AMA #6: Eye Health, Why We Yawn & Increasing Motivation

ANDREW HUBERMAN: Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and science-based tools

for everyday life.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and ophthalmology

at Stanford School of Medicine.

Today is an Ask Me Anything episode, or AMA.

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And now without further ado, I will answer your questions.

And as always, I will strive to be

as thorough as possible, as clear as possible,

and as concise as possible.

The first question is about eye health,

in particular eye health protocols

for people that are aging but eye health protocols

for people in general.

The question is, I'm noticing that my vision,

both close and far, is deteriorating.

What are the best eye exercises, eye health behaviors,

supplements, et cetera for the aging eye?

So the answer I'm about to provide

applies to everybody regardless of age,

which is, you want to make sure that you view things both close

up and far away across your day.

Many, many people nowadays spend a lot of time

looking at their smartphone, looking at the computer screen,

looking at books and paper, in other words,

looking at things somewhere between 9 inches away

from their face and their eyes, maybe 2 and 1/2 feet away

from their face and eyes.

This is an unprecedented event in human history,

as far as we know, because it wasn't

until the advent of the smartphone

that we've spent so much time looking at screens

at close range relative to looking

at things at further distances from our face

throughout the day.

In fact, it should come as no surprise

that the incidence of myopia, of nearsightedness,

is increasing dramatically around the world

but is increasing particularly fast in children

and in young adults and even in adults

who are viewing things at very close range, so 2 and 1/2 feet

or less.

Now, I am not saying that viewing things

at 2 and 1/2 feet or less is bad for your eyes, that is simply

not the case.

However, if you want your vision to be maintained or even

improve, it's going to be very important

for you to view things at a distance

as well for ideally several hours per day.

Now, I realize some people just simply won't accomplish this.

In fact, I'd like everyone to just take a moment

and do a rough estimation in your head

of how much time during your daytime activities

you are viewing things at, say, 2 and 1/2 feet or 3

feet or less, so smartphone, computer screen,

paper, books, et cetera, versus viewing things

that are 4 feet away, 8 feet away,

so maybe conversation across the table with another human being.

Remember those?

Some of us are doing that more now

that we seem to be emerging from this whole pandemic phase.

However, many people are still mostly just viewing

things within very close range.

And, in fact, if you were to ask yourself, how much time do

you spend looking at things at the distance of many hundreds

of feet, or taking a walk where you're not looking

at any screen and you're simply letting

visual images or the visual imagery

rather pass by on your eyes, I think for most of us

that number is getting progressively smaller

and smaller with each passing year.

So this is an issue because the structure of the eye

is such that the lens of the eye can move,

but also that the length of the eyeball from front to back

is actually impacted by how close

or how far you happen to view things

during the course of your day, especially during development.

There's a classic experiment that I'd

like to just briefly describe to you which

has been performed in chickens.

It's been performed in mice.

It's also been performed on humans,

where a visual occluder or a visual image.

So an occluder is just a black screen or a piece of cardboard

or an image, maybe some black and white checks or checkers,

are placed at a certain distance from the eye,

either up close or far away, and the impact

of that on the length of the eyeball

and on the structure of the lens and on the quality and acuity

of vision is then measured.

And to make a long story short, what these studies show is

that, if during development, you or an animal

exclusively looks at things that are up close, very

close to the eye, and doesn't ever get long-range vision,

the eyeball lengthens.

And when that happens the lens, which, of course, is

in the front of the eyeball, which

focuses the light onto the back of the eyeball,

which is where the so-called neural retina

is, where the cells that sense light are,

that visual image lands in front of as

opposed to directly on the light-sensing portion

of the eyeball that we call the neural retina.

It lands too close or near the lens as opposed to

on the back of the eyeball.

And that's part of the reason what

we call the consequence of that nearsighted myopia.

In far sightedness, the opposite happens.

The visual image is actually focused behind the retina.

It doesn't land directly on the retina, which is what you want.

It's focused too far behind the retina.

And that's due to a shortening of the eyeball.

