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.

My New BLOG: LIVING-LONGER WISDOM

My NEW BLOG on How to Live Longer

Get the WISDOM to live as if everything is a miracle: live a life of balance and harmony.in this chaotic world.

Click here to visit the blog.

Stephen Lau

Are Cataract Surgeries Necessary?

Cataract surgeries are commonly practiced in people who are 65 or older; approximately 3 million Americans undergo cataract surgeries each year.

Are cataract surgeries necessary? When do they become necessary?

Cataract surgeries are performed on people whose lenses have become blurred or cloudy due to mainly aging. As a deterioration of the lenses, vision has become considerably compromised. So whether cataract surgeries are necessary or not depends on the individual.

If your work requires detailed vision, then a cataract surgery may become necessary. If you have problems driving at night or worries about road safety, then a cataract surgery may be an option. On the other hand, if you think that taking off your glasses while reading a book or a newspaper, then it may only be a nuisance that you can live with, then you may have second thoughts about taking a cataract surgery. In other words, it all depends on how bad your vision has become an interference with your daily activities.

A cataract surgery is no more than a procedure to remove a cloudy eye lens with an artificial one, and that's all there is to it. Just like any other aging process, you have to deal with it or to live with it. My book Your Golden Years and Santa Claus explains in detail the importance of living a life of meaning and purpose despite your aging, which is an inevitable as your demise. It is important to have the mental capability to cope with you physical incapacity.

As for when you need to opt for a cataract surgery, it is your decision: nobody can make it for you, not even your doctor.

Remember, taking vitamins, herbs, and eye drops may delay or slow down the aging process of your eyes, but they may never cure your cataracts. There is another myth: you need to wait until your cataracts become "ripen" before surgeries can be performed. Nothing is further from the truth. Life is full of choices, and taking or not taking a cataract surgery is one of those choices.

All in all, make your eyes healthy, and taking care of your vision health is wisdom in living in your golden years.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Power of Letting Go

The Power of Letting Go

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Letting go is the natural surrender of the human mind to any involuntary reactivity aimed at removing anything that might threaten or undermine the ego-self. Letting go should be a natural instinct, and not a technique that one has to learn and master; it is simply a spontaneous human ability to give up all human attachments that create the unreal ego-self.

It is letting go, and not holding on, that makes us strong because it overcomes the fear of the unknown and the unpredictable. Let go of yesterday to live in today as if everything is a miracle; let go of the world to have the universe.

The Human Resistance to Letting Go

“When you talk about what you want and why you want it, there's usually less resistance within you than when you talk about what you want and how you're going to get it. “ Esther Hicks

Letting go has to do with human feelings. Humans have a life-long struggle, often without much success, to overcome their inner fears and to escape from their projected negative expectations. As a result, it is a natural human instinct to react involuntarily to anything that might bring about any undesirable scenario or outcome.

How to overcome the human resistance to letting go?

Letting go involves human feelings, which come from human thoughts of the present and past experiences that originate from the processing of the human mind. Given that letting go has to do with human feelings, overcoming the human resistance to letting go begins with the human mind that is responsible for processing all human feelings and experiences.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Role of Human Wisdom in the Art of Living Well

The Role of Human Wisdom in the Art of Living Well

Wisdom plays a pivotal role in the art of living well.

Wisdom is the capability of the mind to draw sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. We never have sufficient data for anything and everything because we are all limited in our capability in acquiring our knowledge.

Wisdom is not quite the same as knowledge: knowledge is the acquisition of facts and information, while wisdom is the application of acquired knowledge to everyday life and living. For this reason, being knowledgeable does not necessarily imply being wise. Wisdom is beyond knowledge.

Human Wisdom

Socrates, the famous Greek philosopher, once said: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

Wisdom is examining life by frequently asking self-intuitive questions, as well as by finding answers to the questions asked about life and living. In real life, we must frequently ask ourselves many questions about anything and everything at all times.

Asking relevant questions is introspection, which is a continual process of self-reflection, without which there is no self-awareness and hence no personal growth and development. A static life is never a life well lived. So, asking self-intuitive questions is self-empowering wisdom—a life-skill tool necessary for the art of living well.

Why is that?

It is because the kind of questions you ask also determines the kind of life you are going to live. Your questions often trigger a set of mental answers, which may lead to actions or inactions, based on the choices you have made from the answers you have obtained. Remember, your life is always the sum of all the choices you make in the process of going through your life journey.

To make the right daily life choices, you need human wisdom, which is clarity of thinking, to know who you really are, what choices are available to you, and why you decide on those choices.

TAO Wisdom

TAO is the profound human wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China, more than 2,600 years ago, who was the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching on human wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Wisdom Begins With An Empty Mind

Wisdom Begins With An Empty Mind

“Focusing on status gives us pride, and not humility.

Hoarding worldly riches deprives us of heavenly assets.

An empty mind with no craving and no expectation helps us let go of everything.

Being in the world and not of the world, we attain heavenly grace.

With heavenly grace, we become pure and selfless.

And everything settles into its own perfect place.”

(Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 3)

You are in the world, but not of the world.

So, do not identify yourself with anything and everything in the world—the car you are driving, the neighborhood you are living in, the name-brand dress you are wearing, and among many others.

