So a couple of just basic facts about the way we are organized. Every cell in our body, every cell has a 24 hour oscillator, just meaning it' a clock that counts down from 24 to 0 and then repeats. And every cell in our body needs to be coordinated to some master clock in order so that the cells of our body work as a coherent whole. This system, when disrupted, is what happens in jet lag. It can happen under a number of conditions. A lot of people are what I call jet lagged at home. The clocks of their cells are out of sync and this causes many problems. So you need to coordinate the cells and systems of the body. So I'll give the practice and the tools first and then I'll flesh it out with some science. So the foundational practice that I truly believe every person should do ideally every day, but if not every day, most days, is to view bright light, ideally sunlight within 30 minutes to an hour of waking. And ideally it would be even sooner. Now, this is not practical for many in certain areas of the world where there isn't a lot of sunlight, and we'll get to that. But the idea is to get up in the morning and within about 30 minutes to get outside and get sunlight into your eyes. It is fine to wear corrective lenses so provided you can safely do it. You get outside and you want to view sunlight, do you need to be in direct sunlight? No. Do you need to stare at the sun? No. Please don't stare directly at the sun. I always say never look at any light artificial or sunlight that's so bright that it's painful to look at. You have a blink reflex for a reason. But how much and how long to do that? Well, it's going to vary because of time of year. People have different sensitivities to light. But in general, getting outside for about five to ten minutes every morning is extremely important. If there's cloud cover, it's still important. And it's far better than getting light from artificial sources. When you look at sunlight, especially early in the day, there's a special class of neurons, nerve cells in the back of the eye called intrinsically photosensitive cells. These were discovered by David Burson at Brown University and others. These cells connect to your hypothalamus. They literally send a Wire that we call an axon to your hypothalamus, which resides over the roof of your mouth. And there resides what we call the master circadian clock. The master circadian clock also has a name, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. And the suprachiasmatic nucleus acts as a conductor for all the cells of your body, from your liver to your brain, CE every cell. And it starts sending out signals to coordinate those clocks. Think about a clock shop where all the clocks are out of sync. The suprachiasmatic nucleus sets them all to the same correct time so that they all chime at the appropriate time. Otherwise it would be chaos. So light early in the day is the primary signal by which that clock setting mechanism occurs. Now, if it's very dark out, you may have to rely on artificial lights. And I'll mention some low cost options. If you wake up before the sun comes out, turn on as many bright artificial lights as you can. But then once the sun is out, then go outside. People ask, can and should you do this through a window or a car windshield? And the answer is no. Because of the filtration of particular wavelengths of light by windows and windshields, it will take about 50 times longer. You'll be spending all day waiting for this clock mechanism to kick on. A couple other things about positive things that happen when you do this practice. First of all, every 24 hours, your body will release a hormone called cortisol. We often hear about cortisol as a stress hormone and that it's terrible for us, but cortisol, as you know, is vital to life and it actually provides a lot of the alertness and focus that is wonderful for so many things. That pulse, as we call that increase in cortisol, is going to happen at least once every 24 hours regardless of when you view light, but by viewing light early in the day. And that pulse arrives early in the day and gives you energy and focus for a 10 to 12, maybe even 14 hour period. If you do not view light early in the day for a couple days in a row, what happens is that cortisol pulse starts to drift later and later into the afternoon. And a late shifted cortisol, peak, I should call it peak or pulse, is closely associated with many forms of chronic depression. People's mood starts to get worse, they start having evening anxiety, they start having trouble sleeping, so, so get as much bright light in your eyes as you can early in the day, as is safely possible. If it's a really bright day or you're on a Snow field. It'd probably only take a minute or two to set this clock. If for instance, today. Actually it's pretty overcast. It's looking pretty UK here right now. I spent some time over there and I'll get outside and view light. Maybe I'll spend 30 minutes there. Maybe I'll take my work outside. It's raining a bit, so. So it's tough. But you try and do it most days. If you miss a day, no big deal. But the next day you should try and get twice as much time outside. Now why would that be? It turns out that this clock mechanism is what we call a slow integrator. It's actually counting photons over time, light energy. So this part of our visual system is very different than the visual system components that we use to see edges and faces and recognize motion, et cetera. It is a clock setting mechanism for our entire brain and body. So get that morning and early light if you don't have access to sunlight for whatever reason. I know there are a lot of daytime simulators that are for sale out there. So called SAD lamps, seasonal affective disorder lamps, they're quite expensive. But one low cost alternative is to get a ring light of the sort that the Instagram or YouTubers use to make themselves look good. It's like a blue ring light. It's very. You can find a very low cost and you just put that at your breakfast table or while you work in the morning. That is bright and will get the system going. And some people like that on all day. Even on a day where it seems kind of overcast, you're getting far more photon energy than you would from bright indoor lights. Yeah, so that's the main thing. And many people report feeling much better immediately. But in addition to that, as you do this more and more, you'll start to recognize the physiological response. It's not a placebo response. There are two things that happen. That cortisol pulse starts to get entrained, as we call it, synchronized to this behavior into this light viewing. The other thing that happens is that when you do this morning light viewing, it sets about a 16 hour countdown to the release of another hormone called melatonin, which is released from the pineal gland and is the hormone that's responsible for transitioning us into sleep. Not keeping us asleep, but transitioning us into sleep. So it actually helps establish better transition and quality of sleep later that night. Many people who have sleep issues find that just this simple morning light viewing practice assists their sleep issues tremendously. I would say a close second is to absolutely dim the lights in the evening and late hours. The hormone melatonin, as I mentioned before, is powerfully inhibited by light. When you you view light, even if you go into the bathroom in the middle of the night, you turn on really bright lights. That quashes the levels of melatonin that are released from the pineal. And many people get a little paranoid about light when they hear that. I wouldn't worry about it. I would just dim lights as dim as you need in order to safely move about your evening activities. And basically the time to avoid light would be between about 10pm and 4am so. So avoid bright lights between 10pm and 4am As a last point, if you somehow have to run to the store to hospital or you turn on the lights in the middle of the night, don't freak out. Remember, these are slow integrating systems. It's just that if you're consistently looking at screens late at night or you're consistently turning on bright lights in the middle of the night, you're really messing up your system. So these are averages. It's a lot like nutrition or exercise. Try and get it right or mostly right about 80% of the time. And don't panic if you happen to violate these tools every once in a while, you'll be just fine.
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