So what I just described actually

explains pretty well why kids who look at computer screens,

or books up close often need glasses.

When I was growing up, they called this nerd syndrome.

Raising my hand for those of you that are listening.

I read an awful lot, but I also spend time outside fortunately

and running around on the soccer field

and looking at things in the distance

and playing in the neighborhood with my friends.

Kids that spend the vast amount of their time looking

at things up close, and particularly

children who do that indoors for most of their waking time,

well, those kids develop myopia.

This is part of the reason why we

have such an increase of the incidence of myopia nowadays.

What's interesting, and I think most people don't realize,

is that even as a young adult and adult, and perhaps even as

an older adult, an elderly person,

looking at things up close to much at the expense of getting

some time viewing things at a distance,

in particular outdoors, can be very problematic because it

can exacerbate myopia.

So the short, direct prescription

here is to make sure that you're getting at least an hour or so

each day, although ideally it would be more, of long viewing.

And that could be done by walking outside and avoiding

looking at your phone while walking.

It doesn't require that you look at a particular object

in the distance, although if you are scanning for and looking

for objects in the distance, the way that you might on a hike

or you're looking out toward or off a vista

or you're looking for someone in the distance,

all of that sort of visual scanning behavior

is going to be very good for your eye health

and for maintaining vision at a distance.

If you're somebody who's far sighted

and you have trouble seeing things up close,

well, then you need to ask yourself whether or not

you're spending too much time looking at things off

in the distance, although I want to be very

clear that nearsightedness and farsightedness aren't

necessarily the consequence of this near, far viewing.

There can be independent causes of nearsightedness

and farsightedness.

But for many people out there who

are spending progressively more and more time just looking

at things up close, you can get this lengthening

of the eyeball or challenges in the way

that the elasticity of the lens is controlled

by the musculature in ways that make

it hard to maintain sharp, crisp vision when you're

looking at things at a distance or up close.

So I can't, because there are simply no studies

to support the idea that you need exactly two hours per day

of outside long vision at a particular distance and/or

that you want to cut off or have a threshold of four

hours per day of looking at things up close,

but we can say with a high degree of confidence

that if you want to maintain or enhance

your vision at all distances, that for every hour or so

that you spend looking at things,

say, a distance of 3 feet away or less,

that you want to get at least one hour per day total, doesn't

have to be all at once,

of looking at things out in the distance

or looking at things beyond 3 feet relative to the distance

from your eye.

So I think for some people who are already badly myopic,

this isn't going to remedy that myopia.

You're still going to need corrective lenses,

but if you're somebody, similar to the person who

asks the question, that they're quote unquote "noticing"

their vision is deteriorating, really

try and balance out the amount of viewing

that you're doing at close distance and long distance.

And, again, I would not obsess about the total numbers.

It doesn't have to be three hours and three hours,

but the more time that you can spend at viewing things

that variable distance throughout the day,

the better off you're going to be in maintaining and perhaps

even enhancing your vision somewhat.

Now, there's an additional behavioral tool

that we can glean from the recent scientific literature

exploring myopia which points to the fact

that children who get two hours a day or more

of time outside in sunlight--

one of my favorite topics.

I know many people are probably rolling their eyes

right now when they hear me say you really

want to view morning sunlight, not

through a window or windshield.

Don't wear sunglasses for that, trying to get as much sunlight

as you can in your eyes early in the day.

Never stare at any light so bright it's painful,

look at, et cetera.

We've done a lot of episodes on this.

We have a Light for Health episode,

this Isn't All the Sleep episodes.

It's just such a basic foundation

of circadian rhythm and health that I just keep repeating it.

However, there are also large-scale clinical trials

involving thousands of subjects that

have shown that people, children in particular, who

get two hours or more of outside time every day

have a much lower incidence of myopia.

Now, what's really interesting about these studies is that,

while some of those kids are looking at things further

off in the distance than they would if they were indoors

on their tablets or screens or with their nose in a book,

it does not seem to be the case that they

have to be looking at things in the distance

in order to see this reduced incidence of myopia.

