Herbs and More for Eye Health

Hello friends, Heidi here from Rain Country. God is good all the time and I'm here for another compilation video on natural herbs and more to help with different ailments that you may have. So this is where I compile not just herbs but various foods that you might want to consider adding more of to your diet as well as things that you can do to help or not do for that matter. So this is one in particular that really applies to me especially since starting my YouTube channel back in August of 2016. I've seen a very quick decline of my eye health through that time. That's obviously been a result of constantly having to stare at a computer screen to edit videos because editing videos can take hours for each video as well as answering questions through the comments, the emails, reading all the comments, reading all the emails, and then doing the research because I do a lot of my research online because that way I can quickly compile information from various different sites just like I did here for this video and my many other videos. And by the way, if you're interested I have a whole playlist that this is going to go in about these natural things that you can do that are tailored more to specific needs. I will put that playlist in the description box down below so you can open that up and look through there and see if you can find something that specifically applies to you whether it be thyroid health, your cholesterol levels, and so much more. And I have a lot more to do so just be patient but anyway I did want to get to this one because this is one I've really been starting research again to really help see if I can reverse the issues that have been going on with my eyes as a result of my job. Now one of the things that I did do that did make a big difference right away was getting away from being so close to my computer screen by plugging the computer itself directly into the larger tv screen and then being able to sit across the room while I do my work and that has helped quite a bit. It hasn't reversed anything but I've noticed they're not getting any worse as a result or at least they don't seem to be. I do still find I have days that are worse than others and I do believe it has to do with the amount of activity that I'm getting either outside in the sun or having to spend on the computer itself. Before I get into the herbs and foods let me talk a little bit more about that. We're surrounded all the time when we're indoors by LED lights. Now I know there's a lot of you know argument why some people get away from LED lights because of that and going for more natural lights like incandescent if you can still get incandescent bulbs, candle light, lamp light those of course are going to be best for your eyes when it comes to interior light. So I know the fact that I use a lot of LED lighting around my house does not help the matter but what's worse than that because that's not direct you're not usually just sitting there staring at your LED lights it's the direct staring at LED screens. Anyone who's on YouTube right now who's watching this video is doing that very thing. So if it's a video you can just listen to then listen like I know a lot of you do and you might be doing right here while you're doing other things but keep in mind I do like to share video clips and photos too so I don't want to encourage you to keep staring at the screen but I don't want you to miss anything where I'm actually showing some things that could be helpful as far as that goes. So there are some things that you can do to help counteract that and of course a lot of you have probably heard of the blue light blocking glasses. Now I do have some I have some reading glasses that I actually really like that are blue light blocking but they still didn't help me in regards to working on the videos and still being close to the screen all the time. It was I found it did a lot better getting myself farther away from the screen and then I didn't have to wear the glasses because the glasses themselves caused more problems. So I only save those for where putting those on for when I absolutely have to but you can also even if you don't have any kind of vision problems at all you can also get blue light blocking glasses that are that don't have any kind of corrective lens to them they're just a blue light blocking. I did try a pair one time and I didn't like the way they made me feel. They made me feel really weird when I was wearing them and they were just uncomfortable and so I have yet to find any that I really like but if anyone knows of any specific ones that are comfortable that don't cause your eyes to feel even more weird go ahead and share your the brand that you use down below because I would be interested in learning that so you so even when I am sitting that distance and I don't necessarily need the reading glasses I still would like to have something that could help prevent so much of that blue light exposure. Then the other thing to consider is you can for like your your screens themselves I did do this with my laptop still didn't help with the eye problem it was the distance that made the difference but you can get a blue light blocking sheet that you can put over just like the protective things you can put over your smart devices but I did get the bigger ones to go on my laptop so at least I have that when I do those rare moments where I do actually have to get on the laptop where I'm closer at least I still have that. Also the other thing is try to counterbalance it as much as you can because some of us nowadays in our particular jobs like mine it's really hard to not spend hours at hours per day staring at some kind of screen because of our jobs and a lot of us are in that position especially now so whenever you can look out the window and focus on the farthest thing away because that's part of the issue it's not just about the led exposure it's not just about the radiation coming from your screens it's also about the constant close-up work because I find when I'm doing my sewing if I'm looking down at my sewing all the time my eyes start to hurt just as much as they did when I was sitting close to the computer screen so for me that was also more about that distance so I try to always look up as often I can as I can and look out the window and focus on the farthest thing that I