Correct Your Eyesight Naturally – Without Glasses Or Surgery

Introduction to Menopause and Eye Health 0:00

Hello and welcome to Mastering Your Menopause Transition Summit 2.0. Save your hair. You figure your mind. Today, we're going to talk about saving your eyes because I can tell you that I see so many patients, so many of my perimenopausal and menopausal patients come in and yes, they have the the complaints. We're all aware of the sleepless nights, the hot flashes, the weight gain, the hair loss, etc., etc.. But they have eye complaints. Their eyes are changing, their eyes are dry. And our eyes, I mean, I get up every day and I do my gratitude and I'm always grateful for my eyes.

And I always think about like how I take it for granted, but how my eyes say it and what I'm able to see. And the beauty in the world is so, so precious and not to be taken for granted. So I wanted to make sure during this summit we had a talk about your eyes, because they are so important and you may be having questions. And I thought, who am I going to invite to have that talk with you? And it was a it was a very quick conversation in my brain because I knewit had to be Claudia Claudia Muehlenweg, who is a natural vision teacher and is a dear friend and colleague, and I had her on my podcast probably a while ago.

But you can also go check out our podcast interview after you listen to our summit interview. But she she changed my life just learning about eyes. And she was very instrumental in me not being addicted to my sunglasses, which I was very, very addicted to. And so we're going to have that conversation. You're going to find out why you shouldn't be addicted to your sunglasses and so much more so welcome, Claudia. I'm so happy you're here. I'm so excited to chat with you today. Thank you so much for inviting me.

I'm so excited to share this knowledge with your clients. Yes, yes, yes. The ladies are ready. So tell us, first of all, I'm always curious. I always ask this question, but it's like, how? Why? How did you become the the visionary vision teacher? How did you what what made you go down this journey and really focus on the eyes? You know, in so many cases, that's our biggest hurdle that we had to overcome. That ended up ends up being our mission and our vision for our life. And it was no different for me.

So I got glasses at the age of three. I do not really remember a life before then. I just remember I had glasses all throughout my childhood and I was born in the sixties, so I'm definitely in that older category where most people wear glasses now. And back then nobody woke none of the kids for glasses. There was one boy in my class. He was a professor, so he knew the answer to everything.

Claudia's Vision Journey and Glasses Dependency 2:54

And I was not the geek, you know, I was not the smart kid. And I got teased, I got bullied. I had no friends. I was honestly, really, really miserable. And I was able I figured out in my teenage years how to get rid of these glasses because I was, like, determined I has to be something. If everybody laughed at me and I did find a book and it helped me to stay out of glasses through my from like age 15 to my mid-thirties. And then I was in the marriage that was really challenging. I moved to the States.

Long story short, I was packing glasses in my late thirties, and after a few years of wearing them, I realized how quickly my vision deteriorated and went downhill so quickly. And one specific night I remember I was I was always separated from my husband and was going out and finally made it home. I got lost in L.A. in the middle of the night, back before we had Google Maps. I remember I was sitting that my driver took my glasses off and everything was so blurry like and that happened a lot when I took them off.

But that night I was like, Wow, like this feels really bad and the vision is so bad and I cannot see a thing. But I really got scared and I found that book again that I still had from the seventies, that book, but then that in my early forties it didn't help. Like I needed additional help. So I found a teacher to help me and then eventually did the teacher training. And so that's not that I haven't gone classes in about 20 years now. Wow. So what was the book? First of all? It was called oh God, what was it called, Vision Medics or something that was written by a woman named Lisa Lisette So it was the only book I could find translated into German because I lived in Germany back then and she lives in California.

I don't know if she's still around. I think she might have passed by and I'll actually never research that. But yeah, that comes. And so no glasses, no contacts. No. Okay. And you said something that I just want to kind of back up to because it sounds like such the opposite of what we think. But what I heard you say, as I was back in glasses and my vision was getting worse, and we're kind of trained to think that glasses help our vision. So could you explain that? Yeah, what I mean by that is, you know, usually when we when we go to the doctor for any kind of medical condition, right.

We get some treatment that could be across our broken arm. It could be a pillar of our condition. And then usually the condition gets better or heals. And if you break your arm, then eventually you get rid of the cast and you're here, you get physical therapy in the bones, you know, lodge back together and you're fine. And glasses. What I mean by that, that's the only correct we call it correction, but they only correct your vision the moment you put them on like the second you don't wear them anymore.

That's what I mean. My vision got worse and worse, meaning I needed stronger glasses. I got more and more dependent on them. So it actually let me down to a rapid decline in my vision then instead of making it better. That was really my experience, and I think a lot of people feel the same way. Mm hmm. I'm glad we're talking again, because, as I said in the beginning, I'm, like, so proud of myself that I'm not dependent on my sunglasses anymore. But you're reminding me that that's just the beginning.

