Tag: autism

Understanding Autism and ADHD through a New Lens

Hi, After working with my sensitivity with the light spectrum for 6 years, I have just been diagnosed with autism. To a lesser degree I also experience ADHD. What I was calling spectral sensitivity is in fact the same as autism and ADHD.

What can we learn from my journey?

  1. Autism and ADHD are rooted in our response to the light spectrum.
  2. Autism occurs when our brains are over-responsive to light in the violet range.
  3. ADHD occurs when our brains are under-responsive to light in the blue range.

As the balance of the light spectrum changes across the day and across the seasons, so does our experience of autism and ADHD.

Let me explain . . .

When I am more in an autistic place, I feel more spaced and have to embrace the big picture of life and not take so much attention to the detail. I feel creative and intuitive but just a bit lost.

When I am in more of an ADHD place, I feel spaced in a different way and as if I am being driven by a motor. I have to embrace attention to detail. I like working with data and become very analytical.     

What has this to do with the light spectrum?

One of the gifts of my autism is that I see the colours in the light spectrum. I look out of the window and I might say ‘The light is a bit violet today’ or ‘The cloud seems to have swallowed the blue’ or ‘I can’t really see enough red in the green of the grass’.

How Can This Help Me?

When we don’t understand our relationship with the light, we can be trying to push our energy into the wrong direction. My son is stronger ADHD and often analytical but when the light swings from low blue to high violet and he becomes more autistic, he is completely lost and depressed and anxious. He doesn’t know that if he just lets go to his creativity and intuition at that point, that he could feel so much happier.

Understanding our relationship with the light spectrum helps us to understand how and why we are feeling a certain way in any moment. Become a light watcher. Knowledge is power!

A Massive Answer to So Many Health Conditions – Eye Phoria Sensitivity

Hi, Please listen to my audio diary today.

Please follow me and you will hear the up and downs of my energy patterns through the year and how I have learnt to thrive, no matter the weather, no matter the light! You will find all my previous entries on my ‘Lightwatcher Diary’ page.

If you understand your state, then you can understand your needs. If you understand your needs, then you can fully live your life.

Jennie

About Phorias

Help with Your Vision FAQ’s

The Root Cause of Sensory Processing Disorder – It is all About the Eyes

  • Many highly sensitive people are sensitive to their perception of the spectrum, specifically red and blue light.
  • Sensitivity to red and blue light causes the visual image not to always fall centrally on the fovea centralis at the back of our eye. Movement of the visual image from falling on the centre of the fovea (promoting sharp visual acuity) and switching on red and green cones, to image falling on outer edge of the fovea (promoting less sharp visual acuity) switching on blue cones, and all the incremental changes of these combinations, cause disturbance in our visual system.
  • Disturbance in our visual system cause small muscle imbalances.
  • Small muscle imbalances cause sensitivity to misalignment of our gaze (Phorias)
  • Misalignment of our gaze causes issues with focus, tracking and depth perception.
  • On a deeper level, misalignment of gaze causes Lack of Coherence (difficulty seeing the big picture or processing the whole.) A person’s world may appear to be unintegrated or flat.
  • Lack of Coherence causes confusion. It is as if the brain is trying to do a giant jigsaw puzzle but can’t quite make the pieces fit together.
  • Confusion overloads the nervous system and the result is sensory processing issues (visual, sound, touch and texture, proprioception, balance and interoception.)
  • Issues with focus also cause too low or too high saturation of colour, augmenting the sensory issues of taste and smell.

What Do We Do About This?

We need to: –

Test people to see if they could be sensitive to their phorias.
Offer people the right prisms to correct their phorias.
Teach people about spectral sensitivity because this is essential in understanding our phorias and working with them successfully.

Phorias, Auras and The Importance of being Centred

All my life I have been like a human: –
  • Spectrometer (sensitive to the light spectrum)
  • Thermometer (sensitive to temperature)
  • Barometer (sensitive to air pressures
  • Hygrometer (sensitive to damp)

Since I have been working to correct my phorias (changes in eye gaze caused by small eye muscle imbalances) I feel more centred. I feel stronger physcially, emotionally and mentally. I am less sensitive to the tiny changes in my own energy and the energy of other people. I am looking for ways to interact and collaborate with others, that I have never done before. in fact doing things with other people is right at the top of my list now, whereas before it was at the bottom.

As I work to correct my phorias using glasses with prism (and many different pairs because I have many different phorias,) I am feeling more centred as my nervous system relaxes. But there is more to it than this. We are all spiritual beings. Being more centred strengthens my aura and the stronger my aura the less sensitive I am to all the changes going on inside of me and around me.

It’s Impossible to Enjoy Music with 4 Ears (Phorias!)

Since we discovered our sensitivity to our phorias, my son and I are getting our lives back, one pair of glasses at a time! I am playing the electric violin and my son is playing the guiro.

Prism Lenses – Just Bits of Plastic that Might Help You!

Working with my phorias (eye gaze and muscle imbalance) I require lot of pairs of glasses. This is because my phorias move around a lot. I can test myself with the maddox rod test to find out where my phorias are and then choose the glasses to treat that phoria. Sometimes the glasses are on point and sometimes they are not quite on point but they will do. Sometimes I am surprised by which glasses help me. They don’t seem to quite match the test results. Sometimes one eye partially suppresses to allow my other eye to take up the reigns for a while. This could be better than the experience of both eyes fighting.

