A different kind of ‘Blue Light Special’… is on the agenda this month. Recently, I wrote about the dangerous potential for blue light from smartphones, computer screens, and televisions to hurt the retina. I always attempt to balance and counter balance the different research that comes out. Some research was done at Ohio State University, College of Optometry that indicated they think there are bigger concerns in regards for the retina. Researchers question the results from a study that used rodents, because rodent’s eyes (surprise!) are quite different from ours. Human eyes have macular pigments, and our crystalline lens has natural blue-blocking ability. Their concern about the wavelength of blue light is how it can disrupt healthy sleep physiology. Yet, it is notable that all bright lights can affect the brain’s ‘master clock’, which uses light to set the circadian rhythms of sleep. In other words, any and all lights should be dimmed as you prepare to sleep, not just computer screen lights.
Other questions were also addressed, like whether or not tired eyes after a long day spent at a computer could be caused solely by the blue light. It needs to be said that we STARE at our computer screens, and forget to blink. Our blink rate plummets from about twelve per minute, down to a mere six. Our eyes become dry from that, as well as tired. Each blink is meant to rehydrate the outer cells of the cornea with fresh oxygen as well as lubricate. The American Optometric Assoc. (AOA) offers a 20-20-20 rule. Take a 20 second break every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet in the distance. Allow your eyes to blink and relax.
The AOA also suggests using lubricating eye drops, especially for people who spend much time staring at a computer screen. Avoid any “get-the-red-out” drops, because those contain chemicals that decrease blood flow to the surface of the white of the eye, and can damage the outer layers. I recommend Simialison, a homeopathic eye drop. It doesn’t sting, and helps relieve dry eyes and also itchy eyes due to allergies. A third strategy to help your eyes is to increase the distance from the screen. Light waves weaken quickly with distance. Holding a phone at arm’s length instead of close to your eyes can also help.
While you’re at it… correct your posture. Hold the phone UP – hold your head up, and straighten up your back, pulling your shoulders back. There’s an epidemic of postural issue in our youth population because the degree to which they are now texting has increased to a level that demands holding the phone and their whole body rigid for long stretches of time. This is not healthy. It is dismaying to think about any person who starts out with a well-formed, healthy skeletal system that they then warp by neglecting their posture. I find this especially sad when this occurs in young people as they are growing up.
Good posture must be an ongoing and constant effort throughout each day. When you sit or stand with your head forward of your torso, and your torso forward of your pelvis, this affects your ability to breathe deeply, and puts pressure on the heart and other organs.
Holding the head forward all or most of the time places a strain on the neck muscles that attach to the base of the skull. This often results in such severe tension that the area often starts to calcify enough to show up on an x-ray and looks like a small slender spike. It should be emphasized that this is a sign of a truly horrid postural situation.
Here’s a set of postural habits to practice that are sort of like exercises that are worth sharing. These three activities, done daily, could help develop and maintain the muscle strength and body awareness needed in order to monitor as well as sustain good posture.
It’s sort of a 1-2-3/3-2-1 sequence.
#1) 3 times a day, perform a balance check. Stand up straight and lift one leg high enough to bring your thigh parallel to the ground, hold for 15 seconds. Slowly lower, and repeat the same movement, using the other leg. Don’t be surprised if one side has better balance than the other. Practice will improve both sides.
#2) 2 times a day, stand against a wall so that your pelvis, the back of your head and the part of your back between your shoulder blades all can touch the wall. Many times people can’t do this without tipping their chin up. With practice this will improve too but don’t force it at first.
#3) 1 time each day, sit on an exercise ball and move your body in three dimensions using the muscles of your torso. Sort of like a moving your hips in a circle, but also back and forth and side to side. If you find weakness in doing these movements work on those. The goal is to move with control. The exercise ball needs to be high enough that your knees are level with your hips. See the diagram of the person sitting at a tilted desk.
Most people don’t realize that we have are special small muscle groups whose major function is to keep us balanced. I taught gymnastics for twenty-eighty years. Putting a small child on a balance beam gave me full awareness of this. At first we use a small beam just a few inches off the floor. It they can’t stay on the beam they simply ‘cheat’ and bob down to catch their balance. Eventually though, they can stay on that beam and that is when we put them on a higher one. Asking them to stand on one leg while doing various things with the other leg, foot, arms etc. was another phase of learning better balance. As a kid it was fun and made them giggle. We adults like to think we never lose our balance skills and muscle tone, but just like everything else in our body you will lose what you don’t use. That is part of why as we age we are more likely to fall. I have written before about things you can do to prevent falling but here I want to give you a very different idea – practice dorsi-flexion and plantar flexion, both standing and sitting. Now, let me define those terms for you.
Plantar flexion is pointing the toes away from you. In a seated position, straighten your leg and tighten your calf muscles until the toes make a straight line from your shin. This is an exercise that both dancers and gymnasts do. Dorsi-flexion is the opposite, pointing your toes towards you. In class we called it “hook your foot” (see diagram). Practice this and strengthen these important leg and foot muscles. It is common for us to only lift our foot enough to barely clear the floor as we walk. For most of us we are skimming the floor as we walk. Atrophy sets in and we don’t even know it. We stop doing childhood activities like marching with our feet ‘hooked’ and then pointed in games like Simon Says. We stop hopping, skipping, leaping, jumping. All these activities improved our ability to walk properly, and not trip over our own feet, let alone clear a rock on a trail or step over a log or some other obstacle.
I’ve added an extra page to this newsletter to include diagrams of these stretches and exercises. Consider strengthening your dorsi-flexion muscles when sitting in a waiting room. If your house has stairs a simple idea to do this is to really ‘hook’ your foot when you go up a flight of stairs at least one or two times a day, and pull the knee way up while you’re at it to strengthen your ability to raise your legs little higher than the minimum as you go up the steps.