There's a whole level, because I do still need my glasses to watch a movie or drive the car to to see to see distance. So. So what is so most of the women watching are perimenopausal. They're menopausal, they're post-menopausal. Why? Why does it hit our so hard during these hormonal changes that our eyesight becomes affected? I am definitely not the hormone expert, I have to say that. But I know you want to have podcasts. I know that hormones obviously affect so many levels of our health and for eyes it could be more dryness and other things.

But what I want to talk about and the lens could even change I think a lot of times. So basically I want to differentiate between two categories of your listeners, probably those of you that have glasses since childhood, you know, maybe third grade, you're nearsighted like I think it sounds like you're nearsighted. Cancer, the distance. Well, you kind of been used to wearing glasses or contacts. Maybe you had Lasik, you know, for kind of forever, but it seems like forever now you're losing some of that ability to look up close and then that those of you that always have great vision, maybe not 20, 20, 2015, you always said that eagle eye vision and now you and your, you know, mid-forties mid-fifties are, you know, a sixties and now you can't read that small print anymore. Right?

You need the flashlight at the restaurant or you need those Cheetos. And so but it's a similar process in the way that what we call Presbyopia is that old age side where you lose the ability to look, see things clearly up close, and that can affect anybody nearsighted or farsighted. And then often you end up in bifocals or progressive glasses because now you need correction for both, you know, far, middle and near. So that's kind of kind of the outline. And I do want to say it happens many times.

You know, it's not just the physical body changes changing, but it's also a mindset. Maybe we're nearing retirement, maybe the kids out of the house we like. What is our role? What is our mission? What are we doing with the rest of our lives? That's like this outlook on life, this vision for life that we have that is also connected to my sight, right? So it's the mental, emotional aspects. How do we feel about ourselves and the physical changes? And just because it's common to end up needing reading glasses doesn't mean that it's normal, right?

It's not like there's something we can do. And that's really my message here. Yes, we change. You know, I have more wrinkles in my toes, unfortunately. You know, that's a fact of life that we do change. So I'm not pretending everything is going to stay. However, it doesn't mean that you're doomed to wear glasses

How Vision Works and Why It Changes 8:42

and that you're doomed to eventually become blind from an eye disease. Mm, yes and yes to speak to the hormones since the resident hormone expert in the house. Yes. It estrogen has a big role to play with it. And so we know declining estrogen for hot flashes and bones and brain. And so it's also making the cornea less stiff. It changes the elasticity, it changes the way light travels. And so it's why we see such a big issue. And also when we lose our estrogen, we become dry. So we think dry vaginas or our dry joints.

But the eyes are also a place where we see the dryness. So and yes, I the mind. And, you know, it's it's vision. And vision is our vintage vision for the for our lives. Like I talk about menopause and I write it with the parentheses around pause because I want you to stop and pause and really think about where you've been, where you are, and then where are you going, what is your vision? And so your eyesight, your vision, they are I love that you said that they're so intertwined, so so let's talk about what you do.

Like, how are you? You know, I was born in the sixties, too, but I'm still wearing glasses. So let's talk about, like, what, what the ladies need to know. Like, as I'm sure I'm like, I mean, I went to Germany to study this respect for cancer, but I went to Germany this is years ago to go get cell therapy. And one of the reasons I went was because in cell therapy is the injection of it's like stem cell therapy, but it's specific organs from animals. And I had been visiting the stem cell and the cell therapy clinic, and he said, if you don't want to wear glasses.

And he like, put his glasses when he's giving his presentation down, he goes, just come get cell therapy and you can get the eye cells and you won't need glasses anymore. And so I went home back to the States and I thought, I really want to do that. So I went over and I was there for like a week getting cell therapy and they forgot to give me the eyes. So they gave me like and they gave me all these things to help regenerate my body, but they never gave me the eyes. And I was like, Oh, look what I came here for.

This is what I came here for. And I didn't even get it. So I think we all have that, you know, somewhere, whether it's very prevalent or tucked away. But like, wouldn't it be nice to not have to wear glasses to just be able to see and not rely on glasses? So you have accomplished that and you teach thousands of others how to accomplish that. And so how does that happen? So first of all, I'm curious what happened to the parts, but you got that with the cell therapy. And if those body parts are suddenly rejuvenated, I think we all have that kind of desire for that quick fix, you know, where things and that's why LASIK has become so popular, even though it has so many side effects for so many people and it doesn't last, everybody ends up being back in glasses.

So my approach is basically, first of all, we have to understand that vision happens in the brain and the visual cortex. Yes, the eyeball is kind of the light receiver, right? Just like that is the sound receiver. And then we process, we perceive information in the brain and we know that we can train the brain. And of course, if the eyeball is gone or if the optic nerve is damaged, obviously that will, you know, whatever ends up receiving it received in the brain will be affected by those things.

