Am I Getting Enough Shut-Eye?

Today we discuss the importance of quality sleep for maintaining good eye health. We share some advice on establishing a bedtime routine and maintaining consistent sleep schedules.

We also discuss the effects of blue light exposure from electronic devices on melatonin production and sleep quality. The focus further extends to the impact of overhead fluorescent lighting on eye strain and the benefits of mindfulness, meditation, and visualization for unwinding and relaxing a body, a brain, and eyes before sleep.

Have you heard of the 'Clock Stretch' and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping for mind-body connection? Listen to find out and benefit from multiple tips that will help your eyes feel more rest and improve your overall health.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

(00:00) Intro
(00:49) The risks of not getting enough sleep. Yes, your eyes suffer too
(01:21) Creating a healthy bed-time routine
(03:14) Blue light: is it really that bad?
(05:52) Incandescent or warm LED lights for bed-time stories
(06:54) Are you getting enough sleep?
(08:14) Built to Read Program
(09:05) Stimulants before sleep and relaxation techniques
(10:54) The Clock Stretch
(12:39) Emotional Freedom Technique
(13:26) The Tapping Solution
(14:17) Recap

Read the episode transcript here 

Additional Resources 

• The influence of blue light on sleep 
• Blue wavelength light exposure on sleep and recovery of brain structure

Check out our Digital Programs

• 4d Built to Read Digital Program
• Concussion Recovery
• Built to Drive

Follow us at 4D Vision Gym on Facebook and Instagram @4dvisiongymvt for the latest news and updates. DM us if you have any Vision Therapy related questions - you may hear the answer in a future episode!

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Transcript

Dr. Juanita Collier: Welcome to the It Could Be Your Eyes podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Juanita Collier. Through my decades of work in the field of vision, I have met thousands of patients, parents, educators, therapists, and doctors searching for solutions to the seemingly unsolvable. Challenging traditional medicine's new normal?

We'll uncover that the root cause isn't necessarily what you thought it might be. It could be your eyes. 

Jessica Liedke: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of It Could Be Your Eyes. I'm your co host, Jess Liebke, and I am here to talk about Sleep, my favorite activity. But sleep is really, really important because if you don't get enough chronically, it can cause a whole bunch of issues for your brain and your body, including your eyes, of course.

You could have dry eye, get eye spasms. You might even have an increased risk of glaucoma from a chronic lack of rest. So today I wanted to hop on and just talk about some good ideas for getting yourself and your kiddos and your family into a good bedtime routine. You know, a lot of kiddos, they are built for routines.

I know some kids have a harder time with routines. I know my child has never been one to really settle into a routine easily. But over some time, you know, we've come to a consistent predictable routine, a pattern that he can rely on and it helps his brain and body regulate better through the day, especially when he is, you know, in a good tilt with that.

So talking about some good things that you can do. to help your kids are number one to keep a consistent bedtime routine because if you consistently go to bed, whether it's a school night or a work night or not, you're helping your brain and body fall naturally into its own circadian rhythm. So if you go to bed around the same time each night and try to wake up around the same time each morning, your body kind of knows what to expect and allows for a more natural progression of all of the sleep hormones and waking hormones and dopamine and serotonin and all the, the happy chemicals that our brain uses to help us function our best.

And when we, we deplete, our resources or our brains are kind of on overload with different chemicals that they're not used to producing, you know, in a more consistent pattern, then we, we may find more challenges as we go. So that's kind of a very basic plan, a basic place to start that is perhaps kind of one of the easiest.

You know, you just kind of set an alarm or you find a timer on the clock and know that as soon as, let's say, the daily show is over, then, oh, it's time to go to bed. Right. So there's that. However, I just gave you a kind of bedtime don't because TVs and screens of all kinds, but Especially those handheld electronic devices do create blue light and you've probably heard a lot about blue light, probably even heard us talking a little bit about blue light and its effect.

Blue lights are very, created by screens and actually they're created by sunlight too. Blue lights are not the devil. I think we kind of hear the word or that term and we think, this is the worst thing for your eyes and it causes eye strain and it causes pain and it causes all these terrible things.

