Vision Problems in the Golden Years

As you get into your golden years (that is 65 and beyond)), you will have noticed the deterioration of your vision. As a matter of fact, vision loss begins as early as in the 30s, and its deterioration accelerates in the 40s and 50s. Now, if you are already in your golden years, you might have much impaired vision, especially they could have been aggravated by your decline in health, such as getting diabetes. Getting older will take its toll on your body in many ways and your eyesight is just one thing that will start to deteriorate with age.

Some of the obvious signs and symptoms of vision deterioration are: difficulty in focusing (slower and less accurate)—a condition known as presbyopia, which is caused by the hardening of the eyes’ lenses; difficulty in seeing either long or short distances--conditions known as either nearsightedness or farsightedness.

Presbyopia will result in difficulty to read or doing work that requires accurate focus; nearsightedness or farsightedness may require you to wear bifocals or different eyeglasses.

Other problematic issues with vision loss include an increased risk of age-related eye diseases, such as glaucoma, macular degeneration and cataracts. These problems can lead to severe eyesight issues if they are not taken care of immediately.

In your golden years, take extra care of your vision health and eyesight issues to reduce the risk of blindness further down the road. Check your health, especially your eye health, on a regular basis. This may play a pivotal role in preventing further deterioration or even blindness. Prevention is always better than a cure.

Make sure that you have eye tests done at least twice a year and if you start to notice a decline in your ability to focus or see clearly.

To correct your vision problem, many eye doctors and opticians are quick to prescribe corrective lenses or even talk about the possibility of having surgery to fix any vision problem.  The advice here is think carefully before you make a decision.

Consider the use of eye exercises to help correct nearsightedness, farsightedness or presbyopia. Eye exercises are easy and simple to do and you can even do them in your own home. A few exercises each day can really help to improve your vision significantly. However, it is important to be consistent and persevering in your eye exercise regimen (this applies to any physical exercise as well). Curing your vision loss is not an overnight endeavor.

Most vision problems, whether nearsightedness, farsightedness, or presbyopia, have to do with eye stress and strain affecting the shape of the eyes, and hence their capability to focus correctly. Of course, the eyes cannot be relaxed if the body and mind are not.

If you are in your golden years, it is important to have a holistic approach to your health and wellness, which is the wisdom in happy and successful aging.

Your Golden Years and Santa Claus shows you the wisdom in happy and successful aging in the golden years. It is a holistic and comprehensive approach to dealing with vision loss and other health issues, as well as changes and challenges, encountered late in life.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Letting Go for Better Vision

Life is forever changing, whether we like it or not. We must learn to accept the fact that we are sometimes powerless to stop any unwelcome change in our lives. But many of us would still strive to control our lives by avoiding and preventing those changes from happening. This is how we have created the stress in our daily living.

Stress affects our vision health because if our minds are stressed, our bodies become unrelaxed, and our eyes are parts of our body organs too.

Stress comes from our attachments to many things in this material world that confront us in our everyday life, and many of these are not only unavoidable but also insoluble. To overcome these daily challenges, many of us just turn to our attachment as a means of distracting ourselves from facing our problems head on. All of our struggles in life, from anxiety to frustrations, from anger to sadness, from grief to worry—they all stem from the same thing: our attachment to how we want things to be, rather than relaxing into accepting and embracing whatever that might happen after we have put forth our best effort.

Attachment is the source of human miseries. Worse, attachment may come in many different forms that we are unaware of.

Career attachments

Your career may span over decades, involving many ups and downs, such as promotion and unemployment, changes of career and pursuits of higher qualifications, among others. They may have become your problematic attachments.

Money and wealth attachments

Nowadays, to many people, enjoyment of life requires money—and lots of it—and you may be one of them. Attachment to money and the riches of the material world is often a result of an inflated ego-self. You may want to keep up with the Joneses—driving a more expensive car than your neighbors and friends.

Relationship attachments

Living has to do with people, involving agreements and disagreements, often resulting in mixed emotional feelings of joy and sorrow, contentment and regret, among others, and they become attachments to the ego-self as memories that you may refuse to let go of—forgetting and forgiving, for example, are hurdles often difficult to overcome.

Adversity and prosperity attachments

In the course of human life, loss and bereavement are as inevitable as death. Loss can be physical, material, and even spiritual, such as loss of hope and purpose. You may want to attach to the good old days, and refuse to let go of the current adversity. Adversity and prosperity attachments stem from the ego-self.