But the brain and the the nervous system also controls muscle tension. And we have six extra ocular muscles. In other words, six all the eye muscles. And the tension in these muscles can determine if your nearsighted, farsighted have astigmatism. So the tension in those muscles is so I walk with the relaxation aspect. So I call the practice. I do a relaxed sizes because it's also based on being in that parasympathetic nervous system, said being in that relaxed state, because when we are stressed and stress can be a good thing because we need to be alert and we need to focus.

But you can be in that what we would call dynamic relaxation, that kind of what was like that dynamic where you start to relax, you feel good about yourself versus you and that chronic stress where everything just hits you. So hard and you don't breathe right? Your pupils dilate, you know, your peripheral vision shuts down. So if you're constantly in that mode, your vision will be affected. And everybody that has ever been in an accident or been really stressed notice that the vision might be a lot blurrier than when you're relaxed and you're sitting at the beach and you're just feeling good, right?

So vision varies based on the nervous system. States are learning how to regulate your nervous system with breathwork, with mindfulness, work, all these aspects, and then using the eyes the way that designed to be used so that eyes have a specific anatomy. And oftentimes when we have poor vision, we strain again. So we're trying to use the eyes or visual system in a way it was never designed to be used and glasses are a big key contributor to that. So because they teach you wrong habits and can help to undo those.

So it's a lot easier if you do not wear glasses yet to reverse anything, then, you know, trying to backtrack 40 years doesn't mean that you can't make changes then, but it's just not going to be as quick. So that's basically the gist of it. It's, you know, and then also the outlook on life and emotional. It could be emotional trauma, adverse childhood events if you're nearsighted. So sometimes we go back and we look at like what happens like a year or two before you got your first pair of glasses as a child, right.

And oftentimes I hear divorce. We moved a lot. I got a lot of times, you know, my grandma died. My you know, she was my best friend and sibling was born. And I suddenly didn't get all the attention. And so so it could be so many different aspects. But we look at all these on a holistic level and then devise a protocol basically that, you know, depending on the vision problem, there's a foundational thing that you have to do. But then also we layer on what specifics you might need depending on who your farsightedness size, if you have astigmatism or if you have like lazy.

I am the opia or strabismus, or if you have an eye disease, we look into nutrition, detoxification, all these aspects as well. So so what I'm hearing is it's a lot of nervous system which we all know that, you know, we can't heal if we're stuck in a sympathetic we have to, you know, whether it's from a serious disease like cancer or wanting to get out of your glasses. And it just you're hearing this over and over again. You always hear this from me or hearing it from my the people I'm interviewing here at the summit, all my experts.

And so that is such a huge piece. And then it's I exercises. Well, I would call it more relaxed sizes. And one thing I want to say is I also I'm trained as a yoga teacher, so I've been doing a lot of studying and certifications and myofascial release. So a lot of times when we have that poor breath pattern, you know, our diaphragm can't move properly. We have a lot of tension, you know, in the neck, the shoulders and all that will affect your vision. And glasses can oftentimes be a contributor to poor posture, which in turn can lead to astigmatism.

So that is kind of that whole when you see people like we have to have posture. A lot of times they I asked, do you wear progressive in the neck? How do you know? And I see just the way you carry your head, you know. And so all these things and if you have a stiff neck, you know, you have text neck, you know, looking down all the time, all these things will affect your vision for the physical, physical aspects, but also mental aspects, you know, mental focus and visit visual focus is connected as well.

And so sometimes you might be like the daydreamer, you might just be zoning out the whole time. So it's, there's so many layers to this. So it's definitely I don't like the what I exercises because it sounds like you're strengthening your eye muscles like you strengthen your abs in the gym or your car. And this has to be done mindfully, not like as a rigid protocol. I do hundreds of this or whatever. Does that make sense? Yeah, I know. I love that. Relax. There's biases, and I. It's so hard to escape childhood without some sort of trauma.

And when you think about it, I see a lot of kids

Relaxation, Nervous System, and Eye Exercises 17:00

who come in with the ear infections, and I'm always talking like, what? What what does your child not want to hear? Is there fighting in the house, like what's going on? And so people don't really bring their kids to me for issues. But when you say that, it's like it makes so much sense. You know what? What do you not want to see? What are you not willing to look at? And what is too difficult to look at? And especially as a child where we don't have the emotional capacity, the words, the understanding to really process through something.

And so I love that you are I love that you are not just saying. Yes, one, two, three, it's eye exercises, but here that you're really looking, you know, in a fashion, all of these things that are so important. So I want to go back because you mentioned Lasik surgery and that was something I once dreamed of doing. And then I had a patient come in who had had Lasik surgery and it was like nine months since she had had it and she was a disaster and her eyes were dry and it scared me. I was like, I'm never doing that, you know, like just seeing what she was going through.