Well, the reality is our brains and our eyes need blue light. The best possible place to get that is from sunlight and it does help us wake up. Those kind of happy chemicals I was talking about. Blue light suppresses our melatonin production. That helps us kind of feel invigorated. And there was actually a study that came out that said that concussion sufferers actually benefit from blue light in the morning and that when they get blue light, um, it helps them recover and feel a little bit better.

However, those effects turn adverse when we are exposed to blue light in the afternoon, and especially as we crawl towards the evening. So when you are on devices, you know, you've seen blue blocking glasses, and we are We're fans of blue blocking glasses. They are good. The jury is still out a little bit on whether they actually reduce eye strain and are good for that kind of thing.

But what the research definitely shows is that having blue light blockers helps your brain be able to produce that melatonin, that sleep hormone. So after Noons, that's a good time to be putting on some blue blocking glasses or filters, or I know my computer has a automatic setting that at four o'clock every afternoon, my screen kind of goes a little bit amberish, and it tries to filter out.

as much blue light as it can within the screen setting itself. So if you can avoid screens for up to two hours before bedtime, that's ideal because then that allows your brain to really wind down and produce that melatonin. so that you can really get everything that you need. So that's a good rule of thumb.

And if you can also avoid using overhead fluorescent lighting to read your bedtime stories, that would be great. Having an incandescent or a warm LED light that is full spectrum. That's the closest thing to natural daylight that you can get at night. And so it causes the least amount of eye strain and having like you know, some bedside table lamps or some desk lamps to give you just the right amount of light without giving you a headache or without being blaring and causing more strain and difficulty is ideal.

And there's actually, it's not that it's bad for your eyes to read in low light, but it may cost more of that strain. And when you're really kind of strained and working harder, Then you're not going to feel super awesome as you try to go to sleep and have actual restful sleep. Now it is really important, I should note here too, that restful sleep is pretty important.

The CDC recommends that adults are pretty good to go with about seven or more hours of sleep. But that amount changes through our lives. A school aged, elementary school aged kiddo really could use the 9 to 12 hours of good, shut eye, some actual sleep every night. And little kids need more and older Adults sometimes need a little bit less, but when you are starting your day off with less sleep than your body actually needs, it's making it harder for your eyes to do all the important things that they need to do through the day.

So if you are, you know, needing to do a lot of computer work, if you're needing to do a lot of reading, if you're doing a lot of writing, if you're trying to play sports and be at your best. You're going to have a harder time to control what your eyes are doing. And if you're already starting at a kind of deficit, because let's say you might have a binocular disorder, your eyes are not optimally perfect because you haven't done your vision therapy yet, then you're already starting at a disadvantage and having less gas in your tank, as it were, is going to impact you negatively.

So you definitely want to be getting enough of that rest. 

If you could make a positive change in your child's reading ability and confidence with reading in just 20 minutes a day, you would jump at the opportunity, right? Of course you would.
The 4D Built to Read program trains you, the parent, to become a junior vision therapist and provides you with tools, activities, and support you need to give your child a strong visual foundation so they can read, play, and take on whatever challenges they face. 
If your child is too bright to be struggling and getting low grades, or you've been told that in-office vision therapy would help, but you just can't find the time to commit, the 4D Built to read program may be just what you're looking for at a fraction of the cost.Visit 4D built to read.com or check out the show notes for a link to learn more. 

Another tip here to make sure that you get enough. is to avoid stimulants, caffeine, sugar, the stuff that kind of hypes you up at night time before trying to fall asleep. And believe me, I am a dessert fanatic. I love my sweets, but I have learned that when I opt for something more like tart cherries, I'm Helping my brain produce more of that melatonin.

Tartares are a good natural source of that melatonin, and it helps wind it down a little bit better than a chocolate chip cookie, which may be my favorite. But I also want to encourage you for other kind of wind down techniques that you can incorporate into your routine. And especially with your kids, it's a great thing to start to practice when they're young so that they always have this tool in their tool belt.

