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spk_0: 0:00
if you're exposed yourself to blue light during the day from artificial sources. Yes, you're getting a lot of benefits off the blue lights from those sources like you would get from the sun. But you're not getting any of the healing red light, and you're also getting it in very isolated quantities, which causes damage to the eyes. In the long term.
spk_1: 0:19
Welcome to the less stressed life podcast, where our only priority is providing those ah ha moments toe uplevel your life, health and happiness. Your host Integrative dietitian nutritionist Krista Bigler, helps health conscious women reduce the stress and confusion around food, fatigue, digestive and skin issues at less stress nutrition dot com Now onto the show. This episode is brought to you by exam a nutritionist dot com. Last week, My Book of the Exam, A Relief, Die and Cookbook, Short term Meal plans to identify triggers and souffl Europe's was launched on all major booksellers online. Since then, I've had the opportunity to answer a few questions via social media, and that got me thinking if you have questions about how to execute this book, feel free to drop me a voicemail. You can either record Run on your phone with your voice memo app and send it to hello at less dressed like dot com, or to make sure I get it. You can drop it in the speak pipe app when you go to my website, krista Bigler dot com or less Dress life dot com. You can click on the side, the widget and record a voice mail right there, and I will answer those questions and put them in the book. Resource is Page. Now, if you're looking for less DIY I Why more solid shortcut. You can book an intra call toe work with me one on one at examine nutritionist dot com. Okay, today on the last dress life we have, Andy meant and you know, you would think I'm not trip over that pronunciation of that name at all, but I think I got it right. So we're gonna learn a little bit more about Andy here in a moment. But his background is that not that long ago 2011. I'd like to think it's not that Long ago, Andy began gaining a lot of weight, struggling with chronic fatigue and lacking energy. He tried traditional dietary approaches, which worked a little but not completely, and then stumbled across lights in its relationship to body and the health. And since then, he's become a leading figure in managing light to improve health and well being, which, honestly, a pay attention to trending topics. And Blue Light is a topic that we've been hearing about for a while. That the concept of light and health in general to say that and have someone know what you're talking about. It's still a little bit new. So I mean, at least it feels like I haven't I don't feel like if someone says that you know what they're talking about. So today we're gonna uncover that a little bit on all the things says, There's a lot of interesting physiology that happens behind the scenes that is relevant to any of us that look at a screen, which is all of us. So today he's a bit busy educating others on the science behind how light effects are diet, hormones, sleep, even fertility and what we can do to take control and ultimately attain optimal wellness and health. Welcome, Andy,
spk_0: 2:47
Thank you so much for having me on. That's a really, really good intro. I like it. Yeah, really appreciate that. And so incredibly grateful that this opportunity to speak to your amazing community about light and how it impacts health and all moans and then I'll sleep.
spk_1: 2:59
Yeah, so I think that we're generally kind of familiar with blue light at this point, however, could we really tell someone why it's a problem for us or why we should be more cognizant or being more aware? So if someone says, Why should I care about blue Light? What is the short and the long answer to that?
spk_0: 3:17
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a great question, and I think it's important before we dive into that to distinguish the difference between natural light and artificial lights and said to very sort of distinct pillars of light. And one is great view, Um, and one is not so good for you. It needs to be managed. So if we start with sunlight, when you think of sunlight, you think the orange yellow ball in the sky that makes the sky turned blue. So it's therefore, you know, high in blue light and yellow lights, etcetera. But it's actually a very well balanced sort of ball of light. Think of a rainbow where you've got all those different colors and they're all in the same sort of magnitude. There's a lot of red. There's a lot of yellow. There's a lot of green is a lot of blue etcetera and lights in both artificial and unnatural forms have many different functions on human physiology. So, for instance, blue light is really good during the day from the sun because it causes dopamine releases serotonin production and also helps quarters old levels be where they need to be to make us feel alert and awake during the day. But on the flip side, and this is true for both natural artificial lights, the blue spectrum is high energy, so it causes damage to cells in the skin in the eyes. Now, the good thing was, the sunlight is that it has, ah, high frequency of red light present in its source and red light. How acts on the body is it it repairs, and it heals. So any of the sort of cell damage is being caused by blue light from the sun is being repaired by the red light now on the flip side. We have artificial lights. A case. This is the type of light that comes from, say, your office. Lighting your house lights your fridge light. You may be your led backlit devices like your laptop or your monitor or your smartphone iPad. Car headlights is another example, and what this lights is comprised off is predominantly blue light, so it's probably about 80% blue light, about 15% green light and then about 5% red light. Okay, so it's very different in the, I guess, a spectral composition than sunlight. So what you do is if you exposed yourself to blue light during the day from artificial sources. Yes, you're getting a lot of the benefits off the blue lights from those sources like you would get from the sun. But you're not getting any of the healing red light, and you're also getting it in very isolated quantities, which causes damage to the eyes in the long term. So light is very important from natural sources, because it's how we've evolved ancestry. We've evolved under the sun. Our body is used to processing and translating that light to release specific hormones on to repair any other damage from any of thes side effects of the blue into the sun using the red light president. But what we've had is since the eighties and a demise off incandescent light bulbs we've had a rise in led lights were now living under these artificial suns that are from a light source is led backlit digital devices. And they're sending the wrong messages to the brain there also causing damage to our eyes. Because there's no restorative read president and too much blue and it's disrupting. Our health is causing a mass epidemic of digital eye strain headaches. When you're working in the office all day at a computer on, it's also when exposed to it after dark, which we can come on to delve deeper into that. Shortly, it's disrupting our sleep.