And I was able to help her luckily. But I was like, This can't be a good idea. But if you I'd love to hear like, what's the real deal with Lasik? So that was actually an article in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago. And of course, I don't have the link handy, so I know a lot of people are happy with Lasik. But here's the thing what I always want everybody to remember I think about so your vision varies based on your nervous system state and that goes for everybody. And most people I talk to would say, yeah, I notice like when I'm in the morning, my vision is a little clearer than in the afternoon or vice versa or you know, when I'm on vacation or whatever, right?

So most people are aware that your vision varies a little bit and most people that are not either are in glasses all the time or they just haven't paid attention. So when I'm really stressed, when I'm running late for something, you know, whatever, I had an accident, you know, my vision is not going to be as clear than it is when I'm, you know, sitting here relaxed, talking to you. And so when you know that and now you imagine because Lasik is an irreversible cut into your cornea. So now that you also know how often your prescription varies, you know, maybe there's a little bit more here.

And if you were to go to an eye doctor like you can go to the same doctor and you would go every day of the week and, you know, you would probably come a slightly different results, you know, not like dramatically different, but you will have maybe a of up to here more or less or half a diopter. So now you do this cut in your cornea that is irregular stubble, and then they can touch it up. But your cornea is not sliced, right, so it's not intact anymore. So that is already damaged on the cornea thinner, which can lead to all kinds of problems.

And it could be common side effects are halos at night or that severe dryness. Why you need a prescription eye drops that have all kinds of side effects and they're expensive. And then here's the thing. Most people get Lasik on your side, and that's the most people that I know of that got Lasik when you sign it and other ones they could look up close, fine, but they could see that they couldn't see the distance. Right. So that's what most people. Yeah, exactly. So in that case and now the diabetes that you need for for vision and not the same that you need for close up.

Right. So anybody that ever wore Rita's, if you try to, you know, look up with your readers and look in the distance, you're like, well, this is way too strong, right? So and nearsighted person who needs next needs less correction because up close a far sighted person needs more correction. Up close, right? So that's the difference. So when you're younger, you can pull that in. You use you have that Lasik, you have that permanent contact lens on your eyes that you don't really need for being on the computer all day long.

But you can pull it in, but then you get older and now it's that way. It's like, Oh wow, this is isn't clear anymore. And so now they have to put plus meters on top to look up close, right? Because technically that just probably would take the glasses off and not be able to read a book without glasses. Most cases, depending on how how strong the nearsightedness is. So I see all these people back in glasses and the Lasik doesn't address the root cause of the vision problem. It's just basically another Band-Aid.

And yes, it might buy you ten years of freedom, but there's also stories, you know, that actually the guy who was part of the effort got his name. He was part of the FDA, approved Lasik, founded the website Lasik Complications because he's so deeply regrets. Oh, gosh, you're part of the team that involves that and people I mean there's a that was a news anchor in Dallas that committed suicide because of the stabbing pain in her eyes. And I'm not saying everybody has that right, but sometimes people have even new vision problems.

So this is not a procedure that you should just be like, oh, let's just get that done. You know, like, I mean, any procedure can have to be dangerous, right? But but really, it's not it's not a permanent fix. And you might end up with more problems than you had before. Mm. I didn't know that about Lasik complication website. So what about contacts? So are contacts worse than glasses better the same? Is there a differentiation? That's a good question. So when we when I work with my clients to help them improve their vision, we always stepped down.

We always get into we got glasses because obviously if you have the a full strength prescription on, then there's really no room to improve. So you need to get out of those driving. As always, you know, there's certain safety standards you have to follow. But other than that, they, you know, they use weaker glasses. Most farsighted people can use drugstore readers. So so that's an important aspect with contacts. Contacts have the advantage of giving you better peripheral vision because with glasses it's often this kind of tunnel vision idea that everything behind the glasses is perfect and everything outside of the glasses blurry when in reality or visual field has a very small area of perfect clarity, literally the size of a pin that is the perfect spot of clarity.

And yes, anything close to that is better than on the other peripheral. But the glasses give you kind of a fake sense of there's this too huge area where I look for the glasses all equally shot, which is not in the eye, and everything outside is just completely blurry, which is not matching reality and as a distortion. So when you have when you need a sight, everything is made smaller. When you're farsighted, everything is magnified, right. So that's a distortion of reality is size distortion. Now you have the same distortion of contacts, but they give you that better peripheral feel.

So that is an advantage. The disadvantage of contacts is that people usually don't take them in and out with glasses. Now that you know that you need different glasses, that's it for driving then for being on the computer, you know, you would maybe have one car, one pair in the car, and then maybe you have, you know, another pair next to a computer. And so when people are near, I usually tell them and one of my contacts I say, how much time do you spend at the computer? And let's say that's a, you know, 8 hours a day.