But human attachment is no more than a safety blanket to overcome fear—fear of change and of the unknown from that change. To cope with that fear, all attachments become distractions. According to Simone Weil, “Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.” Simone Weil

Read my book: The Wisdom of Letting Go. Find out how and why human attachments are obstacles to living a life of balance and happiness. Get the wisdom to let go of your emotional and material attachments in order to live as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau 

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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Breathing Right for Vision Health

Breathing right provides oxygen to your brain and your eyes. In addition, correct breathing also relaxes your mind, and hence your eyes. Eye relaxation is critical to vision health.

Alternate-nostril breathing

Alternate-nostril breathing is a basic Yoga breathing exercise to balance the right side and the left side of your brain.

The left side of your brain governs the right side of your body, including your speech and logical thinking, while the right side of your brain governs the left side of your body, including your creativity and intuition. Achieving balance and harmony between the two sides of your brain is critical to mind healing for deep relaxation. You can balance your mental energy from the right and the left side of the brain through practicing alternate-nostril breathing during meditation, or anytime when you want to relax your eyes.

Place your thumb and ring finger lightly on your right and your left nostrils, respectively, with your index and middle fingers resting lightly on your forehead between your eyebrows.

Exhale deeply through both nostrils.

Press your thumb against the RIGHT nostril to CLOSE it.

Breathe in through your LEFT nostril. Count 8.

CLOSE your LEFT nostril by pressing down your ring finger. Now, both nostrils are closed. Retain the air, and count 4.

OPEN your RIGHT nostril, and breathe out. Count 8.

With the LEFT nostril still CLOSED, breathe in through the RIGHT nostril. Count 8.

CLOSE the RIGHT nostril. Now, both nostrils are closed. Retain the air, and count 4

OPEN the LEFT nostril, and breathe out with the RIGHT nostril still closed. Count 8

Repeat the above process.

Here is a summary of alternate-nostril breathing:

Breathe out through BOTH nostrils.

Breathe in through the LEFT nostril (count 8).

Close BOTH nostrils, and retain air (count 4).

Breathe out through the RIGHT nostril (count 8).

Breathe in through the RIGHT nostril (count 8).

Close BOTH nostrils, and retain air (count 4).

Breathe out through the LEFT nostril (count 8).

Repeat.

Remember, breathing holds the key to relaxation of the mind and the eyes.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Diet to Treat Macular Degeneration

The macula is a small central part of the retina for detailed vision. Macular degeneration is a slow, progressive disease that affects both eyes, typically one after the other. Due to its slow development, macular degeneration may take years to be noticeable. Macular degeneration affects as many as 30 million Americans aged 65 and above. If you are 65, you have 25 percent of developing macular degeneration; your risk increases to 30 percent if you are over 75.

Macular degeneration may be due to various reasons

hereditary

hypertension

high cholesterol

 sun damage

smoking

According to conventional Western medicine, macular degeneration is incurable. But macular degeneration can be treated naturally with:

High doses of antioxidants and minerals from your diet: beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin E, and zinc

Beta-carotene enables your body to convert plants into vitamin A and to boost normal cell reproduction in the eye, thereby protecting the eye from free radicals and improving night vision,

Vitamin C boosts and strengthens your immune system, and is a potent agent for making collagen to maintain healthy blood vessels in the eye.

Vitamin E is an antioxidant that protects cell membranes.

Zinc, a mineral required by more than 300 enzymes to repair wounds, optimizes vision health, and protects the eye from free radicals.

Remember, with the exception of vitamin D from sunlight, your body does not make your own vitamins and minerals; you must obtain the above from your diet. Antioxidants and vitamins and minerals are critical to vision health in preventing and treating generative diseases, such as macular degeneration.

Nutritional supplements: lutein, Taurine, DHA, and ginkgo biloba

Lutein, a carotenoid found in vegetables and fruits, such as collard greens, kale, and spinach, promotes vision health through its potent antioxidant properties.

Taurine promotes retinal health and improves nigh vision by transporting nutrients to the eye as well as eliminating toxic accumulation in the eye

DHA, an essential Omega-3 fatty acid, enhances the development of the retina.

Ginkgo biloba is an ancient Chinese herb for vision health.

For more information on vision health, read my book: Vision Self-Healing Self-Help. .

Yes, macular degeneration is treatable. Albert Einstein once said: "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Believe in a miracle cure, even for macular degeneration. Change your lifestyle and your diet. More importantly, change your mindset.   

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Holistic Healing of Glaucoma

Holistic Healing of Glaucoma

 

As you age, all your five senses begin to deteriorate, including your vision. But your vision is the most important of your five senses; without good vision, the quality of your life will be considerably compromised. The good news is that you can learn to have good vision throughout life if you know how to keep your eyes in good shape and maintain good vision health. Without good vision health, you nay develop serious eye problems, such as glaucoma.

Glaucoma, one of the major causes of blindness among seniors and the elderly, is due to eye pressure build-up in the muscles in the walls of your canal of Schlemm (circular channel in the eye that collects watery substance between the lens and the cornea). In conventional medicine, most eye doctors would recommend surgeries and eye drops to relieve high ocular pressure in the eye. However, there is one problem: surgeries and eyedrops often create a chronic condition, which, ironically enough, might lead to ultimate blindness.

Glaucoma may require holistic healing. Given that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, your eyes are only a small part of your whole person. Therefore, to improve vision or eye health, you need to improve the health of your entire person simultaneously because your body is a set of interlocking systems that affect one another.

Dr. Leslie Salov, M.D., O.D. Ph.D., in his book “Secrets for Better Vision,” concurs that you must heal your body first, before you can heal your eyes of any disease.

To have healthy vision, even as you age, you must avail yourself of the sciences of physiology, biology, chemistry, as well as the healing powers of philosophy and even spirituality. In other words, to treat glaucoma, you need a holistic approach: you examine not just your eyes, but also every aspect of your life. Stress induces pressure on the eyes. Therefore, relaxing muscles in the walls of your canal of Schlemm and voiding eyestrain can significantly relieve the glaucoma pressure, just as the use of eye drops serving a similar function, but without the long-term side effects of the chronic use of eye drops.

Overcoming stress through meditation and visualization is critical to the control and cure of glaucoma.

Stephen Lau

Copyright © by Stephen Lau

Computer-Induced Visual Stress

How to Overcome Computer-Induced Visual Stress

Computer-induced visual stress is a common workplace problem, which is manifested in nearsightedness, eyestrain, eye focusing difficulties, changes in color perception, double vision, and general stress.

Optimizing the Computer System

Be aware of how information appears on your computer screen, and adjust your tracking and scanning visual skills accordingly.

The characters on your computer screen should be 10 times brighter than the screen background.

The lighting of the room should be three times brighter than the computer screen background.

The character size should be appropriate: approximately 80 characters per line with 25 lines per screen.

The VDT viewing distance (18 – 25 inches) should be greater than the normal reading distance (12 – 16 inches). The recommended viewing distance is 20 inches between the eye and the computer screen.

The line of sight to the top of the computer should be 20 degrees below horizontal, and the line of sight to the bottom of the screen should be 20 degrees lower.

Overcoming Computer-Induced Visual Stress

The following are some of the tips to reduce or overcome computer-induced visual stress:

Use a screen filter to help eliminate the glare, static, and radiation problems related with VDT viewing.

Every now and then, rotate your head forward and backward, and sideways to relieve tension in the neck, which may adversely affect the functioning of the eye.

Do the palming exercise to relax the eye; even a 2-minute session will significantly relieve eyestrain:

Cover your eyes with the palm of both hands but without actually touching them, resting them against your forehead and your cheek bones, while your elbows rest on a hard surface, such as a table..Relax and your eyes will see blackness—without completely closing your eyes. You can palm your eyes for 10 minutes to even an hour or more for deep relaxation of your eyes..

Do the thumb rotation exercise:

• Sit in a relaxed posture.
• Cover your right eye with your right hand. 
• Hold out the left hand directly in front of your nose, with your elbow straight. Slightly clench your fingers, leaving the thumb erect. 
• Now, look at your thumbnail, and begin moving your left arm up, then outward and downward to a point that is level with your nose (like in a quarter circle).
• Follow your thumbnail with your left eye. Move only your arm and your eyeball.
• Repeat the above with your right hand 

The objective of this thumb rotation exercise is to improve your eye movement and to organize your visual space. You can easily practice this exercise even at your workplace.

Stephen Lau

Copyright © by Stephen Lau

Vision Self-Healing Self-Help

"Vision Self-Healing Self-Help" is a 147-page book on vision health based on the author's own experience of vision impairment due to his myasthenia gravis, which is an autoimmune disease affecting eye muscles and thus vision.

The book is also based on the Bates Method of vision improvement through eye exercises, as well as body, mind, and eye relaxation.

This book covers various types of eye disorders, including macular degeneration, glaucoma, and cataracts, among others. It also includes vision nutrition.

Improve your eyesight through awareness of good vision habits, such as blinking, shifting, eye palming, and soft vision, among others. It is never too late to improve your vision and to have better eyesight.