Episode 32: Claudia Muehlenweg on Improving Eyesight To Get Rid of Glasses & Contacts

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SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Claudia Muehlenweg

“Had a student who was nearsighted and not, I think she was like a minus two or something. It wasn’t like super high level but it was enough to affect her life. She had wore glasses all her life since she was seven years old, I think or second grade or something like that and that was probably seven years old, yeah, and so she did my program. She was in her 60s when she did my program and she wore progressive glasses at that point and she hasn’t been wearing glasses ever since. She did the program so she was able to first stop wearing glasses for any near vision tasks and then eventually also for far vision and she doesn’t need them for driving anymore and for driving you need to get a clean driver’s license, you need to pass the test. So that’s an example and she’s also very holistically oriented. We didn’t talk about it earlier, like, but sleep, good nutrition all these things, they can make a difference especially when you get older”- Claudia

Do you find yourself with worsening vision year after year? Do you struggle with blurry vision, astigmatism, or light sensitivity? Today’s guest, Claudia Muehlenweg is an amazing holistic vision coach who has helped thousands of clients ditch their contacts and glasses using her clear vision method based on neuroscience. I am Dr. Andrew Wong co-founder of Capital Integrative Health. This is a podcast that is dedicated to transforming the consciousness around what it means to be healthy and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness. This is an enlightening conversation in which Claudia shares how she improved her own vision using the Bates method and gives many insightful tips on how you can as well if you want better vision and want a clear plan about how to get your vision back in focus don’t miss this episode.

Dr. Wong

So, welcome Claudia to the podcast today. So glad to have you and thank you so much for being here.

Claudia

Well, thank you so much for having me.

Dr. Wong

And, let’s talk first about what inspired you to become a holistic vision coach?

Claudia

Well, you might guess that I had problems with my eyesight in fact I got my first pair of glasses at the tender age of three years old. I was farsighted for those of you that don’t know that I couldn’t see the near point well so I had to, I basically, you had to wear them all the time and I also had fusion problems. My right, I was going in it’s called a convergent squint and it really the glasses really made me miserable because I was teased and bullied in school and like no kids like to wear glasses and I’m a little older I’m in my 60s. So when I was little like no other kid wore glasses there was one kid, he was like the professor, the smart one and I really wasn’t the smart I had to study a lot and long story short I was really determined once I got a little older into my teenage years I was determined to get rid of them because they really yeah, I didn’t, I was teased, bullied and I did get rid of them and I can share more later what I did. I discovered this method the Bates method and I got myself out of glasses and my life changed in amazing ways then in my 30s I was in a really stressful marriage and then divorce. Became a single mom. I was back in glasses so and then I was like, I just turned 40 and I thought like, “okay well now you’re in your 40s there’s nothing you can do” and I had this one epiphany this one moment that really changed my trajectory to become a vision teacher was like I remember having my glasses on I got home from a party I tried to have fun you know, meet new people. I was single now and I got lost on the way home I was super stressed and I arrived in my driveway and I took my glasses off and my vision was so bad you know worse than before I put them on so I thought like that just doesn’t feel right like and I found that book again that I had back in the day that I bought in the 70s and found a teacher and I got eventually took me a little bit longer that time but I got rid of my glasses for the second time and it really made me determined to spread the knowledge of this because. It’s so it makes such a difference in your life if you have the freedom to function without crutches as I call them.

Dr. Wong

Yes and you know, we know that well there’s a lot of good pearls in there Claudia. I would say for listeners too, I mean we know that you know there are definitely different roles you know appropriate roles for eye doctors for optometrists you know I think what I found is that when you go to an eye doctor it’s not like there’s a clear path towards removing the glasses like you just said you’ve done that twice in your life. You’ve done that once in your teenage years and once in your 40s so it sounds like there’s some method that you know essentially systematically you’ve been able to teach people as well you’ve got to experience it yourself but then also teach people so I think let’s talk about the Bates method first. What is the Bates method and was that what would you use for both of your times that you’ve successfully removed the glasses, or?

Claudia

Yeah. I mean so Dr. William Bates was an ophthalmologist who was born in 1860 and he passed away in 1931 and so he was a professor at Columbia University you know and he was a researcher too and he got interested, and when he noticed that his patients some of his patients improved their eyesight and he was like hold on like, “I didn’t learn that in ophthalmology school I thought it could just get worse”. So, he was the kind of person like hold on like that makes me interested and then he began researching and he did I mean he had a whole, I have a whole article about him on my website but he basically discovered that and he first thought you can only help myopia which is nearsightedness so he thought like he realized that the strain there’s an effort that people make when they look in the distance and so he was helping his students at Columbia. He had a free clinic eventually he worked with school children. He, I mean he had a lot of experience and eventually, somebody said to him because he had glasses right he was at that point in his 40s or something they were like, “well if your method works then it should also work for presbyopia”, which is called the old age side right. When you can’t read small print and he was like, “wait, yeah” and so he hired, so he had somebody help him and he took he said it never took him again that long that it took himself to get rid of glasses. So the method is basically when you overly simplify but it’s basically based on how vision is as effortless and easy as all the other senses. So coming to a point of relaxation was a strain and effort and Bates was really big which neuroscience confirmed about the mental strain about the mental focus you know that this is what I always say absolutely right. Your eye doctors are super important and we need eye doctors, but they really focus on this and I for those of you listening I’m showing an eyeball they’re really focusing on the eyeball they don’t look at your brain, your visual cortex, the whole system, your stress, your sleep, your emotions. They don’t look at all of that and all of that influences your vision and so that’s what really what Bates was about he used a lot of the mental, it wasn’t eye exercises that’s what everybody thinks it wasn’t like just eye exercises rolling your eyes this way or that way that’s not what it is.

Dr. Wong

I love that point you just mentioned and you were showing the eyeball on the video here for the listeners that are doing audio. The eyeball you know we think about the eyeball and you know the coordinate cornea, retina, and different parts but you know that eyeball is connected to the to be the nervous system to the brain right so the occipital cortex and everything so I think that’s a really good point is looking at it more holistically like, what’s that eye connected to and you can influence you know via some of the neural structures and neural pathways the eye function the vision that’s so simple yet so brilliant you know.

Claudia

Exactly and that’s what you just said the nervous system, right. I mean your listeners probably know the sympathetic the fight-or-flight and this parasympathetic and I’m super over simplifying everything yet and you know stress is we always say stress is a good thing we need stress otherwise we wouldn’t have made it and it’s what we had we need that and even if we’re speaking or if we’re athletically performing you know and stress is not a bad thing the chronic stress that elevated stress where we don’t come down you know that’s what’s bad and that’s what really influences your vision and I’m sure your listeners maybe ask yourself, have you noticed that your vision fluctuates? have you noticed that maybe sometimes in the day or with some tasks you see better and you see worse or after a vacation? You see better like, really notice that your vision varies for everyone even those with perfect vision when I’m stressed, when I’m sleep deprived, when I leave a summit and my computer dies in the middle of it you know I’m like I’m in panic mode right my vision gets blurry at that moment because our nervous system puts us into that you know DNA headlight fight-or-flight mode so that’s normal.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. How long does it typically take? I know that’s what listeners may want to know because you know there’s at least right now we live in the age of like instant gratification and we know that you know good things take time and it doesn’t sound like this is necessary instant but how long is it typically you know taking for people using a Bates method or using a holistic vision method to correct their eyesight correct their vision issues?

Claudia

That’s like the one question I dislike the most but I also know that everybody wants to know that and it’s, you’re probably not going to like the answer but it depends. So I always say it really depends on your situation, how long have you had glasses, how old are you, how, what is the level of your so-called refractive error or your eye disease and I see, I always say improvements are seen in the first session or when you first speak and you will see improvements. However, they might initially be temporary improvements so they, you know so you have to kind of the method really teaches you how to see what effortless and ease what people do with perfect vision automatically so you kind of have to relearn to see and sometimes it also takes you know counseling like if there’s trauma advanced childhood events you know sometimes there’s additional modalities that you need so like I said it’s not just eye exercises my students always said, “oh I thought it was just about eyesight improvement and now I realize it’s about my life vision, how I see myself, how I see the world, my insights, my like, oh! it’s like this really big picture of everything not just you know again the eyeball”.

Dr. Wong

And spiritual, right? I think it was, I forget who the eyes are the windows to the soul right that whole quote, it reminds me of functional medicine. I mean this is very much a root cause type of perspective and in functional medicine, as you probably know it’s personalized too. It’s you know, how long has this person had this issue? what are the root causes? are those causes easier or less easy to be reversed? and you know there’s many other things that probably affected the autonomic nervous system, nutrition, and things. What vision issues is Bates or you know the vision kind of method you teach your clients most helpful for?

