Can Light Support Your Hormonal Health? – with Matt Maruca

Dr. Mindy  

On this episode of The recenter podcast, I bring you Matt Murray Bucha. And we’re going to talk about blue light. So again, I’m really wanting to bring to you all some really deep conversations about many of the interferences that are affecting our health today. And we haven’t talked about blue light. And it’s such a big piece of what could potentially be not only destroying you from a cellular level, but really affecting you from a hormone level. So Matt is the founder of raw optics. And we will leave links down in the in the show notes, so you can view what he’s up to. But what’s really interesting about this conversation is I wanted to understand what blue light is doing to us. So blue light, just so we’re all clear, we get blue light from the sun, midday, but we also get a synthetic version of blue light from our computers, from our lights in our house from our phones. And that synthetic version is absolutely destroying our health. And most importantly, it’s throwing your Hormonal Health off. So when we look at all the things we’re trying to cycle in our fasting, and our food, and all the things we’re trying to do for our hormones, we can’t leave blue light out of the conversation. And I know so many of you are struggling with sleep. And what he has to say about the impact that blue light is having on our melatonin production is profound. So make sure you stay all the way through to the end, because I will go into the application of how do we use things like blue blockers, you know, there you see people walking around with blue blockers, but a lot of people are walking around with blue blockers unintentionally not knowing how to use them properly. And he has one pair of glasses that will blow your mind that will not only improve HRV, but will improve deep sleep and will rebalance your whole circadian rhythm

Speaker 1  

so that all your hormones can come back into sync. So really beautiful discussion, we go really deep into all aspects of not just light but cellular health, sit through the whole episode,

Dr. Mindy  

there’s there’s a lot of depth to think about. And we needed to have this discussion because blue light is absolutely affecting your hormonal production. So, so excited to bring that to you. And as always, I hope it helps and moves the needle forward on not only your Hormonal Health, but your physical, emotional and mental well being as well. So enjoy.

Unknown Speaker  

Hey, Dr. Mindy here, and

Speaker 1  

welcome to season four of the resetter podcast. Please know that this podcast is all about

Dr. Mindy  

empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you’re looking to be in control of your health and take your power back, this is the podcast for you. Enjoy.

Matt Maruca  

Dr. Mihnea, great speaking with you today.

Dr. Mindy  

Thank you. Yeah, thank you, I’m so excited to have this conversation with you. Because, you know, I think there are certain things in the health world that are very, very confusing for people. And so when things are confusing, we reject them is what I’ve noticed over the years, and I think blue light, I think blue lights really confusing and how it’s affecting us. So let me just start off by saying thank you for being here and having this conversation with me.

Unknown Speaker  

Yeah, thank you, I appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1  

So I think where I want to start is in understanding blue like light and and why we even need to think about it because even just in the prep of you and I getting the podcast going hear it putting these these glasses on. It’s like immediately my whole face feels relaxed, my brain feels relaxed. And that I don’t understand that. Does that mean when I’m not wearing this my brains fight, you know, on amped up and am I doing myself more harm. So help us understand why we need to even consider blue light.

Matt Maruca  

Why we would want to consider blue light and light in general is that so of course we’re living organisms. And if our goal is to improve our health, I think the first place to start is to understand our health. And in order to understand health, we have to understand life because life is the premise upon which health can only exist. So life is matter, material atoms brought to life or animated by energy. Without energy life wouldn’t exist. And that energy comes from the sun. And so the sun, the energy is in the form of light. And so the energy that distinguish to us from inanimate matter, like dirt or rocks, or sand or water, for example, is light. Hence, it’s important for us to understand that light is the foundation of our existence. And it’s the foundation of all life. Light is the energy that powers all biological organisms, all biochemical reactions are powered by light energy, whether directly from the sun or, for example, in the form of food. But the thing that makes food different from inanimate matter, again, such as dirt is the fact that the electrons and food store effectively photons from the sun. So whether it’s direct or indirect light has a very foundational role in our existence. And so it’s important just to have context of just kind of how significant it is. And then when we talk about blue light, blue light is just one range of wavelengths. So light, you know, as I’m sure you know, is measured in wavelengths or the measurement is nanometers, the unit, and the light of the sun covers the gamut of wavelengths. But what reaches the Earth is really in a much more narrow range from round about 300 nanometers to upwards of around 1500 nanometers. But what we can see is an even more narrow band from around 380 to around 720 730, depends on who you ask and what exactly you’re following. But that goes from blue to red. And Beyond Blue, there’s well indigo and violet, but so I should say really violet to red. And then there’s ultraviolet that we cannot see beyond the violet, and then there’s infrared BEYOND THE RED. And these also have really important biological roles. But blue light, specifically is a very large range of wavelengths in the shorter wavelength component closer to ultraviolet. So it’s higher energy per photon, closer to ultraviolet, which most people know, you can damage yourself with excessive amounts of ultraviolet, you can cause a sunburn, for example. And so it’s really important to understand blue light, because our biology for whatever reason, there are likely many reasons, it’s ample, it changes a lot throughout the day, our biology chose blue light as the wavelengths with which to control a circadian rhythm. So the circadian rhythm you’re familiar with, you talk about a lot, you know, the hours of time restricted feeding, and this is directly related to melatonin and the circadian rhythm. Well, the circadian rhythms controlled by blue light wavelengths. So you know, when the sun the reason for having a circadian rhythm, this is another very useful thing for people to understand is that we are sort of in our way, in one way in, in entire universe, within ourselves, there’s a whole universe occurring within us. Now, outside of us, there’s also a universe, there’s changing environmental conditions. And in order for a living organism, like a human to not only survive, but to thrive, it’s important to have some sort of synchronization between our internal conditions and the external environment. And on earth, the most regular and predictable change in our external environment that has a significant impact on our conditions of existence is the change from night to day or said differently, the earth rotating around its own axis in so that the surface is in and out of the sun’s direct light, or in and out of its own shadow. And so that causes that one full rotation is obviously a day 24 hours, approximately, and that makes a day and night. And so biology because light energy is useful for us evolved a way to track effectively when the sun’s going to be out and when it’s not going to be out so that we could adjust our internal functions to match that. So even like plants, certain plants, they open up in the morning. Yeah, and then they close at night, others do the opposite. But we have very similar systems within us, in fact, very identical except in different expressions, right and blue lights important to understand because if we have blue light at the right time of day, it’s really good for us. We don’t want that to be an issue. And then if we have it at the wrong time of day, it can be an issue for us. And if we don’t have it at the let’s say wrong time of day, it can be a benefit.

