Nutritional Revolution Podcast

Unlocking Performance Through Vision with Dr. Bryce Appelbaum

• Season 6 • Episode 189

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How Vision Training Transforms Brain Health, Learning, and Peak Performance

In episode #189 we spoke with Dr. Bryce Appelbaum about the connection between vision, brain health, and athletic performance. The neuro-optometrist is dedicated to transforming how we view sight, and how vision training rewires the eye-brain connection to optimize performance, recovery, and resilience in a screen-dominated world.

KEY TOPICS

  • The distinction between eyesight and vision: visual clarity versus brain processing
  • Vision performance training as PT for the eyes and brain
  • How visual processing impacts athletic performance and mental clarity
  • Practical tips for screen time management and eye health
  • The role of vision in concussion recovery and brain injury rehabilitation
  • Top habits for preserving and enhancing vision over time
  • The unique benefits of colored light and blue light blocking glasses

Please note that this podcast is created strictly for educational purposes and should never be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.

ABOUT DR. BRYCE APPELBAUM:

Dr. Appelbaum is a pioneer in neuro-optometry passionate about unlocking human potential through vision. He is the trusted authority in functional vision, an international Ted X speaker, and the creator of Vision Performance Training, a transformative approach that rewires the eye-brain connection, heals post-concussion vision dysfunction, and builds long-term visual resilience. 

He is the founder and CEO of MyVisionFirst, a leading private practice specializing in diagnosing and treating functional vision problems across all ages, with offices in Bethesda and Annapolis, Maryland. He is also the founder and CEO of ScreenFit™, the revolutionary online vision training program designed to minimize the damage of digital devices on vision, reduce symptoms, and promote healthy visual habits for extended screen use. Through his work optimizing the eye-brain connection, Dr. Appelbaum has supported thousands of patients around the world to thrive in a screen-heavy society—because 20/20 eyesight isn’t the whole story. Additionally, Dr. Appelbaum has worked with hundreds of professional athletes in every sport imaginable, numerous professional and collegiate sports teams, and countless amateur athletes to transform raw talent into honed performance through vision. 

Dr. Appelbaum has been featured on the front page of USA Today, on NBC & CBS, in The Times, and The NY Times Sunday Magazine,, and is a frequent podcast guest having recently been interviewed on Dave Asprey’s “The Human Upgrade,” Dr. Rangan Chatterjee’s “Feel Better, Live More,” Max Lugavere’s “The Genius Life,” MindBodyGreen, and dozens more.  

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TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - Introduction to Dr. Bryce Appelbaum and the importance of vision beyond 2020
01:02 - Vision training as rewiring the eye-brain connection
01:23 - Differentiating eyesight (symptom) vs. vision (brain function)
04:31 - How vision problems are brain problems tackled through training
05:45 - Vision therapy, orthoptics, and integrating movement for brain health
06:52 - Vision's impact on athlete performance and neuroregulation
07:04 - Why standard eye exams might miss functional vision issues critical for athletes
08:37 - Visual processing load and brain energy consumption
09:43 - Effects of screen time overload: tunnel vision and fatigue
10:16 - Visual markers of fatigue and stress, including eyelid twitching
11:37 - Managing fatigue from excessive screen use
12:14 - Vision training programs like Screen Fit and their accessibility benefits
13:01 - Exercises for improving focus and peripheral awareness at your desk
14:02 - Practical ergonomic setups for optimal visual health
16:13 - Safe distances for screens and signs of focusing fatigue
17:11 - Risks of near-work and screen reliance in children and adults
18:28 - The potential for reversing presbyopia and age-related vision decline
20:10 - Data collection, clinical trials, and scientific backing of vision rehab
21:15 - Post-concussion visual symptoms and personalized recovery strategies
22:14 - Recognizing hidden signs of concussion beyond the obvious
23:40 - The role of vision therapy in head injury recovery
25:40 - Protocols for recent concussion versus long-term symptoms
26:32 - Concussion symptoms duration and visual recovery potential
28:32 - Impact of head injuries on eye coordination and visual processing
30:49 - How vision training can recalibrate brain function after injury
33:09 - Visual strategies for athlete return-to-sport post-concussion
34:35 - Why screens are more stressful than print and blue light considerations
36:02 - The science behind blue light, sleep, and hormonal regulation
39:57 - First steps for someone suspecting a vision problem or history of head injury
40:57 - What athletes should ask their eye doctor for deeper functional assessments
42:23 - Daily habits to preserve and enhance visual function
44:09 - Resources and tools for proactive vision care, including the Screen Fit program
45:36 - Practical eye exercises that boost visual flexibility and stamina
46:01 - Follow Dr. Bryce Appelbaum on social media for ongoing insights
46:25 - Myths and truths about vision training's impact on weight, height, and confidence
48:15 - The systemic effects of visual regulation on stress hormones and overall health
49:14 - The surprising link between vision and social confidence
50:04 - Closing remarks & opportunities for future episodes and collaborations

