Neuro-Optometrist: Your Eyes Are Sabotaging Your Performance and You Have No Idea | Dr. Bryce AppelbaumYour Eyes Are Sabotaging Your Performance and You Have No Idea | Ep. 326 with Dr. Bryce Apbaum

0:00Daniel Robbins:To the me I used to be, before texting 988. When another argument with mom felt like the end of the world and school got too stressful, I felt alone. But when I texted 988, a real person texted back. Someone listened without judgment. I'm still here and I'm stronger than I thought. We hear you. Call, text or chat 988. It's free, confidential and here for you 24-7. Brought to you by the New York State Office of Mental Health.

0:34Daniel Robbins:so dr bryce it's always good to see you i had a great time when we spent when you did your tedx in the philippines it was really an amazing experience and i learned a lot from that and i was just shocked about this connection that you keep talking through in terms of how vision performance all these things so i want to understand because i don't think people know how important this is. But you've said that training the eye-brain connection can be the single biggest lever pull for performance. 100%. How our eyes work together as a team, how they can focus, track, converge, process information, that really allows us to show up in the world the way that we all deserve to.

1:21And whether it's reading fluidly and efficiently, whether it's performing on the sports field, whether it's driving at night, whether it's just productivity throughout the workday, just like we can train and exercise so many systems within our body, we can train and exercise the eye-brain connection and we can rewire our brain so that our dominant sensory system of vision is the one that's given us an advantage in the world and guiding and leading us rather than interfering like it is for so many people.

1:48Daniel Robbins:How come there's not enough people talking about this? Because there's not enough people doing this work and because we are in a reactive healthcare system where I was trained in school on how to manage vision decline and how to intervene when there's disease and how to get everybody to see those tiny letters on the bottom of the exam chart. But that's a reactive approach. What we do is all proactive, recognizing there's a brain attached to the eyes and how the brain filters, organizes, stores, processes, all the input coming in through the eyes, that's really what allows us to achieve at our potential.

2:25And there are so many people struggling unnecessarily with these hidden functional vision problems. I would imagine in the next three to five years, this is going to be one of the hottest topics in all of performance and health, because what we're doing right now, having this conversation on the screen, screen time is the new pandemic. It is ruining our eyes and our brains. We're only starting to learn now what, you know, significant time on screens is doing to so many aspects of function. And it's not good what's coming out, but yet with the right training, the right foundation, we can all thrive in this digital world.

2:58Daniel Robbins:I mean, that's amazing. We were talking earlier about like microplastics and things like we keep hearing, I feel like about the same things over and over again. And it's great to know that there's something else. And you, you've also said that vision decline as we age can be optional. Obviously I wear glasses. I, you know, I, they recently told me that I might need to have bifocals and I'm like, Dr. Bryce, I'm like, no, like I'm not going to wear bifocals. I'm like 42 years old. So people think as we get older, vision drops, cognitive capacity drops. And although both of those are common, that's not normal.

3:34It doesn't have to be that way. And you are at the prime time where for most people in our 40s, our focusing system becomes more rigid, less flexible. The lens inside of our eye hardens, the fibers controlling it gets sluggish. And so you have to start holding things farther away. But grabbing reading glasses is literally the equivalent of you saying, my knee hurts, I'm going to jump in a wheelchair. Like you're stopping using the system. So rather than relying on the drugstore over-the-counter readers to do all the work for you, you can train your focusing system to hold clarity at a close distance for two seconds at a time and then five seconds and 10 seconds.

4:12And with the right work and the specific right visual exercises, you can at a minimum kick that can down the road for a long amount of time. But there are certain exercises, you do those every day, you literally will not need reading glasses. And we have patients in their 70s, even one in his 80s who screens his eyes like he does the rest of his body every day, but he's not wearing reading glasses.

4:34Daniel Robbins:So what can I do? How can I get started? Get started, number one, like not taking a reactive approach, not listening to your eye doctor who says there's nothing else that can be done and you need stronger glasses to do what you could do previously. Simple eye exercise that really moves the needle. I call it eye pushups. It's a near far focus activity. So let's all do it together. So cover up an eye with one hand, take your thumb, stick it all the way out, and then bring your thumb towards you, looking at your nail as close as you can until it gets a little blurry and then stop. Make it clear, look real hard.