Speaker 1  

So okay, so I have a couple of thoughts on that. One is throughout the day, so when the sun comes up, and it’s and it’s moving, you know, as throughout the day, are there different spectrums of light hitting us at different times of the day, meaning we know there’s red light in the morning, there’s red light in the afternoon. If I’m thinking the way you just described that as I’m thinking of like a rainbow when we see a rainbow we sort of get a glimmer of the light that is that is maybe coming into our environment on a on an hour by hour basis. So does To our light, quality, change and affect our health differently at different times of the day, because of the way that the sunrises and sunsets,

Speaker 2  

yes, the light of the sun changes throughout the day significantly. So for example, it’s generally understood and accepted in the research community that you know, regarding light, that the longer wavelengths are more healing and restorative. And these would be the red, near infrared, and maybe a bit of orange and yellow as well, the shorter wavelengths, particularly ultraviolet, violet, indigo, and blue, what we we perceive wavelengths as colors, so colors and wavelength could be used synonymously, within the visible spectrum of light beyond the visible spectrum, we can’t see those colors. So we could imagine them like colors that we can’t see wavelengths that we don’t perceive. But anyway, so the blue is more, let’s say blue and violet and and ultraviolet are more stimulating and in excess, let’s say damaging, blue light ultraviolet, they in excess, in general, actually, they are more responsible for the production of free radicals, like reactive oxygen species in our skin, and our eyes and so forth. Ultra, pardon me infrared and red, kind of effectively do the opposite based on the research to actually help improve the function of our metabolism, reducing the production of reactive oxygen species. So that’s kind of the interplay between blue and red. And so as the day goes on now, blue light and shorter wavelengths, including blue, and ultraviolet, they change, they vary the most in their ratio or percentage of sunlight throughout the day. And the reason for this is due to an effect called Rayleigh scattering. And so basically, the analogy I thought of is that if you imagine a pack of wolves running through the forest, and you know, they’re bobbing and weaving through a lot of trees, the ones that are going the fastest probably have the highest likelihood of accidentally running into a tree, because they’re going much faster, and they have less time to bob and weave. Well, it’s not exactly scientifically accurate, but it helps people to understand the the way that light moves through the atmosphere, when the wavelengths of light that make up the rainbow, as you described go through the atmosphere, the wavelengths that are shorter, that carry more energy, have a higher percentage of scattering occurring, meaning that they hide with the atmosphere and they are essentially scattered or diverted. So it’s actually a fairly good analogy to explain this for people to just contextualize and so hence why the sun the sun is a star like other stars, it’s actually emitting white light, the sun isn’t as yellow golden as it appears through the atmosphere, it’s more white in its in its true nature. Now, that being said, at least the light we would perceive from it would be more white, just like other stars. Now, the reason the sun appears more yellow is because the blue light is more is filtered out more by the atmosphere. And hence, when you take out blue from white, just like with our yellow, like what we’re seeing right now, my glasses, yeah, and that’s also why the sky is blue, because more of the blue light wavelengths are scattered. So the sky is blue, the sun is a little more yellow. And that’s because of this principle called Rayleigh scattering. So the further the sun is down on the horizon, close to sunrise or sunset, the more atmosphere if I’m standing here on Earth, if I imagine I’m standing here, and the sun’s over here, coming at sunrise, or sunset. Now, for the listener, you’ll just have to imagine I’m just putting my finger up like a person like a stick figure. And the sun’s coming in at basically a perfectly perpendicular angle. To me, the sun is passing through a lot more atmosphere, because it’s not coming through directly, like when it’s overhead, it’s coming through at much more of an angle. So it’s passing through a lot more atmosphere, hence why the sun is much more yellow, or even orange or even red. in Sarasota, Florida. For example, one time I saw pure red sunset, it was May, and may anyway, as the sun rises as it’s more overhead, as you could say, your shadow gets shorter. And the there’s less atmosphere that the light is passing through, hence more ultraviolet, violet and blue wavelengths that are passing through. And so it’s not to say that the sun is worse for our health in the middle of the day than it is at sunrise and sunset. But sunrise and sunset in the early morning and late afternoon, we could generally consider times when there’s much more of the healing wavelengths of light available. And that’s generally when I recommend people to sunbathe, for example, or at the just the absolute ends, the sunrise and sunset, the ends of the day. And the beginning, is when we can actually safely Sun gaze directly into the sun, but only if we have a clean, not after that comes over a mountain. Now. So in the middle of the day, the thing for people to realize is that yes, there’s much more of these, let’s say stimulating and potentially detrimental wavelengths. So we do want to be a lot more careful, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t go out at all. That’s the time when there’s more ultraviolet B which is when we can make light Indeed, it’s just a matter of being careful. And I’m learning, I’m constantly learning that because I’m always kind of pushing the boundaries I always have. And I’m actually currently walking on a, let’s call it a pilgrimage, you could say in in Spain, you may be heard of the Camino de Santiago. So I’m out in the radiation of the sun for many, many hours. And so I have to be as a light skinned Irish person, even though I’m European, my ancestors are from Ireland, where they have less sun than even the Spaniards and the Spaniards skin reflects that, right. So it’s not to say that there’s a better or worse time, but we have to be more careful for certain when the sun is higher in the sky, let’s say in the summer between nine or 10, and 3pm, for example, and in the afternoon, and Eve and morning, we can be a little bit more, I should say, late afternoon and early morning, we can be a little bit more free with our sun exposure.