What I learnt is that my lenses are just bits of plastic with prism in that can help me. I play around with them like someone trying on shoes or hats. I enjoy them – my trial prism lenses are very precious to me! Some I have from a set of trial lenses and some I just popped out of a pair of cheap glasses that I bought with just prism in. So far it has been impossible to buy 0.25 diopter prism trial lenses so I had to do the popping out thing for these. I also sometimes combine glasses – wear one pair and fold the arm back on another to use the lens as an extra one. I work with any resources I can find to learn about my eyes and establish a relationship with them and my experience of the changing light.

Working with prisms is not an exact science. My husband who is no-where near me on the scale of sensitivity was trying out some prisms to find the up and down rotation. He found that for prism diopter 3 – 5 he was actually experiencing the prism upside down. The image was moving in the direction he didn’t expect. We didn’t have any answers for that. That was a mystery. In the same way prisms are doing mysterious things for me every day. I don’t fully understand how my brain relates to prism but it definitely likes it!

Prisms lenses – just bits of plastic that might help you!

How do I Know if I am Sensitive to My Eye Phorias?

Simply ask yourself these questions:

Do I sometimes:

Feel as if my eye is being pulled or stretched (this being even more extreme outside sometimes?)

Have extreme light sensitivity

Lack co-ordination for no apparent reason?

Struggle to walk in a straight line?

Feel as if my eyes are fighting with each other?

Struggle to focus on something because I am distracted by the background (subject and background both demanding the same attention?)

Have cognitive processing difficulties and feel easily overloaded by information?

Feel as if mentally I am going round and round in circles?

Feel that my eyes can never rest, even at night?

If you answer yes to some or all of these questions, then you could be sensitive to your phorias (direction of gaze). You may be aware of small muscle imbalances that occur when you change direction of your gaze. This could occur as a result of being stressed or tired but with more sensitive people, it can be triggered simply by changes in the ambient light. These imbalances, though subtle can have a massive impact on your quality of life.

If you would like to know more please go to Help with Your Vision or just get in touch and have a chat.

Help, I Have Four Phorias!

What is a phoria?

A phoria is a latent (hidden) eye deviation. The eyes appear to be straight, but when covering an eye and breaking fusion, the eyes assume a position away from normal alignment. Most people have a very small phoria if tested, but a large phoria makes it hard to keep the eyes aligned. This could occur as a result of being stressed, tired and it can be triggered by changes in the light.

If a large amount of phoria exists, your eyes are will not rest on the subject you are focusing on. Your gaze will move elsewhere. Keeping both eyes fixated on your chosen subject requires an effort by you. 

However, a sensitive person can be affected by a small phoria. People not sensitive may be able to ignore any small amounts of distortion but sensitive people can’t. Any lack of congruency, any deviation from the whole is a problem for the sensitive person.

I Have Four of Them!

UP OUT (uncorrected) – makes me feel like the right side of my head is fuzzy and it affects the nerves in my shoulders and arms. I feel pulled away from what I am trying to think about.

OUT (uncorrected) – makes me feel that I can’t think clearly at all. I don’t want to think about anything outside of my immediate experience. Everything feels too much.

IN (uncorrected) – makes me feel trapped like I can’t see out. I feel like I can’t move. I am inflexible.

IN OUT (uncorrected) makes me feel low hearted and negative. My body aches especially the muscles in my legs, and my knees feel suddenly weak.

All I Need is Prisms

How simple can that be? Fixing these problems with just a pair of glasses? But it works. All you need is a prism sending your gaze back in the direction you intended it to be in. Phorias could play a part in depression, anxiety, fatigue, dyspraxia, ADHD and more . . .

If you would like help looking to see if you or your child have a hidden phoria, please get in touch below. One simple appointment, one pair of glasses and you could feel like you have your life back, or you could know what life is for the first time!

The Emotional Psychological Connections of Optics

We need direction to use power. We need power to use direction

Our experience of power in life can be affected by astigmatism

Our experience of direction in life can be affected by Strabismus (squint)

Neither always show themselves in the darkness of the optician’s room. If you are sensitive or suspect processing issues, ask to get checked in the daylight.

Why Don’t Some Children Want to Wear Clothes or Eat Food?

When children say that they don’t want to wear something or eat something, it is not a disorder. It is a gift. They are basically saying that the piece of clothing that we are asking them to wear, or the food we are asking them to eat are not a match for their deeper selves in that moment.

Your child is likely picking up information about their environment that you as the parent may just not perceive. They may know that the light is slightly more blue today and so they shouldn’t wear a deep blue dress. They may know that the light is slightly more red today so the pink top they wore yesterday will overpower them. They may know that the light feels a little more blue today and that means they can only eat crunchy food and they won’t like scratchy textures or harsh sounds. They may know that the light feels a little more red today and they need something soft on their plate and would like something soft to cuddle.

What your child has is a gift to detect the subtle changes in energy inside them and all around them because they detect subtle changes in the light spectrum. If they are given the support to hone their gift, they will be able to use it to nourish themselves and make themselves and others feel good. Without the right kind of support and by medicating the problem, their gift could be lost to the world for ever.

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