Claudia

I really say it’s helpful for every, everything really. I mean that sounds you know, overly you know confident but it really is because what I teach like you talked about the nervous system we talk about neuroscience about the anatomy of the eyes so the Bates method is really based on using your eyes the way they’re designed to be used and also differentiate between your eyes and you’re, you’re seeing you know where the light hits the cornea the lens the retina and then how that information gets transported at super fast speed to your middle cortex and where you actually see where we perceive and our vision is influenced by memories by experiences by you know assumptions you know. I don’t know if you guys remember that dress remember that a few years ago we had that dress that was white-gold and something it was blue and blue and black but some people saw it white-gold because it was a pretty tight crop and people were like, is this taken at night? is it taken that daytime? is it taken the shadow? or maybe you’ve seen visual illusions right and that’s an example that the brain is just trying to make a guess what I’m seeing.

Dr. Wong

Let’s take a deep dive into root causes now. Why do we have a worsening vision? Is it getting worse over time? I feel like we’re in the internet and now the zoom age you know, we’re always on screens or a lot of us are on screens. What are your thoughts about why we have a worsening vision?

Claudia

So you’re absolutely right there is that you know here’s the thing, our eyes are totally fine at the near point but we are not ever we were not ever designed to look at hours for hours at something up close when you know and I love a human man. I’m the human professor of Ophthalmology and Neuroscience at Stanford he has a great podcast and he talked about how our system is designed to look up close for like about three minutes that’s how long we can mentally focus and not just because of internet and Instagram and all these things but because I guess when you think about survival we’re doing near work or maybe doing and then at some point you have to look up are there any like predators are there did my friends leave the camp and leave me behind like you know you kind of have to check your surroundings so it makes sense but now we are glued to these screens for hours and here’s the thing too bad habits like staring and not blinking they did studies where they found that people looking at screens don’t blink enough and then also the other big topic is light studies found that children that play two or more hours outside every day have way lower rates of nearsightedness than those that are like you know the bookworms and they study and they like the books and often probably get rewarded for being such a good student versus the tomboys that just cause trouble right that makes sense you know.

Dr. Wong

If I look away from the screen periodically I’m not looking away from you, I’m looking towards the environment to protect my vision, and yeah, and then the other thing is going to be all the tablets that we have the screens you know the laptops the cell phones and I think what I’ve seen just in my own life but also with patients with friends with family is that these screens are becoming increasingly encroaching on our lives you know like ever we go there’s like a cell phone in the pocket right, so how, like how much screen time should we ideally have and maybe if it’s realistic you know ideally?

Claudia

I don’t know if I could say what’s that realistic I think it’s important to use super good habits you know to you know thinking again it’s one of those simple things and also open your peripheral vision because we are kind of drawn to these devices and you want to have your environment be as bright as the screen so my daughters were teenagers they would sit in a dark room with just the computer on and that focuses is even more strain on that central vision and that peripheral field is kind of completely blacked out because there’s nothing you know that’s one thing I would say and then screens are hard on the eyes per se because you know we look at each other now like but it’s a fake 3D right. I know there’s a room behind you and but it’s flat but at the same time again it’s confusing for the brain but it’s an actual printed book for instance or you know that’s a three-dimensional thing where the brain knows this is like zone so many inches away from you know there’s like a sense of depth you know that’s much.

Dr. Wong

I like real books much better than Kindle for sure, yeah and I think newspapers right, newspapers are kind of struggling nowadays a lot of times they’re kind of doing print is still the thing I think for a lot of people. How about blue blocking glasses, where are you on blue-blocking glasses before we get to some of the other issues?

Claudia

Great questions so you know and you probably teach this too, I think blue light is super important for us, for our circadian rhythm. I think it’s super important to get like bright light blue light right into your eyes in the morning to be energized and not get that in the evening like three hours before bedtime so I am a big believer in natural light. However, screens have a lot of blue and green but they don’t have like the full spectrum like the beautiful natural light or sunlight has. So I use blue-blocking software on my screens and I have that on pretty much all day and you know if you have apple devices and we’re not promoting a brand here but it’s called night shift mode and I have it on all day and you can decide how orange or how yellow you want it so that I don’t get the extra blue light from the screens but I still get the natural light you know to help me energize so I use blue blockers only. Blue blocking glasses and they can be amber colored or they can be I have a brand that I use that doesn’t have much of a tint I use that for TV in the evening because my TV is like an older monitor and there’s no you know way to stop the blue light so that’s the only time I use the actual glasses.

Dr. Wong

Great! So I’m going to put on my glasses here, I have this handily ready for me. So, I, what I did was I, about five or six years ago I stopped wearing contacts regularly and I went to my eye doctor and every year my vision has improved slightly although I want to definitely chat more with you because I think I’m starting to get presbyopia but I’ve noticed that you know and I asked them, I said why is my, why are my eyes getting better? and is it because you know I used to wear contacts and that’s limiting that oxygen supply to the eye. What were you on like context versus I know some people have to wear them but where are you on context versus glasses and also is it possible to limit the glasses? If you limit the glasses is that going to help your vision by not wearing the glasses if it’s safe?

