October 27, 2021 - EyeClarity Podcast
Nathan Oxenfeld joins the EyeClarity podcast today! He is a Natural Vision Teacher, and founder of Integral Eye Sight Improvement.  He teaches people natural alternatives to glasses, contacts, and surgeries and how many common vision problems can be prevented and decreased with simple and natural practices that retrain the eyes and mind to function more optimally.  Nathan, combines the Bates Method, Yoga, Meditation, Breath Work, Emotional Work, Diet & Nutrition, and other vision training techniques to explore a more holistic approach to eye health.  He teaches classes, also is very active on social media.  He completed a documentary in 2020 on Natural Vision Improvement.
Link: Vision2020movie.com Â
To contact Nathan, go to:Â https://integraleyesight.com
Enjoy the show. If you want more, sign up for my newsletter at:Â www.drsamberne.com.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, palming, bates, eyes, bates method, vision, teaches, eyesight, sunning, documentary, light, natural, world, teachers, pandemic, nathan, glasses, screens, yoga, broaden
Hello, everyone, it’s Dr. Sam, I’d like to welcome you to my EyeClarity podcast. This is a show that offers cutting-edge information on how to improve your vision and overall wellness through holistic methods. I so appreciate you spending part of your day with me. If you have questions, you can send them to hello@drsamberene.com. Now to the latest EyeClarity episode.
Hey folks, it’s Dr. Sam and I want to welcome you to another EyeClarity podcast where we have an interview today with a really special person His name is Nathan Oxenfeld. And he teaches something called integral eyesight improvement. So he’s kind of in the same sphere is as me. He teaches people natural alternatives to glasses, contacts, and surgery, you know how we can prevent, be proactive in healing our eyesight and vision. And Nathan has a great background, the Bates method, love the Bates method, yoga, meditation, breath, work, emotional work, diet and nutrition, and many other techniques to support people in their eye health. He actually created a documentary, which I’m going to talk to him about today. If you want to check him out, you can do so on his website or on his YouTube videos. I love his videos on YouTube, by the way, check those out. So, Nathan, I want to bring you on. I want to thank you for joining us today. And my first question is, who have been your biggest influences in terms of your current teachings?
01:23
Yeah, thank you so much, Dr. Sam, it’s really really special to be here with you. I, I’ve been influenced by several people, but since you mentioned the name of my practice, integral eyesight improvement, that first word integral is very inspired by integral yoga. So I definitely want to share the inspiration I got from Swami Satchidananda, who actually founded the ashram in Virginia where I did my yoga teacher training Satchidananda Ashram or yogaville, sometimes I call it like, your, like summer camp for adults Yoga Camp. And, yeah, that that definitely was a huge influence in the direction of my life in general to kind of shift gears and go down the route of natural healing and in alternative health and stuff. And then you also mentioned that I teach the Bates method. So obviously, I’ve been influenced a lot by Dr. William Bates. And it’s been showing up a lot in my teachings lately because I’ve been going through the better eyesight magazines that Dr. Bates published monthly from 1919 to 1930. And in 2018, we’re coming up on that 100 year anniversary so I came up with this plan to create a podcast where I read me and other vision teachers and maybe we can even get you involved moving forward reading the original Bates method materials from that month 100 years ago. So definitely like getting refreshed and it’s so cool the synchronicities of what was going on for example, in October 1921 it a lot of times it kind of lines up with whatever I’m teaching in October 2021 100 years later, so it’s just as applicable. And then, you know, those were definitely the two biggest kinds of influences in terms of the foundation of my work, but actually worked with, you know, a living Bates method teacher because Dr. Bates passed away in 1931. She lives in California whose name is Dr. Jerriann Taber, and she was my vision teacher who helped me you know, improve my vision naturally and get off of my classes. So those are definitely the three big ones Swami Satchidananda William Bates and then Jerry and Taber.
03:54
Nice. So in terms of your classes now, what are you seeing what are people dealing with?
04:04
Yeah, well, we’re in a very unique time in world history and you know, leading up to the pandemic and you know, the world shutting down and people being inside all the time, I mean, people’s like screentime was already skyrocketing, and then we have nothing else to do but just kind of stare at screens all the time and so I’ve been seeing a lot more people being affected by screens lately, and just showing up as whether it’s like a visual defect like blurry vision that they didn’t used to have or maybe even like a sensation like some pain or stinging or you know, dry eye issues and stuff. So and then also just like the the massive amount of stress that people have been under during this past two years. I feel like that’s kind of either maybe made some vision problems. show up or maybe like kind of exacerbated some pre existing ones. So but I don’t know, it was it was early on in the pandemic, I don’t know about you, but I was hearing that people were actually finding a silver lining in it in terms of they didn’t have to drive as much. They could work from home. And, and people were actually starting to take their glasses off more and actually spend time without the glasses that they may not have been able to do if they had to be commuting and going to work all the time and stuff. But now that it’s just dragged on, and on and on, it’s almost like people are getting back to their lives and back to work and getting out there again. So it’s interesting, it’s how do people fit this stuff into their busy lifestyle, so they, you know, people like brush their teeth, and floss their teeth in the morning, before they go to work, but are people doing things to take care of their eyes before work, for example, so it’s tricky, you know, everybody’s really busy. But I think that’s what I’m really passionate about is helping people figure out how to take good care of their eyes, like when on zoom like we are right now. You know, I’m not just going to be staring at the screen the whole time, I’m gonna be looking out the window and looking away from the screen and blinking and things. So that’s what I love to help people with.