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution Podcast. It's your host, Kyla Channell and we have for you guys Dr. Bryce Appelbaum For decades, we've been told that 2020 eyesight means perfect vision, but eyesight and vision are not the same thing. Our guest today, Dr. Bryce Appelbaum, is a neurooptometrist and the founder of My Vision First, a premier private practice specializing in functional vision care. He is the creator of Vision Performance Training, a groundbreaking approach that rewires the eye-brain connection to enhance performance, accelerate post-concussion recovery, and build long-term visual resilience. Through his work with My Vision First, Screen Fit, and Neurooptometric Rehab, Dr. Appelbaum has helped thousands from students to elite athletes thrive in a screen-dominated world. A board certified fellow of the College of In vision development, Dr. Appelbaum is redefining how we think about sight because 2020 isn't the full story. He shows how vision performance training can rewire the eye-brain connection to restore clarity, unleash confidence, and unlock your full potential in the modern world. We will definitely be having Bryce back because this was an awesome episode, you guys. I learned a ton. You are going to enjoy it. Welcome back to the Nutritional Revolution Podcast, you guys. We have Dr. Bryce Appelbaum, or aka Dr. B. Thanks for joining us. Oh, I am super psyched. This is definitely gonna be a one-of-a-kind episode for our listeners. So um definitely hang in here. This is a very cool topic. Um, but before we get to dive into that very cool topic, we're gonna let Bryce break down his two truths and a lie see what we find out about you. Yes. All right. So just to give a little bit of perspective. So I'm a functional eye doctor. My specialty is optimizing the eye-brain connection. And we do a specific form of treatment we created called vision performance training. So it's kind of like PT for the eyes, but for the brain through the eyes. So my Two Truths and a Lie are related to vision training. And I would say I'll say all three and not it not giving the answers till the end, right? Okay. So I'll say I've had patients who've improved their dating life through vision training. I've had patients who've gained two inches in height through their vision training. And I've had patients lose 15 pounds in a week through their vision training. Whoa. So two of those are are true, one is not necessarily true and I'll I can give the feedback after. Okay, don't tell me the answer. I feel like fifteen pounds in a week is a lot. So I feel my immediate thought goes to that. Maybe it's like a certain bout of weight loss, but not 15 pounds. I don't know. But I'm definitely if it's true, I have got to hear the story on like what was going on there. I think that's a lie, but don't tell don't tell us the answer. Um, the two inches of height is very interesting too. Like physical changes in the body outside of the eyes. Um, cool. And we'll learn a lot of the work we're doing. It's it's all brain and functional vision problems are brain problems. So when we can influence the brain, as you know better than most people, like we can influence so many aspects of performance, but then also function and and even some structure as well. Yeah. my gosh. So cool. So cool. I'm personally very excited for this. Um, but also of course we do this for for our listeners. Um, okay, you have a TED talk, which we are going to link in the show notes for our listeners, but you brought up in the TED talk 2020 eyesight isn't the full story, and you broke down kind of a difference between eyesight and vision. Can you share kind of like the Cliff Notes version of that with for our listeners? And and that to me is like the biggest take-home from this conversation here that eyesight and vision are not the same thing and that there's so much more to vision than just 2020 eyesight. So think of eyesight as our ability to focus light clearly. It's a symptom. That's what glasses are for. So that's letters on the letter chart in an eye exam, street signs when you're driving, what the teacher writes on the board in the classroom for a child. Vision. Is so much more complex. And vision is how our brain filters, organizes, and processes all the information coming in through the eyes to know how to make sense of it, drive meaning, and then direct the appropriate action. So think of eyesight is a symptom, eyesight is glasses, vision is brain, vision problems are brain problems, and there are solutions and treatments for these brain problems, uh, specifically with something like vision training. So interesting. Um, and you mentioned too before we your tutors and lie, you said um the work you do is like PT for your eyes. I'm curious, is does that exist in our health system? It does. So there's a couple different modalities. There's something called vision therapy. There's something called vision training. There's something called orthoptics. And then even kind of a little bit externally, there's vestibular based physical therapy for vestibular dysfunction. There's even sensory integration based occupational therapy. Um, but I would say the work we do is more of a kind of hybrid of all these, more of a methodology because it incorporates movement balance, thinking, cognition, vestibular input. Into the vision training work because vision doesn't operate in isolation of these systems. but you know, we it's we were more than half my practice is concussion and traumatic brain injury rehab. We see a lot of people with eye turns or lazy eyes as an alternative surgery, learn how to straighten their eyes. We see people with dyslexia or ADD or ADHD where it's not that it's functional vision problems causing the same symptoms and behaviors. And then we just see a lot of athletes who are like, I want to get an advantage based off of my dominant sense. guiding and leading and and and improving in terms of different percentage points. So so much can be done when we tap into our dominant sense to give us uh an advantage in the world. Yeah, that is so fascinating. Um, okay, so as you know, most of our listeners are endurance athletes. Most of them, I'm just gonna make a vast assumption here, but a lot of them have passed their eye exam when I'm and especially when I think about checking in with my clients. Maybe they have contacts in, but they're not wearing glasses. why wouldn't that be like a green light that they think it is for maybe riding? We can think about mountain biking or gravel cycling, road biking. Um what what should we be thinking about here besides So j with I know I'm biased, but with the eyes, there's more of a discrepancy than any other part of the body. We are in a reactive medical system. We're looking at intervening when there's disease. We're looking at structure, but we're not looking at function and taking a proactive approach. And as an eye doctor, myself included, we're all trained how to manage vision decline rather than recognize what could be done to unlock potential. So When you get an eye exam and they say you it's it's basically looking at can you read tiny letters on the bottom of a small chart in a dark room far away, but not looking at functional skills. So the tracking, the focusing, the eye coordination, the depth perception, that is what's