spk_1: 6:26
I'm wondering about full spectrum light bulbs, so I called us. I think it's fun. Teoh say, Hey, is this the same thing? Is that so when we're talking about natural light and the colors of the rainbow coming from the sun, I guess I compare that I call natural light and full spectrum light similar like the same thing, I guess because I recommend full spectrum light frequently in practice because, as you're saying, it's sort of triggers the release of different neurotransmitters and helps your body know that it's daytime. Some people are having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. The first thing I tell them to do is go look at the sun and you'd be surprised how often people cannot do that for some reason, because they're going to do in the dark or they're doing something like that. So, too, sometimes they'll get a full spectrum light. Or they live in this place where the all sunlight is blocked by buildings or something. So just full spectrum light bulbs. And I never have anyone who says, Oh, yeah, that makes it work. Like they all say, it makes it better. So you were talking about incandescent versus led? Can you tell us, like, basically that when you're saying incandescent, is this the same thing? Like what kind of light bulb is that? I mean, I know it's the kind of light bulb we had before we started dating in L ladies, right? I'm not an expert, So tell me more about that label.
spk_0: 7:34
Yeah, absolutely. I think back in the sort of eighties and nineties, Incandescent bulbs were basically in every household. Okay? And what they emitted Waas a lot off sort of yellow and orange light and not so much in the blue range. So what? They did waas. They decided in that sort of mid nineties. I I believe it waas that they wanted to bring energy efficiency into that light bulb. So an incandescent light bulb yet wouldn't have a lot of blue light in it would have more of the restorative yellows, reds and oranges. But what it would do was it wouldn't last very long and it would use a lot of energy. So what they did was in, you know, the bit to actually save people money on their electric bills was they produced something called Led Light. Now led lights differentiates itself from incandescent light by having a very high spike in blue Around about that 450 nanometer range not so much red, but also in a bid to make it more energy efficient. Actually flickers. So when you record an led light in slow mo using a camera, you actually see it pulsates rather than this constant stream of light. And it's these two factors that have caused when you look at, I guess, some of the academic literature out there. It's being sort of basically tied to things like, I guess the flick aside is tied to things like neurological and degeneration has caused problems in people that have, you know, photo sensitive issues such as migraines. It can trigger things like that. But also that high spike in blue is where the real problem is. We never used tohave it an incandescent light bulbs. And then, ever since we released ladies which had this massive spike in blue, you can actually see a trend of, you know, more people with things like stress, anxiety, depression, migraine, headaches, You know, things like just general sort of eyestrain headaches when working on computers, and you can actually see it in a case study in millennials. You know, I got my first smartphone and we have a computer in the house, sort of. You know, when I was about 15 years old and after about sort of 10 years in my mid twenties, I was really overweight. I had issues with stress, anxiety and low mood And you know, I'm not saying that, you know, correlation, causation that be all and end all But this is just sort of what I've read in the literature on and what I've experienced myself as well, you know, seem to sort of happened at the advent of led lighting, actually taking an increase in our lives and with kids today, what you find is that given smartphones at such a young age, what are we seeing in the changes off? Instances of anxiety and depression and stress and social anxieties were seeing it mawr in kids in their middle teams, which is not normal. And what are they doing differently toe what we did as kids and getting smartphones that get in gaming consoles at a younger age. They're exposed now, too more led light than maybe we were because, you know, any delights of progressed into everything that becomes stronger and they haven't had any exposure whatsoever. Toe incandescence on what you're also finding is relating back to I guess your original synopsis on full spectrum light. Kids aren't getting out much anymore. They're not getting out in that natural, full spectrum, visible and invisible sunlight. They're spending more time indoors on artificial devices, which is not the correct light that what they've evolved under. And that's just creating a massive hormone imbalance. And, you know, on the flip side, it's an easy fix because we just need to get outside. More managed lights from an artificial source is a lot more cognitively Onda. We wouldn't have so many instances of these chronic illnesses they're starting to accelerate. In the cases,
spk_1: 11:03
you mentioned a term light management. So how would you suggest that people exposed himself, Teoh full spectrum light or the appropriate, that proper type of light? And is the answer. Do we just go outside? Or can you give people some specific recommendations that may help keep their circadian rhythms more on track?
spk_0: 11:26
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's very important to know that when you test full spectrum sunlight with a spectrometer, you'll notice that every single moment that you test it, it changes in frequencies, so it changes in the amount of specific light that a president specific times both visible and invisible. So it's very important not to just get outside for a couple of minutes. At one point during the day for light to pass through your eyes on be transcribed by photo. Trans ducted, I guess by the clock system in the super charismatic nucleus, you actually need to be out of varying points of the day to actually get specific messages to suppress and secrete specific hormones and neurotransmitters. So basically, the first light your eyes need to see in the morning is sunlight. If you're rolling over and looking at your phone first thing in the morning before seeing the sunrise, or you're switching on a house, light your in essence sending a message to your brain that its solar noon because led lights have the most similar spectral frequency that solar noon. So you start your body clock ticking at that time in a day would be sort of mid day. So you're missing out on a lot of the hormone secretion, though should have happened during the sunrise. Now, when you watch the sunrise, the initial trigger will be to elevate quarters old levels. It's good quarters are awakening. Response will be coupled with the rising sun to give you that spike of quarters are in the morning, which is healthy. You need it to give you that sort of jumps star into the day make you feel alert in a way, and also with the rising sun in the morning. You're getting that big dopamine hit, which is, I guess, the reward system in the brain, and you're also allowing the gut to produce something called serotonin. Now serotonin is known again. It's like a happy neurotransmitter. But what serotonin does later on in the day and we're talk about this a little bit more in a bit is it mixes with something called trip to fan in the gut to produce something called melatonin. A melatonin is our sleep hormone and also a powerful antioxidant. To reduce inflammation and scavenge free radicals also helps us sleep really well as well. So if we're missing the sunrise in the morning and just going into artificial light, sources were missing out on all of that beneficial neurotransmitters. Although release in the morning now, when I was talking just then about artificial light being very similar to solar noon. If you're around artificial light all day, you're not managing that light, and you're looking at your phone all day and all night. Your body just thinks it's continually solar noon on what happens during the day is that cortisol levels are high. So if you're looking at your phone constantly on your body, thinks it's daytime all the time, so learning all the time, it's not gonna regulate cortisol correctly, so you're gonna have one of two things happen. You can have it where it gets chronically high all the time. So you're constantly feeling stressed and anxious and you can't sleep Yukon. Switch off or the cycle reverses. If you miss the sunrise, you could have low cortisol levels in the morning, which makes it very difficult for you to get out of bed and actually start your day, and you feel very sluggish. But then you get home after your shift that were for your day on your cortisol. Levels will start despite before bed, which doesn't allow you to unwind to make sure for wired and awake before sleep so you can actually get to sleep. Will have good quality sleep, so I always recommend that gets the short answer to your question. Is seeing the sun at least three times a day Once it son rice and it could be anything from a couple of minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the time you have another good benefit of watching. The rising sun is, there's almost no UV light present, so you're not going Teoh be baking out in the sun and causing any damage to your DNA. I also recommend getting out so the new to get some frequencies of light, then different neurotransmitter release different hormone secretion and the suppression, but then also trying to get out around about sunset as well. Because sunset actually has a really interesting characteristic in so much that it has the highest level of blue light for an instant against. About 20 minutes before the sun sets, you get a massive spike of blue light, and it's that's massive spike of blue light that actually triggers a message to the body clock to say all darkness is coming. Let's start unwinding the quarters old. Let's start getting ready to mix the serotonin. The trip fans make the sleep hormone melatonin later on, and if we miss that, spike it at sunset. The amount of melatonin will produce later on in the evening. It has actually been shown in studies to be slightly less so those are the three most important times during the day to actually witness full spectrum light 11 Now when it Yeah, so it's actually quite simple to do. And the thing is, man have invented something that really messes up that process. And they've invented two things. I've invented the 9 to 5 working week, and they've also invented something called Daylight Savings. And those two things absolutely screw this up for a lot of people. I'm very lucky in Australia in Perth that we don't have daylight savings. Andan lucky that I don't work in a 9 to 5 anymore around my company and work the hours I wanted to work, albeit actually more hours. But I can actually sink it with sun, where daylight savings mess things up is that people now in winter months and I guess in North America and Europe at the moment this is sort of coming out of it now. But you know, during that sort of November to send the Jan time, you have very dark mornings. You you seem to be getting up in the dark, going to work indoors under artificial light. When it's light outside or light ish. I guess it's cloudy and then coming home in the dark so you don't actually get a chance to see a lot of this. This sunlight and it's created its massive issue in the Northern Hemisphere called seasonal effective disorder in the winter months. And you know, this is, I guess, where you sort of mentioned earlier full spectrum sort of lighting, which, you know, could get sad, bland so it can help people out during those months. But what I recommend to people is the sunlight and interesting one. You don't have to have beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures to be out in the sun. The light that is passing through the clouds is still the same, so I always say that in the morning, if you're getting up in the morning and the sun hasn't risen yet, you need to put light management practices in place, like have some red light bulbs in your house that in the mornings in winter months you can put red light on. That doesn't send any message to the brain that the sun has risen. Yet It's still like our ancestors would have been like around a campfire. This stuff doesn't impact from your melatonin or your hormone levels, but also wearing blue like blocking glasses in the morning. In fact, before the sun rises and then if you're a work for an hour before sunrise, you can then go outside for a couple of minutes to see that sun. Then take your blue blockers often experience the benefits of a full spectrum light, so that covers I get to the four Specter outside of things. But then I can go on to talk about, I guess, how to manage the artificial side a little bit. Maura's as well.