Speaker 1  

Okay, so the what what I heard in all of that, and this is sort of where my brain has been going with light lately is that if you understand these different qualities to light, the different wavelengths that are coming in, then you can actually use different times the day exposing yourself to different types of light as a healing tool. So for example, we know when there’s more red light in the sky, because of sunrise and sunset, that that’s got an influence on melatonin production. And we what I’ve also heard is in the middle of the day, if you go out and you get that full spectrum light, which I assume is also got what you just said, a longer blue light wavelength, that we have receptor sites in our eyes for serotonin, and we can actually use the light to stimulate serotonin. So as somebody who’s passionate about hormones, I started to really dive into this understanding of gosh, we can just use something as simple as where the sun is in the sky as a way to create a hormonal influence in our body. So we can use that for healing. But then if we’re not careful with the way that light is exposing it, it might actually damage hormonal production.

Speaker 2  

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It’s really fascinating, in my view, because if we consider hormones, for what they really are, I’ve come to understand and believe that hormones are effectively messengers of light. So they’re basically taking signals from our external environment, and conveying them to our internal environment, for example, the, you know, the time of yours at a time to be reproducing or not the time of day, time to be awake or not, right? They’re not everything is it directly controlled by light in biology, but, but everything is indirectly or directly controlled by light. So because it’s, as I said, from the beginning, it is the energy that that is the cause of life on Earth, essentially, so. So yes, absolutely correct. For example, the aromatic amino acids, which are, for example, including tryptophan tyrosine, these are the building blocks for our hormones, most of our hormones, and as well as it’s similar for neurotransmitters as well, but it’s slightly different. So these absorb light in specific ways. All of these chemicals absorb light. So for example, if we look at the foundation, the basic principles, all atoms in the universe, communicate or interact with one another based on light energy. So when two atoms merge, they either absorb or emit light, depending on the type of reaction that’s occurring. So this is in chemistry, a process that occurs where electrons basically either absorb a photon and jump up to a higher energy state or emit a photon and jump down. And this is essentially what’s occurring when chemicals are interacting. So people can think about mercury vapor lamps, fluorescent lamps, they basically inject electricity into a gas and excites that electrical energy excites the mercury that’s in that vapor in such a way that those electrons in the mercury and its outer orbitals jump up in their energy. And then they stay there only for a moment, and then they drop back down. And when they dropped down, they emit a photon. And that photon is the light that we see with a Mercury a fluorescent lamp. And so you can actually see this this is an interesting tangent that I’ll touch on but you can see the specific emission spectra of mercury when you look at the spectrum that I could measure with my spectrometer of a mercury vapor lamp of a fluorescent lamp. Now the inter Just thinking about that, and this is the digression for a moment is that one of the many reasons fluorescent lamps are so horrible, not only they have a very limited spectrum, they’re not broad spectrum at all. They’re lacking critical wavelengths for our health. They’re overstimulating in a short wavelength range, they are flickering at the rate of the electric power grid. There’s many issues. But probably the worst or one of the worst, is that because think about this mercury is inside the, it’s inside the lamp. And it’s being stimulated by electricity, and then re emitting photons that are characteristic to Mercury, specifically, anyone who has mercury in their biology and their bodies sitting under a fluorescent lamp, the exact wavelengths that are needed to stimulate and activate that mercury, which is the biggest problem when you have mercury in your body. It’s okay. Oh, yeah. But as soon as it gets activated, it becomes a really big issue because it starts detoxing moving your blood, those are the exact wavelengths coming off of a fluorescent tube, that activate the mercury in your body. So it’s resonance. Oh, so there’s, there’s the reason that’s a tangent. But the reason I mentioned that the foundations of light is that no matter which hormone we’re looking at, they all absorb light in their in their basically molecular structures in some way that informs how they function. And all hormones and neurotransmitters follows circadian rhythms or seasonal rhythms, pretty much all of which are dictated by light. So, you know, I don’t necessarily love to say light is the most important factor for health because I do believe there are so many critical factors I do have, I do believe it’s one of the most important, but when we look at how foundational it is, it’s almost shocking how deep it goes.

Speaker 1  

Yeah. Okay, so I have so many thoughts on what you just said. So let me just, I want to go into hormones, because I have a whole theory around women’s menstrual cycles, the moon blue light, I want to go there with you for a moment. But let’s go back to this Did I just hear you say if I have mercury in my body, which I can tell you, we’ve detox 1000s of people in my clinic in my online world, and everybody has to heavy metals, lead and mercury always. So if I have mercury in my body, and I’m next to a fluorescent light, that is like stimulating that mercury, which is an excitatory, heavy metal, so could that be leaving leading to anxiety? And you know, the nervous system, and sometimes maybe pain pain could be amplified? Because the fluorescent light is stimulating? Mercury?

Speaker 2  

Yeah, that would be fair to say, the way to look at it vividly that it’s specifically that the, the photons that are emitted by a fluorescent lamp are the exact photons that mercury emits when it goes from its excited state down to more or less a resting state, the electrons are mercury, so they resonate exactly with the mercury that would be stored in someone’s body.

Speaker 1  

So then, if I know I have mercury, I know I’m around fluorescent lights, putting the glasses on, is that going to help? Or does it need to be a more I would need like a body, it would be like a whole body glasses,

Speaker 2  

I would just avoid fluorescent lights. The good thing, at least on that front is that mercury vapor lamps, fluorescent lamps are becoming less and less common because of LEDs. LEDs have their own issues. But they could be said to be better than fluorescent lamps and in some ways, okay.