And then I drive home for half an hour. I'm like, get contacts for computer distance and then for driving. You put an additional diopter or whatever you need on glasses on top for the drive home and you just leave those in your car, but then you already using only the strength that you need for two feet and then for home the cooking or you know, for like walking in the garden a little bit under prescribed. But that's great to make improvements, right? So that's usually an advice I give on your side.

People have for Fast Side, it's a little bit challenging because I guess you could do the same. You could, I mean, the opposite way you could be corrected for distance if you need distance correction and then you could put additional meters on top for reading if you need to be on the computer. But you don't want to wear more than you really need to at any given time of the day. Just that makes sense. You want to wear the absolute minimum in terms of diopter correction. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

I'm trying that. I'm trying to not make this whole interview become about me and my sister and I'm like, well, what? That because what I do is

Lasik, Contacts, and Sunglasses 25:00

I wear my glasses when I need to, but then I walk around without glasses. So like, I can see you very well on the zoom. But if I look at like something over on my desk, it's a little fuzzy and but. That's great if you can do that. Like I always tell them what you can do with the naked eye, you know, because you have to feel safe. If you don't feel safe, you can't relax. And if you can't relax and you're not in the past sympathetic nervous system. So safety is always first. And that's very different from person to person.

Some people, you know, I mean, some people drive with less than good vision, which I'm like, this is not. The. Choice. I always saw them. You have to have at least 20, 40, ideally better vision to drive. But you know, for my opinion, somebody with less visual acuity but really relaxed driver was good peripheral vision and experience might be a better driver than the white knuckle person with 2010 vision who has a little stressed out that they don't see that bicyclist or the pedestrian. Right. I mean, visual cue and deaf perception, we haven't even talked about that.

But there's so many other aspects, night vision, you know, that we need for driving. But here in California, where I am located, they only take a visual acuity. They don't check any other ability in terms of vision. So it's to me, it's a it's an issue, but that's what that's all they do. So so speaking of night, day, let's talk about the sun and sunglasses, which can be really fun to buy. Cool, fancy pretty sunglasses. But what's what's the what's the scoop with that? Why is it not good to be relying on them?

So I always say we have built in sunglasses called the pupils and they get really small when it's bright and when it's dark they open up all the way. Now I do want to make this disclaimer. If you have any conditions where your pupils do not react to light, if you take certain drugs when your pupils are open, you know, even though it's bright, if you and the extreme conditions have any other medical conditions, then there is certain indications where you do need to wear sunglasses. Okay, that's very important.

But if you are a healthy person, you you live in a climate where it's not like very different from what you as Cassidy is like for me as a northern European, it took some time to get adjusted to Southern California sunlight. Right where I come from, that is the sun isn't as bright, but I use hats, I use a hat or baseball cap, and usually it's just that end of the sun. But if it's really if it would be snowy, if I would still be skiing, which I don't do anymore and it would be blue skies and whites, I would wear sunglasses because that's a level of brightness that I can tolerate.

That's not too much for me. So here's the thing. So the more you buy sunglasses, the less good your pupillary reaction will become. They will become more sluggish because now you're putting you putting got dark sunglasses on top. Your pupil is actually open up a little bit behind the sunglasses so you don't train your system. Hey, it's bright. Your brain also doesn't recognize its brain. It's bright. I actually read some things in dermatology journals that the skin cancer rate is actually higher when you see sunglasses because the brain doesn't realize that it needs to read my melanin because it doesn't realize how bright the sun is, right?

It goes to the eyes of a seed. So to me, that's that's interesting. And also when you see sunglasses, you might and it's a red and I said the breach and it's breezy and it's not super hot. You might not realize how hot the sun is right when you wear those sunglasses, you might be like tricked into, Oh, it's not actually that bright. Stay idling on the sun. So the sun, the risk for sun sunburns and those things is higher. And then I just want to say that night driving, a lot of people are struggling with night driving. I used to be one of them.

The oncoming headlights were just really bothering me. I just you know, I couldn't I couldn't do it. And when I stopped wearing sunglasses and being able to look into bright lights and not that I'm purposefully staring at the headlines, but it didn't bother me anymore. And so night driving became a piece of cake for me. And that was really, really challenging before because of those headlights, right? That right. And then it's dark, then they pass and it's dark and it's the pupa. So to react quickly, go next, smaller or bigger, you're going to have problems at night.

And that that all ties back when you talk about stress because when your people's don't constrict if you're one of those people and that was me who has adrenal exhaustion and you're stressed and you're adrenal, that that's a sign. And I look in patients for the pupillary reflex and to see if you can't hold it, it's a sign of adrenal issues. So it's just a good way to know, like if it's just a feedback, if I can't handle being in the sun without sunglasses, there is something deeper going on here too.

