158- How to Protect Your Eyes From Screens with Dhruvin Patel

[00:00:14] Bryan Carroll: after staring at screens all day. Do you notice that your eyes start to feel fatigued? I know mine do, and I don't stare at screens nearly as much as other people. And in this episode, we're going to talk all about how to protect your.

From all this screen time that we're having in different ways that you can make sure to keep your eyes as healthy as possible. What's up everyone. I'm Bryan Carroll and I help people to move more, eat well and be adventurous. In today. I have droven Patel on the show who is an ophthalmologist. Who's going to tell us all about our eyes and what these different light sources and screens and everything similar are doing to our eyes over the long run.

We also talk about how viewing these grains at a close distance impacts our ability for our eyes to adjust at different focal lengths. So it's very interesting. I personally don't know that much about iHealth. So whenever I have an optometrist on the. I love to ask questions and I just want to learn more about the eyes and figure out how to keep them as healthy as possible.

But before we get started with this episode, our squat challenge for October squat Tober starts tomorrow, October 1st. And in this challenge, you'll be doing a hundred squats over 31 days in different feet positions, every single. This is a fantastic way to prep your legs for a ski and snowboard season, because you're going to be working on strength endurance and with the different feet positions, we're going to work on trying to prevent season ending injuries.

So now is the time we're starting to get a little bit of snow fall. It's time to start preparing for that ski season, if you enjoy those winter activities. So if you want to join, it's all donation based. So whatever you can donate to. The challenge goes directly towards. Which is a Northwest avalanche center.

Every single dollar goes directly to them and they provide education and they provide avalanche forecasts every single day during the main season. And they just do a lot of really good things over here in the PNW to make sure people can be as safe as possible and not get injured in the back country.

So if you want to join the challenge, go to summitforwellness.com/squat. Now Dhruvin Patel. He is an optometrist and. An entrepreneur encouraging a healthier relationship with technology in the digital age. And he has built AKI shield, which is a medically rated product that helps to reduce our exposure to blue light from screens.

And he talks about how it impacts our eye health and our overall quality of life. So let's dive into my conversation with Dhruvin. Thank you. Dhruvin Patel for coming onto the show. 

[00:02:59] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, no worries. Thanks. 

[00:03:01] Bryan Carroll: Of course, and I'm really excited to chat with you because we're going to be talking all about the eyes and our eye health.

And I'll be honest, I don't know that much about the eyes and different ways to improve our, the health of our eyes and the quality of our eyesight. So I'm definitely gonna have a lot of questions about that, but before we get into that, let's learn a little bit more about you and what is your background?

[00:03:25] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, sure. So I'm 29 years old. I reside in London United. My, the main part of my career and what I've been involved mostly has been to do with the eyes. And it started back in 2011, actually, what I started my undergraduate degree to study optometry, which is the professional of how to look off the eyes.

And whilst, whilst embarking on that amazing, I guess, degree and learning all about the eyes and actually trying to qualify as a professional healthcare professional I was working on the weekends large opticians, you know, I think in America, you've got one called grand vision. You know, Walmart do opticians, et cetera.

In, in the UK, it was called vision express. And on the weekends, the lead optometrist, you know, she got the team together and said, Hey guys, we've got this new products for people that wear glasses. And she said, it's a coating called blue control and effectively with people that have losses that have this coating on their prescription.

It will help them be eyestrain. And I was really naturally intrigued was I've grown up with my mom, always telling me, don't look at screens, they're bad for your eyes, but I, you know, she didn't really have an answer for it. So I was like, wait, is this the missing piece of the puzzle? So I ran back to the university the next week and I demanded.

I wanted to do a research, put it around the topic, and somehow I got my way. So I, I researched how blue light effected the eyes, physiology and circadian rhythms. And after that nine months of research, not only did I find that blue light from screens. Affected tied eyes, eye strain, visual stress, but it also made it harder for us to sleep by suppressing melatonin.

So I said, wow, this is, these are massive two massive pain points in the world. And I really wanted to take the technology that the glasses had and put it into something I could use was I don't wear glasses. So I didn't want to go and buy these prescription spectacles for example. So my journey began to.

Create a product, a specification of material that could do this for consumers like myself and a big guy. I sat on his journey to, to create products, which now is that my company known as AKI shored, but in between that period, you know, I qualified as an optometrist and I was working for three years with large optician chains here, known as Specsavers, vision express and boots, opticians.

And that gave me the foundation and eyecare to really help support why I'm doing it. 

[00:05:45] Bryan Carroll: So you mentioned blue light is a problem for the eyes. Is it is it literally like the blue shade of color from the light that we're seeing that's causing it? Or is that just a specific term that you 

[00:05:56] Dhruvin Patel: use? Yeah, so that's a very common misconception.

When we look at led screens or any digital device screens, we use that all, you know, 99% of them are led screens. And the way the light is presented to us is that. At the point of manufacture, the bottom layer is something known as a UV slash phosphate led, and it's a blue UV slash force for led.

And that that light is turned into a white light. So obviously everything we see is generally white light, but in that there's a spike in the blue light, which it doesn't have to be blue to the naked eye. So that, that in a nutshell explains the different, you know, people usually get confused about is, is it really blues or what, you know, that that's generally what's happening there.

[00:06:38] Bryan Carroll: And what is it specifically about the blue light? That's the issue? Like, does it mimic the sun or what is it about it? 

[00:06:47] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, totally. So if we if we take it back to our kind of science, science lessons at school, when you're learning. The spectrum of light, you know, we all know about UV rays, right? We look at the spectrum on the left-hand side, you've got UV rays on the right hand side, you've got infrared and radio waves.

And then in the middle, you've got the visible spectrum of light. So when we're talking about UV light, that's usually zero to 400 nanometers. And you might've seen this blonde sunglasses. They usually have stickers where it says 400 UVS because it's blocking out the UV light from the. But what happens when you enter the visible spectrum of light 400 nanometers?

The light that we suppose you can see is that purple slash blue lights, the blue light is between 400 to 500 nanometers. Now, numerous Resha shows, you know, through epidemiological studies, which are either cohort studies or in vitreous studies, which are studies in the lab. It says actually short acute bursts and also long-term to blue light.

Across the wave limps. So without getting too technical three 80 to four 50 nanometers. So crossing the UVM blue light spectrum is more detrimental to our eyes. That's because Cumulus exposure means that your eyes are working harder, but also there's a lot of aberrations with that light. It's a shorter wavelength.

And actually it causes more effect, negative effects, all eyes. And then when we look at four 50 to 500 nanometers, that blue light is the blue light that affects our sleep. So it's actually different parts of blue light, which affects our body in different ways and even more so, you know, last year, October, 2020 Unilever released some research on how blue light affects our skin.

And they said actually 30 hours of exposure to blue light in front of screens increases skin inflammation by 40%. So that's effective. Reduction in the necessity of our skin, which is effectively early aging. So there's lots of research coming out that, you know, blue light is detrimental and it's not just one device screens.

It does come from the sun. It comes from led lighting around us. And we've gotta be cognizant of these different aspects. But what's important is digital devices we have with their handheld. And they're closer to us, whereas lighting around us in the lighting, it's further away from us. So working distance and intensity is really important when looking.

You know how to you know, shape your body to have the best day possible when it comes to you know, different light exposures on how they affect the body. 

[00:09:07] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. So for the past, you know, couple of years now people have spent probably a way more time on screens than we ever have in history. A lot of people are on zoom calls or whatever type of video conferencing call that it might be on all day for work.

A lot of people are just sitting in front of computers now to do their. People who are bored or watching Netflix, whatever. And all of that is green related. So when we're being exposed to screens so much, what kind of impact is that having on our bodies and our eyes? 

[00:09:43] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. So I think when we're speaking about the topic blue light you know, I read some research which showed actually during the pandemic on average working professionals, you have to use computers for their work.

On average, they increased that daily screen time by 1.5 to two hours a day, which is a massive amount. Because not only were we using it for work, but also leisure, you know, we couldn't see loved ones. We got to FaceTime them et cetera. But yeah, when it comes to the screen time, I mean, when the eyes specifically, I think, you know, as I mentioned before, working distance.