needed for endurance athletes, for cyclists, for people who have to react to visual information, have to take in what's around them and in front of them in a more dynamic fashion. And, you know, an endurance athlete can have world-class lungs and legs, but if their brain is spending excess energy processing visual information, they're leaving a massive piece of performance still on the table. Oh, interesting. Okay. This kind of leads me to my next question, which was, um, I had heard that half the brain is involved in visual processing. So t on that exact note, is it is it so it's possible that someone could be kind of utilizing like more than necessary amounts of brain power to take things in? I I would say it's not possible, it's probable. Especially in this digital world that we're all in, where our brains are often on overdrive just trying to align point and focus the eyes, that the ability to process and take all that in is not even close to as efficient, automatic, or unconscious as it's supposed to be. And, you know, so much of sensory overload and our brain experiencing f fog and fatigue, you know, has to do with our Visual system taxing the brain or toxicity or stress from our environment causing these adaptations. And the biggest toxicity to our nervous system that we're all experiencing, even you and me right now, is screen time and shifting how our brain is literally taking in space. I mean, when our visual system is in a fight or flight response, our pupils widen, we get stuck in with this tunnel vision effect. Mm. That's how we're all operating on screens. Our thinking, our attention, and our vision become tunneled. And so then all of a sudden you start to lose stamina and flexibility and so much shifts in terms of the processing and how we're able to to take in the world. So one of the hidden markers of fatigue, especially for athletes in your pi in your community, it's not just slowing down, it's kind of seeing less of the world around you or seeing the world around you in a very different way. Mm-hmm. This is making me want to ask so many personal questions. Um, okay. Well, first of all, funny enough, we have our podcast today. I'm coming to meet with you. I don't even know if you can see this or not, but my left lower eyelid is twitching. Yes. All right. So typically that's something called myochymia, which is basically from st either fatigue, caffeine, stress, or a lot of other things, but the brain uh having a hard time innervating what controls the lids. And it's usually one lid at a time, and it's usually just on one side, and it's usually a great sign that I say this with love, you just gotta take a little bit better care of yourself. And so a lot of a lot of people say, like before big meetings, by the end of the day, or if they haven't slept well, their lids start freaking out. I mean, obviously you want to rule out scary stuff, but that's very, very unlikely. And if it's one lid and it's in situations like this, it it's usually just that and and fatigue. Yeah. I had like an excessive amount of screen time the other day. And then it started after that. And after that day, like to you kind of what you're talking about with the brain is like my brain felt like a scrambled egg at the end of the day. Like I wanted to just like I didn't even want to open my eyes, but I was awake. You know, I wanted to like shut my eyes and like not take in any vis visual processing. Is that normal? I mean, I would say it's really common. I would not normal, but it's also not normal for us to be on screens all day. The average American right now, adult, spends seven hours and four minutes a day on a screen. That's average. The average eight to ten year old spends six hours a day on a screen. And our eyes and brains are not designed to take in that amount of strain and process that much visual information. And from the glare, the brightness, the junk light, the contrast, I mean It puts the visual system under s under stress and under tension. And tension over time, unless you're trying to get really buff, that's not good for our visual system and and that's what causes function to to drastically shift. Yeah. Do you have tips for how someone 'cause I did um I so we'll link this in the notes too, but uh Bryce has a what would you call it? Like a program the screen fit So it's an online vision training program designed to teach the specific visual skills and abilities for life. And it's kind of like doing bodyweight work at home instead of going to a gym. It's it's a way to make vision training more accessible for the masses. But of course, you know, if you go to the gym, if you work with one of a doc and who's board certified in real life with a customized program, it's better results faster. But this is a nice way to really make screens less terrible and have more of that kind of visual foundation needed to thrive in this digital world. Mm-hmm. So I was telling Bryce before we got on the call, I'm I'm working my way through the screen fit program. And I I was immediately thinking of like athletes because there's a lot of stuff in there with like eye tracking. And I'm think of whether it's like someone trying to catch something or someone on a bike and trying to process what's ahead, but also like, I don't know, like a rock in the road or a pothole they need to avoid and being able to like see that coming close to you or, you know, and being able to to move around that appropriately and safely to prevent. A crash and a concussion. We're gonna talk about concussions here in a second, but um very cool. But it also made me think I'm I'm maybe you go over this in the app, but I haven't gotten to it. But how should someone who is primarily working from their desk or at a computer the majority of their day, how should they be setting themselves up for success at their computer? Yeah. I would say there's definitely let's call it a three-prong approach. So, first, just like we train our bodies and every muscle in our body, we should be training the eye brain connection. And that can start with simple exercises. So uh we could even go through some here on you know on the podcast. There's 30 in each course on Screen Fit that has tangible things to work on and do. But um I have a lot of of patients and and a lot of pro athletes that we've worked with who have pre-game rituals or every day if they know they've got back to back zooms, like they're doing before, middle at the end, the top three exercises for them. I think in general, we should all be taking a ton of vision breaks. So I always talk about the twenty, twenty, twenty rule, which is at least every twenty minutes of screen time taking a break for at least twenty seconds and look at something at least twenty feet away. So you're kind of disengaging, you're letting the focusing system let go, you're letting the eye teaming system diverge and kind of look soft more panoramically, and then you come back and you can achieve at the same level for longer. So it'd kind of be like if you had three hours of sc of screen time, if you go three hours straight pounding through without looking away, performance drops with time. But if you're doing three hours with, you know, breaks every 20 minutes, you're able to reset and come back and and achieve at a higher level. So I think that's something and