Another tip to avoid falling: avoid falling at night in your home by using motion detector night lights. Your room can remain dark during sleep, and when you get up and out of bed, your movement will activate the light to safely guide your way. Tripping is bad enough, but tripping in the darkness is even worse.
Other questions were also addressed, like whether or not tired eyes after a long day spent at a computer could be caused solely by the blue light. It needs to be said that we STARE at our computer screens, and forget to blink. Our blink rate plummets from about twelve per minute, down to a mere six. Our eyes become dry from that, as well as tired. Each blink is meant to rehydrate the outer cells of the cornea with fresh oxygen as well as lubricate. The American Optometric Assoc. (AOA) offers a 20-20-20 rule. Take a 20 second break every 20 minutes and look at something 20 feet in the distance. Allow your eyes to blink and relax.
The AOA also suggests using lubricating eye drops, especially for people who spend much time staring at a computer screen. Avoid any “get-the-red-out” drops, because those contain chemicals that decrease blood flow to the surface of the white of the eye, and can damage the outer layers. I recommend Simialison, a homeopathic eye drop. It doesn’t sting, and helps relieve dry eyes and also itchy eyes due to allergies. A third strategy to help your eyes is to increase the distance from the screen. Light waves weaken quickly with distance. Holding a phone at arm’s length instead of close to your eyes can also help.
While you’re at it… correct your posture. Hold the phone UP – hold your head up, and straighten up your back, pulling your shoulders back. There’s an epidemic of postural issue in our youth population because the degree to which they are now texting has increased to a level that demands holding the phone and their whole body rigid for long stretches of time. This is not healthy. It is dismaying to think about any person who starts out with a well-formed, healthy skeletal system that they then warp by neglecting their posture. I find this especially sad when this occurs in young people as they are growing up.
Good posture must be an ongoing and constant effort throughout each day. When you sit or stand with your head forward of your torso, and your torso forward of your pelvis, this affects your ability to breathe deeply, and puts pressure on the heart and other organs.
Holding the head forward all or most of the time places a strain on the neck muscles that attach to the base of the skull. This often results in such severe tension that the area often starts to calcify enough to show up on an x-ray and looks like a small slender spike. It should be emphasized that this is a sign of a truly horrid postural situation.
Here’s a set of postural habits to practice that are sort of like exercises that are worth sharing. These three activities, done daily, could help develop and maintain the muscle strength and body awareness needed in order to monitor as well as sustain good posture.
It’s sort of a 1-2-3/3-2-1 sequence.
#1) 3 times a day, perform a balance check. Stand up straight and lift one leg high enough to bring your thigh parallel to the ground, hold for 15 seconds. Slowly lower, and repeat the same movement, using the other leg. Don’t be surprised if one side has better balance than the other. Practice will improve both sides.
#2) 2 times a day, stand against a wall so that your pelvis, the back of your head and the part of your back between your shoulder blades all can touch the wall. Many times people can’t do this without tipping their chin up. With practice this will improve too but don’t force it at first.
#3) 1 time each day, sit on an exercise ball and move your body in three dimensions using the muscles of your torso. Sort of like a moving your hips in a circle, but also back and forth and side to side. If you find weakness in doing these movements work on those. The goal is to move with control. The exercise ball needs to be high enough that your knees are level with your hips. See the diagram of the person sitting at a tilted desk.
Most people don’t realize that we have are special small muscle groups whose major function is to keep us balanced. I taught gymnastics for twenty-eighty years. Putting a small child on a balance beam gave me full awareness of this. At first we use a small beam just a few inches off the floor. It they can’t stay on the beam they simply ‘cheat’ and bob down to catch their balance. Eventually though, they can stay on that beam and that is when we put them on a higher one. Asking them to stand on one leg while doing various things with the other leg, foot, arms etc. was another phase of learning better balance. As a kid it was fun and made them giggle. We adults like to think we never lose our balance skills and muscle tone, but just like everything else in our body you will lose what you don’t use. That is part of why as we age we are more likely to fall. I have written before about things you can do to prevent falling but here I want to give you a very different idea – practice dorsi-flexion and plantar flexion, both standing and sitting. Now, let me define those terms for you.
Plantar flexion is pointing the toes away from you. In a seated position, straighten your leg and tighten your calf muscles until the toes make a straight line from your shin. This is an exercise that both dancers and gymnasts do. Dorsi-flexion is the opposite, pointing your toes towards you. In class we called it “hook your foot” (see diagram). Practice this and strengthen these important leg and foot muscles. It is common for us to only lift our foot enough to barely clear the floor as we walk. For most of us we are skimming the floor as we walk. Atrophy sets in and we don’t even know it. We stop doing childhood activities like marching with our feet ‘hooked’ and then pointed in games like Simon Says. We stop hopping, skipping, leaping, jumping. All these activities improved our ability to walk properly, and not trip over our own feet, let alone clear a rock on a trail or step over a log or some other obstacle.
I’ve added an extra page to this newsletter to include diagrams of these stretches and exercises. Consider strengthening your dorsi-flexion muscles when sitting in a waiting room. If your house has stairs a simple idea to do this is to really ‘hook’ your foot when you go up a flight of stairs at least one or two times a day, and pull the knee way up while you’re at it to strengthen your ability to raise your legs little higher than the minimum as you go up the steps.
Another tip to avoid falling: avoid falling at night in your home by using motion detector night lights. Your room can remain dark during sleep, and when you get up and out of bed, your movement will activate the light to safely guide your way. Tripping is bad enough, but tripping in the darkness is even worse.