Speaker 1  

Okay. That was because that just like, you know, we detox so many people. And it’s really fascinating to me, just, you know, how toxins are the root of so many things. Okay, I want to go to this idea of hormonal control. So. And I also want to go to the idea of cells that our cells actually are built to respond differently to different strains of light. So let’s start with that thought. One thing that I heard is mitochondria actually have receptor sites on the outside of the mitochondria in our cells for red light. Is that true? And do we have actually literal receptor sites on different parts of our cells with for different spectrums of light?

Speaker 2  

It’s such a great question. Yeah, I wouldn’t necessarily say receptor sites only because light doesn’t need a receptor site. It’s kind of like, huh, this is a great a great question. It’s like saying that you need a door for space to go through a wall like I guess you could say that a wall. A wall is already permeated by space itself. Yeah. So you don’t necessarily need a window for space to move through a wall because it’s constantly moving within and around everything. And so light, yes, light is absorbed. So for example, light is absorbed, like shorter wavelengths are absorbed by the surface layers of our skin, so they’re shorter wavelengths do not penetrate as deeply into our skin, as do longer wavelengths. So meaning blue and ultraviolet, they don’t penetrate very deeply at all. And people can quickly search a chart of skin penetration of light. And they’ll see that the ultraviolet and blue go very barely nanometers deep, right? They just stay more or less on the surface, whereas red and especially near infrared wavelengths can go practically centimeters into our skin.

Speaker 1  

Yeah, no so on that what’s really interesting, again, elevated thought on this for my brain, is that we deal so much with people who have I mean, so many people have cellular inflammation. So many people have cells that are so congested with toxins and bad thoughts, that we can’t seem to get the nutrients in there, you give somebody a bunch of, of great supplements, and it’s not getting into the cell. And what I’m thinking now with your door analogy is this is where we could use different strains of light to bypass the cellular inflammation situation and get into the cell to heal. Do we have evidence of that?

Speaker 2  

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s, it’s a really, really interesting point you bring up so first of all, regarding your just to touch on your point about mitochondria, so mitochondria, considering the point that light wavelengths are absorbed by different molecules, right, so light can move freely. But if it’s absorbed by something, then it’s not going to keep moving such as if it’s absorbed by the surface, which is a protective mechanism, because we don’t want ultraviolet and blue light deep in our cells, because again, they’re more stimulating and potentially more hazardous and excess, right. And that’s also why the red and infrared wavelengths go deeper. Well, because the wavelengths were mostly made up of what water of course, and water is. water absorbs infrared wavelengths of light, specifically in the infrared light range. Hence, it’s actually beneficial for that light to come into our cells because it activates water. One of the most amazing findings of I would say the last several decades in the scientific world is that water in cells is not the same as water in a glass. And this has been postulated for decades by very intelligent researchers. So another interesting thing about infrared light is because it activates water, it basically you could say jiggles the water molecule, so so in a way, naturally, just by being exposed to infrared light, we’re having kind of like people get on the trampoline, and they jump to try to do lymphatic detox. Well, we have a photo photonic detox occurring just from infrared light, causing water to jiggle, allowing us to move where they need to move, but only if we’re exposed to the correct wavelengths of sun. And this is one of the many reasons why saunas can be such a powerful practice.

Speaker 1  

Yeah. As I’m listening to you, I’m thinking we have gotten so caught up in making things so tangible, like when it comes to health, we have to see it, we have to feel it. And then we have a world as you know that so sick right now. And everybody’s looking for the one thing. And when I hear you, it’s that last explanation. I’m like, All of humans, I feel like right now are struggling with the modern world, we’re struggling with the influences that we can’t see that are creating cellular damage, light being one of them. And one of the things that I’ve seen in my world working with so many women that are dealing with hormonal issues, is that we have this big massive elephant in the hormonal room where women are suffering at the hands of this untamable influences more than men and largely because I think we are hormonally synced up with the earth. I think we’re hormonally synced up with the moon. I think that we are constantly in an ebb and flow with nature. And we’ve haven’t been taught that but now we’re sitting in blue light, where we’re not getting out and getting full spectrum light. And this is damaging us hormonally. What do we know about the science behind synthetic I’m going to call it synthetic light, like what we’re what we’re dealing with right now. And how it’s affecting our hormones.

Speaker 2  

I love the term synthetic light, were you I’m usually using the terms artificial light, manmade light, but synthetic is actually phenomenal. I have not thought of that yet. So thank you. I’ll use it. Yeah, it is it is artificially synthesized. So synthetic or artificial manmade light sources basically mimic or attempt to mimic sunlight. So for example, if we just go again back I think going to first principles really helps to make everything clear. So for example, if we look at the first principles around manmade or artificial lighting, well, what’s the goal right what why, why were lights created in the first place. Well, based on the history that that’s written and understood, it was to extend hours of productivity into the evenings beyond when in the winter, the days would were very short. And so it would get dark and you have to use a lot of well, blogger to burn a lot of lamps for a long time, a lot of fuel to burn fire. Electricity also requires fuel like coal and so on. But you can create brighter lights that are more stimulating the issue with candle light, if you want to the one of the the light experts I work with in our product development, as well as in just, you know, my own research and studies, calls the process light doping. So essentially, like drugging people with light, and if you wanted to drug your employees with light, but you know, I say that it’s probably sound. But if you wanted to, if you want to do people, yeah, to get them to work more, candles wouldn’t be good, because they’ll get tired. And the reason is, because the reason for this is that candle light and fire light in general, depending on the source of what’s being burned, it doesn’t emit much blue light at all. So it doesn’t emit almost any of the stimulating wavelengths. Hence why it appears yellow, orange, red fire, it’s because it’s just emitting essentially yellow, orange and red. And if I take my handheld spectrometer and I pointed at a fire, you’ll see that it’s just yellow, orange and red. The incandescent lamp is still very similar to the spectrum of fire, but it has some blue light, which of course aids in the stimulation, and that those were the original light bulbs that were used to stimulate people to work longer hours. And essentially from a hormonal disruption standpoint. So we’re basically doing what is almost literally burning the candle at both ends. So we’re sort of pushing our biology to continue to be active, instead of going into rest and repair mode with melatonin when we are not really designed to be doing that anymore at that point in the day. So the reason I bring this up is that people on the equator have a certain sort of environment, they’ve adapted to 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness people in Europe have a time in the summer when they’re, you know, we can actually with the sunlight present, we can actually biologically be stay up a little bit longer have some more hours, because that energy to fuel ourselves is actually there. But then when it comes to winter, and it’s actually our biological time to go inwards and restore more than repair, like certain animals, they hibernate, they literally go on Asus, for months, they don’t do anything they just feel, well, we’re biologically should be closer to that doesn’t mean we need to sleep constantly, like a bear for three months. But it’s something more like that would be suitable in winter. So when we start to stimulate ourselves artificially to be more essentially asking much more of the body than is provided for.