can see and then move my my focus to something a little closer a little closer and closer and then move it back out again that's a really good eye exercise that you can do and you'll probably find too as soon as you can lift your eyes from a computer screen or anything that's really close and focus on something with natural lighting like sunlight that is farther away you'll feel your eyes just kind of relax I mean I notice it all the time same thing applies if you can take both hands cup them tightly over your eyes and try to block out as much light as you possibly can and then focus on the inside of your hands you shouldn't be able to see it but trying to focus on the inside of your hands in the complete darkness is also a very good exercise to do for your eyes to help with your eye health in general and getting as much sun on your eyes not directly into your eyes but on your eyes is also important so not just looking at things that are that are illuminated by natural light but also trying to get that sun indirectly shining on your eyes so I mean think about this people worked for generations and generations out in the sun and they didn't have sunglasses on I personally think sunglasses have been more of a detriment to people's eye health than not wearing sunglasses because we were made just like we we were made to have sun exposure onto our skin it helps us get that vitamin d that we so desperately need getting the sunlight on our eyes is also important we weren't born with sunglasses we were born with natural melanin we were and we were born to be exposed to the sun so getting out in the sun as much as possible is really important especially if you're one like me that has to spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen or you don't get to get out a lot because you live in an area that hardly gets especially in the winter time that's usually when my eyes are worse because I don't get enough sun I don't I'm not able to get out in the sun near as often as I need so that's why we got to do what we can to compensate so obviously you know today is actually a really nice day so I've been trying to look out the windows get outside a little bit it's really cold out there so I'm not spending a lot of time out there but at least standing out the window with the sun shining in and actually allowing the sun to hit my eyes but not staring directly at the sun we're all smart enough to know this now there is some things that say you can look directly at the sun only when it's just coming up and as it's setting because that's where the rays are the weakest but I'm not going to recommend that some people say it has helped them some people say it has caused more damage than not so I won't personally recommend that look into all that kind of stuff for your own self and please share your personal testimonies on that if you've tried any of that but as far as that sun exposure at least getting that sun on your eyes a little bit every day if you're able if you're able if you have any sun in your country or in your city then try your best to do that but if nothing else even on a cloudy day you can still look out the window and focus on things that are far away it's still going to have natural light so try to get that as much as you possibly can okay so now let's move on to I'm going to talk about supplements first just so you can understand what you need and you can supplement with these things or you can look at the list I'm going to read that's going to be foods some of the foods that are naturally high in these things or foods that you already know like vitamin c for example is one of those on the list so obviously getting a lot lots of citrus fruits or any other fruits and vegetables like rhubarb is a vegetable that's naturally very high in vitamin c any of those things that you can get more of in your diet we got those organic mandarin and satsuma oranges coming in from misfits market so I try to eat at least one of those every day so I already mentioned c obviously vitamin a so you're getting beta carotene from the carrots and your any of your orange type fruits and vegetables like squash for instance pumpkin for certain is high in that vitamin e zinc oxide copper and lutein I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that right but this is how it's spelled right here so you can see so now let's talk about the foods and then I'll talk about the herbs so carrots of course beets fish eggs sweet potatoes there you go again with that vitamin a nuts bilberries and when I say nuts it's going to be nuts of any variety this is the thing about these lists by the way is this about tailoring it to you it's not one specific diet like some people falsely say that I'm saying it's about finding the things that you like best things that are going to work best for you things you're not allergic to and so on and then picking those out and things that you can have not everybody can have eggs not everybody can eat fish and so on and out of the nuts we all are going to should have at least one favorite that we really like and so look at those lots of healthy fats in those nuts any of your dark leafy greens so I would say even dandelion leaves and kale and collards peas broccoli well that really kind of falls in the dark leafy green especially for eating those dark green parts of the broccoli yellow potatoes which are our favorite potato or the yellow ones whether it be the yellow fin or the yukon gold any kind of yellow potato we love corn obviously non-gmo and oranges I already mentioned the oranges obviously because of the high vitamin c and that's going to apply to any of your other citrus fruits so this is basically just a short list to give you an idea of things to look into now let's get on to the herbs now in most cases these herbs you're looking at either taking a powdered and encapsulated form in the form of a tea or even using as an eye wash like you would with the fennel that's what I have right here so fennel seed taken both internally and used as an eye wash can be very helpful in fact I just got back into doing the fennel eye wash simply because I forgot but I do find it to be very soothing and helpful at least in that way to my eyes when they're very tired and feeling kind of achy and and burning so anyway some others one that I really want to try is eye bright just by the name alone it's