Let There Be the Right Kinds of Light! Part 2
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Summary:
Getting the wrong light at the wrong times can drastically decrease your health and vitality.
Sunlight exposure at key times during the day and controlling/reducing your artificial light exposure can support sleep and stress management.
How to improve your light environment at home for better health, amazing sleep, and better melatonin production.
To continue our chat about Light, we’re now going to focus on what artificial light is, why it is bad for us, and how to mitigate it if we’re not able to create the perfect light environment. But one thing I’d like to say from the beginning with any info or recommendations: just do what you can. Life will get in the way, and you can’t be perfect all the time. As Voltaire has said: “The best is the enemy of the good.” So do what you can, and don’t quit or feel defeated if you aren’t perfect! Cuz guess what, no one is! Ok now that that has been cleared up, let’s get after it!
Artificial Light is like Junk Food for your Body:
We have come a long way from living with just natural light (sunlight, moonlight, etc), firelight and candle light. In today’s world, we are being assaulted by artificial light at every turn, from our homes, to workplaces, stores, and even our appliances and street lamps! It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a completely dark place in the USA, and this increased amount of artificial light has been linked “to a host of ailments - such as depression, obesity, even cancer - and can confuse wildlife, muddling their sense of direction and migration patterns.” (1) Artificial light can even destroy or suppress melatonin production, an essential hormone needed for many functions, one of them enabling us to fall asleep when we’re supposed to.
Why is artificial light so bad you may ask? One could even argue that fire, candles, and oil lamps would fall within the realm of artificial light, and you would be technically correct! The problems occur when we use artificial light to negatively alter our circadian rhythms on a continuous basis and also because the newer light technologies are extremely different compared to oil lamps and even incandescent bulbs. The newer LED type of light bulbs that everyone is using these days are cheaper, last longer, and are more efficient, but are terrible for our health and circadian rhythms. The reason why LEDs are so terrible is mostly because of the wavelengths of light they emit.
Natural light, like sunlight and even firelight and good ole incandescent, encompasses many different types of wavelengths, and they are grouped together in a logical fashion that don’t interrupt our circadian rhythms. For instance, sunrise light is mostly red light mixed with a tiny amount of blue light, then by mid-day, it’s the reverse. Blue light in and of itself isn’t “bad,” it’s just when it’s on its own and not balanced out with red/purple light (and even wavelengths we can’t see!), is when we experience bad effects. Blue light LEDs emit only a very narrow band of blue and green light that would normally only be found during the daytime, more specifically, midday light.
Nature never intended for there to only be very narrow bands of light, and then for us to be exposed to these narrow bands of intense blue light for hours and hours on end, especially at night time! According to neurosurgeon Dr Jack Kruse: “Modern lighting, such as fluorescent and LED bulbs emit unprecedented amounts of blue and green light. Blue and green light are found in the visible spectrum. For millions of years, these two types of light have only been present in the human environment through sunlight – hence through daytime exposure. Blue and green light is that they tell your brain it’s daytime. Getting that at nighttime will have negative health consequences.” (3)
As Dr Kruse mentioned, being constantly exposed to mostly blue and green light will produce negative health consequences due to the light causing your eyes and body to think it’s broad day light, even if it’s 9pm at night. Being under this kind of light all the time severely disrupts our circadian rhythms, and our bodies’ ability to place itself within proper orientation of time and space. This in turn heavily disrupts the your body’s ability to make and balance important hormones (leptin, estrogen, testosterone, and others) and conduct hormone signaling, such as knowing when to turn on or off melatonin or cortisol at the right times. Furthermore, overall issues with hormones and signaling can cause low quality sleep, decreased ability to handle stress, issues with brain health, and reduce your libido (just to name a few!). Who would’ve thought something as simple as turning on a light switch at the wrong time of day for too long could do so much damage?
Why Do Certain Organizations Declare Any Sunlight is Terrible for Us?
After reading the above info about artificial light vs sunlight, and my previous post about the need to get more sunlight than conventionally recommended, I’m sure you’re thinking that I’ve gone a bit bonkers. Dermatologists have been recommending for years that getting basically any amount of sunshine is bad for us, and we should slather ourselves with the highest SPF sunscreen money can buy, wear long sleeves, hats, and dark sunglasses, and basically pray that we don’t get skin cancer. While I’m not a doctor, and none of this info is medical advice, I would like to propose that we need to better examine these somewhat outdated “recommendations” and consider that sunshine exposure (when done carefully and correctly) is actually good for us. After all, the human species have evolved under the sun and its rays for a millennia or longer! Here is some interesting info for you to consider:
Many studies “proving” UV exposure is bad for us appears to have lumped together artificial sources and natural sources of UV radiation. The artificial sources (usually tanning beds) used a very narrow spectrum of UV light. Lumping them together and slapping the same danger label on both doesn’t make sense. Natural light sources are completely different than artificial sources as explained above. Unlike tanning beds, sunlight doesn’t contain just blue or green, and is always accompanied by many, many other wavelengths of light.