you shared before you have a window Mm-hmm. In front of my desk, yeah. perfect to be able to look out, let go, and then come back in. And so I think that's one simple way. I always tell people to set a timer on your phone. There's certain apps that do this as well. You can adjust the brightness, the glare, the contrast on the screen. You can have the ergonomics set up so that, you know, the line of sight is a little bit Is kind of at the top at about fifteen degrees below the midline. You can make sure you're not sitting too close. You can make sure you've got the right screen protectors on and things like that. But ultimately, I think the biggest lever we can all pull is is training the eye brain connections so that we can crush screen time, even though most of us can't get there without need without the work to to train that system. Right. Is there a distance like we should be sitting from our screens? Yeah, so for most people with like a desktop, if you put your arm totally straight, the tip of your middle finger is kind of the closest you want to go. And so you're kind of that distance away. Uh with laptops or handheld devices, you never want to go closer than what's called the Harman distance. So you're if you stick your f your uh fist to your face, middle knuckle to elbow, never closer than that. Okay. And if someone's going closer, that means what? So typically if you're leaning and going closer, it's because the focusing system, the accommodative system, the inside muscles of the eyes responsible for clarity, is getting tired quickly. And we want that to be like an old school camera lens that's on autofocus. But if it's stuck on manual focus, that means you're adjusting your body to compensate for what that system's not doing as naturally on its own as it should or could. And so we see that with kids. all the time. Like a kid who's got getting closer and closer to the tablet or like leaning on the desk. I mean, they're literally making it so their focusing system doesn't even have to do the work. Ah, yes. Okay. Interesting. Um can then infl often influences distance eyesight because the problem is at near, the symptom is far away. If we address the problem, the symptom improves or even reverses in some cases. But if we just address the symptom, it's here's stronger glasses, here's stronger contacts. You adapt to that. You need something stronger to maintain that same clarity. You go down this vicious cycle because you're completely not even acknowledging the root cause. Yeah. So like enlarging the font on your device or your screen is like is that cheat cheating? If you say say it depends on the age. So for most people, like forties and beyond, we start to hold things farther away till arms aren't long enough and then we grab those over the counter readers, you know, the drill there. In that case, well, first of all, in that case, just like any other system in our body, if you don't use it, you lose it. So you can train that system so that the fall off is much slower. And if you do enough work with we do these intensive programs in my office, you can actually reverse that, which Five years, seven years ago, I would have said that's not possible. Now definitely we can do that. We have the the protocols in place. But especially in that 40s age, I would say it's important to keep the pr the print and the font small because it forces the brain to lock in and engage. For a younger child who it's not the muscles becoming more rigid and less flexible, it's more just it hasn't been developed or you know, there's other challenges there, then I think making it bigger can be helpful. Hm. So interesting. Yeah. too small is causing strain and headache and and fatigue, then you know, I think there's a delicate balance between do how big do we go while still focusing and using that system, but ultimately let's train the brain so it can handle it. Yeah, this is all so neat. Like so neat. my gosh. Okay. there's no I mean, there's so few doctors taking this approach. And like I'm in Maryland, in the DC Maryland area, there's like six or seven thousand eye doctors. There's seven of us board certified in vision development and rehabilitation. Two of the seven are with in my office. Another one of the seven is my father who's retired. So there's so few people looking at this. But then even in terms of what vision training looks like. It's not like PT where for a sprained MCL you get a dozen sessions for grade one, two dozen for grade two. Whoever you go to around town's kind of the same work. There's no consistency yet on what this type of of training looks like. And we're doing a lot to change that, but um definitely want to see somebody who knows what they're doing, if this is uh a path that you're curious about and wanting to to tackle. Yeah, this is so cool. So are you in your own practice, are you guys collecting like data to produce kind of like almost like a study or protocols like you're saying? we and I can say this with zero ego at all. Like we're really kind of setting a standard of what this work looks like. And we every week have people flying in from all around the world doing these intensives, and we've had so many data points. So uh we are in the process of setting up a clinical trial with a local university. Uh we actually last week just locked in another ah Clinical trial for concussion, which is going to be awesome. And then white papers wise, like th there's there's not even close to enough out there, but there's definitely science that backs the efficacy of this. It's just it often takes a long time before something's published before it gets put into clinical practice. And especially with vision that's evolving, by the time something's in place, like we're at a new height. So we like to say we learn from our patients and then you know, from there continue to reiterate and establish new protocols. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. okay, I want to jump into concussion stuff because being working with athletes, they unfortunately occur. And we we know with like the nutrition protocols, there's there's certainly some stuff out there with you know, regards to creatine and omega-3s and stuff like that. But um I remember like back in the day, it was like when you if you got a concussion, you weren't supposed to look at any screens. Yes. What's the what tell like first ta tell us about like how you deal with concussion? Like is that protocol totally changed? Like So there's we kind of joke and say if you've seen one concussion, you've seen one concussion. Like every concussion should be treated differently. But there's definitely clear um similarities and and clear points that are consistent among everybody with head injuries. So can I give a little bit of perspective on kind of where we come from and then and then get into it? So most people hear the word concussion and assume it only happens to athletes, professional athletes, whoever, but According to the National Institutes of Health, a mile down the road from my office, twenty-eight percent of Americans have had at least one concussion in their lifetime. And most people often don't realize that their present day symptoms or struggles can often be tied to or connected to a prior event. So maybe it's you hit your head on the countertop or had a playground accident