What is wrong with them? You become attached to them; they only enhance and inflate your ego, making you shackled to the material world.

With a deflated ego, on the other hand, you may become enlightened and see who you really are, and not what people think you are. Enlightenment opens the door to the TAO of living for life.

The reality is that many of us are not only in the world, but also of the world; so, we are living not for life, but for the world.

We are all somehow connected with one another, so focusing on yourself is not the Way of TAO, and not the TAO of living for life.

Human wisdom requires only an empty mind, not necessarily acquisition of knowledge. As a matter of fact, the more you know, the less wise you may become. The explanation is that knowledge previously acquired and accumulated often pre-conditions your thinking mind, and thus distorting your perceptions.

Human wisdom is already inside you. What you need to do is to search for it with self-intuitive questions.

Remember: less for more, and more for less; ask and you shall receive.

Stephen Lau        

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

My Book Just Published

This 145-page book is about TAO, the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China more than 2,600 years ago, who authored the immortal classic Tao Te Ching on human wisdom. 

His unique and controversial wisdom shows you how to think. It is your thinking mind that may make you live longer. Continue and go through the rest of your life journey with self-awakening to the realities of your true self, of others around you, and of the world you are living in. Look at anything and everything through the lens of the TAO.

According to the TAO, the end of anything is always the beginning of something else; the material world you are living in is forever filled with these cycles of beginnings and endings. Get the profound wisdom to intuit these cycles of balance and harmony so that you may continue the rest of your life journey and live as if everything is a miracle.

Here is the outline of the book:

INTRODUCTION

ONE: THE QUESTIONS AND THE ANSWERS

TWO: THE THINKING MIND

The Composition of the Thinking Mind

The Thinking Process

The Conscious Mind and the Subconscious Mind

The Power of the Thinking Mind

The Role of the Thinking Mind

THREE: THE WISDOM

The Ancient Wisdom

The Eastern Wisdom

The Conventional Wisdom

The Spiritual Wisdom

The Essence of True Wisdom

FOUR: THE TAO

Tao Te Ching

Empty Mind and Reverse Thinking

The Mind and the Now

Humility and the Ego

No Judgment and No Separation

No Picking and No Choosing

No Expectation and No Over-Doing

Control and Spontaneity

Embracing and Letting Go

Attachments and Detachments

The Awakening and the Manifestation

FIVE: YOUR JOURNEY OF LIVING LONGER

The Step of Intent and Desire

The Step of Unlearning and Relearning

The Step of Body Awareness and Mind Focus

The Step of Being and Becoming

The Step of Actions and Inactions

The Step of Recovery and Rejuvenation

The Step of Patience and Perseverance

The Step of Accepting and Embracing

The Step of Confronting Changes and Challenges

The Step of Returning and Awakening

APPENDIX A: THE MEDITATION

APPENDIX B: THE BODY CHEMISTRY

APPENDIX C: THE FAST

Click here to get your copy.

Stephen Lau

Vision Self-Healing

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. This is a holistic approach to better vision.

Click here to get your copy.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Vision Self-Healing Self-Help

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. This is a holistic approach to better vision.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Overcome Stress to Improve Vision

Stress experienced in everyday life may come in different forms. Your experience of stress can be past, current, and future.

Past stress—also known as “residual stress”—is stress from the past that you have not overcome completely despite the passage of time.

Current stress is a “current state of arousal” caused by an existing situation that requires your immediate attention but that you do not enjoy addressing it.

Future stress is “anticipatory stress” or worry about what might happen in the future. Residual stress can lead to future stress, passed on from unpleasant past experiences.

Perceptions of stress are generally based on the following: the more you care and value about something, the more stress you have; the more choices and options available to you, the less stress you have; the more conscientious you are, the greater is your stress; the more enjoyment you have, the less stress you have; and the more responsibility you have, the greater is your stress.

But stress may also affect your vision health, given that the mind and the body are inter-connected, and that your vision is also affected by what is happening in your mind.

William Shakespeare once said: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” John Milton, the famous English poet, also had this to say: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” Both spoke volumes of the perceptions of stress.

That is to say, stress is all in the mind—your thinking mind. The bottom line: empower your mind to live a stress-free life as if everything is a miracle.

Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

NO EGO NO STRESS is a 134-page book by Stephen Lau on ancient human wisdom for stress relief. Specifically, it is about Tao wisdom, which originates from the ancient Chinese sage Lao Tzu, the author of “Tao Te Ching”—one of the most translated works in world literature. “Tao Te Ching” is popular due to its profound and unconventional wisdom, which is both intriguing and controversial. Learn how to let go of the ego-self to remove all the stressors in modern living due to finance, careers, relationships, etc. and live as if everything is a miracle.

 

Wisdom in Living

WISDOM IN LIVING

This is a completely updated website on how to live your life as if everything is a miracle.

The journey of life is long and unpredictable. We all need wisdom to guide us along the way so that we will not get lost; even if we do, we may still find out way back to where it will eventually lead us to our final destination.

This website may provide you with wisdom as your compass and roadmap on your life journey.

Wisdom in living comprises seeking God's wisdom through understanding human wisdom in order to live a meaningful and purposeful life, even in the golden years. The ancient wisdom of Tao holds the key to applying these principles of life and living in this modern world.

Stephen Lau