Herbal Medicine for Vision Health

As the aging population increases, millions of people suffer age-related disorders, such as cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration -- they could all lead to blindness.

Vision health is important. Protect your eyes from ultraviolet rays with sunglasses. Exercise your eyes regularly, just as you exercise your body. Most importantly, give your eyes the nutrients they need to maintain optimum vision health.

Nature’s remedies can help you prevent vision loss. For example, bilberry promotes blood flow to the eye nerves. It is a potent antioxidant against radical damage by the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

The Chinese herb, wolfberry, has potent medicinal properties to strengthen your eyesight. It has been used for centuries in China for eye health.

Chrysanthemum flowers help reduce pressure buildup in the eye. Steep chrysanthemum flowers in hot water, and drink the beverage daily.

Peppermint is another herb, which can clear vision due to its potency as an antioxidant.

In addition to herbs, a diet rich in carrots (loaded with vitamin A) and dark green vegetables (containing lutein, a substance to counteract cataract) may go a long way to enhancing your vision health.

Remember, your eyes are just like any other body organs; they require regular maintenance. Your diet is important because it supplies nutrients to your eyes. Anything that blocks blood flow, such as bad cholesterol, may also damage the blood vessels in your eyes, and that may cause macular degeneration. Your eye exercises are important because your eye muscles, like the rest of your body muscles, require relaxation to hold the optic nerve and lenses in optimum position for better vision.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Letting Go Attachments

The Origin of Human Attachments

All attachments originate from the ego-self.

What is an ego? Do we all have an ego-self?

An ego is an identity of any individual. Yes, we all have an ego-self, with no exception.

As soon as a baby begins his or her perceptions through the five senses, that baby begins to develop an identity, such as “this toy is mine” and “I want this.” Well, there is nothing wrong with that initial identification. However, as time passes by, the human ego may continue to expand and inflate to the extent that it may become problematic with all its attachments.

What is the ego-self?

Simply look at yourself in front of a mirror. What do you see?

A self-reflection. Is it for real? Can you actually touch it? Not really; it is only a reflection of someone real—the real you in front of the mirror!

Now, do something totally different. Place a baby—if there is one immediately available—in front of the mirror. See what happens. The baby might crawl toward the baby in the mirror. Why? It is because the baby in front of the mirror might think that the baby in the mirror is another baby, and just not his or her own reflection.

Likewise, the ego-self may look real, but it is not real. To think otherwise is self-deception.

How is the ego-self formed?

Descartes, the great French philosopher, made his very famous statement: “I think, therefore I am.” Accordingly, you think and you then become what you think you are—the byproducts of all your thoughts and your own thinking.

Unfortunately, Descartes’ famous statement is only partially true: it is true that you identify yourself with all your thoughts projected into your thinking mind; but it is not true that your identities thus created by your thoughts and your own thinking truly reflect your true self. The fact of the matter is that you are not your thoughts, and your thoughts are not you. To think otherwise is a human flaw, which is no more than self-delusion or self-illusion. In other words, you are not what and who you think you really are.

Gradually, all your life experiences with their own respective messages—the pleasant as well as the unpleasant, the positive as well as the negative—are all stored at the back of your subconscious mind in the form of your assumptions, attitudes, causal concepts, and memories.

Accumulated over the years, millions and billions of such experiences and messages have become the raw materials with which you subconsciously weave the fabrics of your life, making you who and what you have now become—or so you think. In other words, they have now become your “realities” or your ego-self with its many attachments to make you believe you are what you think or wish you were.

Likewise, a baby originally does not have the ego-self (at least, not yet), and thus sees the reflected image in the mirror as another baby. But you, on the other hand, with your own ego-self, see the reflected image in the mirror as the same you, and not a different person. So, your ego-self is simply a reflection of you; what you see in the mirror is not real, just a reflection. But the problem is: you think it is the real you, and your false identity may lead to an identity crisis.

Learn how to let go of your attachments to the material world that define who you think you are, and these attachments may include your attachments to money and wealth, career and success, among others.

Stephen Lnd au

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Overcoming Eyestrain

Eyestrain is one of the underlying causes of many vision disorders. The opposite of eyestrain is eye relaxation, which essentially comes from the mind.

Develop your mental awareness to change your bad vision habits that cause eyestrain.

Shifting: Train your mind to edge or trace the outline of any visual object with your eyes. Form this good vision habit to avoid “staring” or “eye fixation.”

Eye balancing: Wear an eye-patch (obtainable at a pharmacy or local drug store) over your stronger eye in order to strengthen your weaker eye.

Periphery: Use a two-eyed patch to cover your eyes to enhance your peripheral vision. Make a two-eyed patch out of a strip of stiff cardboard (3” x 1”), with a small part cut off in the middle to accommodate your nose.

Sunglasses: Avoid wearing sunglasses to avoid “squinting.”

Mind Relaxation

The eye conditions are constantly changing such that they can be adversely affected by any emotional or mental stress, resulting in eyestrain that can cause vision blur. By the same token, you can significantly improve your vision if you relax your eyes completely through relaxation.

Using a Relaxed Mind to Relax the Body, and hence the Eye

It is almost impossible to relax just your eyes, while the rest of your body remains tense and stressed. Total relaxation begins with the mind first, and then the rest of the body, including the eyes. Use your mind to relax your body, and then your eyes -- the best way to achieve mental relaxation.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau