00:00:05
Researchers have known for decades that meditation can improve someone’s physical and mental health.
00:00:10
It can relieve stress, lower blood pressure and lift someone’s mood. But only in the last few years have neuroscientists taken a serious loook at the changes in brain structure underlying some of meditation’s benefits. Like everything else we do, meditation rewires our neural circuits.
00:00:26
Pruning away the least used connections and strengthening the ones we exercise most. Studies looking for signs of these changes usually focus on “mindfulness meditation” which challenges people to keep their attention fixed on the thoughts and sensations in the present moment.
00:00:41
Scientists aknowledge that these studies are small and not ideally designed, but at this point researchers have gathered enough evidence to be confident that their findings are not just flukes.
00:00:52
Experiments suggest that Buddhist monks have really robust connections between scattered regions of their brains, which allows for more synchronized communication.
00:01:01
Expert meditators also seem to develop an especially wrinkly cortex: the brain’s outer layer.
00:01:06
We depend on the cortex for many of our most sophisticated mental abilities like abstract thought and introspection.
00:01:13
Several studies have confirmed that meditation can increase the volume and density of the hippocampus: a seahorse- shaped area of the brain in the middle of the skull that is absolutely crucial for memory. And although areas of the brain responsible for sustaining attention usually shrink as we age, meditation counteracts this decay. An increasing number of studies show that meditating for as little as 12 to 20 minutes a day for several weeks can sharpen the mind. In these studies, meditators have scored higher on tests of attention and working memory, which is the ability to temporarily store and manipulate information in one’s mind.
00:01:50
Some lifelong meditators in their 50s and 60s can even outperform twenty-somethings in tests of visual attention. So if you’re interested in trying meditation, you should probably start as soon as possible.
00:02:02
For Scientific American’s Instant Egghead, I’m Ferris Jaybr.

So what is the best way to clean your eyeglasses? Well in this video, I’m going to be sharing with you my 7 pro tips and how you can clean your glasses without scratching or damaging the lenses. Let’s take a look. Hello this is Dr. Joe Allen here from Doctor Eye Health:  the channel that helps  with the eyes, vision and finding the best vision product. So if you new here to the channel and you like taking care of your eyes and seeing your best, make sure to hit that little button down below that says subscribe, and turn on notifications so that you don’t miss any of my future videos. Also feel free at any point to check out the show notes and links below for further information in case there’s anything that I forget. So when it comes to cleaning your glasses you want to make sure you’re doing it right because we see a lot of funny stuff come in here to the clinic, and I want to make sure that you’re taking care of your glasses so you don’t scratch or damage them. The first tip here is to make sure you clean the glasses with a microfiber lens cloth. Now these cloths you can usually get when you get your glasses. You can actually find them in the case when you purchase them, or you can get them from your eye clinic or a local optical. You can even buy them in a big bulk box buying online. But these cloths are excellent for cleaning your glasses because they are actually designed to actually pick up and remove dirt and grease from the lenses. Otherwise if you use something like a Kleenex, a paper towel, or your shirt, you will actually just smear the grease on the lenses, as well as just really push debris and dust into the lens and that can actually scratch and damage the lenses permanently. I’m actually nerdy enough I usually keep one of these in my back pocket, not just to clean my glasses but because it’s really good at cleaning your phone screen. Tip number two is to clean new glasses was some type of eyeglass lens cleaner. Now there’s many different products like this that you can find either online, as well as through your local optical or eyeglasses store, but whatever you do make sure that you read the instructions on the back and that it says it is safe to use with AR coatings. That stands for anti-reflective coatings. Most glasses will have an anti-reflective coating put on them that way it’ll reduce glare and halos around  lights, but some of these cleaners can be pretty harsh and can actually strip off that protective coating, and you don’t want to ruin your glasses. Otherwise it’s pretty easy to use. You just spray a couple of sprays on the front and the back surface of the glasses, and then again wipe clean with the microfiber cloth. Tip number three is that when the spray cleaner and lens cloth just aren’t doing the trick because of skin oils that get on the lenses, then make sure to reach for some type of dish soap. Now the best type of dish soap to use is the original type of Dawn dish soap. If you use anything that says, “for sensitive skin” or has some sort of lotion in it, don’t use that. That’ll actually just get stuck on the lenses and smear it even more. You want to use the original.
00:02:28
Otherwise you just use a single drop on both sides of the lenses, rub it in with your fingers, and then go ahead and rinse off. Tip number four is that when you’re rinsing the lenses, make sure you use warm water and not scalding hot water.
00:02:40
Otherwise the hot water can actually damage the coatings on the lenses. Also if you know that you have hard water coming out of the tap, then make sure you actually use some distilled water to clean them off, that way you won’t get any sort of like extra mineral deposits on the lenses. Tip number five is that if you don’t want any streaks of water drying on those lenses, go ahead and grab a can of compressed air and use that to clean off all of the water off the lenses. That way it’s basically like taking the glasses through a car wash. Tip number six is that if your glasses are really dirty, I mean they’re gummed up around the hinges, the nose pads, around the edges of the lenses themselves, then just bring them on into a local optical or glasses shop.
00:03:17
We often have special cleaning devices that will completely strip all of that debris off. Here at our clinic we actually have an ultrasonic cleaner that we can pop out the lenses, throw them in the cleaner, turn it on, and after a few minutes, it actually vibrates and shakes the lenses and removes all that debris from those hard-to-reach spaces. I know it’s pretty cool right? Tip number seven is to actually be careful to get any sort of other chemicals on your glasses. Never try to wash them using some sort of household chemicals. Things like acetone and fingernail polish can actually interact with the plastic of the lens, particularly if you have a type of polycarbonate lens, those are like safety lenses that can actually interact with those chemicals and permanently destroy the lenses, and I don’t want that happening to you or your glasses. So yes, be careful about using any sort of chemical that’s not approved for ophthalmic use. So Eye Health Question of the day: which one of the tips was your favorite? Or do you have any other sort of tips of your own on how to clean glasses? Go ahead and comment in the section below. I’d love to hear what you guys think. Alright guys, thanks so much for watching. If you liked the video, give me a big thumbs up, subscribe if you’re new to the channel, share this video with any friends a family that you think it might help or find interesting, otherwise if you would like to see another cool video here from Doctor Eye Health, just click or tap the screen over here to the side, or if you’d like to see another cool video just go ahead and click or tap the screen down over here. Again this is Dr. Joe Allen here from  Dr. Eye Health: the channel  that that helps you with the eyes, vision, and finding the best vision products. Keep an eye on it we’ll talk to you soon