And back to a Claudia has been talking about regulating your nervous system and your breath and all of these important things which, speaking of stress, brings me to another question. What do you preach about the screens, the blue lights? And it's it's unavoidable, right? We're all you know, we wouldn't be here at the summit. I say this all the time if we didn't have technology and we weren't in the Zoom room. And so that's such a beautiful thing for us all to be connected and learning and growing together.

But, you know, there's everything has a flip side and so we know that too much screen time. So what what do you have to say about that? Any tips for the listeners? Yes, I do have to. So I personally use screen software. I use actually the built into the Apple product says night shift mode. But there's also other free software like Flux F, value X and then that's something called Iris Tech. It's a website developed by a software developer that has more fancy controls. So I personally prefer to use blue blocking software because I still want that blue light coming in, you know, kind of I want to be awake during the day.

I don't want to be nodding off. And so that's one thing I do. But obviously if you are in a scenario where you are an indoor lighting and fluorescent lighting and you don't, you know, you work in an office where you can. I used to work in a in a company where you couldn't install any software on your system without i.t people. And in that case, you know, it might be very smart to wear some blue blocking glasses that now have so many different versions. There's some that even block M. S, so there's definitely a variety of brands that I recommend.

And you can there's even glass you can put on top of your existing glasses if you're on screen. So that's definitely an important piece of the maxilla, which is usually affected by blue light, actually is covered with plant pigments that protect, absorb the blue light. But if you don't eat a good diet, that's another key aspect eating, getting that lutein and zeaxanthin and, you know, dark leafy greens are really high in that. But you find an eye vitamins. So that's that's those things are important.

If you if you don't eat a good diet, then your maxilla might not have enough protection from the blue light. So I do eat a very clean diet. I also take additional supplements to make sure that my macular gets enough of those and crucial nutrients. And then I also, you know, they they have this 20, 2020 rule and it sounds really catchy, but to me, first of all, who follows this. So the idea is every 20 minutes you look up 20 feet in the distance for 20 seconds. So who said start with a time on that computer?

No offense. And then has a thing where it's like, I know it's 20 feet and it's 20 seconds. Nobody does this. So what I recommend instead is set up your computer. Of course, when you work from home, it's easy to right like I do. And I look at just look above the top of the screen, look at my beautiful green backyard. So I make it really easy to shift my focus from near to far. I have my lights on, on the side, my peripheral vision. You know, I have a mirror here which, you know, some I might peripheral vision to stimulate.

I'm not like in this kind of tunnel vision. So that's that's another thing that's important. And then having the right ergonomic side. So you want to have the top of your monitor on eye level. You know, a lot of people have this where it's too high or they have a laptop and they don't put it up. I actually use yoga blogs, to be honest. So raising your laptop where you look down and then now you have this technique, you have all that pressure on your neck, right? You're bending down to look at the laptop.

So you want to have that good posture where you look straight. And then, you know, obviously the elbow is the shoulder. Some people are like this. So you really want to make sure that you are have a good posture. I think those would be probably my key tips. And one more. Have the room lit on the button the same level. So I see my teenage daughters used to do that when they were teenagers. They would sit in a dark room and then only the laptop is on and that basically then your pupil is open. Remember how when it's dark that open and then you get even more blue light and then then your peripheral vision, which usually shuts down on screens anyway, you know, because then the room is dark and then you have no awareness.

Oh, and then one more tab. One more tab. So blinking. Blinking is super important for good vision, for lubrication of the eyes,

Screens, Blue Light, and Eye Care Habits 34:00

preventing the dry eyes when you have, you know, you go through menopause. I have never taken any hormones and I have no dry eyes, but I blink a lot. So blinking is always reduced. It screams. They did studies that when people look at screens for some reason that's like the deer in the headlights kind of thing. When you look into somebody's eyes, people have a softer gaze. They blink more. So reminding yourself on the screen, bling, bling, bling, bling, you know, maybe put a little stick on thinking.

That you need to make little Post-it notes that say bling, bling, bling go. Right. Those are great. And yes, I just you can't see it, but I just got a new sit stand desk and we just tilt it up my my laptop that I use. So it's not an ink and I could feel the difference and I got I'm really little so I got this like a little person chair and it's really funny when you look at it, it looks like I'm like, okay, Laura now, but it's the first time in my life that my feet touch the ground when I'm in a chair.

Wow. And so and so when you were like and it does it makes you dudes difference when you are working and spend a lot of time in an environment. And I raised the desk, I said, I stand it's and it's it's changed everything. So I just have a couple of more questions before we finish up. And I know you're not a doctor but like for I diseases like glaucoma, immaculate degeneration do does what you're talking about help reverse that or what's your experience been around more severe issues. So first of all, we can never say because even your doctor can say the reverse said.

So I want to quickly go into all because you mentioned all three so age related macular degeneration, I call it AMD, right? We women are at high risk. About 65% of the cases are female are women. So we had a high risk and the higher level of especially nearsightedness when your nearsighted your eyeball. Where's my little eyeball? Here we go. I don't know if people can see this. Why? It's not audio only. So it's elongated, right? So there's not pressure on the back of your eye and the maxilla. So that's often the higher incidence of age related macular degeneration when you are very nearsighted.