Okay. A tip to try is if you hold your finger in front of your in front of your eyes and your nose, and you actually bring your finger to the tip of your nose, you'll start to feel your eyes come together. Now, when you do that, what's happening is your eyes are converting. Your eyes have to really work really hard to actually do that.

It seems easy when you're doing it for most people, but imagine you're doing that for hours on the day, right? It's like when you go to the gym, if you don't rest your muscles, you're going to be exhausted. That's why between sets you have arrest. When I looking at screens normally, but you mean it's one hour, two hours.

Those that time flies and before, you know it, you know, it's the afternoon as lunchtime, but your eyes haven't had to rest. Was it being focused on a near point? And that near point uses that convergence, it also uses the accommodation and your visual system gets drained. So you get that fatigue, which ties in.

Headaches and tied eyes. And that's why you tend to rub your eyes at the end of the day, or your mood is generally a bit lower because you feel heavy around the eyes. So that's, that's one important thing is that, you know, looking at screens is, is something that's near to us and it requires a lot more You know, strength from the visual system and the secondly, the blue light also contributes to that.

It also adds another layer. It's like, again, going to the gym, if you put another one kg on, on, on, or one stone or something on one side, it's probably a bit too much. But if you put out a bit of weight on this light blue light, it's another, it's another factor which the cumulative exposure means that again, you'll get in those tire dies.

The. The fatigue and the headaches, and that just makes it a really horrible experience for you to work. And what we're seeing now is usually people in the evenings they'll rest up and then what will happen next day, they feel fresh again and they can go again, but then towards the evening, the freedom, the strain.

But if within that five, six days, By the end of the week, you feel horrible because you know, you work in these muscles and the visual system really hard. And what, what I always say to people, you know, using screens is remember the 20, 20, 20 rule, which is effectively every 20 minutes look away for 20 seconds, at least 20 feet away.

And when I say look away 20 feet away, Out the window down the corridor, because you're refreshing the visual system. You're given that visual system a break rather than converging at any point. And, and also, you know, it's just really good for the visual system. So that's a tip that I'd always recommend to anyone.

And if you have trouble remembering it, maybe put post-it note on the side of the screen or set alarm. But it's always something that helps with fatigue around. 

[00:12:50] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. I definitely notice on days where I'm on my computer a lot more. So I'm staring at, at the same focal distance the whole time, the whole time.

If I look out the window like I'm doing right now, it takes my eyes. Kind of a split second to really kind of focus, whereas when I'm not on my screen, so when we're out hiking and all that type of stuff, I can focus on stuff very quickly. So I definitely noticed that there's a delay. If I've been staring at screens all the time, I also noticed that colors look different.

So if I'm looking at kind of fake colors on a screen and then look outside, then the colors outside don't look as vibrant to me as what the screen would look like. But if I've been outside for a few days, then the, the colors really start to pop for me as well. So I would imagine that it also is impacting our recognition of color tones by staring at screens too much.

[00:13:44] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, it impacts us in so many ways. So that, that's why it's really important to to give, you know, to be cognizant of the fact your eyes are doing something really, really you know, it's using a lot of energy to do that. So as you said, it affects multiple things like color contrast and visual acuity.

So, you know, The first example you get gave how it takes you a little bit longer from near to fall. Actually, if you, if you ask people that are in their fourth, fifth or sixth decade in life, that that phenomenon actually takes them three times longer than it does to people of our age, you know, kind of late twenties, early thirties, because again, as we get older, like our muscles get weak.

The, the accommodation aspects, convergence and accommodation of visual system is a lot weaker. And therefore to adjust from looking at near points, a far point takes even longer. So you start to feel those effects even more. So if you're someone that's older and using. You'll also, you know, making that harder for yourself.

So it's something to think about. It's, you know, as a younger, the bodies can adapt and they usually, you know, it's fine until, you know, you get to a point, but as, as we age, the buddies will really be telling you that actually you need to be changing the way. 

[00:14:59] Bryan Carroll: Yep. Yeah. I could also see, you know, when people are in the office, you might be working on your screen, but then you're getting interrupted by people coming into the office, or you might be watching people as I walk around.

So you're getting those different distances. Whereas now, you know, all we see is people on a screen and it's the same distance from us all the time. 