when you're younger, but you never got the eye brain connection checked. Or like you said, you go to the ER, you go to your primary care doc, and they say, you may have had a concussion. You're fine, go sit in a dark room or get back to life. You got your bell rung, you'll be good. Neither of those is appropriate. But when you get the eye brain connection checked and you look at functional vision, it's a very different scenario. So vision is represented in every lobe of our brain, not eyesight, but vision, vision, pro visual processing. And there's more areas of our brain dedicated to processing vision than all of the other senses combined. Two-thirds of the neurons coming into our brain originate from our eyes. So it's kind of impossible to have any type of head injury and not have vision be impacted. It's just a matter of at what level. And when that happens, typically the most common symptoms and struggles are sensory overload in busy, crowded environments, light sensitivity, strained eyes on screens are worth reading, and the headaches, that sometimes double vision, the brain fog, the fatigue. I'm a firm believer that pretty much every concussion. Can get to previous level function with the right work, right motivation, and right compliance. And supplements play a role, nutrition plays a role. But for sure, if you can visualize using your eyes as like joysticks to tap into the brain, we can rewire the software to change how somebody's using vision, but to take confusion in the world and chaos in their brain and actually make those no longer options. And For most of the time, it's the eyes not working well together as a team. And with the right protocols in place, we can reestablish function and recalibrate, reorganize the brain to get the airplanes to take off and land where they need to with an air traffic controller that knows how to organize all of this. But for most people, it's they're getting the wrong information. And so sitting in a dark room and just avoiding stress, symptoms can improve. Mm-hmm. the functional vision problems do not, our brain just learns how to bypass them or compensate. They do improve though when you do the right work to rewire the brain. So I think we we were on a really uh interesting panel together, an event a couple months ago, and everybody was talking about some of the sexy supplements out there, like like creatine and ketogenic diets. But a lot of that can really support head injury, especially creatine. Like you take enough creatine, it's going to cross the blood brain barrier and it's gonna go towards cognition and and brain function, not just straight to the muscles. And when we can give our brain the right instructions to heal, healing occurs at a very different rate than it would otherwise. Okay. This is so cool. So okay, so then I would like you to kind of like break down two different scenarios. Scenario one being someone just got a concussion within the last twenty four hours. What should their what should they be doing? And then the second scenario, someone who maybe had a concussion a year ago. Um, I think were you on Rebecca Rush's podcast as well, talking about concussion? Okay. I immediately think of her with that because I know her her concussion symptoms were I mean, maybe even still lasting. And I think it's been a couple of years now. So I g what would these two different kind of like avatars how should they be thinking about the your work and and vision work? What what should they be doing if they just find out about you right now? Well, and and she's she's had a lot of head injuries and she is a a warrior and she's done everything possible that she knew of, but I think there was clearly a a big missing piece with vision in terms of getting back to previous level of function. So I think the person who well, first of all, there is no timeline where these problems can't be treated, reversed and eliminated. And even though a lot of doctors will say there's this critical period within four weeks, six weeks, six months after the head injury, and it's I don't know where they're getting all this information from. We actually now have research and science to show that something like vision therapy can drastically speed up the recovery process, especially to re-engage with reading, screens, life, things like that. So I would say, although we want to avoid unnecessary struggling as much as we can. Mm-hmm. So often we just accept how we're functioning as normal. And that becomes just status quo. And then mental health gets compromised. And we start thinking about, like, my God, is this in my head? Because no one can find something wrong with me. It's because you're going to the wrong docs and not doing the right tests. So no matter when the head injury was, or even if you don't even know of a specific event, if you're experiencing any of these symptoms, absolutely take action and start training the eye brain connection. For the person who immediately or right after thinks they've had some sort of event or they're noticing symptoms. I think the first thing to do is definitely pull back and kind of check in and self-regulate, self-monitor, things like that. Typically screen time presents a lot of visual stress. And so if we're jumping into the deep end immediately with too much screen time, it can almost awaken a sleeping bear in terms of symptoms. And then it's like it feels like you've gone steps backwards or diagonally. In the wrong direction. So I always like to say, like, if there's concern, give yourself a small time period. Give yourself 10 minutes of screen time. Regardless of how you feel, take a step back and give it a break and then kind of learn how to just check in with yourself and then try another 10 minutes, but maybe go a little longer. Then it's kind of slowly almost like reverse titrate it. Um, but the the sensory overload that comes with light absolutely impacts the autonomic nervous system. And what we often see is that the inside and outside muscles of the eyes after head injury start working in an opposing fashion. Or our eyes start to focus at different planes. And then the brightness, the glare, the contrast causes this flood of input that makes you feel like you want to retreat and pull back. And then we start using our visual system a different way than our brain is wired. So so much of what happens after head injury are really maladaptations or roadblocks in place because we haven't learned how to tap into them yet to eliminate those as options. So You know, think it's it's a matter of like if there is concern about something scary going on, it's important to go see a doctor or somebody right away to make sure there's not blood pooling in the brain and everything's still attached and all the bad stuff is no longer options. But in the vast majority of cases, things are solid and no one can really find anything wrong because we're not looking at brain function in real time with, you know, a spec scan, a functional MRI, certain things that would identify that. But based off of symptoms, if there's headaches, if there's eye strain, if there's dizziness, nausea, brain fog, sensory overload, tired eyes, disrupted sleep, I mean, those are all diagnostic for vision is at least playing a role and probably a big role to the the the dysfunction. Wow. Yeah, that's that is