What's probably happening instead

is that the particular wavelengths

of light that emanate from the sun,

that photon energy in particular is triggering

the activation of the so-called intrinsically

sensitive melanopsin and retinal ganglion cells, which we know

are important for setting circadian rhythm for enhancing

mood focus and alertness during the day

and enhancing the quality and duration of sleep at night.

But those melanopsin and intrinsically photosensitive

ganglion cells are also involved in networks

within the eye that relate to blood flow, that

relate to the ciliary body, which

is a structure within the eye that controls the aperture

and movement of some key components

within the eye, that also relate to the crispness of vision,

that is the acuity of vision, at both short and long range.

So there are a lot of technical details there.

In fact, I really hope to get the great Russell Van

Gelder, or Dr. Russell Van Gelder,

who's the chair of ophthalmology at the University of Washington

in Seattle, who is a world expert in this

and the various aspects, both molecular and structural

of the ciliary body and the lens,

and he's an expert in uveitis, a very interesting topic

in its own, to come onto the podcast

and talk more about eye health.

And we will do that in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, if the first behavioral protocol

for enhancing and maintaining eye health

is to make sure that you're spending at least some time

balancing out the near vision and far vision during the day,

it also stands to reason that you

want to get outside for at least two hours a day,

which I know sounds like a lot, in order to prevent myopia,

if you're a young person, and offset the progression of

and maybe even reverse some myopia,

we don't know yet based on the data,

but there's some indication that's

possible, by getting outside two hours a day.

And the cool thing is, because many people, including myself,

have a lot of work to do and we need to be on our phones

quite a lot, or we choose to be on our phones quite a lot,

this effect of getting sunlight outdoors during the daytime

for two hours or more does not seem

to require that you stay off your phone or tablet,

or that you're looking at things far in the distance

the entire time.

What this means is, if you can get

outside onto a patio or a deck or an outdoor table if you can,

if weather and conditions permit,

and do some of your phone time and computer time and reading,

et cetera, outdoors.

Now, if you're already making an effort

to get outside, hike, play sports, take walks,

et cetera, that of course counts towards this two hour

threshold.

And I know this sounds like a lot, this two hours,

and yet for most people, it certainly will vary,

depending on time of year, but I think

striving to get on average about two hours of outdoor time

as much as you can or opening a window, which

wouldn't be as good as getting outside, but opening a window

and trying to get some natural light exposure to the eye

to trigger the activity, these intrinsically

photosensitive melanopsin and retinal ganglion cells, that's

going to be a really good idea in trying to offset and maybe

even reverse some vision loss.

Now, the other behavioral protocols

which have shown to be useful in terms of maintaining

or improving vision relate to the musculature around the eye

and the control of the movement of the lens.

And actually, the lens of the eye has its own flexibility.

It's a really, really interesting structure.

I'll geek out on this far too long

if I don't prevent myself from doing so,

but the lens is just incredible.

The fact that it has a specific structure of proteins

like crystallines and things of that sort

and that it can still derive nourishment from blood flow

but does not actually have vasculature within it.

So it's not-- if you notice the lens of your eyes

and filled with blood vessels and capillaries

because it needs light to pass through,

super interesting structure I think

the only violation of what I just said is the manatee.

Those pigs are underwater, elephant-like creatures

that I think were or are endangered.

Down in Florida, they were getting chopped up

by speedboats, but I think now there's

some effort to preserve those big gentle giants.

The manatee, as I recall, has a vascularized lens, which

is why their eyes look opaque.

It looks like they have cataracts.

In any case, you're not a manatee.

You have no blood vessel supply to the lens.

Keeping that lens clear is vital nowadays.

They can do lens replacement.

There's really a pretty incredible progress

in the realm of ophthalmology and surgical replacement

of the lens or the cornea, other aspects of the eye.

But if you're somebody who is interested in maintaining

your vision, you're going to want

to maintain the musculature that controls

the movement and the change of shape in that lens

and the movement of the eyes, which allows you to transition

your vision from very sharp when viewing things

up close to very sharp one viewing things at a distance.