spk_1: 17:52
I really just want to put a stake in the ground and say, Here's an action item right? Set your cell phone alarm whenever someone needs to creating a habit. That's my first recommendation. Just created alarm to remind yourself to go out and look at the sun for 100 seconds. And I love how you addressed. Yeah, what if you go to work before the sun rises and you also addressed? You're reading my brain here. I'm about to buy a red light before it's regenerative properties, and I was kind of wondering how, like, as you said, where that fits cause it fits any time. But I guess and my question was hate. If people are in this dark climate, you know, should they have a light box at a certain time, Because is that there best? Next thing right? I love the free option. I love the sunlight. I love that you qualified that. It doesn't matter if it's cloudy, because that's a real problem for a lot of people. I mean, I hear their disagreements with me. They're like, Oh, my gosh, I cannot see around my building or it's very dark hair or whatever and some people just choose to buy a box and that's fine. So, yeah, I was just kind of wondering what the suggestions were in that case, And it sounds like when in need, get a full spectrum light if you need it. Otherwise, you gave some great examples on how toe use what nature offers.
spk_0: 18:57
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's probably worth applying some context quickly to the full spectrum artificial light boxes as well that they are good and they are the next best thing to sunlight. Okay, nothing will ever replace. Unlike we all know this and the reason it won't is because the led is that are present in your lightbox because they're typically plucked into a new alternating current. They will flicker, so that's an issue for you. But also full spectrum light to, I guess, like researchers like myself means that it's invisible and visible light, so the sun contains it in visible light frequencies like you, ve A, B and C and infrared Far infrared near. And it is actually invisible like frequencies that are very important as well at specific times of the day. And you don't get those in light boxes. So it's almost like saying you've got on the spectrum of sunlight from good to bad. You've got sunlight lightbox incandescent led. So it's just one caveat ing that people might listen to this thinking are the easy way out. Just going at lightbox don't have to worry about the sun. Ideally, you need to be out in that sun, but you know, completely understand that we live very different lives, and it might not be possible for a small fraction of the population. Or they may have severe issues that they need a light box for their working night shifts. For instance, and getting sunlight during the day is very difficult, because that's when they sleep. So then, you know, utilizing things like the light full spectrum like it's a really good idea.
spk_1: 20:19
I love that you gave the priority there, right son, toe, full spectrum, light toe in Destin, etcetera. So we have qualified natural and artificial light. And we talked about red and blue light, which I love, cause it's a precursor to another episode, which is gonna be great. And so you mentioned that blue light impacts skin as well. Tell us about that.
spk_0: 20:39
Yeah, absolutely. So until about. And this is like, pretty hot off the press from scientific standpoint, because normally about 15 years before this gets out to the public domain. So this is like the future being basically told to your community now because at the time the mass media picks it up, we would have moved on a lot with the eye until about 18 months ago. You know, it's very widely known that there was obstinance. Okay. Present in the ice would have rode ops in. For instance, you have something called mellow, not sit on what these are. These are light sensitive functions processes
spk_1: 21:09
up senses. Okay,
spk_0: 21:11
Yes. Options. So that present in the eye and they basically pick up specific frequencies of light, and then they translate them to the body clock in the brain. Okay, so that's how it all works in terms of telling the time free light. Now what? They decided, Teoh, do as they did this study on skin about 18 months ago and they weren't looking for any options. Okay, they were just doing this random study on skin. But what they found Waas that basically shining a light on skin cells showed that there was a change in the expression off clock mechanism. Jeans within the skin and they met narrowed it down to a frequency of light at 480 nanometers. Okay, so what that means is that's very high end blue light on What we know from that study is that the option that is most sensitive to 480 Nanami to blue light is something called melon oxen, which we only thought was present in the eye and, you know, caused us toe Go and watch the sun rise and solar noon. And it was send these messages to the brain telling the time, but it's actually in the skin. It's in the fat cells and it's in the brain. So the interesting thing is is that if you're wearing blue like blocking glasses after dark, you know that blue light is gonna, you know, negatively impact your sleep. You know that you can't produce melatonin in the presence of blue light, and you're wearing the Abu like glasses if you still got the TV on and your skin is exposed, that TV that's gonna somewhat suppress the secretion of melatonin because Mellon oxen, which is the photo receptor of blue light, is present in the skin. So you know, a lot of people don't know that's a thing that popping on a pair of blue light blocking glasses. It's gonna completely solve their problems after dark, when in fact it actually isn't. He's probably about 80% solved, but you've still got major impact of blue light on the skin, actually sending messages to your super charismatic nucleus and body clock to tell the time now, from a circadian standpoint, obviously that is in the absolute disaster. But there's actually another discovery that came out three months ago that we thought that the master body clock was a governor of all of the clock mechanisms in our body. So we got little Coxon allow cells in our bodies, Okay. And then there was a discovery three months ago that we actually have loads of little body clocks in our skin. Okay, that can tell the time now what was fascinating about this study waas that the skins body clock worked completely separately from our master clock became the master clock is governed by light coming through the ice, so it's completely separate. So what they looked at in this study was that they looked at what were the two phases from a circadian standpoint of the skin and it's clock system. And it had two systems exactly the same as our master clock. One's governed by light. Okay. So, like, basically put the skin into active mode. Okay. What? It was needed during the day to perform at its best, but what it also needed was it had a dark face. So when they actually took light away from skin cells in the lab and