[00:15:20] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, totally. That, that, that has it's, it's completely changed. And another thing that happens when we all looking at screens on a normal day-to-day, we, we, we should be blinking 15 to 20 times in a minute, but when we look at a screen, we only blink three to five times.

Right. And the blink is actually really important for our eyes because when we blink, we lubricate the front surface of the eye, which is the cornea. Now, when you're blinking less in, let's say a minute that, which then compounds. So our own. What's happening is your eye, your, your tear film it evaporates.

And what happens then is you start getting dry eyes. It also affects the clarity of a vision. So you can't see well, and it's a knock on effect. So blinking is actually something that we don't control. But happens because it's something, you know, automatic process, we've been our bodies, but you can see, you know, blinking three times in a minute versus the normal 1720 times.

There's a massive difference. And over one hour it's it's, it's, you know, it's very impactful. 

[00:16:21] Bryan Carroll: Interesting. So could you counteract something like that with taking eyedrops or something to help with increased lubricant? 

[00:16:29] Dhruvin Patel: You can, yeah. To an, to an aspect you can. And you know what? I recommend it to people.

I say, if you can get some over the counter preservative free eye drops use them four to five times a day. Once as you gets up mid day, mid afternoon evening. And before you go bed and you know, what people forget with eyedrops is they may use it one day and then they'll forget to use them for the few days off.

Dry eyes and, oh, let me use this scan. If you just be consistent with it actually helps a lot. But fundamentally, you're going to get that. You will feel the eyes we refreshed for that acute hour after using the job, but you still start feeling the dry eyes if you suffer from it. Afterwards it's kind of a, it's a, it's a kind of a band-aid so it does help.

But you know, you're still going to be blinking less. 

[00:17:16] Bryan Carroll: So is. All of our time was spent on screens, also impacting our long-term eyesight as well. So like if you had 20, 20 vision, and then all of a sudden you got into a job that required a lot of time on screens. Are you going to see a significant reduction in your eyesight quality?

[00:17:34] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. So lots of research has come out off the pandemic that we're seeing now. So many more children becoming myopic, which is false side. They need, they now need glasses to see far. And what has fueled this is they've been home learning. So they've been using iPads like in the UK, for example, the government sent out tablets to all children homes to, for them to learn from.

And yeah, th the, the studies have shown that actually this has caused. Epidemic of myopia children needing glasses. So we know the correlation. There is again, if we're using devices or something close that way, or having to focus compared to children, being outdoors, running around again, you know, normal day-to-day looking at different focal points is you know, really important.

That is one key thing we've learned in the, in the recent pandemic, which those already researched for before, but now it's solidified it. And I encourage all parents to make sure their kids are getting enough time outside. And just to add to the children part, when it comes to blue and UV light, actually the, the child's eyes doesn't develop fully until their teenage years.

And what this means is that. They are more susceptible to blue light damage was the lens in the eye doesn't develop. And the lens is what absorbs most UVC and some blue light out there. So actually children in a combined with them, home learning, growing up in a decade of the digital, sorry, in one or two decades of the digital age, we all still it's so early, we're still there hasn't been any longer will studies on how screen time.

Blue light will affect us after four. Decades, you know, we've got early research that shows that, you know, it's probably not good, but it's not enough for people to stop, you know, banish devices or whatever. But there's, there's definitely significant research that shows, you know, we should be putting things in place, which consumers are aware about.

Parents are aware about because the children might be affected later in life. And you asked about eye diseases and. Something called macular degeneration. A risk factor is blue light. So people that have a lot of blue light exposure, even from the sun devices throughout their lifetime, are more likely to suffer from macular degeneration, which is an eye disease, which affects the central part of your vision.

You know, if you suffer from this idea that you're affected by the black hole in the middle of your vision, you know, it's a horrible disease and you're visually impaired or partially sighted. From this disease and actually it's a disease that you only have in your sixth, seventh, or eighth decade in life.

But if children are having such a bad start from the blue light damage from a young age, And then as they get older, you know what I put it in the future is instead of macular degeneration occurring in the later years of life, people will start getting it earlier, maybe, you know, in the fourth or fifth decades of life, because of the way we've changed our living in, you know, how the children's eye structures are and biology and their day-to-day lives.