And this is where some of the so-called near-far exercises

can be very useful.

So when we did a full length podcast on eye health

and improving eyesight, which I invite

you to listen to if you like, talked

about two different types of vision exercises that

have been shown to be useful for improving vision

at a level of acuity that have a lot

to do with improving the musculature and the movement

of the eyes and the lens.

And that's what's called a smooth pursuit task.

So you could go on to YouTube if you like and put smooth pursuit

eye task and do this for a few minutes each day

if you're trying to keep your vision strong.

And what that task involves is, as the name suggests,

smoothly tracking a small dot or crosshatch or arrow

on the screen, which is very different

than the so-called saccade type eye movements

that we often make.

Saccades are when you dart your eyes to a particular location

to look at something that dart it to another location

to look at something.

Microsaccades are little, tiny versions

of those that were doing most all of the time,

believe it or not.

When you look at a visual scene or image,

if you did not have those little microsaccades,

your brain would adapt or would attenuate

to whatever you were looking at, and the visual image

would actually disappear, which really

speaks to how important it is that your perceptions change

in order to maintain them.

This is very similar to where if something

is placed on your hand, say a finger,

you'll notice that change, but then

if you leave it there for a short while,

you'll forget that it's there because the cells there

have adapted out.

There's no change.

So your nervous system is largely responding to change.

This is also why when you walk into a room

and you'll often notice a novel smell,

let's hope it's a good smell, after a few minutes

or so, you don't notice the smell anymore

because your olfactory system adapted that away.

So a lot of that adaptation is prevented

by those little microsaccades.

And the macrosaccades, the bigger saccades,

are really for moving your eyes around

to look for things in visual space.

Smooth pursuit is a very particular kind

of visual behavior that you can do in a smooth pursuit

task and zero cost.

Costs a little bit of time I suppose to do this on YouTube.

And most any of them will do.

We can provide a link in the show note captions of one

that we like or several that we like,

but by doing that smooth pursuit task for a bit each day,

maybe just a minute or two, you're

maintaining your ability through the musculature of the eye

to do smooth pursuit.

And, of course, you do smooth pursuit

when you move about your day, but for people

that are trying to offset or reverse vision loss, doing

some additional deliberate smooth pursuit exercises

can be useful.

The other visual exercise that can be very useful

is the so-called near-far exercise.

So this is best accomplished, I think,

by holding out a pen or pencil in front of your eyes,

in front of your head, and focusing very intensely

through what's called a vergence eye movement, where you bring

both eyes to the tip of the pen and then moving

that pen closer and closer and closer to your eyes,

where you get close enough that you actually

have to deliberately bring your eyes--

for those of you listening, this is

what I'm doing right now-- to the point where it's blurry

and you can no longer hold it in sharp, crisp relief.

You can't see it sharply that is.

And then you can move it out a little bit distance

and play right around that threshold

where it's hard to keep it in focus

and then move it back out again.

And then in doing that for even a minute or two, you'll find

is a bit of a strain on your eyes,

but you can actually build up the musculature

and the neuromuscular connections that allow you

to do that more efficiently.

And that has been shown to improve

certain aspects of vision, especially when people

are diligent about doing those exercises,

not necessarily every day, but let's say

three days a week or so.

They can be very fast.

I actually find them fun for reasons

that escape me entirely.

Now, how close you can bring that object

and still maintain it in sharp focus

will vary from person to person based on a number of things.

First of all, how healthy and well-performing

their neural retina is, whether or not

they have myopia or hyperopia, nearsightedness, et cetera,

whether or not, for instance, you're

like me and you have a fairly close inter pupillary distance,

or whether or not you're more wall eyed

and you have your eyes set further apart.

All those things will dictate the exact performance

of that task, but nonetheless, it's

a very useful task to do when trying to maintain or improve

vision.

Now, of course, there are a lot more behavioral tools

that one could use to maintain or enhance vision.

