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

Welcome to the huberman live podcast where we discuss science and science based tools for everyday life.

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. This is part of our premium subscriber Channel. Our premium subscriber channel was started in order to provide support for this standard huberman Lab podcast which comes out every Monday and is available.

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as concise as possible. The

first question is about, I Health in particular, I Health protocols for people that are a

aging but

I 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 I exercises? I Health

behaviors supplements, etcetera for the Aging. I

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 nine inches away from their face, and their eyes,

maybe two and a half 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.

Change 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, two and a half feet or less. Now,

I am not saying that viewing things that

two-and-a-half feet or less is bad for your eyes.

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, two and a half feet or 3 feet or less. So smart phone computer.

Screen paper books,

Etc, versus viewing things that are four feet away, eight 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, you know, 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 where 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.

To view things during the course of your day, especially during development. There's a classic experiment. 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.

We're a visual occluder or a visual image. So include her is just

a, you know, a black sort of screen or piece of

cardboard or and a image maybe some,

you know, black and white checks or Checkers are

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 were 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 length,

Ethan's 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 and 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 farsightedness the opposite happens,

the visual images

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, you know, when I was growing up, they

All 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 particular 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 a an increase of the incidents 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 has an older adult an elderly person, looking at things up close, too 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 have waiting 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 are somebody who's farsighted 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

From 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. Okay.

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, and a particular distance and where that you want to cut off or have a threshold of, you know, 4 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. So that you spend looking at things,

Say a distance of three feet away or less. 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 three feet relative to the distance from your eye, okay? 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 asked the question that they are quote unquote noticing

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.

You know, it doesn't have to be three hours in three hours, but the more time that you can spend it, 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,

right? 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 window, windshield, don't wear sunglasses for that drink as much sunlight as you can. And your eyes are early in the day, never stare at any light so bright, it's painful. Look at etcetera. Done a lot of episodes on this, we have a light for health episode. This is an all the sleep episode.

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. They 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 these so-called intrinsically sensitive melanopsin 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

But those melanopsin 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 rust. Van gelder 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 right to come on to 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

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 of we choose to be on our

Quite a lot

this effect of getting sunlight Outdoors during the day time 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, you know, an outdoor table if you can

if weather and conditions permit and do some of your phone time and computer time and reading Etc Outdoors. Now if you're already making an effort to get outside,

I'd hike play

sports take walks etcetera. That of course counts towards this to our threshold. And I know this sounds

like a lot, this two hours and yet for most people, you know, 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 audit trigger. The activity of these intrinsically photosensitive, melanopsin 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 you've 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 kind of flexibility. It's

a really, really interesting structure. I'll geek out on this far too long if 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 crystallins.

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 noticed, I mean 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, right? Those pigs were underwater elephant like creatures that I think were, are endangered down in Florida. They were getting chopped up by speed boats, but I think now there's some efforts

Are 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 and in case you're not a manatee, you have no blood vessel

supply to the lens. Keeping that lens clear is vital nowadays that you can. They can do lens. Replacement was really

pretty incredible progress in the, in the realm of optimal, she 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 when 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 am,

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 the 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 I 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 sack odds are when you start your eyes to a particular location. To look at something the dart it to another location to. Look at something microseconds are little tiny versions of those that we're 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 micro saccades, 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, they're of adapted out, there's no change to your nervous system is largely responding to change. This is also why when you walk into a room and you, 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 factory system adapted that

away. So a lot of that ad

Temptation is prevented by

those little micro saccades and the macro cicadas, the bigger. So cod's 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. Again, zero cost cost 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

notes captions and 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 the 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 you know 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 virgin soil.

A movement where you bring both eyes to the tip of the pen. And then moving that

pain, closer and closer and closer to your eyes where you get close enough that you actually have to deliberately bring your eyes. I'm 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 move it out a little bit distance and kind of

play right around that threshold where it's

hard to keep it in Focus. Now,

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. Let's say, 3 days a week or so, they can be very fast sir. I actually find them kind of 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 Etc. Whether or not, for instance, you're like me and you have a

fairly close interpupillary distance or whether or not you're more wall-eyed and you have your eyes set further apart, all those things will 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

More behavioral tools that one could use to maintain or enhance Vision 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 huberman lab.com, put into the search function eyesight or Vision. It will 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 about boats 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

Stan based on the clinical and scientific research.

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

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 there 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 percepts.

Most people can 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.

May be 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, you know, 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 it somewhere.

National vitamin A from a foundational supplement, or vitamin mineral supplement. It's probably not going to be an issue, unless you really taken far too much of that vitamin A and could potentially provide some insurance. But again, I think most people can get enough vitamin A from their diet. If they're taking care 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 awhile, 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. I've maybe once or twice, I've tasted liver that was appetizing to me and it

can be okay, but it's just not

at least by my read. It can be okay, but it's not a food that I actively.

Take 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, you know, food sources of vitamin, A, 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 astaxanthin and you know, these xanthines 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 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 CSA on things or the astaxanthin is.

However I have heard anecdotal reports from a number of people that they'll start taking a supplement

for Eye Health. There are number of them out there. We are not as a podcast affiliated with any of those Eye Health supplements by

Way and people are reporting enhanced

Vision, receive emails all the time. That say, you know, I'm taking this, you know, 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, you know, more Cavalier or you could

go toward the lower end of that, 10 to 20 milligrams per

day. If you are somebody who tries to, who's

more conservative I should

Say well, there aren't people out there who are,

you know, looking at Luton. They think it's fairly safe and they're taking higher dosages of lutein. So 20, 30 mg per day. They're also taking supplements that contains

use them things and astaxanthin ends 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 43,

really solid ones. And then a fourth that point to the specific disease,

Since is, we're supplementing with lutein, zeaxanthin or astaxanthin can be beneficial for slowing. The

progression of things like Advanced onset of 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 was it warranted reporting in the paper

or things like lieber's which is a

particular eye disease. 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, I help. Make sure you're getting enough, vitamin A from your diet. If you're

Not consider supplementation

or consider changing your diet. Some want 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 who 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 least not at this time. I do take a foundation.

Will supplement, which is my source of vitamin A, in addition to my food sources,

but

I don't suffer from vision loss, if you where 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 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. Okay, this is weird. I used to do this to my sister across the table and we were at friends houses for dinner. So I can actually move one of my eyes in like this, which actually just reflects that there's a mussel extract, killer muscle closer in my nose. It's rather weak which allows me to kind of do that. I can't do it. So well, with the opposite. I anyway, now I need to Blink to kind of clear my vision, but the

point is that if you're somebody who has a slightly deviating, I slightly

often, if you go to the ophthalmologist or optometrist there,

Give you a Prizm 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 Prizm lens is that indeed, it can line up their Vision where the visual perception better, but indeed, it

can lead to Progressive weakening of the muscle further and further, so that 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 that 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 also some to help offset some

of the visual impairment that would occur if they were to just pop glasses on their face and and rely on the corrective lenses in order to focus that the light onto the correct area within the eye on to 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