Speaker 1  

Like, oh, yeah, I can totally see that. Because as you were talking, I was like, so does that mean, we were meant to be inside more in the winter? And outside more in the summer? I mean, I live in California, so we just stay outside all the time, right? Yeah. But I never really thought of the fact that if it’s shorter, a shorter day, I’m actually my body wants me inside more and not be pushing through that. So it’s a little bit of like, how do we mimic the bear hybrid hibernation?

Speaker 2  

Yeah, yeah. And I would even say like, if we consider, you know, before, 5000 years ago, or 10,000 years ago, depending on you know, which version of history you you follow, but human civilization is, is, according to most history, 5000 7000 years old, at most, there are some more alternative, you know, historians like Graham Hancock, who have some really compelling evidence that civilizations have existed for 10 or 15,000 years. But even then, it’s not 100,000 years, right. It’s generally accepted that 100,000 years ago, across the board, we were still living tribal life, right? So even 50,000 years ago, humans, which is very little, you know, humans showed up something like, I believe, 2 million years ago, homosapiens, even even more recently, but so and then life has been evolving for billions of years. And and we didn’t even the concept of inside and outside didn’t exist, right? Yeah. And so like, it would maybe just be more time resting and more time active in the in the winter and summer, respectively. But so another consideration with artificial light is if we think about buildings and houses, like if you if we build a building, can you imagine what it would be like if you built a building with no windows, right? They exist, like the routing stations, old routing buildings, where they would connect phone lines and so on. They still exist. You’ll see them they’re brick buildings with no windows. They’re no longer really relevant anymore because of the new telecommunications but any of those buildings, government buildings, hospitals that have very little artificial light. Even Florence Nightingale who is considered the father or pardon the mother of all nurse saying, basically the godmother of the practice of nursing and modern nursing, she even said that, in her in her own observations that if you put someone in the dark ward that doesn’t get a lot of light, their chances of recovery are very low consistently to have a very low rate of recovery. If you put somebody in in a area that has much more natural light coming in, they have much higher odds of recovery. And she, she was commenting on this now, a couple 100 years ago, this was something she just knew from all of her practice, and light has such a significant impact. The point is, if we well, there’s quite a few points, actually, we could get into but nobody would want to be in a building without windows, I’m like signaling over the wall, there’s if somebody was in a building without windows, it’d be kind of miserable. Why? Because we need the light, we know we need the light, we want the light, we crave it actually, biologically, we’ve lost that connection, I believe in in many cases. But so we use artificial light, this is what I’m getting at is that we we use artificial light to attempt to replicate sunlight. That’s it. So it’s, and so that’s, that’s

Speaker 1  

real, it’s like an endocrine disruptor. It’s like, it’s like using an exogenous like HRT like you’re putting a exogenous hormone in you, it doesn’t have the same effect. So if we’re supposed to see full spectrum, you know, see that that blue light, but then we’re getting it synthetically, it doesn’t have the same effect.

Speaker 2  

It’s it’s effectively exactly analogous to artificial hormones or isolated supplements. Not to say that there couldn’t be a use for some of those things in very specific cases, for example, and that even isolated, manmade synthetic light could be used, in some cases, it can we’re actually working on some really cool light therapy, there already are some really cool light therapy devices in existence. But yes, for the context, to be clear, that is what it is. And so if you’re going to use it, you should be very calculated about it so as not to disrupt the biology, which is all based on light, as we’ve touched on from the beginning. Now, here’s the issue, the industry that generates lights, that produces lights doesn’t really know this. It’s not common, and if they do, then they’re not applying it to the to the lights that are being produced. Right. The the general understanding of light is that it’s something that allows us to see, and that’s it. Yes, yes. Yeah. As a this is this is a much broader conversation. But there’s a gentleman named Dr. Robert O. Becker, who is he was a surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, and researcher who worked at the Syracuse Veterans Administration for several decades. And he had the question, why can salamanders regenerate an entire limb and humans can’t? The reason I bring him up is because one of the way he framed his his story is that there were sort of for hundreds of years since the origin of the study of biology of life, you know, in essentially the Renaissance, and even earlier, the Middle Ages and even further back. In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, there was sort of two main competing schools of thought called what he called the vitalists, who believe that life is powered by some spark of energy, and the mechanist, who believe that life is just chemical based. And that’s it. And the mechanist in this time in history, essentially one out so to speak, in the last 100 years, especially with the advent of penicillin, because people were getting all these crazy diseases. And you could just take a little spoonful of white powder and kill all the bacteria. So with that, and then with another thing that occurred, I imagine you’re probably familiar with the Rockefellers, John D. Rockefeller, who was running the oil industry, he paid a guy named Abraham Flexner, who is a not was not a scientist, but basically wrote a document discrediting all alternative forms of medicine. And so between the Flexner Report to the US Congress, basically saying, unless it is what, what they call evidence based medicine, which means we have hundreds of millions of dollars, and we can fund studies on it. And if it’s if they don’t have that much money to fund a study, then it’s not evidence based. That’s exactly what evidence base it’s a euphemism for pharmaceutical controlled medicine, if it’s between the Flexner Report to Congress in the 1920s, and then the advent of penicillin around World War Two, they base the mechanist sort of, let’s say one and all the acupuncture Helio therapy, which is light therapy with the sun, eye or Vedic medicine, you name it, or homeopathy, all of it was thrown out the window traditional medicine as pseudo scientific or non acceptable practice.

Speaker 1  

Well, I told I’m freaking out over here because I used to do talks in my clinic all the time, like pre COVID. And I actually told that exact story that you just said to my patients, and we can wrap it within the context of the pandemic because everything you were talking about vitalistic versus mechanist. Sick. We literally as a society when we were debating that we didn’t know there was a lot of discussion does does the body heal itself? Is there an intelligence inside the cell? Or can we actually manipulate it and and control that cell from an exogenous way. And then we went into the 1918, Spanish flu, and, you know, wiped out so many people. And we have context for this now, because of COVID. And the pandemic, we all go, oh, we know what that’s like. And right after that moment, penicillin was discovered. So think about this is what I want everybody to, to fully take in, is there was so much fear, there was the whole world shut down. And then penicillin appeared. And penicillin was the hero of that part of our world in that moment, and everything about vitalistic health got pushed aside. And penicillin became, yes, we can influence the cell from an outside source. And so from that point, healthcare changed. And we lost, we lost the ability to believe in our own cellular health, because then the Rockefellers invested in pharmaceuticals, and they invested in medical schools. And all of a sudden, all the doctors learned mechanistic, they didn’t learn vitalistic. And I think where we are today, coming out of COVID, is we’re at a really interesting point where we can come back to understanding vitalism, like maybe COVID was there as a pattern interrupt for us all? To come back to wait a second, there is an intelligence inside the cell, our lifestyle does influence this. So I I’ve never heard another human tell that exact story that you just told me. Yeah, like, I, my all my patients were like, Oh, my gosh, that makes so much sense. So so thank you for that. And I want to take it one step further. Because I again, go back to women, I feel like we’re in this incredible evolutionary mismatch. And one of the things that has emerged out of me teaching fasting to a woman’s menstrual cycle has been that I strongly believe, and I don’t have any scientific evidence on this, that a woman’s menstrual cycle is controlled by the moon. And when we look at a when a woman bleeds, that’s day one of her menstrual cycle that is a new moon. And, and when we look at when a woman would actually ovulate, she would ovulate at the full moon. Now, the question when you actually start to look at that, the question to ask is, well, how come then every woman isn’t cycling at the same time? And the only answer that I’ve been able to find is because blue light is throwing the whole thing off. And so we as as women, I’m going to just, you know, take it back to the female body, here. We are in we are out of sync. Blue light is throwing our hormones off because and totally disconnected us from the moon cycles.

Unknown Speaker  

What are your thoughts on that? Yeah,

Speaker 2  

well, it’s interesting. You say you don’t have so much evidence, because I wanted to mention something earlier, which is that I’m not a necessarily a believer in the idea that Western science is the be all end all. Now that might offend some, but there is it’s a, it’s a, it’s limited to the it’s limited to the ability of its measuring devices. And it’s limited in its in its scope as a science, because well, I should say science itself. So science, the idea of science is that you have an idea and let’s pin the moon because this is very important to get to the point. So basically, in science, the idea is that you have a hypothesis, you build a hypothesis, and then you build an experiment to test or to try to specifically to try to falsify your hypothesis. And then you just attempt to falsify the hypothesis as much as you can and you may modify your hypothesis. One thing in science is that unless I’ve misunderstood something but but I’ve studied a decent amount is that you can never really completely prove something that’s that’s part of the you control issue. Yeah, you. You can only attempt to disprove if you’re practicing science in its truest form. It’s attempting to disprove hypotheses and if you can’t disprove it, well, you may end up indicating that something’s really true but but based on the scientific method, the way it is traditionally written, you can never absolutely know anything to be true as an absolute they may even develop scientific laws. But, again, scientists laws have changed, right? So so how do we know it’s absolute?

Speaker 1  

So what I hear in that is we have to use science lightly. We have to look at science as creating more questions for ourselves. And the question that I that I’m deeply contemplating is our women’s menstrual cycles in in accordance with the with lunar. I mean, there’s no, there’s no coincidence that we’re 28 day cycles, and it’s a 28 to 30 day month.

Speaker 2  

Yeah, that’s, I mean, in my view, based on everything I’ve learned, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that at all, at least in my world, right now, maybe in the Western scientific world, there’s lack of evidence, probably just because there’s a lack of interest or study, not that there’s truly a lack of interest, but a lack of study in that in that area. I’m not sure why that’s not my discipline, but if we look at it from so the circadian rhythm is a daily rhythm, right? That follows a 24 hour cycle. There are other rhythms which are longer than the circadian rhythm. So there’s, yeah, there’s all sorts of other rhythms, essentially, that are happening happening in biology. So like, ultra circadian rhythms. So beyond the circadian rhythm. So the lunar cycle in women and women would be one of those clearly, I mean, it’s, it’s obvious, very obvious, and not so obvious. If it’s steady, necessarily. Like, for example, a great question for a scientist would be well, you know, do I need a study to prove that in a day, there’s light and dark? And the scientist might say, Well, yeah, let’s devise a study. But you would say, Well, no, but I see it. Right. So. So although, again, I’m not trying to give people the wrong idea that just because you think you see something, understand something means it’s true. That’s not necessarily the case. But there are certain ideas that are that are beyond the scope of what science is capable of answering, such as the origin of the universe, such as certain obvious things such as this, you know, science could could probably prove it if they wanted to invest in a stadium, and I would be shocked if studies haven’t been done. I actually haven’t. Maybe they haven’t. Yeah, but regarding like, taking women, having them live camping, and see if there

Speaker 1  

would be a great that would be an amazing, that would be really smart. So just so that everybody understands, like, I hope that people get the depth of light. I mean, just in this discussion alone, it’s like, wow, there’s a there’s a lot to unpack on this. Talk to us a little bit about the glasses, because when I got them, like the ones we’re wearing right now that I have on our yellow, and then you have pink ones, and I just what I noticed, this is just the little kid in me, when I got when I got them sent to my house, it was nighttime that I received that I I picked them up, I put the pink ones on. And it was like in my own home, I could just feel my whole brain relax. And it’s kind of how I’m feeling right now, as I’m wearing them. There’s like a calmness to my body when I put them on. So talk about the different colors and how we would use these glasses.