[00:20:36] Bryan Carroll: Is there good screening processes to assess. What kind of damage we're doing to our eyesight by being on those screens? All the time, like in the last year is when I started noticing that transition from a screen to looking out the window, taking that slight little a split second to really focus.

And part of me is like, you know, is that the screen or is that. Me starting to age a little bit. So I know a lot of this stuff is happening slowly over time, and then you start paying attention to, oh, that's a little different compared to what it used to be. So as our screening processes that allow us to catch this early on, even if we haven't quite noticed it ourselves yet, but to be able to know that, okay, we are causing some issues to the eyes.

[00:21:24] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. I mean, in short, unfortunately there's nothing you can probably do. In a home setting, which you can screen effectively to say, actually, this has affected me to this level. What I suggest is if you go to an eye doctor, an optometrist regularly, you know, every year and all of a sudden to check your visual acuity, your need for any prescription, your ocular motor balance.

So that's the ability for your eyes to look in multiple directions. You know, your pupil reactions that's, you know, if you really want to challenge them, there's something called critical flicker fusion frequency. So that's the ability for you to see a flickering light versus a non frequent light.

And usually in a minute, you can, you know, you can see the difference between the two, about 40 times in a minute, but if your eyes are fatigued or, you know, they're struggling, you'd only be able to do it like 10 times in a minute. So that is a potential screening aspect. No, it means finding one of those tests online or something.

But I was like, when you go to , they'll be able to tell you those changes that, that your eyes are having. So yeah, I see them regularly. 

[00:22:30] Bryan Carroll: Speaking of flickering light led flicker is a lot more than stuff like fluorescent lighting, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it does. And how is that impacting? Does that make a difference in the impact on our eyes, those different types of light sources?

[00:22:46] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. So, I mean, eyes are very clever systems. I mean, even if something's flickering it, you know, your visual system puts it together. If it's flickering out false refresh rate then it can put it together. So you've probably used your phone when you recorded like a TV or a screen and on your phone it's flickering.

But when you look at it, it's not flickering it's suppose your eyes. Also advanced, they can piece it together, frame by frame, but your phone is like struggling to catch up because the refresh rate of a screen is you know, it's too low, affects me for it to pick up. So that, that, that's all, that's all happening in terms of the flip.

I think we're flickering, you know, your eyes, your eyes are okay with it. I think if you can see the flickering, like a genuine flicker in which is happening to the naked eye, then that's bad. Right. If you can't see any flicker and then it's fine, but your visual system can adapt to it. But gentlemen, if you'll, if a screen or anything, TV slicker in one, it tells you, you need a new, new monitor and to yeah.

It's not going to be good for your. 

[00:23:44] Bryan Carroll: Those are led monitors from 1925, except you can see the flicker. Now, you know, I'm sure you've heard of red light therapy and all that type of stuff. A lot of people use that for skin rejuvenation and whatnot. Can you also utilize that for eye rejuvenation? 

[00:24:04] Dhruvin Patel: Good question.

I think when it comes to the eyes, they're very sensitive to different types of. I think red light therapy does lots of research that helps with the skin when it comes to the eyes, I'm yet to you know, see any, any for myself in my professional opinion positive ways we can use red light to, you know prevent any eye diseases or improve eyesight or whatever, you know?

I'm not too sure if that, if that's even a thing, but at the moment for the eyes, it's, it's definitely something that y'all, wouldn't recommend shining any red light into your eyes. 

[00:24:38] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I, our Aveda had an old practice where you would stare at my candle light for like 10 minutes. And that was supposedly to help improve your eyes.

And I don't know if there's any validity in that, but I thought that was interesting if that would help balance out blue light exposure. It's 

[00:24:56] Dhruvin Patel: definitely safer than looking at a source of blue light was the candle is a very red it's on the other side of the spectrum, not, not close to UV lights, the other side of the visible spectrum.

And it's, it's a longer wavelength of light. So it's a lot safer for the eyes. So you can look at it, but as I said, it's not, you know, you're not going to really, it's not gonna, it's not being shown to help improve eyesight or protect it in any way, but it's definitely safer than any other type of colored light, for example.