So reducing your nearsightedness is already helpful. And with AMD, it's basically this the center of your vision way. The sharpest vision is in the best color vision. That's why you lose the cells. And this certain strategies that are helpful. This is when the dark leafy greens succeed nutrition getting the protein zeaxanthin acids and then is important and also they found in recent studies that intermittent fasting of 16 hours or more, which initiates a process called autophagy when the old cells are being eaten up so that is has actually shown really great promises, I think more for risk prevention than really reversal and you know, but so I don't and there is no cure for AMD, there's nothing that traditional medicine can do.

So this is why, you know, really it's important to to make good choices every day. That's AMD and then also carbon 60 I think has been successful which is a very powerful antioxidant can so basically want to stop the inflammation you want to do anything to stop inflammation and then cataracts is probably something that most people have heard of. That's a clouding of the lens, the protein clumping of the lens. And basically the lens gets more cloudy or milky and eventually you'll, you know, glasses will help you.

And they do the so-called lens replacement surgery where they suck out your lens, it's appendix surgery, and they kind of roll up a new lens like a plastic lens, like a little tortilla. They roll it up into that and put it in there. And so that one is a surgery that my mom recently had when they implant a new lens. And that can also lead to problems, but at least it's the only eye disease where there is a kind of traditional approach that actually helps you see clearly, again, with cataract surgery, it's important to talk to your doctor what lenses they implant.

I don't recommend Mono Vision one. I'm the one I first, I believe for most people, distance vision, but we don't have time to get into all of that. So cataract basically, you know, linked to also all the eye diseases are diabetes, heart disease. All these problems often show up in your eyes. First, you actually have a, I think, 40% higher risk of cataracts and 60% higher risk of glaucoma. When you have diabetes and often do, you don't even have to have diabetes yet in order to see those changes.

The eye doctor often diagnose diabetes before you even know that you have diabetes. So, you know, detoxification is important with cataracts, eating a clean diet movement. You know, that's why the stuff I teach, the eye movement, all these things are really important. It's not smoking. You know, steroids can be a cause of cataracts and led exposure, but even some lipsticks today have lead in them. So, you know, you really want to be like the clean water, that kind of stuff that we already know about.

And then glaucoma is whether it's a disease of the optic nerve. So basically it's caused by pressure problems in the eyes. Most of the time the pressure's too high, so the intraocular pressure IOP is too high, but it can also be normal. So let's talk about quickly about high pressure. So Louise has said something. Glaucoma is like being a perfectionist, being a the unforgiveness like being that's hard on yourself, putting all that pressure on yourself all the time. All attacks have to be an arrow, right?

Everything. And I'm definitely a little bit of a perfectionist, to be honest. So I'm working on that. I so that's an aspect where you have literally too much pressure on yourself. And they found that study found that a daily meditation and this study that did an hour of mindfulness meditation can reduce that intraocular pressure by 25%. So I teach a lot of relaxation. So the relaxation, in addition to the eye doctor might give you drops. Right. It's really important to reduce the pressure because the up the pressure in the eyeball will destroy the optic nerve and lastly, the low pressure, glaucoma.

Another pressure, glaucoma is often with people that have low blood pressure like, you know, low circulation. So that's not enough nourishment to the nerves. That one is actually harder to detect because then see and this is where they say this also thing, make sure an eye doctor measures the intraocular pressure that they know that they measure your cornea thickness because if you're cornea is very thin

Eye Diseases and Prevention Strategies 40:30

you might have huge pressure. But because the cornea is like an old waterfall, right. The pressure might show up as normal. So it's really important to make sure that they measure that. And what, glaucoma, basically, you lose your periphery, you get that tunnel vision and a lot of times with the normal pressure, glaucoma, they don't recognize it until it's a little bit where you actually don't you realize you lost probably vision, which you might not even have noticed. So that's also where. So all of them, it's like clean diet, you know, eating good, the relaxation and the detoxification.

I mean, diseases are, in my opinion, never age related. They're just years and years of poor choices. And I've made those poor choices. I used to smoke cigarets, but you know, and I even was in my twenties, it was cool to smoke Cigarets You know, I've done. I always wonder when I'm in Europe, I'm like, did the memo that smoking, you know, they're so full of these. But I'm like, in this the smoking memo and yeah, even I smoked cigarets as a teenager, you know, as the cool thing to do. And so yeah, I love what you talked about.

You know, there's lots of good natural path, like things that can also be in my my son does stem cell therapies and sees amazing things happen with eye disease. But again prevention prevention if you're listening, you know what what I'm taking from this and I'm like, I'm guilty because I took it from last time. And then I kind of just, you know, you get busy and you forget, but like your eyes are a reflection of your nervous system and there, you know, it's easy to just go, oh, well, the image is still blurry.