Speaker 2  

Yeah, absolutely. So I started wearing colored lenses, specifically blue light protection glasses, or blue blockers for short, when I started to learn about the role that light plays in health, which came out of my own personal health issues and trying a lot of diets and and all sorts of other approaches learned about light and how it’s so foundational. And we’ll touch on that a bit more hopefully at some some point or in another conversation. But basically, light controls the way our metabolism functions. In fact, the metabolism is again, well the metabolism is quite broad when we say metabolism most people think about food digestion, but metabolism is intake of everything and output of everything. So all the inputs and then all the waste that really so metabolism is quite broad. But when we talk about our digestive process and our food consumption and all that it’s all governed by light metabolisms, most active both based on Western scientific research and traditional ancient traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, the Metabolic Fire is most active in the middle of the day. So you know, based on these ancient schools of thought, as well as on a decent amount of Western science, the best time to have our meals is when the sun is out especially in the middle of the day and the worst time and I saw some of your you know, your information that you share on social media and so on and and it’s super, you know, in alignment with this the worst time to have food is especially close to sleep or well into the evening. You know, there’s differing perspectives about breakfast some some research I’ve read is highly in favor of breakfast, other is less, but there’s definitely consensus that eating late is not ideal. So from a circadian rhythm perspective, great. So Let’s see where the glass

Speaker 1  

is so that I’m laughing because I’m like, Yeah, breakfast breakfast is now become controversial. This is where we are, we’re in this modern world. And something as simple of when to eat has become this this huge debate. But what I want to do is really bring this conversation home to an applicable way. So right now we’re wearing yellow what I wear these yellow throughout the day so that the synthetic light isn’t affecting me and then switch to the red at night. And is there a time? I don’t need to worry about wearing the

Speaker 2  

glasses? Yeah, absolutely. So so the blue light projection glasses are meant to be used when we’re exposed to this, let’s call it synthetic light or artificial lighting, which is not balanced for our biology, or I should say our biology is not adapted to it in the same way that we are adapted to sunlight. So it’s kind of like as we said, isolated supplementation or hormone replacement therapy, or you know, something along those lines that it can be used beneficially in certain instances. But in modern lighting, LEDs, screen devices, fluorescent lighting, is a blue light component is isolated from the more healing near infrared wavelengths, modern light bulbs since they banned the incandescent don’t even really contain any near infrared light or emit any near infrared light. Hence, they have lots of the blue light. And this is back to the conversation. And we left off at a perfect point about the light doping of artificial light that is done using the blue wavelengths. So we’ve increased the amount of blue to basically artificially stimulate people keep us awake and activate our systems, right. And so basically artificial lights, although we don’t know this, because it’s not commonly taught or understood how light affects our physiology, artificial lights are essentially like, it’s like a drug or like coffee that we’re constantly drinking when we’re exposed to it do to keep us awake without the understanding. And this is where I left off earlier. And I’m glad we can circle home here without the beneficial wavelengths, right. So it’s like a constant stimulus without and more of the shorter wavelengths more damaging without the bouncing red and near infrared. Hence, in order for someone to take their health back into their own hands and have control and not let a lighting company or their employer or their school or their institution, basically light dope them. This is the term from a German researcher, I could probably come up with a better translation, but basically, it’s a little open. Yeah, yeah. So it works because it’s actually it’s perfectly accurate as from a biochemical perspective, it’s not it’s not hyperbole or exaggeration at all. So because it will light the 1000s Hundreds, at least of studies now on this on blue light. So anyway, when we wear the lenses, we’re basically taking back our autonomy as far as the way the light because the main sensor is the eye the skin, it plays a significant role, it’s very significant, but the eye is by far the most significant. So as far as when we use the lens as well. I started wearing what I now call sunset lenses, so these reddish orange you are calling them pink, you know, it depends on which hue you see them. But yeah, so it’s like I would call like a deep red orange. And so when you’re looking at those, the sunset lenses here I have mine somewhere around here,

Speaker 1  

or this, this one would be more the sunset and whatever this is Sunset Yes,

Speaker 2  

and the sunset lenses are as as they sound they’re meant to be worn at night, so around after the time when the sun goes down. And the reason for this is to block the blue light there’s two main mechanisms on so the sunset lenses are focused on melatonin secretion. The daylight lenses are focused on retinal protection. So at night artificial blue light, especially modern screens, LED lights, car headlights, streetlights, etc. Light bulbs in the house stimulate the brain to wake up and basically disrupt they create what’s called a phase shift or a phase delay in the circadian rhythm and delayed the production of melatonin which is the body’s most important antioxidant, anti aging anti cancer molecule for sleeping repair and overall health. So essentially it’s like a performance enhancing drug without having to take a substance because light is what modulates the substances inside of us to your point earlier about people not needing to do all this other stuff you can just change the wavelengths of light and there’s studies that that show that certain certain then you combine certain substances with light sidenote, they can even become far more effective.

