Paleo Quick Tip of the Day 30- Heal Your Feet and Eyes, Paleo Style

Paleo Quick Tip of the Day #30  Heal Yourself- Throw Away your Casts and Crutches

I know, you probably don’t have literal casts on your limbs and crutches to get around on!  But, perhaps you or someone you know has had one or the other in the past, and you certainly know what either does for them-

The limb encased in a cast withers and weakens...

The leg supported by the arms through crutches weakens as well, while the shoulders and arms actually strengthen by supporting the injured leg!

You don’t have a cast or crutch?  You do, my friend-

If you wear shoes on your feet, and glasses for your eyes- you are wearing crutches that will weaken the God made structure of your body over time!

Now, I don’t mean to tell you to totally go cold turkey on these modern inventions; but I do want you to be aware that every time you rely on them, you are depriving your body of the small stressors it has adapted to require for optimum foot health and eye health.

For instance, your feet are like intricate suspension bridges, taut with tendons and finely crafted bones that can flex, move, and adapt to all kinds of natural surfaces.  Your feet are also equipped with sensitive feeling and temperature sensitive devices that are exquisitely designed to fine tune your gait, posture and joints to optimal movement.

Now, imagine your feet in SHOES- cumbersome, confining blocks or “casts” of leather or plastic and rubber- cutting you off from the ground entirely, with no feeling left, no freedom of movement, an unnaturally raised heel, and no temperature sensing or intricate sense of balance left to be felt and accounted for- in other words, ALL of these small “stressors” that are so beneficial to the health and strength and safety of our feet health is... gone.

Now, I’m not saying to go “cold turkey” in this modern world of ours, with shattered glass lying around some places, and No Shoes No Service signs around- but I am saying to just do the best  you can to go barefoot, or at least in socks in the house, or in barefoot shoes as often as you can!  Xero Shoes are ideal for this!

The MORE natural movement you can get on your soon-to-be healthy feet and knees and hips and back the better- it will really, naturally restore the health of a really problematic and neglected facet of your body!
Kind of like rebuilding your body from the ground up...

As for your EYES- the younger you are, the more you can rebuild your eye health!  Apart from optimizing your nutrition in a Paleo type of fashion, and consuming a wonderful God made diet of real foods, especially vegetables and real fats, (ideally in a Paleo Smoothie whipped up in your Vitamix blender)- the best thing you can do for your eyes is to EXERCISE THEM!

Take off your glasses as much as possible- do not rely on them exclusively, make your eyes WORK!

With your eyeglasses on, your eyes are on crutches- they hardly have to work at ALL... and, over time, they will get weaker and weaker!

If you can read without glasses- DO IT!  If you can see far without glasses- DO IT!!  Just like shoes- the less you use glasses as crutches, the stronger your eyes will become.  At least in your house and yard- just like shoes- don’t wear them!  If you are reading, move the book or phone back just enough so the print starts to blur- wait at this edge of vision, and usually the print will clear up and become sharp!

Over time, just move it back a little farther, at least for short sessions of reading.  Do the same with distances- see how far you can focus- concentrate on a branch that is just past your range of distance vision, and then move slightly closer- gradually it will sharpen up, as your eyes work to focus.

Do pushups for your eyes- focus on something close, like your finger close to your face- then, quickly concentrate on something like that far away branch- repeat for “reps”!

The last thing for eye health is to go to someone called a Behavioral Optometrist!  They are trained in just the sort of thing I am talking about here- to restore real vision to your eyes NATURALLY, and to not let them gradually degenerate!

Request a weaker prescription for your next pair of eyeglasses!  Even if you can’t find a Behavioral Optometrist you can do this- you want your prescription just strong enough so that you can see ok, but not so strong that you have big telescopes on your eyes that allow your eyes to “coast” and weaken!  Then, next year or so, get a still weaker prescription...

This whole process really does work- over time, I have become eyeglass free myself, although I used to have to wear them constantly- and getting away from wearing glasses changes your whole view on the world, and how you relate to other people in a big, big way...