Claudia

So absolutely that’s a big part of my method that we get out into weaker glasses. So one thing I want to say at the very beginning and we talked about that before we begin the recording. Diopters correct you only for a certain distance, it’s a measurement related to distance so when you are nearsighted right you said you were wearing your contacts you are usually corrected for like 20 feet six-meter distance vision right but now let’s say you’re spending all day long at the computer which is not 20 feet but two feet away you would need way lower diopters for that and that’s why that’s the kind of the danger with contacts is that people that put them in and then they wear them all day long and not using the different you know ideal strength that you need for that distance. So that’s one thing the oxygen I honestly don’t know that much about the oxygen supply I think the benefit of contacts is that you have a bigger peripheral feel that you just you know and everybody’s peripheral vision is blurry like we don’t have clear vision in the periphery, we don’t see colors at the outer edges but with glasses, there’s even more of a tendency to have that kind of a tunnel vision effect. So you know, I have very few clients that use contacts but they need them for certain things or for appearances and in that case, I say you know whatever you do most of the day let’s say you’re on your computer, let’s say you’re nearsighted you’re on your computer all day long then I would wear contacts that are just for the computer distance right so you reduce and then for driving you can always put an additional minus you know diopter whatever as glasses on for driving. So that was my advice basically for somebody who’s nearsighted.

Dr. Wong

Great well let’s pivot now from, let’s shift our vision so to speak your focus from root causes of worsening vision now to how to support wellness. What are some of the key components for a healthy vision and what can we do to support these areas? So if you don’t mind let’s start with the relaxation of the mind and eyes these are some of the things maybe some of the components you have in your program. How do we help relax the mind and the eyes and how does that help our vision?

Claudia

So yes, so I use different, two different approaches. I use what’s called “top-down” which is really starting with the mind and then relaxing the body and something we do is called “palming”. And palming is something that Dr. Bates was really big on and it’s basically resting your eyes when you think about the rest of your mind or your body you need rest you can’t just keep going, going, going, going, and we just use our eyes from the moment we wake up to the second we close them at night and palming is just you close your eyes and you can you know you basically can you can rub your hands together but you basically cover your closed eyes with cupped hands and your fingers are crossing over the forehead so that you can breathe the heels of the hands are resting on your kind of cheekbones and then you want to support your elbows so that you can really relax, drop your shoulders and then you want to bring your mind, now you don’t want to like to think about your shopping list or your to-do list so bring your mind to a happy place somewhere where you’re like “oh yeah” it could be a real memory a real place, a real person it doesn’t matter what it is but something that’s easy, effortless and makes you just feel so good and then you take a few deep breaths and you remind yourself, your eyes, I have nothing to see I have nothing to do I can completely relax and you want to relax your jaw get your eyes like feel your eyes get heavy relax your shoulders that’s why an elbow rest is really helpful here and you can stay. This is something you can do for you know I’ve done this for 30 minutes or longer or you can just do it for a couple of deep breaths and if you want to come out you keep your eyes closed slowly move your hands away and you might notice how much light already comes into your eyelids and then I always say wait till you’re ready right, wait till you’re ready to kind of come back to planet earth and then you blink your eyes open and I do five quick blinks, “blink blink blink blink” and five gentle squeezes and your eyes should feel a little bit more lubricated and renewed and refreshed. So and palming is both a rest for the eyes and it’s also a kind of a reset for your mind to kind of calm down slow down take that little pause and then you, I don’t know about you do you feel a little bit more relaxed or are you?

Dr. Wong

I feel much more relaxed, my shoulders feel like they’ve dropped, I have more lubrication yeah, just calmer overall.

Claudia

Yeah. That wasn’t very long. I mean we did it pretty hard and so that and then another way I do this is I don’t have them here right now but I’m also trained in the myofascial release technique and so I’m using because tension in the body especially the shoulders, head, neck and all the facial muscles do contribute to blurry vision and most people when they’re in that stress mode all the time they do something called chest breathing so they, they’re breathing up here and that ends up creating a lot of tension in your chest and your upper back you know your shoulders so I use a lot of physical bodywork that people can do themselves instead of hiring an expensive massage therapist to kind of release that tension. So it’s both that, that’s what I call the bottom up it’s like working with the body and then at the moment. So for most people, the bodywork is usually a little easier to initiate and that’s “oh yeah I feel less, I can turn my head, it doesn’t hurt” but, and the palming is usually also a good way to kind of explore that you know.

