Kyle Kingsbury Podcast - #371 The Path to Illuminated Health w/ Dr. Alexis Cowan

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

Exploring the profound impact of light, water, and diet on human health, featuring Dr. Alexis Jasmine Cowan, a PhD specializing in the benefits of sunlight and light therapy. It discusses the spectrum of light, focusing on red, infrared, and UV light, and debunks myths about the dangers of sunlight by examining the role of melanin in harnessing solar energy. The episode emphasizes the importance of metabolic flexibility, the significance of structured water and exclusion zone water within cells, and the health impacts of deuterium. It includes practical advice on optimizing light exposure, improving circadian rhythms, and dietary recommendations such as seasonal eating and increasing omega-3 intake. Influential experts like Gerald Pollack, Sachin Panda, and Dr. Jack Kruse are referenced, with a focus on integrating these concepts into daily life and educating younger generations for better health and effective mitochondrial function.     Connect with Dr. Alexis here: Instagram Website Quantum Health Ebook Bootcamp Reboot   Our Sponsors: - Caldera Lab is the leader in men’s skincare and is here to save the day. Use our exclusive code KKP at calderalab.com/KKP to enjoy 20% OFF their best products. - GO to MagicBag.co that is DOT CO, and use code: KKP at checkout! - Magnesium is a crucial mineral that is involved in over 600 biological reactions and offers amazing benefits for sleep, stress management, and hormone balance - all key supporters for keeping your weight on healthy levels. For an exclusive offer, go to  bioptimizers.com/kingsbu and use promo code KINGSBU10 during checkout to save 10 percent.   Connect with Kyle: I'm back on Instagram, come say hey @kylekingsbu Twitter: @kingsbu  Fit For Service Academy App: Fit For Service App  Our Farm Initiative: @gardenersofeden.earth  Odysee: odysee.com/@KyleKingsburypod  Youtube: Kyle Kingbury Podcast  Kyle's Website: www.kingsbu.com - Gardeners of Eden site   If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe & leave a 5-star review with your thoughts!   We always love to hear feedback and are interested in what you want to learn. Reach out to us on social media!

Welcome back to the podcast, everybody. Today's guest is Dr. Alexis Jasmine Cowan. She is a PhD and she's an understudy of the great Uncle Jack, Dr. Jack Cruz, who I had on the podcast. Dr. Jack Cruz is a brilliant man, but also a little antagonistic. And sometimes he preaches to the choir or sometimes he badmouths people that are on the same page, but it is what it is. I love his brain. I love what he's into. And I love his knowledge. I found Dr. Alexis on Instagram and was blown the fuck away by her incredible content direct to the point. It's clear that she's learned a lot from Dr. Jack Cruz and has really just been deep diving in. So we get into her story. what was her life like, what were growing up like, all that fun stuff that we normally do. And the path that has led her to rabbit hole so much of

the information that I wanted to get from Jack, but didn't, we can now get it here from Dr. Alexis. So this was a phenomenal podcast. She dropped so much knowledge in such a very short period of time. She was concerned she was talking too much, but my favorite podcasts are the ones where I don't say a thing and I just learn, learn, learn. And so that's what you get to do with today's podcast. This is an amazing educational piece. I will 100% have her back on this podcast. She has rabbit holed so much great stuff and she's so articulate. I just thought it was incredible. And I've read three or four books this year alone on sunlight and light therapy. And obviously that's why it's become a big, a big part of the show is trying

to relay that. I do realize that not all of you listening have the time or the energy to go through and read four books on sunlight, but that's okay. That's what having people like Dr. Alexis Jasmine Cowan is all about on this podcast. She's going to give you so many gems and you follow her on Instagram, which we'll link to in the show notes. You can just see the data. You can see the science. You can see everything that she's stating is backed by science. And it's, and it's really important that she's able to do that.

She's not making claims out of thin air. A lot of the stuff she's researched and it is written. It's already been around. Just like Jack Cruz says, like he's not inventing any of this stuff. He's reporting old science that has been forgotten. So this is a great episode. I absolutely loved it. Share this thing far and wide with friends. Leave a five-star review with one or two ways the show's helped you out in life. And check out Fit for Service, fitforservice.com. This is our final year in the form of Fit for Service that we've had. And we've been in for six years. It has been my, my bread and butter, my baby alongside with Aubrey

Marcus and Caitlin Howe and Eric Godsey. And it's hard to see it come to an end in the way that it's been formed. You know, it'll, it'll still survive and morph into something else, but this is it. We're going to Sedona in two weeks. So Sedona is off out of the question but if you have any interest in joining us for our final trimester as it stands fitforservice.com check that out we have Malibu we'll be meeting at the end of January for our final summit the whole squad there again the very last time we're going to meet with the whole squad and we'll see what it turns into next year but sign up for that now. You can choose your class. So I teach Physically Fit.

