10 Great Exercises to Improve Your Eyesight

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If your eyesight has been declining a bit, all is not lost. Just like many other muscles in the body, the muscles of the eye—including those responsible for changing the focal length of your vision—can atrophy without exercise. So, without further ado, here are the exercises recommended:

The eyes (still) have it

  1. Blink for a minute: blink rapidly for 30–60 seconds to regulate blood circulation, lubricate your eyes, and prevent dryness.
  2. Rotate your head while staring ahead: turn your head in a circular motion while keeping your gaze straight ahead. This improves blood circulation to your eyes.
  3. Look to your right and left: slowly move your gaze from right to left while breathing. This one relaxes and stretches the eye muscles.
  4. Close your eyes and relax: close your eyes for at least 30 seconds to relax and strengthen your photoreceptor cells.
  5. Move your gaze in different directions: shift your gaze right-left, up-down, in circular motions, and trace a figure 8 with your eyes. This improves visual perception for both near- and far-sightedness.
  6. Close and open your eyes: tighten your eyes shut for 3–5 seconds, then open them. Repeat seven times to improve blood circulation and relax your eye muscles. ← 10almonds note: the duration makes this different from #4, so do try both!
  7. Push against your temples with your fingers: gently press your temples with your fingers for two seconds, then release. Repeat 4–5 times to improve fluid circulation in your eyes.
  8. Draw geometric figures with your gaze: use your eyes to trace shapes such as triangles, squares, and circles to enhance your eye coordination and muscle strength.
  9. Move your eyeballs up and down: close your eyes and slowly move your eyeballs up and down five times to stretch and relax the muscles ← 10almonds note: this seems to be the same as part of #5 and has a considerable overlap with #8, but we’re listing it anyway, or else everyone will wonder where #9 went!
  10. Strengthen near and far focusing: focus on your thumb 10 inches away for 10–15 seconds, then switch focus to an object 10–20 feet away. Repeat five times to improve focus adjustment ability.

By practicing these exercises daily, we are told that you can improve eye health and vision within a week.

For more on all these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Vision for Life, Revised Edition – by Dr. Meir Schneider

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  • The Minerals That Neutralize Viruses (While Being Harmless To Humans)

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Researchers in Estonia and Sweden (it was a joint project, with five researchers from each country) have found a way to use titanium dioxide nanoparticles to neutralize viruses, including COVID & flu.

    Titanium dioxide, yes, the common additive to foods, cosmetics, and more (in most cases, added as a non-bleaching whitening agent—simply, titanium dioxide is body-safe, white in color, and very reflective, making it a brilliant, shiny white). Also used in sunscreens, for its excellent safety profile and again, its full-spectrum reflectiveness.

    See also: Who Screens The Sunscreens?

    How it works

    Some viruses, including coronaviruses and influenza viruses, have an outer layer that’s a lipid membrane. The researchers found (by testing against multiple viruses, and by using a control of silicotungstate polyoxymethalate nanoparticles), that the ability of titanium dioxide to bind to phospholipids (and ability that the silicotungstate polyoxymethalate doesn’t have) means that the nanoparticles bind to the virus’s outer case, thus preventing it from effectively entering human cells (which it needs to do in order to infect the host, as this is how viruses replicate themselves).

    What this means, in practical terms

    While more research will be needed to know whether this can be used in the medicinal sense, it already means that a nanoparticle spray can be used to create virus-neutralizing layers on surfaces and in air filters. This alone could greatly reduce transmission in enclosed spaces such as public transport (ranging from taxis to airplanes), as well as other places where people get packed into a small space.

    If you have an air purifier at home, keep an eye out for when improved filters arrive on the market!

    See also: What’s Lurking In Your Household Air?

    Wait, you said “minerals”; are there more?