wild. And also very helpful, I think, too. Like, I can think of too many clients that have had concussions or yeah, or honestly don't do anything for it. Like they just, like you're saying, go back to their regular life and like maybe bump up their creatine a little bit, but everything's like trying to go as usual. And like you're saying, the brain fog and the overstimulus and all of that just like piles on. Um, how long does can symptoms like this last and how quickly can they be potentially kind of corrected when they start doing the vision stuff? I mean, they can last indefinitely. Like I saw uh somebody today who's what he says he's had an estimated thirteen head injuries. And the first one was he said in fourth grade and he's now in his forties and you know, he can't hold a desk job. He's got significant mental health challenges, and you know, I think he thought so much else was wrong with him, but in reality, his eyes weren't working together as a team, causing again, confusion up here, and then just this like. disorganized chaos in his life. And he's one where he will he has so many symptoms that he will see symptoms improving and the proof in the pudding, like very quickly. He's gonna see that in weeks, not months. And, you know, he's having losing his place with reading, skipping words, skipping lines, words are going into out of focus. He's not remembering what he's reading. His mind's wandering with near work. And because there's so many symptoms, it makes it a lot easier to then see his hard work paying off. And so You know, if we've identified the right problems, we know the exact treatment, then we should be able to predict what happens. And I would say the longer that somebody's been struggling through head injury recovery, compensating, maybe the more embedded a bad habit could be, or the more embedded a maladaptation would be. But it still means we can still tap into it and eliminate some of that. And for anybody listening, I mean, you mentioned creatine. I think omega three fatty acids are also a a really big piece to the puzzle. Mm-hmm. And there's a neurologist that I work closely with who has done a ton of research in the brain injury space. He recommends a nine gram loading dose for two weeks. And I think we talked about this when we were at our last event. And then going down to six grams after that, regardless of whether cut the concussion was yesterday, a year ago, ten years ago. I think that's too much, but for you know, most people are not gonna absorb all that. But You know, if you look at the brain being comprised of a heavy percentage of of the DHA, EPA and all that's in the omega threes, like you provide it what it needs to heal. It's gonna have a mu much easier time healing, especially with the right instructions. Yeah. Well, and like the US population is way under consuming uh anti-inflammatory fatty acids for sure. So yeah. And and also providing a ton of crap to you know, in terms of food that doesn't allow for yeah, I mean there's neuroinflammation that just gets on this cascade after after head injury. If you've ever tried to buy creatine or electrolytes online and wondered, is this actually legit? We got a quick fix. We built a Fullscript dispensary for Nutritional Revolution listeners so you can shop trusted professional grade supplements that ship direct from the manufacturer, no random third party sellers, no sketchy storage. You'll find brands we use with our athletes all the time like Thorne Klean Athlete, Nordic Naturals, Pure Encapsulations, Designs for Health, Designs for Sport, et cetera, and a ton of NSF certified for sport options. Everyone gets 20 % off always, and it's free to create an account. If you set up AutoShip, you'll get an additional 5 % off. Just open up the show notes and tap the full script link to get started. And now back to the show. so with the vision-based recovery, how would that fit alongside an athlete, for example, post-concussion when they're thinking about their return to sports stuff? So they're doing, you know, gr gradual improvements or increasing in their training, maybe they're rehabbing something else that's injured. Like, are they getting on the vision stuff right away and incorporating that in there? Are they layering? depends on the sport and the level of severity of the injury. you know, I think in general, like the more we can access our periphery, the more we can get outside, the more we can help regulate our nervous system, the better. The nervous system is always impacted after head injury. And again, I know I'm biased, but vision is one of the most important drivers of regulating our nervous system. And so we can immediately have different exercises that we're doing to help calm the system. But, you know, I think for for most people, like if you're really self aware, you can recognize certain tasks are gonna make the headache worse, they're gonna make the brain fog more substantial, or make it so that you're less clear headed in terms of what you're doing. I think in general, limiting screen time is really important. And that is like stepping on the open wound in terms of symptoms for everybody. Yeah. And in general, reading with paper and handheld on a book, way better than reading on a screen. But again, just moderation with kind of everything and then just slowly adding more to the plate until you feel like you're at a wall and aren't able to get past it. Yeah. Why are screens worse than a paper version? Is it the backlighting or what is it that's So very different visual demands on a screen than let's say reading a page even. There's more eye movements, they're more sporadic, they're all over the place. There's the brightness, the glare, the contrast, and then really the blue light. The blue light is first of all, blue light is is really important for us, but we want natural blue light from the sun that's outside. The artificial junk blue light from screens causes stress on the system. It causes oxidative stress. It impacts our mitochondria and it causes. Strain that often makes it hard for our brain to filter information. So really high quality blue light blocking glasses are really important. Limiting screen time, ideally at least two hours before bedtime, is going help you get to a place where you can fall asleep faster with better quality sleep, and then you can allow for rest and recovery to take place. But we have these receptors in the back of our eye and our retina whose sole responsibility is to respond to light. Mm-hmm. the sleep wake mechanism that allows secretion of melatonin. When those are overly stimulated, when you're on screens all day long, hormonal balance takes place. And then it becomes a lot harder to pull out of that fight or flight response. And you're stuck in this kind of stress state. And then literally everything else functions differently. I mean, we see so many patients with head injury who will say their fuse is shorter after screen time. They're less, they're less patient, they're. thinking, their attention, their even just um happiness changes drastically. And so that's something where, you know, we're asking our brains to do things that we're often not equipped for after a head injury. Or really without a head injury too, for many people. Yes. Um, that makes me think of a couple things. One, this came across