Dr. Wong

Yes, yes. I definitely felt a difference after just a few minutes of that. How often do you recommend people do palming during the day?

Claudia

So you’re asking all the great questions. So I have some clients that tell me the exact protocol like, “how many minutes often” and I always say, I, because I feel like this is your vision, this is your journey, you need to be curious about your own vision and some people benefit more especially if you have an eye disease or if you have like if you have a lot of strain better from like you know in the morning. I always like a clear morning which and then maybe in the evening and maybe do like five to ten minutes or even longer and other people that feel like a lot of strain the whole day maybe just do this like for a minute or two five times a day So you kind of have to see like what gives you the biggest results because I tell you if you can get the same result in two minutes that you could get in 10 minutes then why do it for 10 minutes, right? So kind of, but everybody’s different. I give you an example when I did my teacher training and I first learned this I was still working as a designer and in the morning it would take me like three-four minutes and my eyes felt fresh and lubricated and ready for the day and in the evening because I didn’t know how to use screens well I was like staring you know bad habits initially it took me like 30 minutes for my eyes to feel the same relaxation that they felt in the morning after like two or three minutes so we found out by testing it.

Dr. Wong

Yeah, I’m definitely going to try this multiple times a day. I feel like you know especially because I’m on screens a lot I know a lot of our listeners are as well you know a lot of us have more sedentary jobs or that we’re on the computer especially nowadays a lot of people are teleworking and everything. They’re in that same position so their shoulders are going to get tense their eyes are going to get a bit you know tense staring at that narrow, narrow tunnel vision that screen so yeah I wanted to kind of go to some cases if you didn’t mind like maybe some success stories with clients because I think people don’t you know until listening to this podcast probably may not really even know that there’s hope out there to you know correct their vision or you know get it better in any way.

Claudia

Yeah. I have so many. I’m trying once. So I had a student who was nearsighted and not, I think she was like a minus two or something it wasn’t like super high level but it was enough to affect her life. She had wore glasses all her life since she was seven years old. I think or second grade or something like that and that was probably seven years old, yeah and so she did my program she was in her 60’s when she did my program and she wore progressive glasses at that point and she hasn’t been wearing glasses ever since she did the program. So she was able to first stop wearing glasses for any near vision tasks and then eventually also for far vision and she doesn’t need them for driving anymore and for driving you need to get a clean driver’s license, you need to pass the test so that’s an example and she’s also very holistically oriented. We didn’t talk about it earlier like, but sleep, good nutrition, all these things, they can make a difference especially when you get older and then I had a student who was in her 70s who started with readers very typical in their 40s and I was already in really strong progressive classes as well and her near vision was about plus 575 and her farther vision was like about 275 so that was all in one pair of glasses for the progressives and she’s done my program and she’s also working with me in a smaller group coaching program and we just had a session this morning and she says I’m using now 175s for reading and if it’s like really damn you know maybe I go like 225s or something like that. So she dropped like she and she’s in her 70s so, she dropped a lot right but she still she can do far vision now without glasses and sometimes at night she still puts some glasses on but basically and she’s in really cheap readers now. She’s not in like 800 progressive glasses anymore but really drugs like dollar store readers that you can you know one more maybe one more because maybe just in case you had LASIK if some of you had LASIK. So LASIK doesn’t last. It’s a cut into your cornea you can’t reverse it and I had a translator who had LASIK. She was just I think she was 50 or in her early 50s and her distance was not declined so she already needed them for driving and her near vision had also declined as a translator it made a difference because she couldn’t see Microsoft word documents reduced anymore she had to blow them up meaning she had to switch from language one language then the other and when after working with me and she had insomnia and she needed prescription eye drops which is a common side effect of LASIK is really dry eyes. So after working with me doing the palming, doing the blinking, and some other strategies she got rid of her insomnia, she’s now sleeping five hours. Before it was two or three because of the relaxation and she could see the documents at 70 percent side by side again and that was despite having had LASIK done so.

Dr. Wong

Great! Great stories. I think that gives people hope and these are you know real people that have had success even, even like later in life you know they don’t have to be like teenagers or something.

Claudia

Right!

Dr. Wong

But that, that’s so great thank you so much, Claudia. Let’s go back to the sleep and nutrition because we’re all about lifestyle here too in our clinic and I think you know holistic community overall, how important are sleep and nutrition with healthy vision and what are your general recommendations there?