Long term toxic exposure of sunscreens haven’t been well studied, but it is well known that sunscreens are full of toxic chemicals. (4) (5) Some of these chemicals are are known hormone disrupters, allergenic, and cancer causing: oxybenzone, octinoxate, parabens (just to name a few). (6)
Some of the same companies that sell toxic, chemical laden sunscreens (chemicals known to be carcinogenic), also create/sell cancer treatments. (7) (8)
Improving the Light Environment at Home:
Hopefully you’re starting to realize that even if you think you’re eating right and exercising, there’s still something incredibly important missing within your wellness efforts: your light environment! Regardless of where you live and what time of year it is, there are many things you can do to increase your sunlight exposure (the smart way) and reduce artificial light to help increase your health. Most of them free! Here’s a list of things you can do starting today and tomorrow to improve your light environment and get your circadian rhythms on track:
Let sunrise be the first light that hits your face and eyes.
Doesn’t matter if it’s cloudy or not, your body will still get the necessary light signals to get things up and running optimally. Aim for about 5-10 minutes.
Don’t use your cell phone or turn on a bunch of lights in the house until after you’ve watched the sunrise. Watch the sunrise without wearing sunglasses or watching it through window glass. If you have to be inside, make sure the window is opened up a bit if not fully open, or better yet, outside bare foot in the grass, facing east.
Be careful watching sunrise, do not look directly into the rising sun, look towards it but at a somewhat lower angle.
Mitigation: If you have to look at your cell phone or turn on lights before sunrise, then consider purchasing some blue light blocker glasses to put on when you wake up. Either the Spectra479 amber glasses via Amazon or the Midwest Red Light Therapy Night Crawler glasses (either orange or red). There are many different types and versions, but these are the ones I’m most familiar with, and more on the cheaper end. If you want to go all in and go big, then Ra Optics would be a good company to buy blue light blockers from.
Take sunlight breaks throughout the day.
Getting periodic sunshine throughout the day helps your body reorient itself to the time of day, the season, and gives you a boost of energy.
Go outside every 2 hours or so and get a hit of sunshine and stretch your legs a bit.
Mitigation: if you can’t go out that frequently, then just do your best! There are days I can only do it once or twice, so don’t let perfection defeat your ability to be good enough!
Take a walk around sunset:
Getting all that awesome red light from sunset can be greatly beneficial, and also signal to your body that it’s time to wind down.
After sunset, if you and/or your family aren’t ready to change out all your lightbulbs to red or only use firelight and candle light, consider those blue blocking glasses that were previously mentioned. After sunset, you would want to use either orange or red glasses, and keep them on until you turn the lights out and go to sleep.
Mitigation: even if you just crack a window or a door to let in light around sunset, that’s better than missing it entirely! There have been many winter evenings where I’ve missed the sunset due to it being too cold or still working. So do your best!
The bedroom situation:
Try to make your bedroom as dark as possible, especially right before you are ready for sleep.
Turn off, unplug, block, or take out of your room, anything that glows or generates its own light (especially blue light!).
Do NOT use your phone, watch TV, or use any electronic device in bed. The bedroom should be for sleeping, reading to relax, and sexy time!
Don’t use or wear any fitness devices to bed that emit any light or frequencies, such as the Apple watch.
Mitigation: If you need to use your phone as an alarm clock, then consider putting the phone into airplane mode and battery saving mode, and putting it into an EMF blocking bag. Don’t put it on or next to your bed, or right next to your head. Do not charge it next to your head at night.
I usually switch on airplane mode and put it into an EMF faraday bag from a company called Spero Protective Clothing.
Next week, we’ll discuss what getting “responsible sunshine” might look like for you, and how to better balance your sun exposure if you’re stuck working in an office. Hopefully the info provided above will help you make some changes both now and into the future and help improve your health and vitality! Thanks for stopping by my blog, and if you know you want health coaching to help you achieve your goals, then apply to work with me! Click the Apply Now button at the top of the page, answer the questions, then I will get back to you within 48 hours to see if we’re a good fit!
References:
Map Shows The Few Places in America Where You Can Still See a "Pristine" Night Sky https://www.sciencealert.com/light-pollution-is-a-huge-problem-and-there-s-few-places-left-in-the-us-without
What is Sunlight? https://www.pasco.com/resources/blog/401
Three Essential Biohacks (Why Biohacking Starts With Your Environment) https://jackkruse.com/three-essential-biohacks-why-biohacking-starts-with-your-environment/
Neurotoxic effect of active ingredients in sunscreen products, a contemporary review https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5615097/
The Trouble with Ingredients in Sunscreens https://www.ewg.org/sunscreen/report/the-trouble-with-sunscreen-chemicals/
Your Sunscreen is Toxic: How to Buy Sunscreen that’s Safe for You & the Environment https://www.ecowatch.com/sunscreen-guide.html
J&J, Costco Settle Lawsuits Over Recalled Sunscreen https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/jj-costco-settle-lawsuits-over-recalled-sunscreen-2021-11-01/
Johnson & Johnson’s Blood Cancer Therapy gets U.S. FDA Approval https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/johnson-johnsons-blood-cancer-therapy-gets-us-fda-approval-2022-10-25/
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