Unknown Speaker  

Yeah, yeah, that’s what I’m thinking is I’m like

Speaker 2  

all of this. So we can talk about that but so basically sunset lenses you would wear from the moment the sun sets optimally ideally or wants to dark. I generally put them on once the artificial lights are brighter than the light outside more or less around sunset a little bit or two to three hours before bed. Especially if it stays late light really late, maybe one hour before bed just to get your your body in that mode right. And so the effect of Sunset lenses is again blocking the blue light and the majority of green light which is closer to the blue still more stimulating than the colors of fire the reds, oranges and yellows. So we bought the blue and the green which is why the lenses are darker and have create more color distortion because you don’t just bought the blue you bought the blue and the green so All that’s left are the colors of fire. So essentially, think of it as putting the colors of fire on top of everything that’s around you turning everything into candle light, effectively, that’s what it does. And so what happens is people, and we’ve measured this a lot I can tell you about that. But basically, people start to their eyes and minds start to relax across the board, mine included, yep, I will start to fall asleep more easily sleep more deeply, wake up less throughout the night, and then wake up in the morning with more energy feeling more rested and more energy to achieve their goals during the day.

Speaker 1  

Amazing. I always say that one of the things I see with all the hormonal challenges that women are going through is that we’re just at an in an evolutionary mismatch. Like there’s just what the human body is not thriving with this modern world. And what I just heard, and what you just said is like, Okay, well, we created something as simple as putting on some glasses, so that your hormonal production like melatonin, can be can be exactly what it needs to be your sleep can be what it needs to be, and your eyes can continue to be relaxed throughout the day. It’s brilliant. It’s so brilliant. So thank you, thank

Speaker 3  

you for that. Yeah, like, and thank you for geeking out with me. Anytime,

Dr. Mindy  

yeah, I just have really thought a lot just about the suffering of humanity, and from a health level. And I feel like it’s so intimately tied to the fact that we have been so taken away from the natural rhythms of not just our own bodies, but of the Earth and the Moon. And the minute we come back to those natural rhythms, so many things clear up. So you’ve created an incredible solution for that. So thank you. Yeah, let me finish up on this. And this has nothing to do with light, although it might, who knows what you’re gonna say? I have two questions for you one and the season, I’ve really emphasizing self love, and how important it is for us to love ourselves first, do you have a self love practice a daily one? And the second part of that question is, I think we all have a superpower we bring to the world, what do you think your superpower is?

Speaker 2  

Oh, these are amazing questions. And I love these. So as far as self love, it’s, you know, I would hear people talk about this and think, I don’t get that, you know, and I think it was an it’s, it’s an ever evolving process. Like, I think learning to love ourselves truly is probably one of the most difficult things for a lot of people, myself included. Because, especially when we’re in survival, it’s it doesn’t feel safe to open our hearts. So as far as a self love practice for me, I’ve been practicing more meditation at making time for myself to disconnect from all the things I know and people and to as Dr. Joe Dispenza, who is a teacher of mine says, to basically become a creator, you know, and give myself time to create when I’m not in survival and actually feel like no, everything’s okay. And then trying to bring that into my conscious awareness. And what I’m doing right now, as I mentioned, is a bit of a pilgrimage, I’m walking, you know, 500 miles or so across northern Spain. Yeah, and it’s a great time, just a lot of time to reset, I’m actually running my business at the same time, I just realized that we have unlimited time, the day contrary, what the world tries to tell us, and so I’m able to do everything I want to do. That’s my belief now. And it’s working. So that’s what I tried to do. For myself,

Dr. Mindy  

I love that, you know, create, I just want to make a point on that. I’ve been really deeply thinking about creativity recently and where my creative ideas come from. And it is in the non doing that it’s like there’s like an energy field you tap into of information when you calm the mind when you calm yourself. You can you can experience so much more of the invisible. So I love what you just said that. That sounds amazing. And and what do you think your superpower is?

Speaker 2  

Yeah, I I would say taking ideas that are classically speaking, taking ideas that are fairly complex and sciences very fairly complex and making it useful, but but in a more meaningful and esoteric way, I would say that I’m not afraid to just share how I feel and how I think even if it’s maybe not something that there’s, you know, randomized clinically controlled trials, and I think people can understand those who have share a way of thinking and have resonance. You know, we have in this conversation with the similar stories or same stories can can understand the truth within that and open their mind. And the last thing I would I would just love to share is that all the stuff I’ve learned about light has ultimately led me to again the understanding based on the science which is how I came into this, that we are electromagnetic beings meaning we are beings of light If that’s true, which which the evidence is pretty strong, that we could then turn our light inwards, so to speak, and actually cultivate our inner light. And for me, this is my greatest interest now, it has changed our lives. And I do believe that’s, that’s the future of of all health and especially what I’m what I’m interested in sharing. So I think it’s really important to

Speaker 1  

read the light within turn the light inward. I love that. So Matt, thank you. How do people find you? How do people go and try the glasses?

Speaker 2  

Yeah, people can go to raw optics.com If they want to check out the glasses. So the company’s called Raw, like the Egyptian sun god Ra, no W ra optics.com. As far as finding me, social media Instagrams probably best My page is called the light diet as in a diet of light as opposed to a diet of food. And then I’m actually working on a vlog long overdue because I’ve been traveling the world and meeting with experts for years and have a lot cool of cool stuff to share, both in just beautiful travel stuff and a lot of science. So people will be able to check out the light diet vlog as I’m currently calling it, you know, at some point within the next month or two as that comes live.

Dr. Mindy  

Incredible. Well, thank you. I hope I hope everybody loves the depth in which we went because there’s so much to talk about on I mean, we could have gone down so many just different paths on this subject. So I appreciate you entertaining my thoughts. And let’s do it again.

Speaker 2  

Absolutely. Anytime. Anytime, Mindy. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Unknown Speaker  

My pleasure.

Unknown Speaker  

I’m gonna stay take care.

Dr. Mindy  

Namaste. Thank you so much for joining me in today’s episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we’d love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.