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. And 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 i-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. 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 through 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. And 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. 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've also said that vision decline as we age can be optional. Obviously, I wear glasses. They recently told me that I might need to have bifocals. And I'm like, Dr. Bryce, I'm like, no, 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. It 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 and 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. And 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 brings his eyes like he does the rest of his body every day, but he's not wearing reading glasses. 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. Think about locking in your focusing system. Your pupil is going to 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 and 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 thank you I mean, we could stop right now because that is all I needed to know because I am not Dr. Bryce. I'm not wearing bifocals in my 40s. So I appreciate that. I will not either. I'm not going to wear them in my 50s or 60s 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. But there's science behind everything that we do that actually moves the needle. And you talked about people having ADHD dyslexia So people that have those that are more oh I think I might be dyslexic or I might have ADHD What 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 have 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. It'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. I'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. Being a founder is hard enough. Having to also worry about nutrition, that has been a crazy struggle of mine. I'm heads down grinding and I just want to reach for something quick. And what I normally do is I choose the wrong thing. I needed to find a solution. That is why I found Huel, which has been a game changer for me. Not only does it taste amazing, it's great for someone like me that has a lactose sensitivity because whey sometimes does not feel good. But Huel, not only does it taste good, but it also makes me feel full. I grab it in the morning and I'm sprinting out the door or I just don't want to have time to even make a shake. The Black Edition ready to drink. I love chocolate peanut butter flavor. It has 35 grams of protein, 27 vitamins and minerals, no artificial sweeteners, which I try and stay away from, and it's under five bucks. That's like less than getting a Starbucks coffee. Then on days when I'm at home and I really want to have a shake, maybe I want to mix in some peanut butter, almond milk, any of these. That's when I choose Huel Black Edition Chocolate Flavor Powder. I love this shaker. It's thick. It's filling. Put some ice in there. It's amazing. If your sower knows gifts meals, forgets to eat, or just wants an easy way to stay consistent with your nutrition goals, this combo makes it stupidly easy. 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? Is there anything that you do besides the exercise? And then are there supplements? 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. The average eight to 10 year old Americans spend 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. When 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. I spend a lot of time. I might be at 10 hours a day. So yes, seven hours is definitely underreported. I probably, yeah, I might be too many hours. So I'm glad that you said this. So I can really start to do this because 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. When you talk about screens, there's 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? Blue light's like the new gluten. Like blue light and gluten are dancing together at the prom together. 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 And so certain people who are really sensitive to blue light absolutely need blue light glasses on all the time but typically the five dollar ones you get on amazon you paying for the quality that you're getting unless the blue light glasses are dark red amber or like orange which block a hundred percent 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. So 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 our eye and our 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. So would you say the same thing around like 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 going to be on your phone or tablet before bed, that's when you want to 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 farther away, the better. So watching TV in bed far away on a massive TV is less disruptive to the iBrain connection than you know having a tablet inches from your face blasting you all day but ultimately like if you are going to be on any screen before bed blocking blue light's gonna help you transition into sleep mode more easily i turned down the light on my phone there's like some sort of light i was at some some person some eye doctor i went somewhere was like turn down this light i don't does that make a difference the brightness yeah Brightness definitely helps. You can put it in night shift mode, which then will drop the load. Night shift mode, that's what it was. Yeah. 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 uh 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 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 is important But then also you should really look at the quality of your sleep. I bet you like you're horrible. I already know the quality of 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 gonna try the blockers I'm gonna 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 so when I'll give you the name of a few good companies off air yeah please um so what do you so do you think then that because they 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. 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. We 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 happy. You know lately I been not wearing my glasses The first time really ever in my life where I 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 gonna 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 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? So 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. And 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 picked 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 their potential. And 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. where pre-COVID, I would have said that's not possible for adults. That's what I was taught in school. It doesn't work that way. And I would say now, not only does it work, like we have the protocols in place that we keep fine tuning and we're getting people to really open up their world through a lot of this, this training. That's amazing. I mean, just thinking about that in, in that time period and being able to do this, I mean, it's incredible. So I'm glad that you are sharing this with people because I think if you've never had to wear glasses or now how you know reading glasses like you it's hard to understand just how annoying or challenging and you know the crazy thing is that people now are wearing glasses not glasses with prescription just glasses because it's like a fashion sense when I was younger I'd be made fun of it now people are like wearing glasses just to like as a you know as an accessory and and 100% it's the The cool thing to do, I work with an NBA team where we do these evaluations to help them decide who to draft based off of where they're operating, where they could be. And there's plenty of guys who come into the aval wearing like fashion glasses. And I'll start asking like, so how often do you wear these? Like, what's the point of these? You know, tell me about your visual history. And they're like, oh, no, this just looks good with my outfit. I'm like, you wore this to come into an aval because you probably thought it would look good. But, yeah, I mean, that's where we are. And I just want to say, like, I cannot thank you and Kate enough for all that you're doing, but creating this incredible event in Manila where you gave me the opportunity to share this message with the world. And it was so beautifully done. You know, all the speakers that were there, the whole experience. And I look at that now as like, we have this pilot light that's always on and would not have happened without both of you. So I'm just so grateful for that opportunity and thank you for helping me change how the world's looking at vision. Well, Dr. Bryce Applebaum, I mean, I'm super appreciative of you. I'm so glad that you got that message out there. I'm sure millions of people are seeing it. You're on so many different shows. You get to meet really incredible people, but at the same time, you're changing the world. And that's obviously a beautiful thing. So people want to visit you. they want to learn more. How can they do so? Appreciate that. So my practice, myvisionfirst.com. We've got two locations in Maryland, right outside DC, one in Bethesda, one in Annapolis. We've got an online vision training program called ScreenFit, which has significantly moved the needle. We've had thousands of people go through it as young as five, as old as 89, with 100% of people who've completed the program seeing a reduction in symptoms. And that's just a great way to get this accessible and get people to start, get across the start line to get rolling on their vision improvement journey. And then I guess social media, Instagram is our biggest platform, Dr. Bryce Applebaum. But my ancestors wanted to make life really hard for me and they spell Applebaum, A-P-P-E-L instead of the fruit L-E. But if you spell it right, you'll find it on there. And those are probably the best ways. You need to get both handles. So, you know, one can forward to the other, but Dr. Bryce, this has been great. I learned a lot. I've been wanting to really dive into this for a bit so I can help. So next time, next time you come on, I'm going to show you where I've gone in the process. And I got to come out to Maryland and visit y'all, but thank you so much for joining us today. Such a pleasure and honor to be here. Thank you for having me. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. It really does help the show to grow. Thank you for listening.