created darkness, they found that the skin went into repair and recovery mode. OK, so it started to heal any of the damage that might happen during the day from blue light or UV lights from pollution information. Metabolic processes on What they did was during the study is they shown different types of light on the skin and found that red light acted in the same way as darkness. The skin repaired itself orange light, yellow light. The skin repaired itself, but when they exposed and Sean blue and green light onto the skin, it remained active. It didn't go into this phase where it needed to repair and restore. So this sort of led me to critically sort of look into this being sort of thinking a little bit more about the demonization of ultraviolet light in the cause of melanoma. So there's no doubt in the literature that UV light causes cell damage. Okay, much like when you look at the literature of blue light causes cell damage. But what we do is after a day in the sun, Mike on a little bit pink, too much UV light. What do we do? We don't come home and sit in complete darkness or just red light, or sit around a campfire. We come home and expose ourselves to artificial blue and green light. And this light doesn't allow our skin to repair itself. So any of the damage that has been caused by UV light during the day is not getting a chance to repair itself. So let me to think that, you know, in Australia we have the highest levels of sun, the highest level to sunscreen use. Yet we have the highest level of skin cancer, melanoma in the world. And why is that? Is it a case that and again, these are any theories, Their case off, you know? Yeah, We're getting damaged by UV light, which is a natural thing that happens. But especially we would have been repaired by red light and darkness because our circadian rhythm would have been able to allow skin to repair in the store and get really high levels of our top Aegean apoptosis cellular level. Where is the how we're living? An environment devoid of darkness. Nothing can prepare itself. And we're just living in this chronic state of high inflammation and lack of repair
spk_1: 26:03
fun. I love thinking about things from the inside out, but I love these tools from the outside in that we can actually use in that can, in theory, be simple. But I don't know. I'm like this. Maybe people who are listening like this. I need to understand all the wise. So I get diligent about wearing my blue light blockers, right? Or And I also want to re emphasize something you said. So we used to think that really, these options or photo receptors, we're just in our eyes. But now we know they're in our skin when they're independent of what's happening in our eye. That's triggering the super charismatic nucleus, which is triggering our I believe our master body clock. That's I've always understood. Skin has its separate photo receptors, and so that's another piece. I mean, it's sort of like we're still learning about that, right? I mean, because it's I'm going to need thestreet Adi's that you're talking about because absolutely, definitely effects the people I serve as well. So this brings me to I mean, of course, we're talking a lot about Blue Day. It's your jam. But the intro really starts talking about your health, and you became intrigued by lightened health and some kind of curious what you saw as a result of altering or adapting your light management or lighting health or whatever you did, because I mean, it's like the intro is the dramatic like, Oh my gosh, there's the problems. But we didn't really like Segway into the good part. So tell us about how light contributed Teoh awesomeness in your life.
spk_0: 27:26
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I like to think off myself. Is someone that understands, like, quite well. But I'm not someone that's very sort of, you know, like dogmatic or, you know, actors a zealot in that specific area. I understand that there's a lot of pillars of health that one needs to adhere to in order to get the sort of optimal health and wellness. So, you know, you get a lot of people that go out there and go die. It's the only thing you need. Some exercise spotlight. Whereas I guess my approach is more. There's a lot of pillars, you know. There's E M F management, blue light management, exercise, diet and community. And all those things contribute to, you know, perfect. Well, being in humans like became a big factor in my life after I went through sort of a dieting stage, you know, I came to Australia quite overweight. I basically went and tried to seek professional help in sort of managing the way, you know, go to the doctors. What do I need to do? You cut calories. That's what we need to do. Didn't work for May just end up feeling hungry and miserable. So I basically thought, right, I'm gonna think and figure this out for myself. And I initially went on a ketogenic diet, lost a lot of way, and then I went to a more plant focus diet. I don't believe I should go for vegan. I thought that I believe I should go for carnival. I think you know is injured. I plant focused with Cem animal protein in there and from time to time. It's good, and I got into good shape, worked out quite a lot of them for the last sort of 56 years. But one thing I found that didn't improve two things, actually that didn't improve form a waas that I always had. These feelings of anxiousness didn't really improve for a diet and exercise, which was strange again. This is me talking anecdotally, and ever since I was about 14 years old, probably undergoing a lot of hormonal changes of that time going for puberty. My sleep was never good. I could never sleep through the night and I would always feel a bit groggy. And I thought, You know, my teen years went on that, you know, it would be fine and, you know, its just developing. It's all good when I'm in my twenties that we find that nothing improved. So when I kind of sorted my diet and exercise out, I thought to myself, Wow, my sleep isn't improving and I'm still really anxious like what's going on here? And I just sort of stumbled across light. There was some people talking about it online and blue blocking glasses, and I just thought, All miss, it's just well, you know, it's just nonsense. Until I started actually reading a lot of studies on it, and I was like How we are actually beings of light. Everything in our world is governed by light and darkness from the food we eat, from how we operate our dame from when we should exercise and when we should eat. It's all governed by frequencies of light. So interesting And what I found was I went on Amazon to start with, just bought myself a cheap pair of blue light glasses and stuck them on. And there were these horrible, ugly things that my wife was just like, What are you doing? But I found that my sleep improved a bit on and the feelings of anxiety. We're going down a little bit. So I thought, Well, there's definitely something to this here. And then I started reading about how natural light. It's great watching