The connection between failing eyesight and failing memory

Eye tissue is derived from the very same stuff as brain tissue.  It just differentiates another way.  In truth, the eyes are simply an extension of the brain.  They respond, in many ways, to the same things that are good for your brain.

 Here are two easy things you can do, on a daily basis, to improve both.

 First your eyes.  We all spend way too much time looking at things right in front of us, at a distance of less that 16 inches.  Books, computers, personal communication devices, now take up the bulk of our eye bandwidth.  A simple solution is to “look off and look at angles” to get your eye muscles used to doing something else. 

 Nearsightedness is actually, a functional evolutionary change, based on our time spent in that very forward close up range.  So, look away, into the distance, frequently, and also, look at angles to the side.  Try reading some book titles that are 4 or 5 feet away.  These simple exercises will help you keep your eye muscles in shape and may even restore some of the visual unction you may have lost.

 As for the brain, except for reflexes, your brain controls most of your responses, so when your eyes adapt to a certain behavior, like near sightedness, this may be as much a brain response as a eye response.  Your brain is “comfortable” looking at things up close and has lost some of its ability to make the “look far away” connection with your eyes!

Next, something simple for your memory.  Read one short paragraph, of any reading material, backwards and make a conscious effort to remember the first and last phrase of the paragraph, reciting them in proper backwards order.  Use any tricks of association you like.  To this every day and before you read the next backwards paragraph for the day, write down the one you did yesterday without looking.  If this is too difficult, try counting backwards from 100 without pause, daily, for a week or so, to limber up your memory, then try the backwards reading.

 Each of these exercises is so simple and if you really do them, for a week or two, you will find your ability to see and remember, have both improved.