06:22
Yeah, I really, I really resonate with your passion. And, you know, I would say that, I have also seen a lot of computer related eye fatigue, not only in adults, but with kids being an online schools, and just the intense focus, you know, six, seven hours a day, and this whole connection to our, our screens, and how negative it is, over time, whether we develop myopia or hyperopia. Or, you know, we’re wearing you know, progressive lenses and you know, we’re not getting any natural sunlight, and then there’s the blue light idea, so, so what are some strategies that you could share with our community about how to take better care of your eyes?
07:14
Yeah, I mean, what you just hit on, I think is really important. The light factor you know, I was just teaching a class yesterday and somebody asked, like, what is the you know, what’s the most efficient way for me to take care of my eyes if I forget to throughout my workday, so let’s say you’re just working, working working on the computer and then you realize, oh my gosh, I’ve kind of neglected my eyes in my answer was just stepping outside and balancing the artificial light with natural light. Whether you know, whether it’s sunny or cloudy, just getting that natural full spectrum light, I think is I think I have a feeling a lot of people’s eyes are kind of like deprived or deficient in the in the light nutrient. You know, people are aware that there may be deficient in iron ore or vitamin D. But in people think about, oh, I can go outside and get vitamin D on my skin. But, you know, the eyes are a big part of that, too. So yeah, even though I’ve used the Bates method to improve my vision, and I don’t need to use glasses anymore, I still do light therapy every day, meaning I still, you know, walk my dog and I still go outside and I let the sun land on my closed eyes and it’s something that I foresee myself doing for the rest of my life. Because the benefits are I think they go well beyond just the eyes. I think it has a lot more to do with the whole system. So that’s one of my like, really simple tips is just to kind of get get people to prioritize exposing themselves to some natural light in a safe and gentle way.
09:01
And that’s a really good point. And yeah, go ahead.
09:05
Oh, I was just gonna say that. Continue. We don’t want to forget the other side of that coin. Like, I always teach people to balance the sunning with the palming. So that’s why I teach it as like son sandwiches to get people to think like food like feeding yourself a sandwich but it also refers to like sandwiching the sunning with the palming so it’s really really bright and really really dark and that back and forth between the two i think is important so that’s just a little you know with the sun in comes that little reminder you know to make sure you’re balancing it with the palming to to get the darkness
09:45
Yeah, I think that you know, what you bring up there is a creates more broadness in our nervous system, our endocrine system to be able to have that broad band of stimulation from the light Maybe more of our sympathetic nervous system and then palming, which is more of our parasympathetic, nervous system, relaxation, rest and settle. And what most of us do we’re on go from 7am to 10pm. And we’re not even doing palming and in watching some of your videos I see how you emphasize the importance of taking breaks and doing palming. And it’s not just go go go. And so for my listeners, I want to validate with Nathan is saying that include the stimulation, get out there and that natural sunlight but also remember your palming because your system, your neurological system and nervous system, need both of those things as food to create that balance in harmony and avert the you know, the acute, and then chronic diseases that a lot of people are suffering with their eyes. And that kind of gets their attention, you know, and you’re I’ve watched in, by the way, we’re talking with Nathan oxen Feld, who teaches integral eyesight improvement, wonderful vision teacher, and he’s based in Vermont, but he teaches classes all over the world. And so let’s move towards this creative expression. You had this documentary You did? Tell us about it, how it came about, what what’s it about? And how we can view it?
11:29
Yeah, absolutely. For first thing, though, real quick, since you said that word broadened. You’re getting me thinking Dr. Sam about the stunning and the palming about kind of broadening our spectrum in terms of not just like getting the full spectrum light, but the spectrum of brightness and darkness. I feel like before I got into this, maybe I was just kind of like, if this is the full spectrum, maybe I was kind of going from like this brightness to this darkness. But when you do the sunning, you’re literally exposing yourself to the brightest light source in the solar system. There’s nothing brighter than it. So it takes you all the way to that, you know, widened end of that spectrum. And then palmen creates pitch black, which you don’t even get at night when you sleep, you know, sometimes you get an ambient light coming in from the street or whatever. So really, when you do that palming, it’s it’s taking you way down to that dark, dark, dark place. So to kind of go back and forth and kind of broaden that light spectrum and dark spectrum, I think, is part of what what it does. So I just love having this chat with you. Because it’s getting me kind of, you know, brainstorming too.
12:40
Yeah. So we do, yeah. Well, tell us about your documentary.