I'm really touching on the biggest

and what I consider the most important ones that

are most accessible to people without the need

for any fancy equipment at all.

And if you want to learn more about other behavioral tools

that one can use to maintain or enhance vision,

please see the episode that we did on eyesight.

You can simply go to hubermanlab.com.

Put into the search function, eyesight or vision.

It'll take you right to it.

In fact, everything on that website is keyword indexed

and will take you to the various episodes and time stamps

that you're interested in according to that keyword.

Now, the person who asked this question, who by the way,

is Page Singer, thank you Page Singer,

and the question got a lot of upvotes

because apparently there's a lot of interest in this,

understandably so, asked about nutrition and supplements

for maintaining or improving vision.

That could be a very lengthy conversation,

but let's just summarize it with a few brief points

that we know stand based on the clinical and scientific

research.

We've all heard that carrots are good for your eyes.

Well, it's not carrots per se that are good for your eyes.

It's vitamin A that's essential for the so-called

phototransduction cascade.

The phototransduction cascade is the process

by which the photoreceptors, which

are in the back of the retina, at least if you're human,

they're in the back of the retina,

take photons, light energy, and convert it

into electrical signals that's then

conveyed to the other cells and neurons within the retina

and then passed into the brain to create visual perceps.

Most people can't get enough of this fat soluble vitamin,

we call vitamin A, by making sure

that they eat at least some dark green leafy vegetables.

And that they do that in their closest

to raw form, maybe cooked a little bit

but not overly cooked.

There are other sources of vitamin A out.

There you can look those up online just for sources

of vitamin A. Most people will be able to get enough vitamin

A from their nutrition and won't require it from a supplement,

provided that it's not present at excessively high levels

in a foundational supplement or vitamin mineral supplement.

Getting some additional vitamin A

from a foundational supplement or vitamin mineral supplement

is probably not going to be an issue unless you really

take in far too much of that vitamin

A. It could potentially provide some insurance.

But, again, I think most people can get enough vitamin

A from their diet if they are taking carrots

or to eat the foods that contain vitamin A,

green leafy vegetables being one.

The other food that's known to be highly enriched in vitamin A

is liver, one of my least favorite foods regardless

of what animal that liver comes from.

Liver is somewhat of a popular/controversial organ

meat in the nutrition space for reasons

that aren't interesting, for sake of this discussion

anyway I suppose for those of you

that like liver, you could eat a little bit of liver

every once in a while.

It is rich in a number of things that are beneficial to health,

although for you vegans out there,

I'm sure you'll want to avoid liver entirely.

I avoid liver because I just simply

don't like the way it tastes.

Maybe once or twice I've tasted liver

that was appetizing to me.

And it can be OK, but it's just not, or at least by my read it,

can be OK, but it's not a food that I actively

seek out, order, or prepare for myself on a regular basis.

So fortunately, there are other sources of vitamin A as well.

And, again, I just invite you to all put into a web search food

sources of vitamin and figure out

how to get your daily dose of vitamin A

by taking in foods that you like for you.

And then in terms of supplementation

of things that can enhance vision, this is a newer area.

And frankly, it's an area where most of the data

point to some supplements that can potentially

be beneficial in certain disease conditions.

So for instance, in fairly progressed age-related macular

degeneration.

Age-related macular degeneration is

fairly common, or more common than we would like,

we should say.

And it does appear that supplementing

with certain things like lutein, which is present in eggs,

or egg yolks in particular, especially egg yolks that

aren't overly cooked, or that can be supplemented

can potentially help with some instances

of age-related macular degeneration.

But the data on this are still emerging.

I consulted with our chair of ophthalmology

at Stanford about lutein and some of the other things

that you'll see out there, like zeaxanthin and astaxanthins.

And these xanthins come from certain fruits

like blueberries, and they're present in supplements

and things of that sort.

The consensus I got talking to him

and talking to some other ophthalmologists

are that if you're really aiming to get a healthy diet,

you're avoiding cigarette smoking.

And by healthy diet I mean getting

sufficient amounts of vitamin A and lutein

through food sources.