    It seems so, but we can’t truly say for sure until they’ve been tested. However, the researchers see no reason why other small metal oxides that bind strongly to phospholipids shouldn’t work exactly the same way—which would include iron oxide (yes, as in rust) and aluminum oxide (the coating that automatically forms immediately when aluminum is exposed to oxygen (aluminum is so reactive to oxygen, that it’s almost impossible to get aluminum without an oxidized surface, unless you use something else to coat it, or cut it in an oxygen-free atmosphere and keep it there).

    You can read the paper itself here:

    Molecular mechanisms behind the anti corona virus activity of small metal oxide nanoparticles

    And on a related note (different scientists, different science, similar principle, though, using mineral nanotechnology to kill microbes):

    ❝Researchers report that laboratory tests of their nanoflower-coated dressings demonstrate antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and biocompatible properties. They say these results show these tannic acid and copper(II) phosphate sprouted nanoflower bandages are promising candidates for treating infections and inflammatory conditions.❞

    Read in full: This delicate nanoflower is downright deadly to bacteria

    Want to learn more?

    Check out:

    Move over, COVID and Flu! We Have “Hybrid Viruses” To Contend With Now

    Take care!

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  • Eat It! – by Jordan Syatt and Michael Vacanti

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    One of the biggest challenges we often face when undertaking diet and exercise regimes, is the “regime” part. Day one is inspiring, day two is exciting… Day seventeen when one has a headache and some kitchen appliance just broke and one’s preferred exercise gear is in the wash… Not so much.

    Authors Jordan Syatt and Michael Vacanti, therefore, have taken it upon themselves to bring sustainability to us.

    Their main premise is simplicity, but simplicity that works. For example:

    • Having a daily calorie limit, but being ok with guesstimating
    • Weighing regularly, but not worrying about fluctuations (just trends!)
    • Eating what you like, but prioritizing some foods over others
    • Focusing on resistance training, but accessible exercises that work the whole body, instead of “and then 3 sets of 12 reps of these in 6-4-2 progression to exhaustion of the anterior sternocleidomastoid muscle”

    The writing style is simple and clear too, without skimping on the science where science helps explain why something works a certain way.

    Bottom line: this one’s for anyone who would like a strong healthy body, without doing the equivalent of a degree in anatomy and physiology along the way.

    Click here to check out “Eat it!” on Amazon and simplify your diet and exercise plans for great, sustainable progress!

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  • The Myth of Normal – by Dr. Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    A lot of popular beliefs (and books!) start with the assumption that everyone is, broadly speaking, “normal”. That major diversions from “normal” happen only to other people… And that minor diversions from “normal” are just something to suck up and get over—magically effecting a return to “normalcy”.

    Dr. Maté, however, will have none of these unhelpful brush-offs, and observes that in fact most if not all of us have been battered by the fates one way or another. We just:

    • note that we have more similarities than differences, and
    • tend to hide our own differences (to be accepted) or overlook other people’s (to make them more acceptable).

    How is this more helpful? Well, the above approach isn’t always, but Mate has an improvement to offer:

    We must see flawed humans (including ourselves) as the product of our environments… and/but see this a reason to look at improving those environments!

    Beyond that…

    The final nine chapters of the books he devotes to “pathways to wholeness” and, in a nutshell, recovery. Recovery from whatever it was for you. And if you’ve had a life free from anything that needs recovering from, then congratulations! You doubtlessly have at least one loved one who wasn’t so lucky, though, so this book still makes for excellent reading.

    Dr. Maté was awarded the Order of Canada for his medical work and writing. His work has mostly been about addiction, trauma, stress, and childhood development. He co-wrote this book with his son, Daniel.

    Check out The Myth of Normal on Amazon today!

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Q: Can you let us know about more studies that have been done on statins? Are they really worth taking?

    That is a great question! We imagine it might have been our recent book recommendation that prompted it? It’s quite a broad question though, so we’ll do that as a main feature in the near future!

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  • “Unfuck Your Body” In Under 10 Minutes A Day!