5:09Think about locking in your focusing system. Your pupil's gonna get really small when you look at this. Hold it for five seconds. Then look out into the distance for five seconds. Then back at your thumb for five seconds, back in the distance. So this is kind of a gross stimulation, relaxation, turning on, turning off. Same amount of time right eye as you do left eye. Most people will notice that one of the eyes can hold the thumb a little closer than the other. And literally being able to hold your thumb a millimeter closer after a week. Millimeters add up to centimeters, which add up to inches, which add up to even more than that.

5:40And it's literally using your visual system and countering some of the age-related changes by exercising that system in a way that most of us don't even know is possible. You do that every day, you literally will not need to go down the bifocal route, at least for a long time.

5:54Daniel Robbins:Thank you. I mean, we could stop right now because that is all I needed to know. Cause I am not Dr. Bryce. I'm not wearing bifocals in my forties. So I appreciate that. I will not either. I'm not going to wear them in my fifties or sixties either, but you know, better, you can do better. You know, if it's the type of thing, like the person who says vision exercises don't work is the same person that says normal exercise doesn't work. Like you got to do it. You got to know what to do. And you got to do the right type of stuff that actually moves the needle. And unfortunately, you can't trust everything that's on the internet these days in terms of what can be done to help counter some of this.

6:35But there's science behind everything that we do that actually moves the needle.

6:39Daniel Robbins:And you talked about people having ADHD, dyslexia. So people that are more, oh, I think I might be dyslexic or I might have ADHD. What's the connection there? Yeah. So, I mean, very often ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, even autism spectrum disorders in some cases, they're incomplete diagnoses without addressing vision first. And so many of the symptoms and behaviors of functional vision problems are exactly the same as those labels, and yet these are all treatable. So it's not like there's a blood test that says you have ADD or that you of dyslexia, it's based off of a profile. No one is born with the ability to read or to use their eyes to converge, attract, to focus.

7:27It's all developed through our life experiences. It's either learned appropriately through the right sequencing of developmental milestones or learned poorly and it leads to these vision imbalances. So something like dyslexia very often is not dyslexia. It's faulty communication between the language processing centers of the brain, the auditory processing centers, the visual processing centers. And reading is probably the most complex neurological task that many of us take for granted. And especially as a child, we're asking children to develop the ability to read when the brain is undergoing rapid, massive changes in terms of development.

8:03I've yet to meet somebody out of tens of thousands of patients where we couldn't improve their reading ability. So I would just say, you know, If you cannot control your eyes and their ability to focus, then you cannot control your mind and its ability to focus.

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9:41Daniel Robbins:Limited time offer. Get Huel today with my exclusive offer of 15 % off online with my code founder at Huel.com slash founder. New customers only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting the show. Wow. What about healthy vision habits? Do you, is there anything that you do besides the exercise? And then are there supplements? Like I think I used to take lycopene. I don't know if that's even how you pronounce it, but I don't know if any of these even really matter. So habits, I mean, everything in balance is really a good methodology to apply for life. The average American spends seven hours and four minutes a day on a screen.

10:22The average eight to 10-year-old American spends six hours a day on a screen. When you're on a screen, your visual system and your focusing system are locked up. And tension over time, unless you're trying to get buff, that's not a good thing for the visual system. And so taking breaks from screen time can do wonders, as silly as that sounds. I always say the 20-20-20 rule, take a break at least every 20 minutes for at least 20 seconds and look at something 20 feet away. Ideally, get up, get outside, get some movement in, get some natural lighting in. But if you're putting in a bunch of hours of screen time, taking a break every 20 minutes in those bunch of hours, you're going to have better performance and more stamina over time versus if you're not looking up from your screen the entire time.

11:05When you're on a screen, you're thinking your attention and your vision all become tunneled and locked up. That's really what causes so much myopia or nearsightedness. That's what causes headaches, fatigue and eye strain. It's what causes reaching for that third, fourth, fifth cup of coffee because your brain is on overdrive just trying to use your eyes rather than having the right visual foundation and functional systems in place to be able to crush what we're asking of ourselves in this digital world that we're in.

11:34Daniel Robbins:I spend a lot of time. I might be at 10 hours a day. Yes. Seven hours is definitely underreported. I probably, yeah. I might be too many hours. So I'm glad that that you said this so I can I can really start to do this because it's it's obviously something that I've been thinking about. And I want to make sure that I'm also, you know, not going to do some sort of damage for later on in life. With when you talk about screens, there is a huge debate that I've been watching around blue light glasses. I see people wearing them. I see people saying that they don't need to wear them. What do you think?