Claudia

Okay so sleep I mean you know sleep is the foundation of everything when you’re sleep deprived I mean nothing worse properly including your eyesight and just know that’s why I say notice how your vision varies, like how is it different if you didn’t sleep much or if you are stressed so sleep is super important. I, you know, I think everybody varies a little bit. I do need my eight hours, I haven’t actually don’t have it’s on my chart now but I have an Oura ring here usually.

Dr. Wong

I just got one too! yeah.

Claudia

No. I have one, it’s like I wanted to show it and then I realized I just almost shot my middle finger but it was basically that the ring.

Dr. Wong

Right here, yeah.

Claudia

It’s charging, there you go yeah. So I can kind of track my sleep and my, how much rest do I get, and overall. So sleep is super important, hydration is super important, like lots of water here clean filtered water and nutrition you know. I am studying nutrition, I’m not a nutrition expert and sometimes I bring in experts into my courses who teach certain lessons but I started balancing my blood sugar about four years ago that made a huge difference in terms of like, I just have several people that get migraines I used to get really bad migraines and that affects your vision and ever since. I balanced my blood sugar that’s completely gone. I haven’t had a migraine, and since four years since I started doing that. So I do talk about those things and I teach those things but I’m not like that’s not the main focus but I can advise people on that and if they really need more guidance I usually send them to some a practitioner like yourself to help them sort those things out.

Dr. Wong

Great! Yeah. Blood sugar is a great point because we know that too little is bad too much is bad that’s what the system caused inflammation including probably of the nerves. That’s why people with diabetes get diabetic neuropathy and things like that and the retinopathy you know.

Claudia

Right, that’s the leading cause of blindness, is diabetes, people don’t think about the eyes you know it’s yeah.

Dr. Wong

But I wonder even up they’ve done studies on this that not even people with diabetes with people with sort of blood sugar excursions blood sugar fluctuations they don’t frank diabetes but are they getting some micro damage to those nerves over time.

Claudia

Absolutely. You know, eye doctors often find diseases you know even Lyme disease or other diseases in the eyes and not just vision eye diseases you know oftentimes the eyes are kind of the only part of the body where we can look inside without surgery and so you can see you know the little capillaries any kind of damage, any kind of inflammation, any blockages you know you can see that in the eyes often before you can see it in a blood test or in a regular you know whatever other test you do so.

Dr. Wong

Yeah, that’s great. Now, now when I was little that people told me you know don’t look directly at the sun you know it’s like bad for you it’s going to cause eye problems there’s a concept that would love to learn we’d love to learn about from you called sunning. What is sun in your eyes and why is sunlight so important for your eyes?

Claudia

So sunning. Okay, sunning the way I teach it unless I teach different levels but the basic first of all it’s important to reduce your light sensitivity because I was so light sensitive I put my sunglasses on even on an overcast day I have green eyes, and yes there is definitely a correlation if you have dark brown eyes you know you you’re probably less light sensitive. But anybody especially with nearsightedness and astigmatism if you are light sensitive your eyes are the organs of light perception. So if they cannot tolerate light how can you see well right? It makes whole sense. So sunning is something where we begin and we do it all with eyes closed in the beginning and if you’re very light sensitive you start in the early morning sun or the late evening and you have your eyes closed and you just turn your head side to side facing the sun and I know there’s no sun right now if you’re watching this but basically, the moment like this eye will be in the shadow now and so your pupils your little pupils that you have they’re basically little mini built-in sunglasses right pupils get really tiny and bright light and they open up in the darkness and so behind the closed eyelids I mean it’s not a lot but the pupils are kind of making little tiny adjustments in terms of the brightness level and so you’re training your pupillary reaction, you’re reducing a light sensitivity. It’s also a great way to stretch your neck and we get vitamin D from the sun so and then eventually there’s different layers where you then begin to open the eyes on the side and eventually you can maybe blink and have them eyes open in the center and I don’t personally look I do some sun gazing but really only in the early morning in the early evening late evening sorry sunset and sunrise when I, you know do look into the sun directly but I also do a lot of blinking I don’t do the staring where you don’t blink but I don’t work I haven’t worn sunglasses in 20 years and I think that’s something that I recommend to all my clients assuming they don’t have certain eye conditions that I definitely there’s lots of disclaimers with the sunlight I do want to make sure that you don’t just throw them away and you might have pupillary problems or you might be on some kind of drug that you know inhibits your pupillary reaction so then and have your pupils bright open then please please please wear sunglasses or if you go skiing or any kind of extreme conditions. So, but yeah, generally speaking for the normal daily life if you have no of those conditions or other problems then sunglasses are really no good.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. I agree even at the beach I’ll try to not wear sunglasses. I’ll wear a cap or something.