Godsey's teaching Mentally Fit. There's so many other great courses. We have Creative Fit, which will be the first time we offer this. And so that's going to be a really cool, unique, one-of-a-kind class that you can take. You can also pay for just the summit. If you're not into the coursework

and you don't want to learn and grow and do all that cool shit, then you can just come to the summit if you want simply to build community and have a transformative experience. Check that all out, fitforservice.com. We also have some amazing sponsors for today's podcast. These sponsors make this show fiscally possible, and I love each and every one of them. Magicbag.co is an incredible company that's come along. I've often found one of the discrepancies in working with plant medicines is there's a disconnect from our connection to the plant or to the fungi or to whatever it is

that we're using because somebody else crafted that that medicine for us and if we're lucky we end up with somebody who's who's pretty dialed in that is crafting that medicine with love and care in the very best organic ingredients but that's not always the case and something that i've wondered and what i wanted to do for a very long time is be able to participate in the growing and the consumption of my own medicine and so enter magicbag.co they're a certified benefit corporation and they donate their profits to organizations researching and advocating for psychedelic therapy like MAPS and Johns Hopkins. Their bags are certified organic by OMRI. Their bags are guaranteed to work, meaning if your bag doesn't grow mushrooms, they will send you a new one. And they did with me. These guys make sure you get to have the end goal. They offer expert email support to all customers who assist them

throughout the growing process so you can be a rookie. I haven't grown in years, and it took me a few conversations, deep diving to really understand what I was trying to do. They helped me all the way through the process. They were phenomenal on every step of the game. This is all in one aspect of the product, which simplifies the mushroom growing process and perhaps most importantly,

connects you to your medicine. Very few people grow their own food. And that in and of itself is a journey of its, you know, that's a journey. And it's a journey in health and wellness. And it's probably the best thing you could do. But not everyone's going to farm like I am. I get that. Knowing your farmer is a big deal. Getting food locally is a big deal. Medicine, when you're working with medicine, it is that much more important that you have a connection to it. And here, this is just one of the coolest ways that you can do this. And realistically, this is something that should be with the most intention, the most respect, and in the safest manner as a tool for healing and growth.

That takes the right set and setting. That takes the right container. So being in a safe setting at your home, in your backyard, having a guide like a loved one, like your partner, able to watch over you, writing things down ahead of time. So you can look back on that when you were, you know, before you ingest anything and you look back on their intention, you look back on the things you wrote down beforehand, you say, okay, cool. I'm going to come back from this. Those are all important and really beautiful things.

Also good, good playlist is essential. That can help you guide you through the journey as almost all great medicine people sing during the ceremonies. And if you're doing a solo journey or a small one with a couple of loved ones, music can be very beneficial. But holding the reverence, having an intention, and holding great respect in that container with these medicines is phenomenal. This is one of the best ways to do that, is to be a part of the growing process. Go to magicbag.co, that's magicbag.co, and they have provided my listeners with a discount, so use code KKP at checkout. Magic Bag can be shipped anywhere in the US, that's M-A-G-I-C-B-A-G.co, and remember KKP

at checkout. Today I want to talk to you about a very important issue. If you've recently engaged in any sort of restricted diet or have taken medications to lose weight fast for the summer, be careful. There's a big chance that you created a nutrient deficiency that not only could harm your overall health, but it could jeopardize your weight loss goals. Did you know that over 75% of Americans are already deficient in magnesium? Magnesium is a crucial mineral that is involved in over 600 biological reactions and offers amazing benefits for sleep, stress management, and hormone balance. All key supporters for keeping your weight at healthy levels. And if you're still taking medications, you may be dealing with uncomfortable side effects like lack of sleep, digestive issues,

or irritability that can also compromise your willingness to a long-term commitment to your goals. With or without medications, it is critical to set healthy habits to help you maintain your weight over time. Making sure you have all the magnesium you need to optimally function is one of them. Don't let a magnesium deficiency derail your goals. Try Magnesium Breakthrough today and give your body the support it needs to thrive. Unlike other supplements, Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizers contains all seven forms of magnesium that your body can actually absorb,

ensuring you get the full spectrum of benefits. This approach will support you to achieve your goals and to maintain your weight while securing your overall health. For an exclusive offer, go to bioptimizers.com slash kingsboo and use promo code ALLCAPS, K-I-N-G-S-B-U one zero during checkout to save 10%. That's kingsboo 10, the number 10 during checkout to

save 10% buyoptimizers.com slash kingsboo. We'll link to that in the show notes. And if you subscribe, not only will you get amazing discounts and free gifts, we'll make sure your monthly supply is guaranteed. Love these guys. One of the most important supplements you'll ever take. Last but not least, we're brought to you by Caldera and The Lab. First impressions matter. There are no two ways around it. What's the first thing that someone notices about you? In most cases, it's your face and more importantly, your skin. If you aren't already, it's time to put your best face forward. How do you do that? By adding in a skincare routine. And you know what? It's not hard. You just don't have the right tools until now. Clinically proven to reduce wrinkles, fine lines, and signs of aging, Caldera Lab is the leader in men's skincare and is here to save the day.

Use our exclusive code KKP at calderalab.com slash KKP to enjoy 20% off their best products. The skincare world is heavily female driven and has long been the wild, wild west for men. Whether men can't find the right brand or simply lack knowledge and understanding of it, skincare is something that requires attention. Caldera Lab creates high-performance men's skincare products, and The Regimen leads off their product lineup. A twice-a-day routine to transform your skin, clinically proven to reduce wrinkles, fine lines, and signs of aging,

men's skincare has never been easier with Caldera Lab and the Regimen. Luckily, inside this bundle, you'll find your skincare dream team, the Clean Slate, the Base Layer, and the Good. The Clean Slate starts and ends your day. This face wash leaves all skin types feeling refreshed. The Base Layer is your daily moisturizer to hydrate your skin, jumpstart your day full of confidence. The Good is your go-to multifunctional serum at night that helps your skin look tighter and smoother, as well as helps reduce the visibility of wrinkles and fine lines. Every drop of this serum is packed with 3.4 million antioxidant units protecting your skin.

I love The Good. I shave my head, I'm outside a lot in the summer on the farm, and it is one of the things that I know is helping my skin stay young and radiant every day working with The Good. They even have an eye serum called The Icon and addresses the three most common skin concerns around the eyes, fine lines, dark circles, and puffiness. Now, everyone and their mom is getting allergies right now for the changing of seasons, at least in Texas. As we shift over from summer to autumn, we've got a lot more clouds coming in, a lot higher winds.