So, I hope I have convinced you to get rid of your casts and crutches-

Set yourself FREE!

Check out this episode!

Getting Rid of Eyeglasses!

I wore eyeglasses from my teens, until I was in my late 50's...

I never really thought about it much, except that it was kind of a pain.  Especially when exercising, skiing, playing sports- come to think about it, it kind of got in the way in almost everything I loved doing!  Except for maybe reading...

And, my prescription got stronger every time I went in for a checkup!  I never thought about it, but my eyes were steadily getting weaker, year after year, even while my progressively strength trained body got stronger.  It was only when I found out about the supreme importance of nutrition, specifically the paleo diet of real food- meat, seafood, vegetables, healthy fats, nuts seeds and fruits- that is when my health took a dramatic turn for the better!

But this is about eyesight, right?  

Here is a link for you: Are eyeglasses a scam?

But, for now, just remember this- eyeglasses are casts for your eyes!  

If you wear a cast on your arm, what happens?  That's right, the arm in the cast withers, and weakens- and quite quickly and dramatically, too!!

Wear these "casts" on your eyes, year after year, and what can you expect but dramatic decrease in eye sight strength?  How can you avoid this?

First off- don't get stronger prescriptions!  Insist on a slightly weaker prescription, if you are already wearing glasses.  Get one just strong enough that you can, with some effort, make out what you are looking at.  Do this, and the next time you go to the Eye Dr., get an even weaker prescription.

I know this sounds strange, but let me say this: I no longer wear glasses at all, and this is after over 40 years of wearing them!  I can't tell you how liberating it feels, in more ways than just improved eyesight!

One of the major benefits I have noticed is that, since my left eye was considerably weaker than my right eye, and the right, intuitive side of the brain controls the left eye, my creative side was stifled and controlled by the left, dogmatic, purely logical side of my brain!

Now that my left eye is stronger than my right, it has wrought a profound personality "shift", making me a much more creative, free-thinking, live-in-the-moment kind of person.  Also, I believe that just the constant act of looking at life through little lenses puts you in the position of being "removed" from the action- makes you more of an "observer" than as a real, living, participant in life!

Leaving glasses behind is really that life changing!

OK, so how do you do it?  Simple- just don't wear glasses when you don't need them! (First step)

It depends how bad your vision has deteriorated, but many of us really don't need glasses as soon as we get up, to walk to the bathroom- yet we often put them on immediately!  Don't!

If you can read without glasses, don't put them on!  If you need them currently to drive, take them off when you get there!  When you read, move the print back just enough that you can make out the print.  Don't make it too easy- make your eyes work- and periodically look up, and focus on something farther away.  If you are far sighted, do the opposite!  Move the print closer; make your eyes focus just "on the edge" of where it starts to go out of focus.

You get the idea!  Gradual eye improvement will happen, if you let it, naturally!  Just minimize the unnatural times you immobilize your eyes behind the casts of eyeglasses or contact lenses!  

One other thing I'm convinced of is that, just as in all else in health, eating a paleo, or ancestral diet, consisting of REAL FOODS and devoid of grains, sugars, and industrial seed oils if paramount in restoring and building the health of your eyesight, or of any other part of your body or your mind! 

Nutrition can make or break anything you do- it really is that important!!

Work at your vision, and you may, like me, surprise yourself and become free of glasses!

Here is another excellent link:  gettingstronger.org

Just be persistent, and get in touch with an optometrist that works in Behavioral Optometry!  

Other optometrists tend to be...resistant to working with your desire to lessen your prescription.  Just as most standard MD's tend to be resistant to the idea of "Letting nutrition be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food", despite the fact that that last is a quote from Hippocrates, the founder of Western Medicine, whom all Medical Doctors are sworn to follow!  Ironic, I know, but there are good an bad doctors, just like there are good and bad in all walks of life...

I found Dr. Ann Wonderling in my area of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and she is "wonderful" to work with indeed!

  Dr. Ann Wonderling Behavioral Optometrist

BEFORE-Just getting started...

AFTER- in touch with my creative side 3 years later...