Again, you can look up where those food sources are,

egg yolks just being one of them.

Well, then chances are you're not

going to need to supplement with lutein or the zeaxanthins

or the astaxanthins.

However, I have heard anecdotal reports from a number of people

that they'll start taking a supplement for eye health,

there are a number of them out there--

we are not, as a podcast, affiliate

with any of those eye health supplements by the way--

and people are reporting enhanced vision.

I receive emails all the time that say, I'm

taking this lutein at 20 milligrams per day,

and there I should mention that the dosage that's

been explored in a couple of studies

is 10 to 20 milligrams per day.

Again, you could get that from foods.

You could go above that if you're more cavalier,

or you could go toward the lower end of that,

10 to 20 milligrams per day, if you are somebody

who's more conservative.

I should say.

Well, there aren't people out there who are,

looking at lutein, they think it's fairly safe,

and they're taking higher dosages of lutein,

so 20 to 30 milligrams per day.

They're also taking supplements that

contain zeaxanthins and astaxanthins

and are reporting anecdotally that their vision is enhanced.

I don't dispute those claims, but as of now, there

aren't many papers, I could only find about 4,

3 really solid ones and then a fourth, that point

to the specific disease instances

where supplementing with lutein, zeaxanthin, or astaxanthin

can be beneficial for slowing the progression of things

like advanced onset age-related macular degeneration.

And the degree of offset for that macular degeneration

was slight.

It wasn't enormous, but it was robust enough

that it warranted reporting in the paper.

Or things like Lieber's, which is a particular eye disease.

It impacts a whole different set of systems in the eye.

So basically, what I'm trying to say

is, when it comes to supplements to support eye health,

make sure you're getting enough vitamin A from your diet.

If you're not, consider supplementation

or consider changing your diet somewhat

to make sure you can get that lutein and vitamin A.

And if you are interested in it, and it's within your budget,

I don't know of any evidence that supplementing

with additional lutein, zeaxanthin, and astaxanthin

can be dangerous at all.

So for those of you that are really

interested in maintaining or improving your vision,

that might be an area that you want to explore.

I personally am not taking lutein, zeaxanthin,

or astaxanthin, at least not at this time.

I do take a foundational supplement,

which is my source of vitamin A in addition to my food sources.

But I don't suffer from vision loss

anywhere, readers at night, and I have for a long time.

I have a little bit of a muscular weakness

in one of my eyes that originated in childhood.

So occasionally, if I get very fatigued, one of my eyes

will deviate a little bit, a little bit

of almost strabismus, especially if I've been awake

for very long periods of time.

It tends to recover once I get a good night's sleep.

Some of you that have experienced

this, where you have one eye that

might just drift a little bit.

I could do this for the camera if you want.

OK, this is weird.

I used to do this to my sister across the table when

we were at a friend's houses for dinner.

So I can actually move one of my eyes

in like this, which actually just reflects

that there's a extraocular muscle closer to my nose.

It's rather weak, which allows me to do that.

I can't do it so well with the opposite eye.

Anyway, now I need to blink to clear my vision.

But the point is that, if you're somebody

who has a slightly deviating eye, slightly,

often if you go to the ophthalmologist or optometrist,

they're going to give you a prism lens which

is going to redirect the image onto that slightly

deflected eyeball.

One thing you'll really want to discuss

with that ophthalmologist or optometrist is whether or not

there are exercises that you could do to overcome

that issue without the need for a prism because what I saw

and what many other people see when they put on a prism lens

is that indeed it can line up their vision

or their visual perception better,

but indeed, it can lead to progressive weakening

of the muscle further and further.

So then that eyeball starts to deviate further and further.

And that raises a larger question, which is,

should we wear corrective lenses?

In fact, if you go online, you'll

find or hear about these examples

of people that stopped wearing their corrective lenses,

their glasses or contacts, in order

to bring their vision back or improve

their vision on their own.

Now, if your vision is quite impaired,

you're going to need corrective lenses or contacts.