The plants are changing. And one of the first ways you'll see that is you'll see puffy eyes. And this is where Icon is such an awesome thing. It helps with puffiness. It helps with dark circles and fine lines. And all of Caldera Lab is made with top-tier ingredients and is a great addition to your daily routine. It takes less than a minute morning and night and is here to reduce your wrinkles, fine lines, and signs of aging. Get 20% off with our code KKP at calderalab.com slash KKP. That's 20% off

at C-A-L-D-E-R-A-L-A-B.com slash KKP by using code KKP. Jump into skin and first impression royalty with Caldera Lab. And without further ado, my sister, Dr. Alexis Jasmine Cowan. Well, Alexis, I'm very excited. As I was mentioning before the podcast, one of my producers who's always on the hunt for me, you know, knowing how much I love and respect Jack Cruz's work, found you on Instagram. And you basically said, it looks like she knows as much as Jack is a little less confrontational. So I had a good laugh about that. And I was like, we got to get her on. So I'm very excited that you're on the podcast um I think you know for for I jumped off Instagram for four years because I couldn't stand the environment of it and and pop back on realizing it is one of the fastest easiest ways to communicate

with the people who listen to this podcast the people that actually want you know some type of interface I'm not responding to emails from a newsletter you know like there's just no it's it's it's improbable that I'm actually gonna make a contact there. So I do appreciate it for that, but I also appreciate it for the fact like Twitter is where I learned about Huberman and some amazing people and then got tuned into them. And, uh, you know, Huberman aside with Jack Cruz's work, um, it was awesome to get to find you on Instagram and to see the content that you put out there is incredible. So I want to link to that in the show notes so people can follow you.

You make very easy to digest little tidbits, you know, just little posts with the science reference. And it's so cool. And I really want to break all that down. You know, I went down this rabbit hole. And if you listen to the Jack Cruz podcast, I kind of mentioned it there, but I'm good buddies with Matt Maruca and Matt has been on this podcast years ago. He was an understudy of Jack Cruz for years, and he kept telling me about health and light.

He actually gave me two copies of it. And it just looked like an old book, you know, and I was like, listen, I'm in the sun all the time. You know, you're preaching to the choir. I don't need to read that. And finally, I felt called to read it. And I was just blown away by how little I knew and understood about sunlight and it's like and the qualities of it and how it's literally interfacing with everything and the more that i begin to rabbit hole that you know we had um we just had dr jacob israel lieberman on who wrote light medicine the

future and luminous life brilliant brilliant old man he's turning 77 this year so i really want to unpack this rabbit hole as best i can for people because you don't want you, you don't know what you don't know. And so many people are, will say, well, yeah, you know, nature's nature. It's awesome. The sun is good, but they don't prioritize it. And then there's a large swath of people who through dermatologists and general practitioners are told, you know, beware, beware of the sun. Um, we, the only pediatrician I ever sent my son to, he was at his eight week checkup and she said, make sure that he's in full clothes with a hat. If he goes outside or sunscreen. And I said, he's eight weeks old and I don't burn. And we're in Northern California. It's not like we're, you know, in Peru right now. Like, what do you,

what do you mean? He's got to have full skin. I'm like, well, you know, in Peru right now. Like, what do you, what do you mean? He's got to have full skin. I'm like, well, you know, you just don't want him to hurt his skin. And I said, isn't the remedy for jaundice to put a kid naked under the sun? Like, doesn't that help the liver? Doesn't it clear the ailment? Is that not, you know, a treatment? And so we kind of went back and forth on that. And that was the last time, you know, he was, I think four years old when we took him to a functional medicine doctor here just for a checkup. She's like, he looks great. Come back in two years or don't, you know, he's fine. So anyways, all that to say, even for, for people like me that know better, there still is constantly in the mainstream, this pushback on ultraviolet light, the pushback on melanoma and all the things that we'll dive into. But as I do with all the podcasts,

I want to know about you. What was life like growing up? Where were you born? And what drew you to the sun in all of your studies? Yeah. So thanks for that, for the introduction and setting the space, because I think there's a lot that we will be able to dive into here. And I think it's really important to understand the why behind things. Some people are okay just being told what to do, but I think ultimately the why is really the motivation to get it done. And if you don't have that understanding, then you're not going to make the priorities necessary. I mean, some people might, but a lot of people won't to actually make it happen in their lives. So that's why I'm really excited to talk on podcasts and on my platform on Instagram to really just highlight the science

that's been in the literature for a very long time at this point. A lot of it's not even new science. It's just forgotten and worse. It's specifically avoided because it's inconvenient to the centralized narrative. But anyway, first about myself, I was born in New Jersey. I'm still in New Jersey. I'm in the Princeton area now. I did my PhD at Princeton. Then I did a postdoc at UPenn. And now I work entirely from home with just my own business and working with a lot of professional athletes and health optimization and quantum biology, a lot of fighters actually right now. As a child, I had a lot of health issues. So when I was two years old, I had a really traumatic dental procedure done. That was like two hours long. And my mouth was like mechanically cranked open for literally two hours and it ruined all the ligaments in my jaw.

So I've always had issues with like TMJ and things like that since then. In addition to like PTSD from that absolutely horrific experience. And that was like my first flavor of centralized medicine, let's say. And I don't know if, you know, I just came onto this earth with a disdain for authority figures or was kind of born in that moment. But ever since then, and as long as I can remember, I never really had respect for authority figures just like innately, like a lot of people will just defer to authority and like appeal to authority. I always am like questioning, like I want to actually see if somebody is worthy of my respect, not just because of their title, but because they actually know what they're talking about.

