I work in high-tech, and have an incredibly busy job. But I know that keeping myself healthy, and especially keeping my eyes healthy, is extremely important if I want to continue functioning at the highest level and not burn out.

I’ve developed a few techniques, that allow me to fit healthy eating, physical exercises and eye exercises into my day. I not only get the maximum benefit from them, but it comes so naturally now that I don’t even think about it. My body gets what it needs and I’m still able to function at my peak level.

Before I begin, I just want to say that like anything worth changing, it will take some work at the beginning to get into this routine, but once you’re in it, it comes automatically and easily.

Healthy Eating

Wen it comes to healthy eating, most people know that they need to do it, but they have no idea how to fit it into their hectic schedules.

Everyone knows that fruits and vegetables are healthy for them, but fitting them into your diet can be tricky.

Raw fruits and veggies should make up 60% of our diets, but for many (of not most people) it’s usually 10% or less.

Here are some of the things that I do:

• Juice: I’m a big fan of juicing. It’s a great way to get the raw nutrients your body craves from fruits and vegetables. Not only is it extremely delicious and satisfying, but it’s quick. It shouldn’t take you more than 10 minutes to make and clean up from making a juice, particularly nowadays with the wide spout, easy-cleaning juicers that are available.
  (If you want to learn more about juicing and some great tasting, healthy recipes, check out Jason Vale’s book Juice Master: Keeping It Simple. It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.)
• Replace Unhealthy Foods with Healthy Ones: We actually found that this wan’t too hard to do. Make some small changes, like replacing white noodles with whole wheat ones (the trick with the whole wheat noodles is to make sure that they cook long enough). Also do your best to avoid white sugar. It’s almost impossible these days to completely avoid it (because it’s in everything), but just be aware of it.
  White sugar is a drug and is no different than cocaine. You know how you get a “sugar rush” and then crash? That’s because your body doesn’t know what to do with white, refined sugar. Your sugar levels shoot sky-high, and your pancreas secrets insulin to bring your sugar levels down, because otherwise you’ll die! Why anyone would want to put this stuff in their body is beyond me.
  A better alternative to sugar is honey, or stevia (which comes from dates). You can also keep your eye out for Demerara sugar, which is sugar in its unprocessed form. Just as sweet, but it won’t wreak havoc on your system.

Exercise

Another thing that most people say they need to get more of is exercise, but they just can’t seem to find the time. Here are a few ways you can get the exercise you need into your life.

• Walk when you can. I’m fortunate to live relatively close to where I work, so I walk to work everyday. I’m sure the sheer 15 minute walk straight uphill on the way home contributes to my strong heart-rate.
  But if you don’t live close to wear you work, you could get off an extra stop or 2 before your office and walk. You could also take the stairs at work instead of the elevator. The more you force yourself to do some type of physical activity, the more likely it will become a habit. Eventually you’ll find yourself automatically doing these small things that when added up can make a huge impact on your overall health.
• Put yoga somewhere in your day. I find yoga to be a lifesaver for me. When I get home I don’t plop down on the couch and start channel surfing, I go straight to my home office and start doing some yoga. It not only helps me relax at the end of a stressful day, but gives me a tremendous amount of energy. Here’s one of the yoga DVD’s that I use and highly recommend.
• Force yourself to do it. You’re probably thinking “there’s no way I could do what he does,” and you know what? I also used to think that. But I found that if I set written goal (that I was going to do X in a certain time period) and stuck to it, not only would I reach that goal, but it would become automatic. You can do it, you just need that initial push to get the train moving. Once it’s moving it’s not so hard to keep it that way.

Eye Exercises and Pinhole Glasses

So that’s the big question isn’t it? How do you fit eye exercises and wearing pinhole glasses into your day?

The first step would be to follow the advice that I listed above and make sure that you exercise and get the right nutrition, because this creates the optimal environment for your eyes to flourish.

But when it comes to actually doing the exercises and wearing the pinhole glasses, here are some of the things that I do:

Pinhole Glasses

This one actually isn’t so hard. I actually treat them like sunglasses and wear them whenever I go outside. As long as I’m not going to drive (because you can’t wear pinhole gasses while driving) I’ve never found a reason not to wear them. They protect my vision from the sun, and they look just like sunglasses, so no one even knows that I’m wearing them.

Eye Exercises

Like physical exercise, this is one of the things that require written, actionable goals, that you’ll be able to do. They can be small, even just 5 minutes, but try to make sure that you set the time aside each do to work on your vision.

One small way to cheat the system can be to find extra time here and there and do your eye exercises. Considering that most eye exercises are pretty easy and discrete, you could probably do them in a bunch of different places. Here’s a list of places that I’ve found myself doing eye exercises:

• In the bathroom
• On a bus
• In the conference room waiting for a meeting to start
• While waiting for a train

It’s actually pretty easy to fit this into your day. It does require some work, but eventually it all becomes automatic and you’ll start to see some amazing results.

Keep me posted on your progress!