[00:25:24] Bryan Carroll: So as we continue dealing with blue light, what are some good strategies in a ways that we can mitigate our exposure to the blue light? 

[00:25:35] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. So nowadays I think there's multiple options. I think if you use an apple device or a monitor, there's, you know, software out there, which limits blue light, you know, if you type in blue light filter, you should be able to download a free.

But, you know, I was one of those consumers that use that, but what really annoyed me was your screens turn orange you know, software changes the color on your screen to limit that, you know, blue light exposure. So you tend not to use it during the day, because if you imagine looking at spreadsheets or emails, it can be a pain if everything's orange and there, especially in the evening, if you're on Netflix or you're watching a movie again, you know, if something's, if someone's face is looking.

Tinted Metro and it's not going to be enjoyable. So, you know, I think another solution is for example, products that I, I invested on research time until you have AKI showed is, you know, asking filters, limit the spike of harmful blue. But it still creates a crystal clear picture. So effectively in the background, it's working invisibly to move that blue light, but you get to still enjoy what you're doing on the screen.

So physical products filters are another option also glasses. So if you do wear glasses you can go to opticians and they can add a coating. What would say is the coatings only limit to 19% of the harmful. And, you know, if I benchmark it against AKI shore products on average, it's at least 40% of the harmful blue light we reduce.

So it's almost double. So I'd say, you know, reducing, it is better than not reducing it, but also be, you know, aware of, or aware of that fact. So I'd say those are the kind of three main ways on mitigate through light. And lastly is, you know, reduce your time, look, you know, around blue light exposure, if you can.

But if you can't, you've got those interventions. 

[00:27:24] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. So with the AKI shield, do you have you, you were mentioning to get rid of like that orange glow, like what the software on phones and stuff does. Do you have specific software for devices as well? Or are you wearing like the blue light blocking type glasses?

Or what, what kind of products do you have over there? 

[00:27:43] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, sure. So we don't, we, we deal with hardware, earning not softer. So our core products. Medically rated screen filter. So I'll give example for, so the iPhone 13 is launching very soon, so it's a tempered glass product, so it protects your screen at the same time, but it also has pigmentation within the glass itself.

It's absorbs the harmful blue light and also, and to active and anti blue light coatings on there to deflect that harsh blue light as well. And then for monitors and laptops, we have a plastic film which goes over. And when it says to do the same. 

[00:28:17] Bryan Carroll: Interesting. Okay. And then does the blue light also impacts circadian rhythms?

So if you're not filtering it in any way, and you're staring at screens at night, is that going to cause you to struggle with getting to bed and get adequate sleep? 

[00:28:33] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, so yeah, so what's important is when us on sets usually a hormone called melatonin is produced to get the body for it ready for bed.

It gets you in a kind of asleep. Now what happens is usually during the day, Mediterranean is kept at bay because the sun is emitting lots of blue light, and that stops melatonin from being produced. It's suppressing that Mediterranean. So by using digital devices, you're affecting replicating the sun in your.

Definitely. If you're trying to look to go to bed after you've just use a screen, you're going to be tossing and turning was your body. Doesn't have that hormone at high level, which is effectively telling your body's ready to bet that you have high levels of cortisol instead. So your circadian rhythm gets messed up acutely.

You struggled to sleep. And when you do get to sleep, you'll quality of sleep is poor and there's a knock on effect your next day off. Your energy levels are low. You're struggling. So we've sleep is massive. It's really massive issue. And what I would say is everyone is sensitive to blue light in different levels.

So you might have someone that says, oh, I use a device right up until I go to bed. I'd sleep fine. That's great. You know that there are people out there that it just does not impact in the same way, but there's people that will use. Screen or blue light source, you know, straight off the sunset, maybe four hours before they go to bed and they may, they might be really impacted by it because their body is so sensitive to it.

So I always say it's individual to every person. So find out how, how things impact you in your day-to-day life. 

[00:30:09] Bryan Carroll: So using something like the AKI shield, would that help improve the circadian rhythm and the impact of the blue light on hours or KVM? 

[00:30:18] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah, so, okay. She was made to, to filter out that harmful blue light, which affects the suppression of melatonin.