12:44
Yeah. So we, early, you know, I mentioned the better eyesight podcast, we were coming up on this 100 year anniversary of this project that Dr. Bates was doing 100 years ago. Another thing he did was not just the better eyesight magazines was he published a book called perfect sight without glasses in 1920. Yeah. So my colleague in Australia, and I was Barry Alcatel. We were just, you know, talking in 2018, or 2019. And just like, Hey, we should you know, 2020 is next year. It’s the 100 year anniversary of Bates’s book. It’s also like, kind of a, you know, play on 2020 vision. And so, we just felt this calling to create a film, a documentary about natural vision improvement, because there wasn’t one out there. And, you know, I had put I’d already put a lot of videos out on YouTube to start to educate people, but it’s different when it’s actually like a documentary, you know, so we, yeah, we kind of came up with this plan to travel around the world and sat down with over a dozen different natural vision teachers. And we are our goal was to, we asked everybody a similar set of questions. But we interviewed people from around the world. So I went to an international vision conference in Europe and got to interview teachers from Germany and Italy and Spain. And, you know, Barry came to America, and we were interviewing people over on the west coast and everything, and I went up into New England and, and this was all in 2019, like, right, before, you know, this wouldn’t have been possible to do. And so it was just wild timing. We did, you know, this pandemic did kind of throw a wrench in our plans because we were going to release it in early 2020. And then do like a, you know, documentary screening, road trip tour kind of thing. But, um, you know, it kind of delayed the release of it, and then we did more of a kind of virtual screening. But yeah, it’s still, we’re still it’s still early on, and it’s, you know, exposure to the world and so, we’re really excited for people to check it out and watch it and learn from it. It’s the best way to find it. Is that vision 2020 movie.com? And you can rent it put that in. Yeah, yeah, you can either rent it or purchase it. And, yeah, I was just really, it was my first time doing anything like that. And, you know, it’s very DIY, but I was really happy with how it came out. And I got some feedback from people that even just by watching it, they were experimenting it and even noticing some little changes happening. Just in the, you know, one-hour 16-minute film. So, right, sure.
15:45
Yeah, I mean, what’s so interesting about that, because I’ve interacted with vision teachers and behavioral optometrists all over the world, and especially with social media, and everybody has their genius, you know, we all aren’t doing the same thing. So it’s really cool to hear, you know, what is somebody doing? who practices in South Africa, work with some of the professionals there, or in India, that’s another place that people are loving the natural vision stuff. And then, of course, New Zealand and Australia, Japan. You know, it’s such a global problem, you know, with more and more people becoming nearsighted, especially in Asia. And so to people like us out there offering, say something a little different than the traditional, you know, I care that you know, your eyes get worse as you get older. And drugs and surgery are the only answer. And here we have something that Dr. Bates came up with over 100 years ago, and there are others. Also, in my, my lineage, where these behavioral developmental optometrists were amazing. You know, I had like five behavioral optometrists who are in their 70s. I was 28. At the time, they all lived in Connecticut, and I just would be a sponge, sitting in in their, their conferences, and so on. So I got a major download. And even today, the optometrists are not really accessing that level of wisdom. So here we are, and we’re putting it out there. And it’s, it’s all going so so well. So we’re coming down to the end of our time today. First of all, how can people get in touch with you? What are your offerings? And let us know how we can connect with you?
17:44
Yeah, yeah, definitely the probably the main hub would be like the main website, integral, eyesight, calm. So that’s gonna pretty much plug you into all the different things I’ve got going on. So you can find the better eyesight podcast there. My other podcast, the naked eye podcast, links to the YouTube channel, because I’ve got a lot of like educational videos on YouTube. There’s a link to the documentary through that website. And then just let you know other information about things that I’ve got going on in terms of people getting involved with the work as well. Because I offer like online courses, and I’m in the middle of current group course. So that’s closed at the moment. But I usually offer those on sort of an ongoing basis where I lead a small group of people through six months of the vision training. But there is also like a solo program that people just go through on their own wherever they want to, but ultimately, kind of like how people would travel to New York and actually go to Dr. Bates’s clinic and work you know, work with them more individually. That’s a big part of my work as well. So I meet with people on zoom and we do the one on one coaching and, and really go deeper with it that way. But yeah, I think a good starting point would be either to check out the documentary or check out some of the YouTube videos or podcasts or I’m asked to do have a book called give up your glasses for good. So some people like to kind of get that written version and kind of follow the you know, step by step instructions on how to do the sunning and the palming and the different bait practices and stuff. So yeah, over the packs last, like not eight, nine years, I’ve been working hard to get a lot of stuff out there to get people easy access to this information.
19:36
Yeah, and I know you’ve got a very active Instagram. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, well, we’re in it together, for sure. But the social media channel is such where we can do this now and to take advantage of it and, and just put the information out there. So I want to thank you for taking the time today for chatting with us and And we’ll do it again. And I wish you the very best in what you’re doing and we’ll see you down the road sometime.
20:10
That sounds great. Thank you so much Dr. Sam. And thanks to everyone listening.
Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something from the EyeClarity podcast show today. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify and leave a review. See you here next time.
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