the sunrise and like I was never a morning person, always used to want to lay in until the latest time possible weekends. I wouldn't get out of bed to like, 10 a.m. and stuff like that. And I was reading, you know, about missing out on the sunrise, you know, missing on these hormones and neurotransmitters that would help me sleep later in the day and make me feel alert and awake and started just getting up watching the sunrise. And then I found after about a week of doing that, I was getting such amazing sleep on and off the back of getting such amazing sleep after about a month. I just had no feelings of you know that in the pit of the stomach of that anxiety for no reason. And I was just like, Wow, there's something to this here And that's when it was like a trigger moment for me to be like, Wow, like there's definitely something to this light management on What can I do about it? And the funny thing waas that after using the cheap blue blockers that I bought from Amazon for for a few months, I kind of regressed a little bit. I started my sleep wasn't as good, and feelings of anxiety started to come back again. And that was when I really started to delve in tow. Well, are these glasses actually doing what they say they should be doing? Are they blocking basically the frequencies of light that one should be blocking after dark to get optimal sleep? And this is where I was sort. Fate stepped in. I had some friends in optics labs in Australia and I bought myself 20 pairs of different blue light blocking glasses. You know, the amber ones people wear after dark to get good sleep. And I found a couple of studies that pointed to something called a melatonin disruption zone in light. And it was very specific in both these studies that there was a specific zone of light that you had to block 100% off in order to get, like, optimal melatonin secretion. And that was 100% of all blue light and pretty much all of green light bar the last 20 nanometers. So the geeks out there, like me and you that was between 400 to 5 50 nanometers of Likas lights measured in nanometers, goes away from, like 3 80 all the way up to, like, 700 in the visible range. And you needed to block this specific segment of light out off 20 of these blue blockers to be tested in the lab. Not one of them blocked in that range 100% of the light. And that was that eureka moment for us. We were just like, wow, we need to actually create something that blocks 100% in this range. And that was how blue blocks my company was born. And we put the lap guys to the test and said, We want you to produce this specific lens for after dark and can you do it? We ran it for a spectral analyzer and we found that we achieved 100% like walking in that range and no one else had managed to achieve. And I started trialing the mountains. Yet to this day, I've been wearing them for, you know, good three years now, and nothing to regressed in terms of sleep. And, you know, when we first started, the company was sent out about 50 people that are already using blue blocking glasses that were quite big in their field for sleep, pond, wellness and sort of realistic alternative health. And we had 100%. Those people come back to us and basically say, yeah, these again, changing. You've got something here, so, you know, we should be careful. I think when we are looking to manage like that, we're not opting for that cheap version. You know, it's very much like, you know, that supplement brands, you know, if people are going out and buying the cheapest one might not have the same efficacy than something that's got a lot of evidence and integrity and, you know, work and science that has gotten behind it. And that's why all the people that have our product and we've even adopted this now, in a lot of how we talk about our glasses is that we're the only evidence based Blue Light management company. We don't go and grab a low, cheap glasses from China and sell them. We make them in optics lab in Australia and we put a lot of thought and evidence and science behind, I guess the technology to manage light.
spk_1: 33:30
Yeah, I love that. You pretty much answered all my questions, which was, You know, what percentage of blue light needs to be blocked, and the melatonin disruption zone is 100% of blue light and almost except for believe, 20 nanometers of the green light. And so when you're looking at and we were talking about this off air like, how do you select something that's probably like any unregulated industry? Uh, you just sculpted know your company. And so this is the tricky part, because if someone uses something, it doesn't really feel any different or doesn't use it. And the way to feel a different. It's a bit challenging. It decreases compliance s 02 speakers that we're blessed likely to use it in theory. So with blue blockers, do they need to look orange? Or is there a way to block blue lights without them being so amber colored?
spk_0: 34:14
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a really good question because there's a lot of misinformation out there about blue light glasses. And this is why I sort of took it on myself all those years ago to become an expert in light. I wanted toe empower people with the knowledge I found, and if they choose toe, invest in blue like glasses, whether it be from blue blocks or another company, what they need to look for in order to make sure they're choosing the best option for their health now what's happened is a couple of years ago that's been a really influx off computer glasses to the market by companies that are trying to ride a trend. Blue light is trending. There's no doubt about that, and they wanted to create these companies, these glasses that they got from China. Anyone come by them, you know, you just go on Ali Baba and look up computer glasses. You could buy them in bulk and start company up in about a month. What these computer glasses do is that they focus on something called violet light, which actually isn't present in artificial heights. So they're actually not doing anything to protect you against artificial blue light. But it's also impossible to filter blue light from a clear lens source. When you look at a color wheel, the opposing color on that will will block the other color of light. So, for instance, if you pass full spectrum light through a red Latin's, your block a lot of green and blue light. If you pass white light through a yellow lens, you're filter out lower end of blue like a pale blue side of things. So that's how I guess. Light works when it's past three specific filters from biophysics standpoint, past full spectrum light through a clear lens on get complete blockage of blue and green lights. Just not physically possible. You can't do it. So what has sort of frustrated me is these companies out there that selling these clear glasses, calling them blue blockers and they don't block anything, you know they filter a bit of violet light, and they have this little scam that they use. And then I'm sure a few people have seen it