So again, if you're so on that concept, they have two screens. Having the AKI showed will help alleviate some of that reduction in monitor. And, and so, you know, it's a tool that's there for people. And let's face it. A lot of us can't, you know, stop using screens up until bed. And it's something that we have to you know, we have to have intervention in some way.

[00:30:47] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. Are there any final things that you want to make sure that we cover when it comes to eye health, blue lights and all that type of stuff? 

[00:30:57] Dhruvin Patel: Yeah. What, what would say is, you know, your eyes, eyes are very precious. You know, when, when people are, what sense would they least like to lose? It's usually they say the eyes, but we, we really don't look off through our eyes, you know?

We visually see it as a problem where that right. We're going to book you in for eye exam. So I would say have regular eye exams because you can pick up actually tumors. You can pick up cancers in the eyes and these are things that will be asymptomatic. You won't even know all of that, but through senior idol.

So you can pick that up. So look your eyes because they do say your eyes are the salt, the window to your soul. So, you know, very important organs of your. But yeah, just getting people to be more conscious about their eyes and letting their lives slide by looking after the eyes was when you look off to your eyes, you look off to so much more.

It's not just, you know, the eyes. 

[00:31:49] Bryan Carroll: Perfect driven. Thank you so much for coming onto the show. People can find out more about the products that you [email protected] You're also over there on Instagram and the linked in, is there anywhere else that you want people to go and find out more about? 

[00:32:06] Dhruvin Patel: Well, we actually recently went onto the UK version of shark tank.

So if you go into YouTube and search dragons, then it's supper. Yeah. They don't have shots or they have dragons, but if you type in dragons, then AKI shoot in YouTube. You'll see how we we pitched in front of the five dragons on, but luckily there wasn't a coffin fit involved them. So I think it went down well, but I'd love for all the listeners to tune in and have a look at that.

[00:32:34] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. Well, we'll definitely put those down in the show notes as a, well, thank you. Driven Patel so much for coming onto the show and talking to us about what screens are doing to our eyes, especially since we're all on them all the time now. So thank you so much. No 

[00:32:48] Dhruvin Patel: real pleasure, Bryan. Thanks so much.

[00:32:50] Bryan Carroll: I learned quite a bit of information on how our screen time is really impacting our eyes. And I definitely notice when I'm staring at a screen or a good chunk of the day, when I try to look out in the distance, it takes my eyes like a half second to a second to really adjust and start to see details from far away.

So I definitely know my experience with these screens is definitely impacting my eye health in the long run. And I don't know what it's going to do over the next 20 years. So hopefully. Different products like AKI shield can help protect my eyes so that I don't have too many issues as I age. Now, if you want to learn more about AKI shield, go over to RQ shield.com and you can see some of the products that he has over there.

Remember starting tomorrow is our squat challenge where we're doing a hundred squats every single day before. Month of October and every single day, we are doing the squats in different feet positions. This is to help build endurance and strength for our legs, for the upcoming ski and snowboard season and to prevent season ending injuries.

So if you want to join, it's all, donation-based just head on over to summit for wellness.com/squat, and you can submit however much you want to know Nate to join in the challenge. But get started tomorrow, tomorrow is a very first day. So make sure you head on over there right away. Next week, I have Dr.

Amber Crocs rude on the show. Let's go learn who she is and what she does. I am here with Dr. Amber. Hey, Dr. Ammar, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

[00:34:21] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: Yeah. Well, I'm very. I actually was on the fence between pursuing music and medicine and I chose to pursue medicine. So here I am as a naturopathic doctor, but I still love music.

All forms of it play a lot of instruments. 

[00:34:37] Bryan Carroll: What's your favorite instrument? 

[00:34:40] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: I play a lot of guitar, piano, but guitars, my favorite. 

[00:34:44] Bryan Carroll: And what will we be learning about in our interview today? 

[00:34:49] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: Yeah. So we're going to be discussing peptide therapies, how they can be used therapeutically to improve athletic recovery, deep sleep, cognitive focus, better skin, and so much more.

So we'll talk about the history of peptide therapy, what they are, how you can use them. And some of the main main uses some of the main peptides that I use therapeutically in practice. 