So I've always been somewhat of a challenger, let's say, and that has been continuing throughout my personal and professional development to this day. But I also had a lot of issues with chronic strep infections in first grade and got pulled out of school and homeschooled for a year and a half, gained a bunch of weight, was on a bunch of antibiotics during that time. And when I went back to school in third grade, I weighed like 120 pounds. My classmates were like 60 pounds. And it continued spiraling upwards from there. In sophomore year of high school, I was somewhere around 270 pounds, decided to do something about it. I ended up joining a gym and counting calories and lost 100 pounds in about a year, but gained an eating disorder and also

IBS shortly thereafter, which was kind of my true initiation into understanding my health and what are the drivers of health and disease. Because prior to that, I was really just not really considering the inputs into my system outside of like diet and exercise, diet and exercise, but actually the specifics of what is the quality of the nutrients I'm eating. That's where I really started my health journey, let's say, like thinking about food quality and finding Paul Cech's work was huge for me as well in my personal development and also my understanding of what it means to be healthy. And that was really kind of like the paradigm I was looking at. I was still mostly centralized in my thinking around like diet and exercise being the

most important things, let's say, because I just didn't really have light on my radar or quantum biology on my radar, even throughout undergrad. And when I started grad school at Princeton, circadian biology was on my radar. I was familiar with Satchin Panda's work. But for some reason, it just wasn't clicking like it didn't seem that important to me. I understood that, you know, it played some important roles in regulating biology, but I didn't see the immediate take-homes to my life the way he was presenting it. And that didn't change until actually after I graduated from Princeton. It was April 2023, April of last year.

I heard Dr. Jack Cruz's podcast with Andrew Huberman and Rick Rubin on Rick Rubin's Tetragrammaton and was just blown away from like the first moments. I had a client who had sent it to me and I mean, maybe just to backtrack briefly, I started a business after I graduated Princeton working with athletes and high performing individuals looking to optimize their health and remediate illness in non-traditional ways, let's say. And so a client had sent me this podcast and I listened to it like five times in a row. I was just completely enamored with the information. I immediately changed my own life overnight to revolve around the sun and being outside more. I'd always been

a heliophile, let's say, but I never had like the core or deep scientific or embodied understanding of why that's actually essential for health. I always just thought I was going against the grain and, you know, maybe a part of me actually thought that it's not healthy doing like going to get a tan. And I think that's one of the biggest issues that I have with like the mainstream approach is that not only are we not encouraging people to go outside and get in the sun and build the melanin in their skin, but we're actively telling them that it's bad, which means that you're actually if people are going against the grain, against the narrative and doing those behaviors, they may have the psychology that they're actually harming themselves when they're actually doing the opposite, but just merely having the thought process that you're harming your body is harmful

to your body. So I think it's really important to provide high quality information in this space so that people can actually feel good about the behaviors they're engaging in. Similar with like the whole like narrative around plant-based versus eating meat and how plant-based is better, quote unquote, not realizing, you know, like the nutrient density of meat and specific animal nutrition that's required for health. But if people are eating meat and thinking it's bad for them, that's actually creating a biochemical stress response that's kind of making it bad for them to a certain extent. So I think it's really important to be honest about science, disentangle it from policy and propaganda so that we can really get back to understanding what's best for ourselves as individuals. There's not going to be a one-size-fits-all,

but what there is is a specific set of inputs that human biology requires in order to thrive. And the foundation of that pyramid is light, dark, water, and magnetism, as Dr. Jack lays out. And so that's what really I've been on a quest on since spring of last year. I've been studying like eight to 10 hours every day since then to understand the topics in this area, to develop actionable protocols and takeaways for people to optimize their health at this foundational level. I love it. One of the things that you did, it's funny to me too, because when I was on it, I was working in supplements and my title was director of human optimization. So any new geeky biohack that would come out, I'd test it out and see if it was worth anything. And we have like a Juve light hooked us up. I love the juve light, but if you're going to, if you're going to spend the

money, like just spend that time outside, you know, one of your posts was that, you know, 50% of midday sun is still red. And I are, it's like, well, yeah, like that. We understand that it's not just cooking ourselves, but we're getting, you know, the $10,000 light system is just going outside and revealing yourself to the sun, right? That's available to us. And I loved what you were saying in terms of, you know, everybody that's looking to optimize without having these foundational principles intact is like building the exterior of your house with a crumbled foundation, right? I think that's such a key one.

And most people don't realize what it takes to build a strong foundation, right? And it's the things that you just mentioned. I'd love for you to break down just the science of light. what it takes to build a strong foundation, right? And it's the things that you just mentioned. I'd love for you to break down just the science of light. What are the things that you've come to understand? Obviously, you're on the front lines pushing out great information. With that come the trolls, which that comes the general pushback. People always want to throw skin cancer out there and things of that nature. So I'd love for you to unravel a bit of truth and mistruths as it comes to the real science

of sun. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a really important and nuanced topic that I love talking about as well. I think it's so interesting. And I mean, the first thing that we need to kind of unpack is the evolutionary or ancestral landscape compared to the modern day so that we can have a point of reference. So we think about light in the ancestral environment. We're really primarily talking about the sun, which is the, you know, the primary source of light in the environment prior to,

let's say, 1893, when the electrical power grid was beginning to be rolled out. We didn't have electricity in homes prior to then. So the daytime, you know, if we're outside, we're receiving full spectrum sunlight. The spectral composition of that sunlight does vary throughout the day. So around sunrise and sunset, it's basically over 80% red and infrared light. If we're talking about midday sun, we've got about 50% red and infrared light. We've got about 25% blue light. And around the summertime, we have, at least in more northern latitudes, I'm here in New Jersey, similar for you. In NorCal, we maybe have about 10% or less UV light in the spectrum during the summertime. And that's the first thing I really like to highlight because a lot, I would even say