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    There’s a lot that can go wrong with mobility, but fortunately, a few compound exercises will take care of most parts of it:

    Full Body Mobility Routine

    Eleven exercises, 10 minutes, follow-along video if you want it!

    Kneeling side bend stretch:

    • Targets obliques, lats, hip flexors, and spinal mobility.
    • 10 reps total, focusing on stability and core engagement.

    Seated ankle stretch:

    • This one’s for ankle mobility and deep squat comfort.
    • 10 reps, adjust intensity by leaning forward or pressing on knees.

    Deep squat with prayer stretch:

    • Improves hip, ankle, and lower back flexibility.
    • 10 reps, maintain an upright chest and push knees outward.

    Deep squat with high reach:

    • Boosts thoracic mobility, hip, and ankle flexibility.
    • 5 reps per side, focus on spinal rotation and open chest.

    Deep shoulder stretch:

    • Improves overhead mobility and shoulder tension relief.
    • 10 reps in a child’s pose position with a forward reach.

    Frog rocks:

    • Opens hip abductors, groin, and inner thighs.
    • 10 reps, keep spine neutral and adjust knee position if needed.

    World’s greatest stretch” (with variations):

    • This is great for hip, spine, and shoulder mobility.
    • 5 reps per side, integrates a deep lunge and rotational movements.

    Hamstring stretch (from lunge position):

    • Focus on hamstring and calf flexibility.
    • 5 reps, maintain hands on the ground and shift hips back.

    Pigeon stretch with forward crawl:

    • Opens hips, glutes, and lower back.
    • 5 reps per side, adjust foot placement if knee discomfort occurs.

    Cat-cow stretch:

    • Mobilizes spine, improves posture, and relieves back tension.
    • 10 reps, synchronize movement with breath.

    Couch stretch:

    • Targets hip flexors and quadriceps mobility.
    • 5 reps per side, add a forward lunge for a deeper stretch.

    For more on each of these plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

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    Take care!

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  • State Regulators Know Health Insurance Directories Are Full of Wrong Information. They’re Doing Little to Fix It.

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

    Series: America’s Mental Barrier:How Insurers Interfere With Mental Health Care

    Reporting Highlights

    • Extensive Errors: Many states have sought to make insurers clean up their health plans’ provider directories over the past decade. But the errors are still widespread.
    • Paltry Penalties: Most state insurance agencies haven’t issued a fine for provider directory errors since 2019. When companies have been penalized, the fines have been small and sporadic.
    • Ghostbusters: Experts said that stricter regulations and stronger fines are needed to protect insurance customers from these errors, which are at the heart of so-called ghost networks.

    These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

    To uncover the truth about a pernicious insurance industry practice, staffers with the New York state attorney general’s office decided to tell a series of lies.

    So, over the course of 2022 and 2023, they dialed hundreds of mental health providers in the directories of more than a dozen insurance plans. Some staffers pretended to call on behalf of a depressed relative. Others posed as parents asking about their struggling teenager.

    They wanted to know two key things about the supposedly in-network providers: Do you accept insurance? And are you accepting new patients?

    The more the staffers called, the more they realized that the providers listed either no longer accepted insurance or had stopped seeing new patients. That is, if they heard back from the providers at all.

    In a report published last December, the office described rampant evidence of these “ghost networks,” where health plans list providers who supposedly accept that insurance but who are not actually available to patients. The report found that 86% of the listed mental health providers who staffers had called were “unreachable, not in-network, or not accepting new patients.” Even though insurers are required to publish accurate directories, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office didn’t find evidence that the state’s own insurance regulators had fined any insurers for their errors.

    Shortly after taking office in 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul vowed to combat provider directory misinformation, so there seemed to be a clear path to confronting ghost networks.

    Yet nearly a year after the publication of James’ report, nothing has changed. Regulators can’t point to a single penalty levied for ghost networks. And while a spokesperson for New York state’s Department of Financial Services has said that “nation-leading consumer protections” are in the works, provider directories in the state are still rife with errors.