[00:35:12] Bryan Carroll: And what are your favorite foods or nutrients that you think everyone should get more of in their diet? 

[00:35:18] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: I love polyphenols flavanoids we know how powerful those.

Nutrients are for ourselves. So think about berries. Think about red cabbage, kale, green tea, turmeric, all of the bright colored foods that really transform our energy and protect ourselves from aging faster. They really repair the cell as we age. That's one of the things I really focus on and bone broth is one of the other things that I drank on a pretty much daily basis for healing that gut lining.

And it has a lot of those amazing proteins. I get the one that's really high in protein, about 20 grams of protein in a container. And then of course I love consuming greens, which are high in vitamin K many people do not get that nutrient less. They supplement with it. So a lot of those leafy greens, we know have not only some of those flavonoids, some of those really protective compounds, but vitamin Ks, 

[00:36:22] Bryan Carroll: In what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall wellness?

[00:36:27] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: Optimize your deep sleep, working on sleep is probably the highest yield thing that you could do. In terms of feeling better, improving hormone, production, brain function, skin, everything. I mean, function. It happens in our sleep. So that's a huge one. Peptides can help, but there's so many other factors in, in medicine, we look at melatonin levels and how humans are sensitive delights sleep is really, really key.

The second thing is focusing more on the fascia and the lymph system. These are often forgotten in medicine. I think they're really the secret threshold behind many long-term health issues, especially those myofascial or muscular related pains. Chronic pain is such an epidemic right now. And so. How do we move our lymph?

It's this detox system of the body, but it's through it's through movements, through a foam, rolling, jumping on a trampoline running. You can put your feet up against the wall as a way to help. Lymph massage is really phenomenal. So really we're sitting all day long at many of, for many Americans. We're just not getting that movement in the body.

And so. Our fascia gets all kind of tight in our lymph also doesn't drain well, and this is just as important. Detox is anything. And then the third thing is really importance of water. So I filter my water. I have a reverse osmosis system. I add minerals back in my water. I add electrolytes every single morning to really facilitate my cells and absorbing that water and nourishing the cell with water.

So water is just an exposure that we have every day. And we want to really want to make sure we're drinking something that is quality. Most of our body is made of water. 

[00:38:23] Bryan Carroll: What minerals do you add back in? 

[00:38:26] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: Oh yeah, I have this trace minerals. So it's like magnesium. What else? In their potassium?

It's it's essentially like an electrolyte. I also have a plant minerals, trace minerals. They're the company that makes it all, but I just added about a tablespoon back in, and then there's another company called Quintin that makes. Hypertonic solution that is just seawater that has these natural minerals in the sea that you, that you can drink in the morning.

And that's been really, really phenomenal. It's just focusing on hydration, drink, just drinking water. Isn't usually enough for most people that actually get the water into the. 

[00:39:12] Bryan Carroll: When you're doing that what'd you say a tablespoon of the trace minerals? Is that how much of that, or what size container is that?

Because there's a question I'm asking. They will have to how many ounces? So 

[00:39:27] Dr. Amber Krogsrud: about 32 ounces. Yeah, it's a pretty substantial dilution. So I'll put it in a water bottle. I'll drink it in the morning. Usually a scoop of electrolytes, some of the trace minerals and a really, really phenomenal. The thing about reverse osmosis is that it really pulls out all those minerals.

So it's important to add it in back in when you use that sort of filtration system, our reverse osmosis removes most of the contaminants that would be in city water, like my water and Los Angeles. So contaminated. Oh, there's like 20 different compounds that are above way above the normal limit that caused, you know, hormone, imbalance, infertility, all these carcinogenic potential.

So. It's really important to filter it. And then I like to add those minerals back in Linus Pauling had this code that said every disease is linked to a mineral deficiency, and we know that our body ourselves run on, on minerals and those electrolytes, I find that many people may be drinking a lot of water, but they don't have any electrolytes or minerals to really pull it into this.

[00:40:33] Bryan Carroll: Peptide therapy is definitely interesting to me. It's one of those up and coming medical procedures that I find fascinating. And I think there's a lot of potential in there to impact our overall health. And she discusses a lot of different ways that we can use peptides to increase different parts of our health.

So until next week, keep climbing to the peak of your house.