all of the research showing that UV light is harmful was conducted with UV light in isolation, which is a very aphysiologic approach to studying UV light is harmful, was conducted with UV light in isolation, which is a very aphysiologic approach to studying UV light, because when we receive UV light from the sun, it's always balanced with an abundance of red and infrared light. And there's also a corpus of literature showing that red and infrared light protects against the harms of UV light. So if we're studying UV light in isolation without the balancing effects of that abundance of red and infrared light, we're actually creating disingenuous science that's not actually relevant to the real world. So we're extrapolating that data and that information from UV light in isolation to the sun

when the sun is a perfect spectral composition that our bodies evolved or were designed to receive. And so, for example, red and infrared light from the sun directly stimulates mitochondria. Red and infrared light in general does this as well, but the primary source in the ancestral environment and in the modern environment as well, at least it should be, is from the sun. That red and infrared light directly stimulates mitochondrial energy and water production, completely independent of movement or anything. And there's actually a lot of parallels between exercise and being in the sun. And I like to highlight that as well, because you can kind of see that there would be a major synergy then if you're combining, you know, your movement practice, lifting weights or whatever type of training you're doing and doing it outside, you can get way more bang for your buck. So we're directly simulating mitochondria with red and infrared light. The blue light from the sun is really important for setting the circadian clock. So we have this blue light detector in our bodies called melanopsin. It's specifically very attuned to 480 nanometer light, which is like a royal blue.

And when melanopsin gets tickled by blue light from the environment, especially in the retina, a signal is sent to the master clock in the brain called the SCN or the super charismatic nucleus to tell the brain and therefore the rest of the body what time of day it is. So blue light is really the primary timekeeping mechanism that our bodies sense in order to set the circadian rhythm, which is really important for a whole variety of things, including cortisol and melatonin cycling, including the prioritization of some functions over others. For example, when you're awake and alert during the day, that blue light is actually helping to stimulate alertness and awakeness and digestion and cognition. Those are all functions that are associated with daytime versus at nighttime when it's supposed to be very dark, like basically pitch black, we're not getting that blue light input that that's allowing our

melatonin to rise naturally to help us get to sleep and stay asleep and get good quality sleep. And that in turn, that darkness is also facilitating the regenerative and healing processes within our tissues and our bodies that's supposed to be happening at nighttime whenever we're getting sleep. But if you're sleeping in a room that has a lot of light pollution, God forbid you're sleeping with the TV on or you're blasting yourself with your phone screen in bed trying to get sleepy, which is like the opposite of what you would want to do, or even just having low levels of light on in your room. There's research showing that less than 100 lux of light, which is like just basically like a small nightlight, is enough

to increase your insulin resistance the next morning, decrease your heart rate variability, and increase your fasting glucose and insulin levels. So just low levels of light in the sleeping environment have direct impact on your metabolic health the next day. And then if you're doing that every night, you know, that's literally facilitating metabolic disease over time. And we see the epidemiologic research around light at night and diabetes, we can see this direct dose-dependent response to the more light you're exposed to at night, the higher risk of a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. So blue light is a very essential nutrient for our bodies in the same way that red and infrared light is, but blue light needs to be

dosed into the body at the right times of day in order to be received in a way that's healthy for our system. So that means we're exposed to blue light during the day, ideally from the sun, because then we're always receiving that blue light with red and infrared light. And similar to how red and infrared light balances the effects of UV light by protecting against inflammation and burning, which we can talk more about, blue light actually has the opposite effect of red and infrared light on mitochondria. So when blue light in isolation interacts with our skin and our eyes and our proximal brain regions, it actually inhibits mitochondrial energy and water production. And so that's why it's really

harmful to receive blue light in isolation without that balancing red and infrared light to help mitigate those effects on mitochondria. And yet in the indoor modern environments, we're exposed to white LEDs, fluorescent bulbs, all of our device screens. They're all highly enriched in blue light and highly devoid in red and infrared light. And that's because infrared light is seen as inefficiency because it's released as heat. And heat is seen as like a waste product in the tech industry. But in the biology, in human biology, infrared light is an essential nutrient. And so in our efforts to create energy efficiency in our technology, we're actually creating an energy crisis in our biology because we're now missing out on essential nutrients in the form of red,

infrared, and ultraviolet light. So we're getting this concentrated dose of blue light by being indoors. And actually, that's even independent of having any light bulbs or devices on inside. So just sitting behind glass indoors, that glass of normal window panes filters out about 40% of near-infrared light, 100% of UVB light, and about 30% of UVA light. So in effect, just sitting inside behind window glass is concentrating the blue light part of the spectrum, which is overdosing you on blue light relative to what you receive naturally outside and that your biology is expecting to receive. So that's the blue light part of the story. Finally, the UV light part of the story

is an extremely important one, especially because of its demonization. We have UVA and UVB light. There is UVC, but it doesn't make it. We have UVA and UVB light. There is UVC, but it doesn't make it through the atmosphere. It's basically reflected off or absorbed. And so we don't receive UVC, but UVA and UVB are extremely important from a biological standpoint. UVA directly liberates nitric oxide in the bloodstream, and it does so in a local fashion. So that means that the more skin you have exposed to sunlight, especially like midday sun, which is highest in UV light, the more nitric oxide you're going to produce that promotes vasodilation, nutrient and oxygen delivery to tissues, waste removal from tissues,