    A similar pattern of errors and lax enforcement is happening in other states as well.

    In Arizona, regulators called hundreds of mental health providers listed in the networks of the state’s most popular individual health plans. They couldn’t schedule visits with nearly 2 out of every 5 providers they called. None of those companies have been fined for their errors.

    In Massachusetts, the state attorney general investigated alleged efforts by insurers to restrict their customers’ mental health benefits. The insurers agreed to audit their mental health provider listings but were largely allowed to police themselves. Insurance regulators have not fined the companies for their errors.

    In California, regulators received hundreds of complaints about provider listings after one of the nation’s first ghost network regulations took effect in 2016. But under the new law, they have actually scaled back on fining insurers. Since 2016, just one plan was fined — a $7,500 penalty — for posting inaccurate listings for mental health providers.

    ProPublica reached out to every state insurance commission to see what they have done to curb rampant directory errors. As part of the country’s complex patchwork of regulations, these agencies oversee plans that employers purchase from an insurer and that individuals buy on exchanges. (Federal agencies typically oversee plans that employers self-fund or that are funded by Medicare.)

    Spokespeople for the state agencies told ProPublica that their “many actions” resulted in “significant accountability.” But ProPublica found that the actual actions taken so far do not match the regulators’ rhetoric.

    “One of the primary reasons insurance commissions exist is to hold companies accountable for what they are advertising in their contracts,” said Dr. Robert Trestman, a leading American Psychiatric Association expert who has testified about ghost networks to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. “They’re not doing their job. If they were, we would not have an ongoing problem.”

    Most states haven’t fined a single company for publishing directory errors since 2019. When they do, the penalties have been small and sporadic. In an average year, fewer than a dozen fines are issued by insurance regulators for directory errors, according to information obtained by ProPublica from almost every one of those agencies. All those fines together represent a fraction of 1% of the billions of dollars in profits made by the industry’s largest companies. Health insurance experts told ProPublica that the companies treat the fines as a “cost of doing business.”

    Insurers acknowledge that errors happen. Providers move. They retire. Their open appointments get booked by other patients. The industry’s top trade group, AHIP, has told lawmakers that companies contact providers to verify that their listings are accurate. The trade group also has stated that errors could be corrected faster if the providers did a better job updating their listings.

    But providers have told us that’s bogus. Even when they formally drop out of a network, they’re not always removed from the insurer’s lists.

    The harms from ghost networks are real. ProPublica reported on how Ravi Coutinho, a 36-year-old entrepreneur from Arizona, had struggled for months to access the mental health and addiction treatment that was covered by his health plan. After nearly two dozen calls to the insurer and multiple hospitalizations, he couldn’t find a therapist. Last spring, he died, likely due to complications from excessive drinking.

    Health insurance experts said that, unless agencies can crack down and issue bigger fines, insurers will keep selling error-ridden plans.

    “You can have all the strong laws on the books,” said David Lloyd, chief policy officer with the mental health advocacy group Inseparable. “But if they’re not being enforced, then it’s kind of all for nothing.”

    The problem with ghost networks isn’t one of awareness. States, federal agencies, researchers and advocates have documented them time and again for years. But regulators have resisted penalizing insurers for not fixing them.

    Two years ago, the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions began to probe the directories used by five large insurers for plans that they sold on the individual market. Regulators wanted to find out if they could schedule an appointment with mental health providers listed as accepting new patients, so their staff called 580 providers in those companies’ directories.

    Thirty-seven percent of the calls did not lead to an appointment getting scheduled.

    Even though this secret-shopper survey found errors at a lower rate than what had been found in New York, health insurance experts who reviewed Arizona’s published findings said that the results were still concerning.

    Ghost network regulations are intended to keep provider listings as close to error-free as possible. While the experts don’t expect any insurer to have a perfect directory, they said that double-digit error rates can be harmful to customers.