But mindfulness. meditation, relaxation methods, gentle yoga, guided visualizations, all of these different tools that help calm the central nervous system and relax the body, help also relax the mind. So you know there are multiple studies that show that relaxation in whatever way it makes sense to you.

is a great tool for all aspects of life, but especially as you're considering how you're going to wind down for bed. It's a good method to always get a good stretch of your body, but you know, you can also stretch your eyes too. So if we're thinking about stretching the body with gentle yoga and kind of, you know, releasing and relaxing all those muscles that guide our body through the day.

You can also release and relax your eye muscles. And so we recommend something called the clock stretch. So if you envision that you're standing in front of a giant clock, kind of like the face of Big Ben, and you're nose to nose with the center of the clock, you're going to move your eyes to look up at the 12 o'clock as high as you can, just moving just your eyes.

up, holding that for about five seconds, and then looking down at the six o'clock, looking all the way down, stretching down to look as far as you can for another five seconds. Then you look to one and then seven and then two. And 8 and 3 and 9 and 4 and 10 and 5 and 11 back to 6 and 12 and then come right back to the center.

You've given yourself just a kind of good stretch for overworked eyes as well as the start of a visualization. Giving you something very simple to focus on helps clear the mind. It's almost like why certain traditions use mantras, you know, if you just focus on something that takes your mind, your little monkey mind off of all the running socks and all the things you need to do and all the stressors of the day.

And all you're thinking about is a clock and where your eyes are looking, then you can help release some of that racing thought, running craziness. Another tool that we often use here in our office and we, we recommend to our members through both our in office and virtual programs is something that we call EFT tapping, emotional freedom technique.

And that's a mind and body connection technique. It's a sort of meditation where you're physically tapping your body to connect to your physical body. body sensations and kind of ground yourself in your body while also helping saying some different, you know, statements, releasing any kinds of fears or negative feelings or kind of ickiness that you've picked up through the day and kind of just acknowledging that it's there and then letting it go.

Bringing it up to the surface and then blowing it away. So it's kind of, um, there are lots of different guided tapping meditations, guided tapping techniques out there. I recommend the Tapping Solution by Nick Ortner and he and his siblings actually started a whole company and a foundation and there are books and there are podcasts and there's an app.

There's all sorts of, of reference tools out there for you. This is a great way to, to help you connect with your body and yes, this does have to do with your eyes, right? Because all of it connects. We're all, we're, we're very multifactorial human beings. And so if we can get our nervous system to calm down and center and help our bodies come to you.

stillness, healing can take place, learning can take place, all the wonderful aspects of being a human start to open up to us. So to recap, number one, get enough sleep, enough sleep that your body needs. Number two, come into a good routine, go to sleep at the same time, wake up at the same time, get a good pattern going for your mind and your body.

Stay away from screens, number three, and have good lighting where you can so that your, your brain and body start to produce the natural chemicals that help you fall asleep and stay asleep. And number four, just utilize tools to allow sleep to happen naturally. That calm your nervous system, that calm your body, that calm your brain, and that trickles into all of the wonderful benefits that having a integrated self provide for our mind, our body, our brain, our eyes, our nervous system, all of it.

So I'm sending you all so much happy, good feelings, sleepy time. Get yourself a sleepy time tea. And if you're listening to this in the evening, I hope that you have a restful night. And if you're listening to this in the day, I hope you have a great day and are able to wind down well tonight, keeping some of our tips and tricks in mind.

We've got some great things coming up in the, It Could Be Your Eyes podcast. So please keep us in your feeds. Keep, uh, recommending us to your friends and family, and hopefully we will be seeing you very soon. you take care. 

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the It Could Be Your Eyes Podcast.To schedule an appointment with Dr. Collier, visit us@4dvisiongym.com. To train your vision at home, visit us at 4D vision therapy@home.com. Rate and review our podcast and email a screenshot to receive 10% off a new evaluation or any of our digital programs. Subscribe to join us for more eye-opening episodes as we dive deep into all the ways that it could be your eyes.