12:08Blue light's like the new gluten. Like blue light and gluten are dancing together at the prom together.

12:13Daniel Robbins:So whenever I eat a gluten, I eat a gluten-free muffin while I'm wearing my blue light glasses. You got to take a picture and post on that. So first of all, blue light is not bad for us. Blue light is essential for us, but natural blue light. And it helps regulate moods, circadian rhythms, hormones. But that's why it's so important to get fresh blue light in your eyes in the morning. first thing when you get up for two to 10 minutes and then ideally at night before going to bed, helps set your circadian rhythm and kind of ground you in time and space. But artificial blue light blasting you from screens all day long, that's what causes a lot of oxidative stress within the eyes, causes inflammation.

12:53And so certain people who are really sensitive to blue light absolutely need blue light glasses on all the time. But typically the$5 ones you get on Amazon, you're paying for the quality that you're getting. Unless the blue light glasses are dark red.

13:10Daniel Robbins:The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports. Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Madness is here, and MLB is almost back. Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself. That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app. For me, it's about staying connected to my sports. I can follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights all in one place. Download the Bleacher Report app today so you never miss a moment. To the me I used to be, before texting 988. When another argument with mom felt like the end of the world and school got too stressful, I felt alone.

13:50Daniel Robbins:But when I texted 988, a real person texted back. Someone listened without judgment. I'm still here, and I'm stronger than I thought. We hear you. Call, text, or chat 988. It's free, confidential, and here for you 24-7. Brought to you by the New York State Office of Mental Health. ...or like orange, which block 100 % of blue light. The clear ones are only going to block a very small amount, and often they don't even block the harmful blue light. They just block like random blue light. So you want something that's kind of broad spectrum. We talk a lot about what we call vision performance, well, digital performance lenses, which are glasses that are four screens with a blue light filter, but also that have a specific amount of magnification in them that allow your response to the visual stress to be less and give your brain a better opportunity for eyes to work together.

14:45So that's really helpful. But in general, like blue light, it's not great for us. And we have an artificial blue light and we have receptors in the back of her eye and her retina whose sole responsibility is to signal the sleep-wake mechanism that allows melatonin to be secreted. When those are overstimulated all day long, it literally throws off your sleep, falling asleep, staying asleep. And when we mess up our sleep, that can have drastic negative impacts on so many areas of health.

15:16Daniel Robbins:So would you say the same thing around stopping a certain amount of time before I go to sleep, I should refrain from watching? So ideally like two hours before bed. For many people, that's not realistic. So if you are gonna be on your phone or tablet before bed, that's when you wanna have the really robust biohacking blue light glasses on, the dark red or the amber ones. And in general, like the bigger the screen, the far away, the better. So watching TV in bed far away on a massive TV is less disruptive to the iBrain connection than having a tablet inches from your face blasting you all day. But ultimately, if you are going to be on any screen before bed, blocking blue light's going to help you transition into sleep mode more easily.

16:02Daniel Robbins:I turned down the light on my phone. There's some sort of light. I was at some person, some eye doctor. I went somewhere. I was like, turn down this light. Does that make a difference? The brightness? Yeah. Brightness definitely helps. You can put it in night shift mode, which then that's what it was yeah yep that can definitely make a difference and all these habits they stack so for some people i mean when you put on the red blue light glasses you get sleepy even if you put them on during the daytime so you know wearing those for many people does help a lot and for sleep i mean there's so much we can hack with the right temperature having it be cool enough you know having all light blocked off even i have patients who even like blocking off that red light on the tv that shows that it's off like you block that off and like their sleep is so much more consistent and they're able to get more deep sleep and more rem even with just that so there's so many things we can do to help regulate our nervous system but i'm of course biased when we rely on vision to regulate our nervous system we've got a way way better outcome that's like my wife kate who you obviously got to meet she has to wear like something like a thing that covers her face because any light any little bit of light she can't sleep me i could be i could sleep right like if i close my eyes right now i could probably fall asleep i'm like that's okay it doesn't have to look at you before bed right no no i'm just kidding but i think truthfully like and then when she wakes up both it makes sense that's what it is but you fall asleep quickly i mean falling asleep is important, but then also you should really look at the quality of your sleep.