which is also important in like the fitness space. You'll hear a lot of people talking about nitric oxide to get a good pump in and help to facilitate that metabolic waste from the muscle so that you can keep getting more reps in without going to fatigue. And so just doing your workouts outside is going to help to facilitate that process and get more of the nutrients and oxygen delivered to the working muscles and the waste products removed from the working muscle. But just outside of that, people who have high blood pressure, you know, we really see high blood pressure and diabetes often go hand in hand. And simply just getting enough UVA light in your environment is

enough to bring your blood pressure down because that's what's going to vasodilate your blood vessels to help to relieve the pressure that's on those vessels due to the constriction. So simply getting outside into that UVA light, exposing as much skin as possible, extremely beneficial for blood pressure, as well as erectile dysfunction, which is essentially also a failure of vasodilation in the male genitalia. So just also getting like your business in the sun is actually really good from a blood flow standpoint and for anybody who's experiencing issues in that department. Finally, UVB light, which is often the most demonized and frankly, probably one of the more important parts of the light

spectrum in the sun has many important roles. Number one, most people know that it stimulates the production of vitamin D. And this is kind of a whole can of worms. And I was recently on, I think Mike Salemi is a friend of yours, right? And I was talking about vitamin D on his podcast and how vitamin D supplementation, all of the big trials, like the vital studies show that the vitamin D supplementation, all of the big trials like the VITAL study show that the vitamin D supplementation, outside of improving or preventing rickets, which is like severe deficiency and the effects on the bones, vitamin D supplementation does not actually give you the

benefits that you would expect based on the associational data showing that vitamin D deficiency is corresponding to increased rates of different cancer types, diabetes, autoimmune disease, cognitive decline. And that's really because vitamin D is serving as this biomarker of our sun exposure habits. And so if we go and pop a supplement thinking that we're going to benefit ourselves, not realizing that it's actually just this marker or this proxy of our UV light exposure, we're missing out on all of these other benefits that UVB light has. So in addition to producing vitamin D when it strikes the skin, there's about 12 other vitamin D-like molecules produced when UVB light strikes the skin.

So we're not getting any of those if we're supplementing with vitamin D. In addition to that, when UVB light strikes the skin as well as the eyes, it stimulates the production of this prohormone called POMC or pro-opio-melanocortin in the periphery. So it goes into your bloodstream from the skin as well as in your brain through interaction of UV light with the eyes. And POMC gets cleaved into 10 distinct hormonal products, three of which are alpha, beta, and gamma MSH or melanocyte-stimulating hormone. So as the name implies, the melanocyte stimulating hormones help to stimulate the production of melanin within melanocytes, which is what allows you to get a tan in response to the sun. But in addition to that, alpha MSH also directly works on the hypothalamus to increase resting energy expenditure and decrease

appetite, which anybody in the fitness space should see that as a holy grail, because whenever you go on a diet, what happens? You get hungry and your basal metabolic rate goes down because your body's trying to be conservative and to save energy because it's sensing scarcity, essentially. And so being in UVB light in the sun, midday sun, is going to have basically the opposite effect. It's going to really help to support the maintenance and the acquisition of healthy body composition through this mechanism. We also get the production of alpha, beta, and gamma endorphins in response to POMC cleavage. So the endorphins are endogenous opioid molecules. They are similar basically to morphine. The beta endorphins are similar to morphine. The alpha endorphins are more similar to amphetamines, helping to increase energy and

focus and cognition. The beta endorphins and the gamma endorphins more similar to like amphetamines helping to increase energy and focus and cognition. The beta endorphins and the gamma endorphins decrease pain, anxiety and depression. All of them help to increase your baseline dopamine levels, which is absolutely crucial in our blue light toxic world because blue light hijacks our dopamine system and burns out the neurons that make dopamine to actually basically make us just in this burned out state where we're constantly looking for another hit, whether it's a hit from drugs, alcohol, sex, pornography, social media, scrolling on the phone, any of those gambling, any of those things that give us a quick hit of dopamine. If we have compulsive behaviors to engage in those things, it's a sign that our dopamine systems are running suboptimally. And that's typically because we're not getting enough of that midday sun to actually help us

operate from this place of fullness where we're not constantly looking for the next hit. And the endorphins give us that. They give us all these benefits to cognition and mood and reducing anxiety, et cetera. But they also help us to operate from this place where we're not in lack and we're able to think more critically, less compulsively, and operate in the world with more autonomy. And so those are some of the primary cleavage products from Palm C. There's some others too that we can or get into if you want to, but one of them is actually ACTH, which is the precursor to cortisol, which is another reason why cortisol is a circadian biosensor where light is really the primary regulator of your cortisol levels. And cortisol is actually really important to mobilize energy substrates in the morning to get everything online after your nighttime of sleeping.

And a lot of people who don't get sun for extended periods of time, they're indoors a lot. They can have shifts in their cortisol rhythm. So they're getting peaks at the wrong time. They could be flatlining to a certain extent. And that's often the case with people who are very like sluggish all day that they never feel that sense of energy in the morning. They don't have that drive to kind of get things done. They could also be getting early cortisol spikes due to blue light exposure at night, which can cause people to wake up at like 3 a.m. to 3 a.m. with like racing heart or kind of anxiety sensations and just not be able to get back

to sleep. It's really common to get that early cortisol spike from inappropriate light exposure at night. And that's all just to say that, you know, UV light, UVB light is this really important stimulator of a hormonal milieu within our bodies that's not accessible in any other way. So we really need to leverage UVB light to get, of course, optimize our vitamin D status to, I recommend, greater than 60 nanograms per milliliter. And that's going to allow us to know that we're getting enough sun for our bodies, for our skin types, because the more melanin you have in your skin, the more sun you need in order to optimize that vitamin D status because melanin absorbs all wavelengths of light. And I'd really like to discuss more about like the power and magic of melanin maybe in a little bit. But that's all just to say that if you have darker

skin, your ancestors come from more equatorial regions with better quality sun year round, which means that for optimal health, you also need more quality sun year round slash daily in order to receive the benefits. I know this has been a long rant, but I want to touch on the skin cancer piece because you asked me to touch on. I think it's important. If we look at the literature on skin cancers, whether it's melanoma, BCC or SCC skin cancers, we see vitamin D status is very strongly correlating to the cancer incidence and also severity. So low vitamin D status is associated with worse outcomes in melanoma. It's associated with more mortality from and incidence of melanoma, which is in direct contrast to the recommendations.