my social page. It was a researcher who had a um, I wonder if you would have seen this. It was a researcher who had a RMR machine at his uh at his home, I guess. And he spent a lot of time on a computer. So he attached it to himself to gauge energy expenditure while seated working at a computer all day. And it I remember the report was like, Energy expenditure came out way greater and specifically from glucose than he had predicted initially. And he was theorizing that it was like the brain energy to like for work and focus on the computer. Uh just throwing that out there, not sure if you came across that in thoughts. Yeah, I I have not um I I've not I've not seen that article or research, but I would definitely want to look and find it as soon as we're done talking. I mean, when your brain is on overdrive, then and our brain is very metabolically active, but our our eyes are the most metal metabolically active organs in our body. And the visual systems is one of the fastest ways that the brain determines whether to kind of push harder or pull back and if we can't regulate that system, then we just, you know, are are in that autonomic distress for longer than we're supposed to be. Yeah. Okay. One last question. Um, I know we we're also getting close on time, but um blue blocking glasses, those like orange orange glasses, should people be wearing those during the day? Okay. I'm so the blue blocking glasses you buy on Amazon for three dollars, typically you're paying for the quality that you're getting. You want glasses that block the widest range of blue light. And so the ones that block a hundred percent are red or amber. The ones that are yellow block a good portion, and the ones that are clear usually only block a small range, and the really high quality ones will block. the small range of harmful blue light. So that's that's good enough for some. But I think definitely wearing those amber ones all day long, you're tricking, you're you're not allowing your brain to really recognize time and space accurately. And so just even for from a sleep perspective, like if you're there often you put on those red ones and it's it's calming and almost makes you tired because your brain thinks it's nighttime and so it starts you know, resting, digesting, and then s signaling the secretion of melatonin. I'm a big believer of those are in the evenings once the sun has set, if you're on screens. And then same thing in the morning, like you want to get natural light in your eyes. But I do have patients who can't be in a room with fluorescent lights without very thick tints or filters on. Otherwise they just completely go into this sensory overload and can't even open their eyes. Mm. so we we prescribe a lot of different tints. there's certain profiles with head injury where a certain form of uh it's called an omega tint. It's like a purplish blue one, just totally calms the visual system. Certain people with migraines or something called visual snow syndrome do really well with this kind of yellowish one known known as FL41. But really, eyes are light receivers and they gather information from our world and then send it to our brain to just digest and make sense of it. Mm-hmm. So making sure we have the right information to process is gonna allow for function to be optimized. And a lot can be done with just the right types of of tints or glasses like Yeah. So cool. I didn't know about the migraine one. Um, okay, I'm gonna kind kind of go through there's somewhat rapid fire questions, but if a listener thinks they may have an undiagnosed functional vision problem, whether from an old crash or a screen overload, and they've never been evaluated, what's the first step they should take? First step is trust your intuition and trust your instincts because most doctors don't even know what to screen for or look for. If you're lucky enough to have a doctor board certified in vision training, rehabilitation development, then go to that doctor and there'll be it'll be a very clear ah diagnostic protocol and they'll come with the diagnoses and whatever's needed. But then the treatment that's needed is huge there. on our website we actually have a a symptom checklist specifically for concussion. And, you know, if you're more than a five on the symptom checklist, that's red flags. Let's at least get this checked out. Um, but I think so often it's if you don't do the right tests or if you don't know what to look for, you're gonna be up a creek without a paddle. And this is a big problem in the medical system today. Yeah, shoot. Okay. We will link that too in the show notes for the listeners if you want to take that concussion test. Um, what should an athlete specifically ask their regular eye doctor that goes beyond the standard exam? Yes. Ask about your vision. They're going to tell you about whether you need glasses or not. They can tell you about whether your eyes are healthy, but say, all right, great. How about my vision? How do my eyes work together as a team? What is it? How's my depth perception? How's my peripheral awareness? Am I reacting to information appropriately? Can I filter and process information like I should? We work with so many professional athletes, teams where in many cases they're like, yeah, we've got vision taken care of. And that's just like, These guys are gals figuring out whether they need glasses. That's just the first step, right? Like your ability to anticipate where sport is gonna be or where the ball is gonna be, that is really what's needed for performance to be optimized. And this is for people who recognize who people who know about functional vision, like this is their secret weapon for sports. And we work with race car dri drivers, Olympic skiers, like anyone who relies heavily on vision. to be able to slow down their sport, get into flow space, but then be able to process information fluidly and accurately. And really any brain at any age has that ability to be optimized and enhanced when it comes to vision. That's cool. That is very cool. okay, what are three your top three daily habit habits that actually preserve or improve vision over time? Okay. So number one would be vision training. And I know I'm beating a de a dead horse here, but um I I it makes a huge difference. We are neglecting the most uh significant sensory system that influences performance, focus, attention, productivity, happiness, especially for professional athletes. And if you're wreck if you're just focusing on your body, you're leaving a mi a a big piece of of all of this uh still on the table. And especially for endurance athletes, it's not just about how long your body can last. It's about how efficiently and accurately your brain processes and takes in that journey. So I would say train the brain, number one, number two, limiting screen time and near work or at least taking a lot of breaks when you are on screens and doing near work because that can help balance the system dramatically. And then I would say nutrition and supplementation. You know, eating and supplementing for your brain is very similar to eating and supplementing for your eyes. Your eyes are extensions of your brain. They're only part of your brain you can see without things getting messy. They emerge from the brain in utero in the first trimester. And even from like changes in