Claudia

Exactly that’s what I do yeah.

Dr. Wong

Great, great. That’s great to know. What about breathing and why is, I think we chest on this before the autonomic nervous system but, why is breath important for eye health, and what types of breathing do you recommend?

Claudia

So you know the brain needs I think I forgot the exact, I think it’s like 25 of all the oxygens and the eyes need a lot of oxygen and in fact the cells you know the retinal cells are the cells in the body that need more energy than every other cell in the body. So the retinal cells you know the little that comes back to sunlight so the little mitochondria the little batteries in your cells they kind of wear out a little bit when you’re like in your 40s I always talk about like a car battery when you have an older car battery it doesn’t work as well so they’ve done studies and found that infrared and near-infrared light actually helps rejuvenate the mitochondria so that’s why natural light is also good if you’re younger than 40-45 probably won’t make that much of a difference but coming back to the breath. So you do want, you know when you take those shallow breaths up here you don’t get enough oxygen into your brain and so and it keeps you in that arousal in that sympathetic state versus the belly breathing is what keeps when you barely breathe your system knows “hey I’m safe I can relax” you know there’s nothing scary going on”. So that’s why it’s, it’s really important to practice the belly breath and I didn’t know that until I studied yoga like my chiropractor told me practice the belly breath and like I’m like, “how?” like I really didn’t know how and it’s kind of like thinking of your belly like inflating a little bit as you breathe and obviously it’s a diaphragm right we breathe into the lungs they’re in the ribcage but your diaphragm when you exhale it’s kind of like a dome tent and when you inhale it goes down and obviously if you have tight abs or you squeeze your abs or you hold your abs tight it can only go up here right because the organs the belly should expand a little bit and I think we have all kind of have these “oh my god my belly looks fat or whatever” and we kind of I was taught to kind of suck my belly in and that really limits your ability to breathe so I teach a lot of breath practices. So yeah to make it short.

Dr. Wong

Yeah, and my understanding is the bottom third of the lungs you can get 50 more oxygen there so it’s really more breathing, more juice to the mitochondria to the batteries more juice to the retina you can see better.

Claudia

Exactly.

Dr. Wong

Like you said the retinal cells are really consuming a lot of oxygen and yeah. I mean it’s something that we, we don’t really we think about okay we’re going to get more oxygen for the bloodstream it’ll make our heart pump more or something or we’ll get more oxygen muscles so we can you know perform better athletically or in sports or whatnot but we don’t at least I haven’t really thought about you know eye health for oxygen too much I mean it’s very intuitive. But what are your thoughts on on red light therapy as, you’re in California correct?

Claudia

Yes. yeah.

Dr. Wong

So it’s a very sunny state and some areas of the country of the world you know maybe they’re not getting as much sun all the time. What are your thoughts about things like red light therapy that have near-infrared light to activate the mitochondria?

Claudia

I like it I mean I’m not an expert in red light therapy by any means but I actually have a little info like one of those lamps and I get up before the sun rises. So I actually do like three minutes of the red light in the morning and I also turn my lights bright on so that I get that I awaken but yeah I don’t know that much about like saunas or but it’s definitely been proven in several studies now out of the UK that the infrared light you know that it studies in mice and then men and mice and men and obviously women I think it was actually just men, in this case, I don’t know.

Dr. Wong

Oh, there needs to be studying, more studies on women across the board that’s so that’s the big issue.

Claudia

But basically, you know this has been helping it’s been proven to be successful and yeah.

Dr. Wong

Great, great. Any other comments about you know what are the most important things to you know, support healthy vision that we didn’t cover so far?

Claudia

I think like, what’s really important like shifting your focus and also this is a big piece of the bates method is what he called central fixation the understanding that wherever you look assuming you have a healthy eye is where you see best and you have this big peripheral field but a tendency if your provision is to kind of like say try to see the whole screen at once when in reality I can even if I look at your right eye I cannot see the left eye as good or your the rest of you know so and so basically the quicker your eye movements are the little psychotic eye movements the more you shift your focus the more clarity you have because you know it’s like thinking of little snapshots that your eyes make versus again we have the panorama picture from the peripheral field but we don’t have clear vision in the periphery and so that’s a big piece that people have to like often learn again is that something somebody with good vision automatically they’ll be like of course when I look at that point I see that better than the point dot next to that you know and it’s even could be like one millimeter apart and you still see it better because the phobia where we see the best where we have the best vision is very very small and it takes in fifty percent of the feed from the that fifty percent of your visual information comes with that little tiny dot and that’s why mental focus is also connected to visual focus because like you literally scatterbrained if you try to like see all these things clear at once which is anatomically impossible.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. That’s really great central centralization. Correct?

