Keywords

holistic health, vision, empowerment, children’s vision, integrative medicine, natural healing, systemic health, eye care, wellness, future of health

Summary

In this podcast, Dr. Sam Berne discusses the evolving landscape of holistic health as we approach 2025. He addresses the growing demand for natural healing methods, the integration of vision into holistic practices, and the importance of empowering patients in their health decisions. Dr. Berne emphasizes the need for a comprehensive approach to health that includes vision, especially in children, and expresses hope for the future of holistic health amidst current challenges.

Takeaways

People are tired of band-aid solutions. There is a Renaissance in whole body therapy. Vision reflects systemic and metabolic health. Children’s vision development is crucial for learning. Patients want equal partnership in health decisions. Holistic methods can support eye health. The current medical model is symptom-focused. Empowerment is key in holistic medical care. Community involvement is essential for change. Integrating ancient principles with modern practices is vital.

Chapters

00:00 The State of Holistic Health in 2025

02:48 Integrating Vision into Holistic Health

06:09 The Role of Vision in Child Development

09:06 Empowerment in Holistic Medical Care

12:01 Rethinking Eye Care Practices

14:52 Hope for the Future of Holistic Health

Sam Berne (00:00 )

to welcome you to my latest podcast. Today is a very interesting show. What I’ve done is I’ve pulled my functional vision integrative method practitioners. So these are doctors who wanted to ask me some questions and the theme is about what is the state of the Union of holistic health globally in 2025?

So I’m going to take their questions one at a time and I hope you enjoy the show. Thanks for tuning in. The first question is from a naturopath who practices in Denmark and he’s asking what is the state of holistic medicine and vision not only in the US but globally and the way I see it in 2025. We’re in a really big power shift right now.

People are tired of band-aid solutions. You know, a day doesn’t go by when I get an email from somebody that says, you know, I’m really tired of symptom management care. People want to know what is the root cause of their condition and what can they do to heal their condition naturally?

I would say the biggest aspect is people want to take responsibility for their health. know in the US we do call it health insurance, but I think we should call it disease insurance because all it’s good for is things like if we have to go to the emergency room, if we, you know, get into a car accident, if there’s some big traumatic event in our body, medical care works really well.

But in terms of being proactive, it just isn’t there. And in fact, so many people will share with me how invalidated they feel when they even bring up things like nutrition, supplements, herbs, essential oils. It’s getting really tough out there for people to find a like-minded holistic doctor if they are themselves holistically minded.

Question 2 is from a craniosacral therapist who lives in California and she’s asking how do I fit into this holistic model of health not only in the US but globally? Well, I think there’s a Renaissance and people looking for whole body therapy. I mean, if you look at just the holistic health industry, one of the things that I’ve observed

Is that when practitioners now want to teach internationally, they really can’t do it unless they either get a work permit or they have the country that is hosting them do some legal things to be able to invite them so that the government’s now are on to holistic health and people who want to teach it internationally. And if you want to do that,

You have to jump through a lot of hoops. remember 25, 30 years ago when I used to teach internationally. We didn’t have any of these restrictions or requirements. So people are hungry for holistic medicine, holistic health. And in terms of the eyes, I mean, it’s off the charts. People are wanting holistic methods to support their eyesight and vision.

All right, question three is from an Ayurvedic practitioner. He’s also a Chinese medicine doctor. He’s from New York and he’s asking how do I integrate the eyes and vision into my message to mainstream medical health? Well, I’ve been at this for a long time and what I’m here to say is that vision is more than in the eye, know, in so many of my

video blogs and written blogs. I’ve talked about how vision is more than in the eye and our eyes really reflect our systemic and metabolic health. we look for example, at iridology, iridology has been around for hundreds of years. The iris is the colored part of the eye and it maps the body doctors have mapped it for over 200 years. And so when we look at the iris, we can actually see

What’s the health of our thyroid our pancreas our heart health we can look at genetic tendencies and we can also look at in our current health. What are some nurture points that we need to do whether we tend more towards inflammation or you know, we need to stay off of gluten dairy and sugar. So your ideology is one way that the eyes reflect our systemic and metabolic health another.

model that I’ve studied is Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Many of the glands and organs the meridians run throughout the entire body to our eyes and I’ve talked a lot about the relationship between our liver and gallbladder and our eye health. You know, as an example, people who suffer things like chronic eyelid inflammation or dry eye syndrome.

They’re probably not absorbing their healthy fat soluble nutrients like vitamin A lutein and zeaxanthin. are fat soluble and although they might be eating a lot of really good rainbow vegetables and taking their omega-3s. They’re not absorbing their fat soluble vitamins. And when they do a liver cleanse or liver gallbladder cleanse, what happens is is there

their fat-soluble vitamins now are getting absorbed into the eyes. And so the chronic eyelid inflammation problems or dry eye, these are just two examples. They start to recede and we regain our eye health. Number three, I think I’d like to talk a little bit about children’s vision and we know that, you know, the the eyes originate from the brain that the

The eyes have a neuroplasticity capability and the way I evaluate kids in it is in a developmental model meaning that not only am I looking at their chronological age in the way they use their eyes and vision, but I’m looking at their performance age and we look at things like brain and body processing. You know, I bring in things called the primitive survival reflexes.

which are infant reflexes that need to be integrated or it becomes difficult for the child to really develop their sensory motor processing skills and the physical vision therapy the functional vision therapy that that I’m training practitioners on and I’ve done on thousands and thousands of kids really impacts their ability to read to learn to problem solve to make decisions because we’re not just talking about reading the eye chart.

That’s not even vision. That’s our eyesight. But vision is how the eyes and the brain and the body process information and that’s a learned and developed skill and based on our gestation birth and bonding experiences that has a strong influence on our sensory motor development and which includes visual processing auditory processing motor processing. So we got to get past doing an exam on a child just by having them.

read the distance acuity chart. I mean, that is just not cutting it. We have to do tests in the area of visual focusing, visual coordination, some of the visual perceptual skills. And then can we even do some tests in the area of our vestibular processing? And of course back to those early motor patterns like our primitive reflexes until we start bringing those into the standard eye exam room. We’re going to be missing

all the problems that kids have in terms of their vision learning and development. Okay. This next question is from a German naturopath who’s taking my course and she’s asking what are lay people wanting in terms of their holistic medical care? Well, number one, I think people want empowerment. They want equal partnership in the decision-making.

of their health needs. They want a doctor who’s open-minded around herbal medicines, aromatherapy, functional nutrition, energy healing and until they find somebody like that, it becomes a very invalidating experience for them. I have a vision coach right now that’s in our program and she’s wanting to help kids. She wants to help seniors.

And she wants to help the middle-aged people around their glasses and contact lens prescriptions. so through the physical therapy exercises that I teach, she is very inspired to be able to meet people where they are. And instead of having to deal with drugs needles and surgery, there could be some nutritional recommendations that she makes.

and really cleaning up a person’s inner environment so that nutrient wise, they’re absorbing more the physical exercises change their brain neuroplasticity offering things like light therapy and morning sunlight just by itself helps balance our circadian rhythms red light therapy, which supports better mitochondria function. This is all the things that are really really important around

offering things except, you know, in the mainstream, it’s still surgery and pharmaceuticals. This next question is from an osteopath who practices in Vancouver, British Columbia, and she’s asking me if I had 60 seconds to talk to a medical Dean, what could I say to them? Well, you can’t talk about brain health, tra