where you get this little pen that comes and you shine it on like a bit of paper that a test area that give you and it burns a little hole in it all comes up purple, and then you put the glasses, the clear glasses in front of it and shine that light through it and it doesn't show up on the test paper, and they're like blocks all blue light. Look at this, either. The YouTube video testing that pen and it actually only has, like a 318 animators, which is violet zero blue in it. So it's just this marketing ploy to say, Look, you don't need orange and red lenses after dark, you could just wear clear glasses. Best that blocking maybe 20% of blue light. But in about 90% of cases, they're blocking no blue light, so you need to avoid clear glasses for after dark, and you need to opt for no, even like a lie. Amber lens. It needs to be that deep amber, red lens, and it doesn't stop there. You need to ask for spectral test results. So if you go to blue blocks away to go to another blue like blocking glasses company before you buy, make sure you have seen their test report. And it's very easy to see because it will show you this sort of color charts that will show if there's any bill green light present when their lenses a test for a spectrometer if they can't produce the app, don't buy from them because it's just bs. And two, if they produce it and it's not blocking 100% of light between the numbers 405 50 on the X axis, then just avoid it as well. Those are the things to look for now. Clear lenses do have a role to play in like management, but only during the day. So what you mentioned earlier we're getting too much blue light and not enough red light from artificial sources. So one of the hacks to actually get less eye damage and headaches and eyestrain during the day is to filter down a little bit of the blue light, and then you can do free acts like that salt and sexy a computer and things like that to balance the blue spectrum. But the computer glasses, you need to make sure that they focus on the blue, not the violent light. So again, when you're looking to buy computer glasses, the clear ones and again not saying to come and buy them from blue blocked by them from wherever you want to buy them from, just make sure that when you go on there, you speak to the people and say, Can you tell me what percentage off blue lights you block and in what range does that block? And also, can you send me a spectral analysis report? And you can then look at it and go? Is it reducing down blue light? Or is it focusing on violet light if it's focusing on violent like don't buy the product if it's focusing on blue light by the product. But Aiken save people the time and say that 90% of the computer glasses companies out there, I'm not gonna name any but 90% of them, and the biggest brands out there as well do know, even focus on blue light. They know nothing about bio physics. They know nothing about quantum biology. They don't know anything about how light works in the human physiological system. They just want to take your money and write a trend. So just be very careful with where you're going to buy your product. Make sure you part with the company that educates, and there is a few of us out there that do educate and make sure that you engage with these companies before you commit to buying. Don't just go on Amazon go year. That looks good. I've got a few good reviews. I'll take it, actually do your due diligence and find out if these guys know about science before you actually buy and make sure they produce the evidence that shows and proves that their glasses block exactly what they say. They block Andi that they block in line with what I'm saying. They should block, which is 400 to 5 15 animators for your after dark glasses on during the day, you want at least 30% of blue light reduced okay between 404 95 centimeters. If brand can't produce the real end report or it doesn't block or filter within those ranges for day and night. Walk away, save your money and find a company where they're glasses actually do block in that range because that is what the peer reviewed Academic studies on the clinical trials are showing that you need to block if you want optimal light management and light. Heidi. So
spk_1: 39:41
you throughout anything here, which was Hey, I didn't know we needed a computer, So this is good. This is good for everyone. I'm over here like I got these fancy computer glasses and they block 20 to 30%. I believe I'm gonna go back and check now because now you got me wondering. So we've got computer glasses to give you because you can have that I fatigue from looking at the screen during the day. And so we're looking for a little less blue light blocking like being very essential because it's normal to have some blue light at that time. I think that's what we're where we're going here and in the evening. We're looking to block it completely, So that way it's not disrupting basically melatonin production, right? So this brings me back and I'll mention I'm just gonna regenerate nighttime glasses. Amber colored only need to block 4 to 500 nanometers. Correct me if I'm wrong. And during the day, Thank you. I knew there was. And then during the day, 44 95 should be crime. Is there a problem with wearing the amber ones during the day for computer use? Do you see that as an issue?
spk_0: 40:40
Exactly the same issue as wearing the clear glasses after dark. They're not doing what they're supposed to. If you're wearing orange glasses, Redlands is during the day. You aren't allowing any blue lights past for your eyes. And during that that you need blue lights past for your eyes to be optimal and to have the correct hormone secretion. And also, if you wore our sleep last glasses during the day, you be asleep in two hours without a shadow of a doubt. It would literally put you to sleep. So yeah, light isn't something that could be managed to the same throughout the day. This is why the different types of glasses to where you need the computer classes during the day. I need to be outside during the day with your bare eyes looking not into the sun but you know, into the environment outside. But then you also need to block really light after dark so you can't mix the two up it'll you need yet yet orange glasses after the sun has set and the clear glasses, if you're working under artificial light during the day, only had to do them can't be switched around. This is why all of the other blue light glasses companies out there either sell amber lenses or they even sell clear lenses, and then they try and market them is like yet this is fine. Just this. You just wear these all day, every day in the evening, whatever, where exactly are light needs change rather day. This is why we have a clear lenses, yellow lens and a red lands, and there's different times that one should wear at least two of those lenses everyone should wear sleep us off the dark, and during the day. People should even wear clear or yellow lens, depending on how sensitive they are toe artificial luck.
