Most people don’t think about their eyes or their eyesight till something goes wrong. Me included. At the age of 25, overnight I lost my sight, to the point I couldn’t read STOP on a stop sign sitting right in front of it. Wow. That was scary.
My specialist told me I would be legally blind by the time I turned 30 yrs old. That was even more scary. I started doing all the research I could on eyes, nutrients exercises, anything I could find.
I learned that the highest levels of Vitamin C are in the eyes. So naturally I started eating all the high vitamin C foods:
- Citrus (kiwi, lemon/lime, grapefruit)
- Bell peppers
- Strawberries
- Tomatoes
- Cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower)
- White potatoes
In fact, red bell peppers are hugely high in vitamin C so I get all my clients to eat lots of red bell peppers.
Oranges are no longer a great source of Vitamin C as the soil doesn’t have magnesium which the plants need to make vitamin C – so we don’t bother with oranges anymore.
In addition, most fruit and vegetables that have red, yellow or orange pigmentation also have nutrients that are good for the eyes.
In addition, if you strengthen the muscles around the eyes, and there are seven sets of muscles, then you help deliver more nutrients to the eyes and remove toxins. So, I worked with a variety of yoga exercises that are useful for strengthening the eye muscles.
- Hold your arms straight out to the side and keep your head focused straight ahead. Now move only your eyes from the far right – so you can see your right hand outstretched to the side, as slow as you can, in a huge arch to the left hand, stretched out to the left. Basically, going from three o’clock to nine o’clock – back and forth as slowly as you can.
- Next exercise is similar but instead of going from 3 to 9, you go from 12 to 6 – moving your eyes upward as high as you can and then downwards.
- Next stretch out your arm straight in front of you. Slowly bring your thumb to your nose. Fairly close to your nose you will shift from far sighted to near sighted. Play with that area then bring your thumb right to your nose.
- Next image a huge clock arm length in front of you. Move your eyes as slowly as you can from one o’clock around to twelve o’clock and then go back.
- Finally close your eyes and imagine the horizon as far off as you can. Move your eyes from the horizon to your nose and back again.
Start off by doing each of these exercises 3-5 times, 2x a day. Gradually increase to 10x a day. If you start with too many cycles, you will get tired achy eyes. It is better to start and gradually build up.
I went back to the specialist in one and a half years and had 20/19 vision!! Better than normal!!!
Whenever my eyes get overworked now, some 40 years later, I eat a few red peppers and do my exercises and golly gee weez, they are great again.
Here’s to your eyes too.
Dr Holly