However, there are a number of people out there

who find that if their vision is somewhat impaired,

that forcing themselves to view things at a distance

to do smooth pursuit, to do near far,

and to make sure that they're getting adequate nutrition

and things of that sort, can all sum

to help offset some of the visual impairment that would

occur if they were to just pop glasses on their face

and rely on the corrective lenses

in order to focus the light onto the correct area within the eye

onto the neural retina.

So I'm not telling people to throw off or get rid

of their corrective lenses and contacts,

but you can be overly reliant on these things, like a crutch,

in a way that perhaps you want to do a little bit of work

to try and overcome and then maybe work

with a weaker prescription.

And certainly, in the case of prism lenses,

what I mentioned before is a real consideration.

It's one I'm very familiar with.

So as a last but I think very important

and exciting feature of visual improvement is red light.

I talked a little bit about this on the episode of the Huberman

Lab podcast all about light and health.

There's some really spectacular, I

think I consider it spectacular, many other people consider

it spectacular, research out of University College London.

And the work I'm referring to is Glenn Jeffrey's work.

I've known Glenn for a long time.

These are animal studies, and now two human studies,

exploring how exposure to red light early in the day

can offset some of the vision loss related

to age-related macular degeneration, or simply

age-related visual decline.

There's a whole mechanism here that's

discussed in that episode, but it has to do with the fact

that red light and near-infrared light, together, or maybe

even separately, when viewed for even just a minute

to 3 minutes once, or maybe two or three times per week

maximum, can actually reduce the number of what

are called reactive oxygen species in the photoreceptors

that convert photons into electrical signals

the rest of the visual system can understand.

So that's a mouthful.

Basically what they found was, for people 40 years or older,

if they viewed this red light at a distance of about

a foot and a half, although I wouldn't

get too specific with this, for a few minutes each week total,

they were able to offset some of the vision loss

within a particular domain of vision.

And I don't have time to go into the details

here because I do that in the Light for Health episode,

but you have different types of photoreceptors, cones,

and rods.

You have different types of cone photoreceptors

that respond to different wavelengths of light,

short, medium, and long wavelengths of light

so-called blue, green, and red cones,

they're sometimes called.

When these people who are 40 years or older

viewed red light on a consistent basis early in the day,

and it did have to be early in the day,

there was a real circadian effect there,

there was a offset of some of the vision loss

that would normally occur in a particular wavelength

of light range that resulted in better visual acuity overall.

So if you're very concerned about your vision,

or you're into red light therapies, et cetera,

there are a number of different red light devices out there.

At some future point, the Huberman Lab podcast

may partner with one of these red light companies.

So right now, I'm not going to mention any of them

in particular.

They're prominent online.

What you're looking for is a red light unit that provides

red light and maybe far--

near infrared-- excuse me-- light as well.

So something in the 650 to 720 ish nanometer range.

So really it's going to look red or almost invisible

to you if it's really far into the infrared.

And you'll want to view that at a distance of about

a foot and a half to 2 feet.

And you don't want it to be so bright

that it's painful to look at because you

don't want to damage your eyes.

But that's essentially what they used in these studies

from the Jeffrey lab.

And they showed some pretty impressive

offset of some of the aspects of vision loss

in these people 40 and older.

So that's an area that you may want

to explore as well, especially for folks 40 and older.

And, again, this red light exposure

had to be done early in the day.

So hopefully, that collection of behavioral tools near, far,

smooth pursuit, some of the discussion about lutein,

nutrition, vitamin A, supplementation, zeaxanthins,

astaxanthins, getting two hours of light exposure

outside, sunlight exposure, get outside to do some

of your work, and perhaps even deliberate red light exposure

for certain people can be used to offset your concerns

and your action potential vision loss

and maybe even improve your vision regardless of what age

you are.

Everything I described is supported

from the Peer-reviewed literature.

And, again, if you want to get the deep dive on mechanism

and further information about dosages,

please check out the episode on eyesight

and improving your eyesight and the Light for Health episode

again at hubermanlab.com.

Thank you for joining for the beginning

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