17:43I bet you like

17:44Daniel Robbins:you're horrible. I already know all my sleep. I got sleep apnea too. So like if I don't use my machine or there's like a little hole and it seeps air out, I'm pretty, I'm pretty miserable. So maybe this is a simple way to, to have a quick win, you know, trying to maybe fall asleep at the same amount of time, maybe a little later, but if you fall into deep sleep and you get enough cycles of REM, you're going to feel more refreshed and maybe even need less sleep. I know sleep. Sleep has been my enemy for many years. It's like, I need to do, I'm going to try the blockers. I'm going to try a bunch of things because I think it's good to test because I'm at that point where like, I need, I need to really get the good sleep.

18:26So when I'll give you the name of a few good companies off air.

18:30Daniel Robbins:Yeah, please. Um, so what do you, So do you think then that, because whenever I get my eyeglasses, they always try and sell me on the blue light filter on my glasses. Is that a waste? For most, unless these are glasses you're wearing just on screens, and it's a really robust blue light filter that has, like the lens looks at a minimum like purplish or bluish. If it's just a clear light, a clear lens, it's not doing much. And especially if these are glasses you're wearing all the time, there's so much more you can do with the money that goes into the, that add on there that has a better, a higher impact on performance.

19:10Daniel Robbins:If, and thank you for that. So I'm, I'm, I normally say no, because I was very skeptical and because they always try to sell so many things, but I appreciate you letting me know. And I'm not anti-glasses, but I will tell you, getting new glasses every year because your prescription is changing, as an adult, that's not normal. It means you're adapting to the lens you're in and needing something stronger or different to maintain that same clarity because of the near visual stress that you're under. And likely your focusing system, the inside muscles of the eyes responsible for clarity, kind of acting like an old school camera lens that's on manual focus.

19:48We want it to be on autofocus. And so we should really, when we're getting glasses, not everybody has to see the same. Not everybody has to see HD clearly. And finding the weakest lens possible, the most balanced between each eye that improves performance, that's really the ideal prescription that lets you see 20 happy, not necessarily 2020.

20:09Daniel Robbins:20 happy. You know, lately, I've been not wearing my glasses. The first time really ever in my life where I'm going like the last few months all day, not really even wearing my glasses unless I leave the house and I have to drive. Of course, I'm going to wear my glasses. But if I'm just hanging out at home and doing stuff, I find it almost bad. I started getting a lot of headaches before. And I was thinking like maybe my glasses, I'm too close to the screen. So but based on all the reasons that you're seeing, like the majority of reasons, I don't know if there's an average reason that people come to see you, but based on what people are coming to see you for, what they're asking about, what is something that people need to know out there that also might be feeling the same way?

20:51So I think what I see more common than any other kind of pain point is people saying life's too busy. They're too tired to read. They're relying on audio books, readings helping them fall asleep at night as a sleeping pill. There's decreased productivity throughout the workday. They're getting brain fog. They're back to back zooms and they're just gassed. And for most people, it has to do with how the inside and outside muscles of the eyes are not working together as a team. and these adaptations or these bad habits that are emerging because of too much of this near visual stress mode that we're under.

21:28And what we do with vision performance training is we use the eyes almost as like joysticks to tap into the brain, to rewire the brain, to change how we're using these functional systems, but to free up the brain from all this extra load, extra stress it's under to be able to operate the way in which it's wired. So we see people who drastically improve reading performance and stamina. We see people who avoid ball sports or like the last one pick for sports teams. Now, all of a sudden their depth perception improves and it becomes something that they're really good at. We actually work with a bunch of professional teams and individual athletes who maybe don't even have problems, but want to get an advantage in life by optimizing critical areas of performance that give them an opportunity to achieve at their potential.

22:15And I would say one of the coolest things we're seeing now that I would have said five years ago wasn't possible is we're getting adults out of reading glasses. And I wasn't talking about this before, but now I'm talking about every chance I can get. We do these vision performance training boot camps where people fly in for a week of treatment. It's about 12 hours of treatment plus evals in five days. It's a heavy lift. But we're actually able to, with very, very high accuracy, get people to become less dependent on their reading glasses, get many people out of reading glasses, or even rely on a weaker lens and improve eyesight.