August 25, 2019 - Farsightedness (Presbyopia)
Hey folks, it’s Dr. Sam, and I received a question today from a 50 year old gentleman. He has 20/15 eyesight at distance. He’s able to see the small print up close, but he has a diminished capacity to see the print unless he has well lit light on the reading material. He wants to know is this related to his presbyopia, the need for reading glasses, and are there any exercises he can do to help him.
Let’s start here. The eye is the organ of light. Light is the currency with which we see, and light is a food. So if we’re not getting enough light into our eyes, this is reflecting stress in our nervous system. You know the pupil is responsible for letting light into the eyes. And when we’re under chronic stress the pupil response is irregular; it’s inconsistent, and so there could be a problem with our stress. Another issue that comes up around presbyopia is that we begin to lose the flexibility in the lens and also with the ciliary muscles; these are the tiny muscles that control the curvature of the lens. So we can look at things like adding nutrients; things like glutathione, vitamin C, bilberry, [and] lutein, because if we can improve the flexibility in the lens we reduce the effects that presbyopia has on us.
Now some of the exercises that I recommend if you have this condition would be the N palm hum. This is a great exercise for reducing visual stress. The animal eye chart where you’re working with eyes stretching; this is going to bring more circulation to the eyes. The yin yang chart, this helps you work with soft focus so you’re working with the curvature of the lens and the focusing response. And finally the minus lens the blur. So this means that you wear an opposite prescription to what the magnifiers are and you do the eye dialogue. So this combination is really awesome for bringing more focusing flexibility and better visual coordination to your eyes.
Now some ways to better balance the autonomic nervous system would be getting some craniosacral therapy, acupuncture, doing some meditation, getting more exercise any ways that you can support the release of stress and getting you more into the parasympathetic nervous system. This can actually improve your ability to absorb the light. So changing presbyopia is a process, it’s not an overnight success. You have to work at it for at least three months to see changes, but if you’re diligent, if you’re disciplined you can have great results.
So that’s my message for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Take good care.