Your Daily Eating Habits Can Protect Your Sight

Your eyes do not live in isolation. They are wired into your brain, your nervous system, your sleep, and your daily habits and that means “better vision” often starts with choices that look nothing like an eye chart.

We walk through the food and lifestyle routines Dr. Mark Grossman follows personally as an integrative medical optometrist and acupuncturist with decades of experience in natural eye care. We get specific about diet for eye health and brain health, including why absorption matters more than good intentions, how mindful eating (no distractions, slower chewing) supports digestion, and why an alkaline-leaning pattern with more fruits and vegetables and fewer refined carbs can change how you feel. We also talk about the Mediterranean diet and the MIND diet as practical frameworks, then share a flexible juicing recipe loaded with greens, berries, healthy fats, and supportive add-ins like ginger and chia.

From there, we connect nighttime routines to repair, including finishing meals at least three hours before bed, and we explore stress tools that calm the body fast. Meditation, deep breathing, and even simple vagus nerve practices like gargling and yawning help shift you into a parasympathetic state that supports recovery. We also cover movement, social connection, and how to handle computer eye strain with eye exercise breaks and the 20-20-20 rule.

If you care about macular degeneration prevention, dry eye relief, and protecting long-term vision as you age, this is a simple plan you can act on today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who stares at screens all day, and leave a review so more people can find natural, practical eye health strategies.

For more information, visit naturaleyecare.com and doctorgrossman2020.com

Our email address is info@naturaleyecare.com

If you have any questions, call us 845-475-4158

Transcript

Holistic Eye Health Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is the Natural Eye Care Podcast, hosted by leading holistic optometrist Dr. Mark R. Grossman. Senior citizens are at the highest risk of developing macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts, dry eye, and more. The Natural Eye Care Podcast provides complementary and natural approaches to vision problems, eye health, and overall health. Find out how lifestyle, diet, and nutrition can help maintain healthy vision and even improve eyesight. Dr. Grossman has degrees in optometry, biology, physical education, and learning disabilities. He is a New York State licensed acupuncturist. With 40 years of experience, he has co-authored the book Natural Eye Care: Your Guide to Healthy Vision and Healing.

How To Eat For Absorption

Alkaline Eating And Best Diets

Juicing For Eyes And Brain

Nighttime Eating And Eye Repair

Meditation And Vagus Nerve Tricks

Friends And Movement For Brain

Eye Exercises And Screen Strain

Happiness Plus Final Resources

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Dr. Grossman. I'm Dr. Mark Grossman, integrative medical optometrist, acupuncturist, in practice for over 45 years, and author of five books on natural eye care. And today's podcast is something that I follow myself every day. How can we have a better diet for brain and overall health? Eating a healthy diet is one of the most critical factors in helping both maintain good brain, eye, and overall health. Also, it's not just what we put in our body, it's the way we eat that affects our digestion and how we are able to break down and absorb the essential nutrients in the foods we take in. Because it's not about what we take in, it's how much we really absorb and use. And here are some basic recommendations. Avoid distractions. Eat without distractions. Eat slowly. Chew at least 20 times if you can, without watching TV or being distracted by other activities. Eat healthy foods. Eat a healthy diet. Choose an alkaline diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables that is low in refined carbohydrates and sugar. Eating poor quality foods leads to poor brain and eye function. My favorite diet are the Mediterranean diet, or better yet, the mind diet, M I N D. Try to make a juice at least a few times a week. Here's a general juicing recipe for the eye and the brain. Green leafy vegetables such as kale, broccoli, red beets, parsley, avocado, apples, blueberries, black currant, blackberries, goji berries, maybe some citrus fruits such as a lemon and apple or kiwi, stock grapes, pomegranate juice, prunes, walnuts, chia seeds, yogurt, ginger, and honey. You don't have to use all of them, but maybe pick a few from that category. Here's a good one. Go to bed a little hungry. Finish eating at least three hours before bedtime. The liver and the gallbladder, the meridians that relate to the eye mostly than all the other meridians, is most active between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. So if the body's energies are being used for digestion, the repair function will not be at their optimal level. And that's why a lot of people get up between 2 to 3 a.m. It's due to their liver meridian and gallbladder meridian not functioning well. Remember, the liver meridian opens to the eyes, so it's the primary energy flow for overall eye health. So from a Chinese medical perspective, the peak, eye repair, goes from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. in the morning. Be consistent. Maintain consistent furniture locations and daily patterns. Meditate. Reduce anxiety with meditation. Some forms of meditation daily will lower cortisol levels and halt that flight and fight mode. Three studies all reported significant findings, all trending towards significant in a broad range of measures. This included a reduction of cognitive decline, a reduction in perceived stress, increase in the quality of life, as well as an increase in functional connectivity, percent volume brain change, and cerebral blood flow in areas of the cortex. Daily practice of meditation helped all those, including improve attention, reduce depression, improve sleeping. Researchers identified meditation-based interventions with an improved quality of life. Another really interesting thing to stimulate the vagus nerve and put you into parasympathetic is gargling. That's right, just gargle some water, and that will help also relax your nervous system, along with yawning. Set aside at least 20 minutes per day, even if it's 10 minutes twice a day, for some mindful relaxation. Could be prayer, yoga, even a walk in the woods. Because as a culture, we are NDD. What's NDD? Nature deficit disorder. So go outside in the woods if possible. Simply taking a few deep breaths engages the vagus nerve, which triggers a signal within your nervous system to slow heart rate, lower blood pressure, and decrease cortisol levels. Be a friend. Socialize with a friend one or two times a week. In a 2016 study, researchers found that there was a 7.5 times greater risk in association between loneliness and the amount of amyloid deposited in the brain. Want to help your brain? Which helps you rise? Because embryologically, physiologically, neurologically, the eye is brain tissue. Hang out in community. Keep moving. Get exercise regularly, daily, or at least four to five times a week, as much as you can move. Take the stairs. Don't take the elevator if you have to. Research has found that exercise improves almost all, that's right, all health conditions, including vision conditions. Significant reductions in dementia risk. Aerobic exercises associated with reduced gray and white matter brain tissue loss. And eye exercises. That's right. Visit naturaley care.com and get some of those eye exercises we recommend. Take regular eye exercise breaks from the computer. Symptoms of computer eye strain, is that's right, is the number one, not number two, number one complaint eye doctors receive from their patients. My eyes hurt when I'm on the computer. They feel dry. So take breaks. Do the 2020-20 rule. Every 20 minutes, try to relax your eyes looking at 20 feet for at least 20 seconds. And be happy. Cultivate and encourage a positive attitude. Having a positive attitude has shown to increase one's average lifespan 7.5 years compared to a negative mental attitude. So people say, how can you be doing the same work for 45 years? You know what? It's not work. I love it. This is my passion to help you protect your precious gift of sight. So visit us at naturaleycare.com and come to some of my workshops online and in person. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

For more information, visit naturaleycare.com and doctorgrossman2020.com. Our email address is info at naturaleycare.com. If you have any questions, call us 845-475-4158. And if you don't already subscribe to this podcast, please subscribe and review us.