    Arizona’s regulators seemed to agree. In a January 2023 report, they wrote that a patient could be clinging to the “last few threads of hope, which could erode if they receive no response from a provider (or cannot easily make an appointment).”

    Secret-shopper surveys are considered one of the best ways to unmask errors. But states have limited funding, which restricts how often they can conduct that sort of investigation. Michigan, for its part, mostly searches for inaccuracies as part of an annual review of a health plan. Nevada investigates errors primarily if someone files a complaint. Christine Khaikin, a senior health policy attorney for the nonprofit advocacy group Legal Action Center, said fewer surveys means higher odds that errors go undetected.

    Some regulators, upon learning that insurers may not be following the law, still take a hands-off approach with their enforcement. Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services, for instance, conducts spot checks of provider networks to see if those listings are accurate. If they find errors, insurers are asked to fix the problem. The department hasn’t issued a fine for directory errors since 2019. A spokesperson said the agency doesn’t keep track of how frequently it finds network directory errors.

    Dave Jones, a former insurance commissioner in California, said some commissioners fear that stricter enforcement could drive companies out of their states, leaving their constituents with fewer plans to choose from.

    Even so, staffers at the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions wrote in the report that there “needs to be accountability from insurers” for the errors in their directories. That never happened, and the agency concealed the identities of the companies in the report. A department spokesperson declined to provide the insurers’ names to ProPublica and did not answer questions about the report.

    Since January 2023, Arizonans have submitted dozens of complaints to the department that were related to provider networks. The spokesperson would not say how many were found to be substantiated, but the department was able to get insurers to address some of the problems, documents obtained through an open records request show.

    According to the department’s online database of enforcement actions, not a single one of those companies has been fined.

    Sometimes, when state insurance regulators fail to act, attorneys general or federal regulators intervene in their stead. But even then, the extra enforcers haven’t addressed the underlying problem.

    For years, the Massachusetts Division of Insurance didn’t fine any company for ghost networks, so the state attorney general’s office began to investigate whether insurers had deceived consumers by publishing inaccurate directories. Among the errors identified: One plan had providers listed as accepting new patients but no actual appointments were available for months; another listed a single provider more than 10 times at different offices.

    In February 2020, Maura Healey, who was then the Massachusetts attorney general, announced settlements with some of the state’s largest health plans. No insurer admitted wrongdoing. The companies, which together collect billions in premiums each year, paid a total of $910,000. They promised to remove providers who left their networks within 30 days of learning about that decision. Healey declared that the settlements would lead to “unprecedented changes to help ensure patients don’t have to struggle to find behavioral health services.”

    But experts who reviewed the settlements for ProPublica identified a critical shortcoming. While the insurers had promised to audit directories multiple times a year, the companies did not have to report those findings to the attorney general’s office. Spokespeople for Healey and the attorney general’s office declined to answer questions about the experts’ assessments of the settlements.

    After the settlements were finalized, Healey became the governor of Massachusetts and has been responsible for overseeing the state’s insurance division since she took office in January 2023. Her administration’s regulators haven’t brought any fines over ghost networks.

    Healey’s spokesperson declined to answer questions and referred ProPublica to responses from the state’s insurance division. A division spokesperson said the state has taken steps to strengthen its provider directory regulations and streamline how information about in-network providers gets collected. Starting next year, the spokesperson said that the division “will consider penalties” against any insurer whose “provider directory is found to be materially noncompliant.”

    States that don’t have ghost network laws have seen federal regulators step in to monitor directory errors.

    In late 2020, Congress passed the No Surprises Act, which aimed to cut down on the prevalence of surprise medical bills from providers outside of a patient’s insurance network. Since then, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the two large public health insurance programs, has reached out to every state to see which ones could handle enforcement of the federal ghost network regulations.