If we know that vitamin D is this biomarker of our sun exposure habits, how can we be telling people that melanoma is caused by the sun? It doesn't actually make that much sense, especially because rates of melanoma have been climbing for decades and people are indoors more than ever. They're wearing more sunscreen more than ever. They're fearing the sun more than ever. And yet melanoma rates are climbing. Not to mention the fact that melanoma often occurs on body parts that are not exposed to the sun, like between the toes or places like this on the torso. So it's like there's these conflicting pieces of evidence and observations within the medical literature

that they can't be reconciled through the mainstream propaganda that the sun is causal in these cases. And not only that, but there's no discussion of risk-benefit analysis when it comes to sun exposure. And that's the biggest red flag, in my opinion. If anybody ever tells you that one thing is bad and that's end of story, that's a huge red flag because there's always nuance to a story, especially when it comes to an ancestrally consistent exposure that we would have received through the entirety of our duration as a species. And so whereas, you know, people will say the sun causes cancer or skin cancers in particular, there is some small evidence that burning can create more risk for SCC and BCC skin cancers, but that if you're getting chronic daily sun exposure,

that your risk is actually much lower for all types of skin cancer. So there's a contrast between chronic sun exposure, daily chronic sun exposure, and intermittent sun exposure, whereas the intermittent sun exposure is like you work an office job, you never get outside, and then you go on vacation to the tropics and you blast yourself for a couple days after never going outside, not having the melanin produced in your skin, not having the tools online to allow you to assimilate that light. And then, you know, you can suffer consequences from that. The point being that if you're getting sun exposure daily, you're gradually building up your solar callus, your ability to harness the energy from the sun.

That's going to actually protect you against not only skin cancers, but also multiple other cancer types, including breast, prostate, and colon, as well as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurodegeneration, autoimmune diseases, dot, dot, dot. So in the risk-benefit analysis of sun exposure, the seesaw is greatly pushed towards more sun exposure is better so long you're not frying yourself. And I would even argue that getting burned once in a while is far better of an option than never going outside to begin with. So everybody has to kind of gauge what's best for them based on their skin type and where they're living and what their lifestyle is like. But there's a lot that you can do, even the palest person can do to avoid burning and still get enough of that sunlight that they

need to actually be healthy. And I have a whole pinned post on my profile talking about building a solar callus that people can reference. That's basically step by step. I also outlined it in my recent ebook on this topic where you can basically follow these steps to help decrease your risk of burning so that you can more effectively harness that power from the sun and reap the benefits. I love that, man. This is great. I'm throwing softballs and you're hitting grand slams. Very, very, especially on the digital ones, it's hard to get into a back and forth. So this is, this is amazing. I love, I love the long, the long answers are perfect. Yeah. One of the things that you touched on that I think is critical is, you know, and it blew

my mind. I think it was a light medicine of the future where I first saw this side by side. Let me see if I still have it here. Yeah. So it said, um, decreased resting heart rate, decreased blood pressure, decreased respiratory rate, decreased blood sugar, decreased lactic acid in the blood following exercise, increased energy, strength, and endurance, increased tolerance to stress, increased ability of the blood to absorb and carry oxygen. And then there's two little funnels here where one says gradual

and consistent program of exercise yields and the other gradual and consistent exposure to sunlight yields. I was like, holy shit, right? Like, wow, that is massive. I had no idea the sun was doing that for us. Right. And maybe the sun's not going to pack on muscle, but from a longevity perspective, from a health and wellness perspective, like it's undeniable how important it is. through all the things and just through modern life in general you know making it a priority that's why i'm just i have i have to get this information out i have to talk more people like you and i have to get this is a major part of the conversation and jack's right you know i have had a lot of the people from the paleo scene and um and guys like that who think it ancestrally and even the even though he called weston a price he called him western a price which was hilarious um i think he was right. You know, when he said, you know, you look at the indigenous cultures from all around the world, what's the most common thing? All of them were outside. Every single one of them, right? From

the Inuit to the Pygmies at the equator. And that's undeniable. It's undeniably true. When we think about the main differences between humans and everything else is that we're the only one that has disconnected ourselves from the largest producer of light, the largest producer of good electromagnetic frequency on earth. We're the only ones that have done that. And it's, it's a, it's something that gets overlooked because we're born into it. Kids are now born with an iPad, you know, and they don't know the difference. They don't understand the difference. So I really love that you're on the forefront of this. We, it seems like we both hit the same rabbit hole, but I really love that you're on the forefront of this we it seems like we both hit the same rabbit hole but I really know that you're deep deep in the rabbit hole so that's incredible let's talk melanin and um really expand upon that because until I heard the the Tetragrammaton

podcast I had very little knowledge on the power and the potency of what that was and and you know we'll link to both those in the show notes um Um, I think the first one, six hours, the second one's three hours. They're back to back. Huberman takes it like a champ, but Jack Cruz really lays out the whole thing. And so we'll link to that, but I'd love to dive into that here. Um, for people that don't want to dedicate nine hours to it, let's talk melanin. Yeah. Melanin is amazing. And actually one of the biggest interpersonal and like personal revelations I've had around this light story has been related to melanin because I grew up in a very like it's northwestern New Jersey, very white and rural area. And I'm mixed for anybody who's not watching. My dad's side is black. My mom's side is Scandinavian.

