm on YouTube, on Instagram as Holistic Vision Coach.

Okay.

My website is Naturally Clear Vision.com I do launches, to be honest, because I find that people going through cohorts get better results than. But I also have a self study program called 21 Days to Better Eyesight Experience that people can at least learn foundations. And then I also have a free guide you can download called 10 Habits for Healthy Happy Eyes that gives you a lot of information to get started for free.

Great. And they can find all that on your website?

Yes.

Amazing. Thank you so much for being here today. This was so insightful. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. Sam.