I'll just throw on my glasses and call it a day and not think of it holistic, really. So I love when I'm around you because you remind me that like, no, this is really important and you don't want to wait till something serious happens. And it's, it's as everything is, it's your body's feedback mechanism. And even if it's easy to ignore or to do the quick fix, you're doing yourself a disservice. So I know you teach lots of wonderful classes. I'm thinking, you know, let's find out where we can find you.

And then like I'm thinking maybe you guys will see me in the class with you as I, I need to put this on my to do list and you know, I need to set down my glasses. I was thinking, you know, my kids just bought me this adorable little hello kitty purse because I love Hello Kitty and it's small. And part of my issue is I don't have room to fit my glasses. And my son got this and I was like, I really like using this purse. So now I'm like, Ooh, that'll be like if I get rid of the glasses, then the new purse, the new cute little purse is going to have no problem fitting my keys or credit card or what I need.

So what is the best website to find you? So as so many things I would love to share, but I know we have to come to an end. I just before I get into that, can I say one more thing? I think reading. Just things. Like this off, you know, and to ask the questions because the eye drops and most kids would just say that's not I literally had an eye doctor say with thought he got to be just a 50 you got bifocals with six years ago cataracts with 70 you get AMD and with it you get glaucoma. I forgot the last one, but I'm like, What's this is this is so crazy.

I read that they tell you these things and think about also it just an inconvenience. Need glasses or is it actually handicapping you? Is it actually like sometimes you might not even do hobbies you like anymore because of your vision? So some, you know, if you just feel that's an inconvenience, I'm not here to convince anybody to run to get rid of glasses. Right. That's that's totally fine. But where does it affect your life? How how does your vision affect your life down the road? Right. With things, what you might give up reading are you might give us up knitting or maybe you give up water, sports or whatever, whatever it is that you don't do anymore.

And so think about that more than I need to be glasses free, because if you need glasses as little as you do, that's a way different life than if you literally cannot see a thing in any distance without glasses, and then you're totally destroyed if you lose them or break them. And so that's kind of my message, right? So what is your own vision was to you? Because a lot of times I'm like, I don't have time. And I'm I would say, you brush your teeth twice a day, you take your makeup off, you probably spend ten, 15 minutes, you know, flossing your teeth.

But, you know, if we were trained to do a little bit for our eyes every day, maybe just 5 minutes, you know, and talk about eyes in a different way, in a more positive way, instead of I'm blind like a bat, I'm like, you know, I can I can see everything I need to whatever. I have beautiful green eyes, whatever we want to say, you know, you make these little positive changes. So really. So that's what I want. You do your listeners to really think about like how important is it to you was it's just you know and you can get glasses that have no correction in them if you like the style.

Right. That so so people can find me on Instagram and YouTube and holistic vision. Coach That's my handle. And then my website is myholisticvision.com And I think you would postany other links that people need and then underneath this show, I'm assuming, or this episode. Well, this has been I always, it always just really makes me think when I have the honor and the privilege to talk to you. And so thank you for sharing so much about, you know, I hope I hope all of you listening. It kind of made you think, too, whether you're addicted to your glasses can see without them your vision is okay, but you just want to make sure it stays that way as you're going through the hormonal journey and that we really you know, I think it's one of those things that I learned early on as a physician when I would go over to Germany

Closing Thoughts and Resources 46:30

and learning about the teeth and how the teeth were so connected. Everyone knows by now, like, I'm obsessed with the teeth and if you come to me, whatever you come to me with, I'm finding out about your dental history and calling root canals and getting rid of your amalgams and so on and so forth. And when I first went over, you know, many, many years ago now, it was kind of like, oh, wow. You know, I just thought you just go to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned and get a cavity filled. And, you know, the teeth didn't really count as part of the whole body because that's kind of how we are taught.

And then, of course, when I went over there and learned that, I was like, duh, like, of course, your mouth, the beginning of digestion and connected to every meridian and every organ like of course it has to do. It's a foundation of good health and it's kind of the same with the eyes. We have separated out the eyes, right? The eyes are just something. We go get checked. We read the little chart once a year and if we need glasses we get them. And if we don't, we come back the next year to see if we need glasses.

And that's how we've been trained to think about it. So at the very minimum, which is a huge thing, I hope that you take away from this conversation a different viewpoint, a different way of looking at the eyes and their interaction and their importance in their foundation, in the health of our whole body. Because I know that's what I just got reminded of. So I thank you for that and I thank you all for being here. So think about your vision, you know, your actual physical vision, but also your vision for your life.

And we'll be back with another eye opening episode of Mastering Menopause Transition Summit. Thanks for being here and for caring about your health and taking time to listen right.