spk_1: 42:02
Well, the good news is, I can now go shopping because I don't have amber lenses right now that I know there was a period of time where I was buying glasses and my six year old would just walk off with them and she'd be wearing the glasses, which is fine, wonderful. But it's like, Hilarious. So who knows where my other ones are? And obviously, I gotta step up my quote right when we say Don't go on Amazon to buy it like do as we say, Not as we do. Just kidding, because we all started their right and it's like I don't know if these were doing anything. You don't know if there
spk_0: 42:32
and a lot of people might even have the and my glasses now from is it? But maybe it's time for an upgrade like look for a company that's actually gonna get you optimal results. It's always like it's always a funny one with me, and it's the same of nutrition and exercise. Everything it's it's like, Why would you want to be 80% your best self? Why not be 90% 95 100%? And let's all start looking for not racing to the bottom in terms of let's get the cheapest thing and this will do. That's actually invest in our health. You know, blue blockers will last forever. So rather than spend $20 on one that's really going to make you 70 80% better, why not go and spend 90 $100 on air that you know is gonna last you for a lifetime and actually elevate you to almost where you need to be in terms of Europe himself, So see, is an investment not is something that's a one time purchase. That's what I always say in anything. Supplements, blue light management, blocking everything.
spk_1: 43:20
And I haven't looked at all the glasses that blue blocks has to offer. But I did see your wife mention and you mentioned it earlier how ugly your other blue blockers were. So I'm looking. I'm hoping there's some cool, bright colors because I like a good statements. I'm excited to go shopping after this, but have one more kind of nerd question you were talking about when you did manufacturing in production. He kind of said, Hey, to the whoever the manufacturers, this is what I need. So I guess my question is, it was talking to an optometrist before this interview, and so we were talking about. So do you treat the back and the front of the lens for light that comes in behind the lens? Is it, like, baked in or coded on? How did you pick a manufacturer? We know most things are not made in the US But how did you find a reputable person to help you make glasses when no one else was doing that?
spk_0: 44:06
Yeah, absolutely. The first look there is just looked locally within your country. What I found when I was speaking to China was they just wanted to sell you on off the shelf products. They had no riel possessed for innovation. And don't get me wrong. When I went Teoh Labs here in Australia, they all looked at me as if I was crazy. They were just like, Why did you want to do this? And it took me a while to convince one of them to hear me out, to say, Look, you just do it like here's some money. Just get it done for me. The tint that we produced, we add into something called a temp up. OK, and then they're cooked at specific high temperatures with the lenses in them. for about two hours per lens. This is quite a laborious process, so one that can really only be done in a large optics lab. And it bakes the back the sides in front of the lenses. So there's no refraction or reflection of blue light. And it's quite a good sort of Segway into peripheral light as well, because we get a lot of questions about Well, what about the light coming in from the side of the lens is don't you need fully wraparound lenses to be 100% you know, efficient and it's actually not the case. We actually worked with a couple of doctors to actually look into solutions and basically studies that showed, I guess, the location of something called a PR GC, which are like the interational into ganglion cells that basically located in the eye. Okay. And what they do is they actually are the photo trans ducting cells that are in the I've actually filter lights through options as well, and then passed the message on to the brain. Now, when you actually look at where they're located within the eye there actually located deep within the inner retina, so any light that shines in from the side of your eyes and hit your eyes from the side doesn't actually send any messages from the brain. You need light to actually pass through the eye straight on for them to actually impact the I. P R G C cells and sent messages to the brain. So it's not a case off, either, having blue light blocking glasses on and reflection happening off the back of the inside of the lens and then beaming freely in a ratner into the eye. Prg sees. That doesn't happen because we tend the backside and absorbs and doesn't reflect the specific blue and green frequency. So peripheral light isn't an issue. So people that seem to think you have to wear sort of wrap around Copely style sunglasses as blue blockers to get the full benefits. It's actually incorrect. When you look at the physiology and placement of I prg sees and the I system peripheral, I actually has little to no bearing whatsoever on how light is photo transacted to the brain.
spk_1: 46:30
Cool. So Andy, working people find you online.
spk_0: 46:35
Yes, so if people want to find me personally, then Instagram is probably the best place it's I am on. Demand is the handle in terms of blue blocks. Come and check us out on Instagram as well. Blue Blocks Official and blue rocks dot com We've got so much education on there. It's not just a website full of glasses for so it's like 90% education. There's blog's and learn pages, so come and have a little bit more of a read on light. Empower yourselves to that's blue blocks dot coms at Blu bl o x dot com, and we also have a Facebook group, which is pretty big now, about 6000 people in there, and it's called Light and Health. And it's where people composed questions about their light environment on the community that helped people with free hacks or solutions to basically improving their light environment and that probably the best places to find us. I write a lot of blog's. I do a lot of YouTube videos as well, so people look up blue blocks on YouTube. That's Isam educational videos on there. So depending on how you learn whether it's audio visual writing, you know, reading one of those platforms should really have uncovered
spk_1: 47:33
perfect and There's a coupon code for blue blocks, and it's less stressed for 15% off, and that will be in the show. Notes. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on because I feel so much more aware of what's going on with blue light and being able to speak about it. So I really appreciate this, and hopefully we can chat again about some different cause. There's so many ways to spin the sports and reproduction and other things, I think we'll have a chance to talk about light again. Thanks again, Andy.
spk_0: 48:06
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
spk_1: 48:07
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