Claudia

Yeah.

Dr. Wong

Got it. Thank you so much, Claudia. Well thank you for all these tips and I know a lot of listeners going to want to sign up for your program. Let’s talk first about some fun questions if you don’t mind some questions we asked all of our guests. First of all, do you have a morning routine, and if you don’t mind sharing that?

Claudia

Yeah, I do have a morning routine, and I call it my clear morning ritual and it starts with stretching and yawning like really like you know yawning actually stretches your masseter you know that’s one thing I do and then I also say positive things to myself, I’m, I love myself, I love you and it’s a great day you know so they really start your day with like positive mindset and excitement and joy and I can’t give the whole thing away because it’s part of my program but I have a few little vision routines that I do and then I do at my meditate and I do some palming I have a little device that a colleague of mine makes they’re called palming sticks. It’s basically a rest for your elbows. So I’m palming while I’m meditating and I do the infrared light before so I do the little bit of infrared light again if it was sunny already if I would get up later I would just go outside but yes those are the things and I do a little bit of my roll and relax my little like a massage of my you know I kind of check in my usual trigger points and if those are all good then I just look maybe I roll up my feet or I do something else like that.

Dr. Wong

So we brush our teeth every day in the morning we should probably also care for our eyes in the morning it sounds like that program is really comprehensive and looking forward to learning more. What book or podcast you’re enjoying the most right now and what is it about why do you enjoy that?

Claudia

Oh, that’s a hard question. I like earlier I love Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast it’s the episodes are really long and it’s a lot of information and I usually listen at the beach but it’s like I love that he’s a professor of ophthalmology and neuroscience and that a lot of the things he had in the whole episode on vision and everything. I’m teaching he was like yeah you should do this I’m like oh my god that’s exciting so I like that, I’m a kind of a science geek I really like listening to that and I also like Darin Olien’s, he has a podcast and every other episode is called fatal conveniences and he talks about sunglasses he talks about like you know ziploc bags or I don’t know like scented candles but all these things that we have kind of taken as part of our modern life that are toxic and can actually cause us harm so that one is like because he always has a solution to it’s like not just okay this is bad but here’s the solution so that’s.

Dr. Wong

Oh, that’s great, yeah check both of those out thank you and I think you’re a very amazing person, joyful person. What do you do every day to cultivate joy?

Claudia

To do what?

Dr. Wong

To cultivate joy. You are yeah I can tell from your eyes you’re a very joyous person you know so.

Claudia

Well, it’s definitely not always easy but I remind myself oh, first of all, I love what I do I’m lucky I used, again, I used to work in design and advertising and in my 20s. I loved that job too and then I didn’t like it so much anymore and I love what I do so that already makes me happy and I go outside a lot I like my garden I grow some veggies it’s been a little bit not as much as I would like to do to my being so busy but I love going out there and planting stuff and then seeing it grow and just being outside is my favorite thing.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. Connecting with nature totally agree and thank you so much again Claudia for coming on today really appreciate you coming on a lot of listeners are going to find a lot of value in this how can people learn more about you and work with you and your vision program.

Claudia

So you can go to my website myholisticvision.com. To be honest, I haven’t put on my programs on that, in fact, there’s no program on that at this point but you can download a free gift called 10 habits for healthy happy eyes that gives you some basics. I talk about sunning and palming so that’s the way to get started and if you want to actually build your own clear morning ritual and do that I have a program called 21 days to better eyesight experience and I know this is an evergreen podcast but we’re launching we’re running this pretty much every month. So March 7th is the next group, it’s starting and then I have other programs too but basically, you can find reach out to me on my website there’s an email, all my Instagram is I’m pretty I’m working a lot more on my Instagram which is really fun that’s another thing I actually enjoy Instagram so my holistic vision coach is my Instagram handle holistic vision coach.

Dr. Wong

Holistic vision coach got it for Instagram that’s great to check that out. So if people want to work with you they could contact you via that email on the website.

Claudia

Yeah. They can do that. I also have a youtube channel I go live every Wednesday called Cleveland Wednesday. So they can join that’s free you can they can join my creative Wednesday follow me on youtube yeah but that’s basically how you can work with me and yeah that’s what I would say.

Dr. Wong

Great! Well here’s to a healthy vision clear vision for all. Thank you so much Claudia for coming on today and we’ll talk soon. Thank you so much.

Claudia

Thank you so much.

Dr. Wong

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