    At least 15 states responded that they lacked the ability to enforce the new regulation. So CMS is now tasked with watching out for errors in directories used by millions of insurance customers in those states.

    Julie Brookhart, a spokesperson for CMS, told ProPublica that the agency takes enforcement of the directory error regulations “very seriously.” She said CMS has received a “small number” of provider directory complaints, which the agency is in the process of investigating. If it finds a violation, Brookhart said regulators “will take appropriate enforcement action.”

    But since the requirement went into effect in January 2022, CMS hasn’t fined any insurer for errors. Brookhart said that CMS intends to develop further guidelines with other federal agencies. Until that happens, Brookhart said that insurers are expected to make “good-faith” attempts to follow the federal provider directory rules.

    Last year, five California lawmakers proposed a bill that sought to get rid of ghost networks around the state. If it passed, AB 236 would limit the number of errors allowed in a directory — creating a cap of 5% of all providers listed — and raise penalties for violations. California would become home to one of the nation’s toughest ghost network regulations.

    The state had already passed one of America’s first such regulations in 2015, requiring insurers to post directories online and correct inaccuracies on a weekly basis.

    Since the law went into effect in 2016, insurance customers have filed hundreds of complaints with the California Department of Managed Health Care, which oversees health plans for nearly 30 million enrollees statewide.

    Lawyers also have uncovered extensive evidence of directory errors. When San Diego’s city attorney, Mara Elliott, sued several insurers over publishing inaccurate directories in 2021, she based the claims on directory error data collected by the companies themselves. Citing that data, the lawsuits noted that error rates for the insurers’ psychiatrist listings were between 26% and 83% in 2018 and 2019. The insurers denied the accusations and convinced a judge to dismiss the suits on technical grounds. A panel of California appeals court judges recently reversed those decisions; the cases are pending.

    The companies have continued to send that data to the DMHC each year — but the state has not used it to examine ghost networks. California is among the states that typically waits for a complaint to be filed before it investigates errors.

    “The industry doesn’t take the regulatory penalties seriously because they’re so low,” Elliott told ProPublica. “It’s probably worth it to take the risk and see if they get caught.”

    California’s limited enforcement has resulted in limited fines. Over the past eight years, the DMHC has issued just $82,500 in fines for directory errors involving providers of any kind. That’s less than one-fifth of the fines issued in the two years before the regulation went into effect.

    A spokesperson for the DMHC said its regulators continue “to hold health plans accountable” for violating ghost network regulations. Since 2018, the DMHC has discovered scores of problems with provider directories and pushed health plans to correct the errors. The spokesperson said that the department’s oversight has also helped some customers get reimbursed for out-of-network costs incurred due to directory errors.

    “A lower fine total does not equate to a scaling back on enforcement,” the spokesperson said.

    Dr. Joaquin Arambula, one of the state Assembly members who co-sponsored AB 236, disagreed. He told ProPublica that California’s current ghost network regulation is “not effectively being enforced.” After clearing the state Assembly this past winter, his bill, along with several others that address mental health issues, was suddenly tabled this summer. The roadblock came from a surprising source: the administration of the state’s Democratic governor.

    Officials with the DMHC, whose director was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, estimated that more than $15 million in extra funding would be needed to carry out the bill’s requirements over the next five years. State lawmakers accused officials of inflating the costs. The DMHC’s spokesperson said that the estimate was accurate and based on the department’s “real experience” overseeing health plans.

    Arambula and his co-sponsors hope that their colleagues will reconsider the measure during next year’s session. Sitting before state lawmakers in Sacramento this year, a therapist named Sarah Soroken told the story of a patient who had called 50 mental health providers in her insurer’s directory. None of them could see her. Only after the patient attempted suicide did she get the care she’d sought.

    “We would be negligent,” Soroken told the lawmakers, “if we didn’t do everything in our power to ensure patients get the health care they need.”

    Paige Pfleger of WPLN/Nashville Public Radio contributed reporting.

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