contrast or in different lighting environments or having protection as we age with the right types of macular carotenoids, so much can be done if, and I'm assuming everyone listening or most people listening. Dial in a lot of these systems already, then it's like you can get many percentage points better when you're tackling the the right levers. That's awesome. And then last question, resources for our listeners who want to dig deeper or get evaluated. Yes, so our practice, myvisionfirst dot com, has a lot of great information on there. We have a bunch of different predictive checklists and kind of quizzes. Uh we have our online vision training program called Screen Fit that we talked about. I would love to give your audience a huge discount so that everyone can just get going on that. Um we'll we'll come up with the code. We'll we'll say maybe K Channell that they'll give uh uh 40% off discount and then it makes it super easy to get rolling. You only have to buy it once for your family. Everyone can do it. Um and then on social media we're we're putting out a lot of a lot of great content, a lot of exercises, certain things that can just ah people can put in their back pocket for either when they're ready or now when they want to start making that that journey forward. But I will tell you even if you give yourself two weeks and you do a couple th I if you do eye push ups, eye stretches and peripheral pointing, You do it every day, five days a week for two weeks. I can promise you you'll see a difference. But just like normal exercise, you got to do the work. If you don't do the work, it's not, you're not gonna see the benefits. Yes. Yeah. Um, I I'll recommend the screen fit thing again because when I was doing it, I was I definitely was having some realizations. Like one of the the eye stretching one too. I'm like trying not to turn my head, but I'm so like I want to turn my head so bad. Yeah. eh the most important one, eye push-ups. Like this has gone viral over a dozen times because it's so simple, but it works. You do those every day, like you'll notice on a bike the world opens up more. You'll notice you're less dependent on your reading glasses or maybe not even reaching for them or reaching for a weaker prescription because you're developing flexibility and stamina with that focusing system. Amazing. That is so cool. and then where can people follow you on the socials? Yes, Dr. Bryce Appelbaum. So it's D R B R Y C E and then Appelbaum A P P E L B A U My ancestors wanted to make life really annoying. So Appelbaum is not spelled like Apple the fruit. It's Apple A P P E L. But you'll find us where uh we've got a big presence on on a lot of them, especially on Instagram. Amazing. And we will link his insta on the in the show notes for listeners. okay, your two truths and lie. You said you've improved someone's dating life via vision training, that someone gained two inches in their height with vision training, that someone lost 15 pounds in a week from vision training. I thought the weight loss one was the lie. which one was the lie? So that was actually not the lie. And I want to give a little bit of an explanation why, but the lie is is the height. And I will say, to be fair, when people start seeing the world better and differently, they often do stand a little taller, more confidence, but but not two inches taller. Um, but from the the 15 pounds, um, we had this woman who did an intensive with us. She has Dealt with a lot of trauma, a lot of stress in her life, and her nervous system was so dysregulated. She went through vision, she did our five-day intensive. She literally lost 15 pounds. The drive home, she called me and was bawling and she was like, Dr. B, I I don't know what we did here, but like the whole road is opened up and it all the trees coming by. I can see the depth coming by and Things are clearer and brighter and and I'm more confident on the road. And I feel like my brain is freed up. She's actually a spiritual energetics coach. And she found that she could access her third eye. This is a little woo, but so much more accurately and deeply after this type of work. And she was holding so much stress within her body that I mean, she ate that week. Mm-hmm. different than at home, but she got home and she said her pants weren't even staying on and she was not overweight at all. And then she's also done she's done two intensives with us. So the first one she lost 15 pounds. The second one she said she lost three pounds. But thinking losing weight by training the eye brain connection makes no sense until you recognize we're doing way more than just training the eye brain connection. We're regulating the nervous system through vision, and that changed a lot in terms of systemic function for her. Huh. So you think it like really downregulated like core cortisol or something? And does there's like stress hormones? was having significant hormonal imbalances. She her sleep was off. She was sleeping like two, three hours a night just as her normal. Um, and she felt like her her she was just always in a state of fight or flight. And then after doing all this, like so much better regulated. And she says she has the switch now that she can easily flip that just opens up her peripheral vision and kind of allows her to feel grounded in space. That's great. So she has her toolkit. She has her toolkit ready to re refer to. That's that's what you want. Amazing. But I would say don't expect weight loss from vision therapy or vision training, although could cool side effect. Yes. Yeah, that is very fascinating. and then someone improved their dating life too with vision with vision training. my the the confidence, the ability to step into your own skin, to I mean, so often people, even with eye contact, it's like do I look at their left eye, their right eye, their mouth, but they're not able to see the whole face as a whole. They uh so many people notice interpersonal communication improves, uh, sense of self and space improves, and they're able to really confidently be in their skin because uh spatial awareness and depth is now where it needs to be. Cool. Wow. This is so fascinating. I feel like we we need to have you back on because there's so many other questions. Yeah, for sure. Well, this has been so fun, Bryce. Thank you so much for joining us. And we like I said, for our listeners, we'll link all that in the show notes for everybody so you guys can check that out. and definitely check out Screen Fit. I'm gonna be keeping working my way through that. And um I definitely wanna share that with my mother in law as well, actually. So yeah. an honor, Beyond. Thank you for having me. And and I love the work you're doing. And you're sm you you are able to pull out stats and research better than almost anybody, even just like talking in in the bathroom. So very impressed with you and I can clearly tell how lucky everybody is who's working with you. yeah. I kind of like thinks a part of me thinks I have a little bit of a photographic memory with like numbers. So that's where that comes from, but it's not there all the time. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely a visual learner for sure. Um so cool. We definitely have to have you back. Awesome.

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Kyla Channell, MS

Host