right at the top of the list of the herbs anyway ginkgo biloba and we know that has a lot of other great benefits as well and then I mentioned the fennel and I did a video just on fennel by the way saffron is another one green tea turmeric of course it seems like turmeric is good for everything isn't it it's good for pain it's good for high cholesterol it's good for diabetics and the list goes on and on turmeric is a great herb grape seed extract golden seal cannabis nettle in fact I have some nettle sitting right here the I this is I think is from 2019 nettle that I'm trying to work through normally I'll mix it together with my other mixed greens like I have right here that includes dandelion leaves carrot tops kale amaranth leaves just whatever I'm collecting from the garden at the time that I dehydrate up and put in there but nettle is one of the main herbs that I have in my mixed greens blend that goes in everything I'll go ahead and link to the my last video I did on mixed greens that where I give you a pretty good idea of all the many things that are in here as well as how I use it and then one of the other herbs that's in here that's also on this particular list is lamb's quarters and lamb's quarters great pretty much anyone should be able to grow it it's considered a weed really but because of that most people should be able to grow it just fine I know it grows great for us here like nettle and lamb's quarters by the way and even dandelion leaves those are things that you can cook up and mix with anything stir fries or like I said with the dehydrated form you can even powder it to make it even easier to mix in with stuff if you don't like the flavor of those certain things or your family doesn't like vegetables or whatever it is and it's a lot easier to hide the powders or even in the flaked forms like I prefer when it comes to the greens and calendula so calendula is another one that just has so many great benefits so I would say using this as a tea especially but remember again you can powder any of this stuff or buy it in a powdered form and make your own capsules a lot of these things can also be found already in encapsulated form like your turmeric your ginger I believe your nettle and so on so a lot of these by the way are said to help reverse or prevent macular degeneration so I think for most of us that is what we're looking at especially if you're in your 40s or you're in your mid 50s like me or your 60s and on yeah usually it's in the around your 40s that you really start noticing that difference where the age starts making taking a toll on your eyes where you have to start wearing reading glasses because I know it was in my 40s when I started realizing I needed reading glasses and then of course now being at the age of 55 I can't there's very little I can read up close without having some eyeglasses on I can read this because I even my sloppy handwriting I wrote it big enough I can see it so anyway I hope you found that helpful and by the way go watch that video I did on the fennel seed and I think in there I did talk about how I make the fennel tea and show the little glass cups that I use for the eyewash those are very helpful you can get them in plastic but the glass ones are a little bit more expensive but I do recommend them and so check that video out and so far I you know like I said I'm just getting back into the fennel thing again sometimes I simply just get lackadaisical and then forget to keep up on these on a regular basis but trying to do the eyewash twice a day and then also you can take your fennel seed you can chew it up you can add it to your cooked goods and right here I have a blend of fennel and black seed that I'll sometimes take as a supplement just like this and I'll chew these up I'll take a spoonful and chew them up it's not the most pleasant thing but a lot of good benefits in there so if you know of any other herbs or foods or things that are really helpful for helping the eye health whether it be externally or just taken internally in the form of a food or a tea or whatever then go ahead and share those with us down below and by the way as I've been trying to keep up on doing I'll be typing up this list that I have right here and adding more to it as I think of it or find more information and it will be I'll put that link in the description box down below and that will take you over to the Patreon post which is totally free don't freak out some people still freak out when they hear Patreon ours is totally free every single post is open to everyone I don't even think you have to have a Patreon account to be able to see the post so when I give you the the direct link it should take you right to that particular post you shouldn't have any problem reading it because I don't charge for any of that so some people choose to donate that's totally up to you but our everything is open on there because I want this information out there for free but I do like putting those posts over there because I can put some photos in there and so on and and especially when I'm sharing recipes I can share the the photos that would go with the recipes because I do have food related recipes in there too I do plan on doing more as time allows so please be patient because I do have more I plan on typing up and putting in there as well all right well I hope you enjoyed this video you found it helpful and at least you can use it as it's meant as a springboard for you to start looking more into this information for yourself don't forget to look in the description box down below for the playlist I'll put there not just on the natural remedies but on the list of herbs that I've covered where I've done specific profiles on like the nettle the calendula the fennel and so on and the other link I'm going to be putting down there in the description box is to the video on how to do your own research on these various types of topics and that should be very helpful to for you to be able to search for those things because I'm not going to have all the answers I'm not a I'm just trying to compile information as best I can give it to you so you can use it as a basis to start looking more into the things that you can do to help yourself naturally and I think now more than ever we need to start looking at more natural ways to heal ourselves okay well thanks for watching take care and God bless