And so I grew up always feeling kind of like the odd one out among that community. And so I was always kind of not embracing the like more melanated side of myself. You know, I would try to get tan in the winter, but I remember specifically like in middle school, I would like look up ways to lighten my skin during the winter time so I could be more pale like everybody else I knew. And it's just like, oh, I'm just looking back and just feeling sad for that girl who I was. But there's so much power to harnessing melanin. And the key though, is that we actually need to get that melanin into the sun to unleash the power. So melanin is this pigment. There's three different types. Primarily there's eumelanin, pheomelanin, and neuromelanin.

Eumelanin is what you can build in your skin. That's what is formed in like the melanocytes in the skin that can give you a tan. Pheomelanin is like the lips and like the genitalia, the nipples are all like that pinkish hue. That's pheomelanin. Neuromelanin is the melanin that's deep in your brain and parts of the brain like the substantia nigra, which is the part that begins failing in Parkinson's disease. And that the degradation of that melanin in the substantia nigra is associated with the pathology of Parkinson's disease as well.

And that should also make sense because melanin, the precursor to melanin is tyrosine. And there's this intermediate in dopamine synthesis called L-DOPA that can also be shunted into melanin synthesis as well. And so what it seems like the body is doing is when the dopamine neurons start failing, it can start to break that melanin down to make more of that precursor to make up for some of the deficit, but at the expense of other things, which we're going to talk about in the context of what melanin is actually doing. So melanin has really important roles in the regulation of oxidative stress and also the way that our bodies interface with

electromagnetic frequencies in our environment. So melanin absorbs all frequencies of light, not just light from the sun, which is UV through infrared, but also all of the non-native EMFs that are emitted from our Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5G, etc. That's also forms of light. They're just not part of the visible light spectrum, so we can't see them, but they're light nonetheless. And melanin can effectively absorb that and help to protect the tissues and the organs underneath the melanin to maintain their mitochondrial function because these EMS do have negative impacts on mitochondrial function, decreasing the resting membrane potential, decreasing the net negative charge of mitochondria, which is essentially a sign of the mitochondrial engines starting to fail.

So melanin has this really incredible protective role in that sense. But melanin is also really important from a bioenergetic standpoint. So when sunlight strikes the melanin in your skin, that melanin can split neighboring water molecules into molecular hydrogen, molecular oxygen, and four free electrons. So it's actually that melanin is more efficient at splitting water than chlorophyll in plants. And that's how plants do photosynthesis. So we're really talking about human photosynthesis here. In plant photosynthesis, sunlight, specifically in the 400 to 700 nanometer range, which is the visible light spectrum, can strike the chlorophyll in the plants that can facilitate the water splitting complex, which is what allows that water splitting to happen to liberate free energy, essentially, in the form of free electrons that can then power the production of sugar, essentially, and water in the plant. But in humans, in human photosynthesis, it's melanin that's facilitating that.

And we're actually liberating four free electrons versus two free electrons that are liberated in plant photosynthesis. So we're actually more efficient at manipulating water to get the energy from it. And the electrons are important. I'm about to make a post on this today, actually, because when we eat carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, we're not eating for the macronutrients. We're eating for protons and electrons. And the electrons are what powers the electron transport chain within mitochondria, which is responsible for making water and ATP or cellular energy within the mitochondria. So electrons power the thing. And that's why a net negative charge when it comes to the whole body level, when it comes to the mitochondrial level, is so important because that net negative

charge is a sign that we have an abundance of electrons present in our system to do work, to have productive outcomes, like whether it's making enzymes, making metabolism work, for example, or making more energy. These are all signs that there's enough electrons present to actually do that work. So when sunlight strikes a melon in our skin, we're getting access to free electrons. We also get access to free electrons when we have our bare feet on the earth through grounding. We can directly receive electrons and energy, free energy from the earth as well. But the melon is really special because not only because it's kind of built into our system, we don't really have to eat a single calorie in order to get access to that energy, but it also gives you

an ability to build your capacity to harness energy from your environment. So if you're somebody with lighter skin, building the melanin on your surface allows you to harness more energy from the sun. And this is also like kind of another whole rabbit hole when it comes to mitochondrial biology. There's kind of two classes of mitochondria, the coupled and the uncoupled. The coupled mitochondria come from more equatorial regions where there's high quality sun year round. That's why individuals from those regions have darker skin, not only to quote unquote protect themselves from an abundance of UV light in their environment, but I would argue primarily to harness the free energy from the sun via melanin. So that melanin

is actually doing productive work. It's not just a shield. It's actually doing things that are directly allowing your body to work better. Melanin also serves as this really important buffer for free radicals and reactive oxygen species production. So like I mentioned before, when melanin splits water, we get the production of molecular hydrogen or H2, which is a very potent antioxidant. It helps to allow the environment, the local environment, to be less inflammatory. And it also creates that molecular oxygen or that O2, which can directly begin to allow tissues locally to respire because that oxygen is required

as the terminal electron acceptor in the electron transport chain. That's why we need to breathe in oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is made when the TCA cycle turns and the oxygen essentially is serving as the terminal electron acceptor that's allowing the electron flow to continue. And so when we're breathing, it's really for that reason, but melanin itself can also produce oxygen through splitting water. So it also helps to reduce the amounts of hypoxia in our tissues when we're interacting our melanin with the sun. But back to mitochondrial haplotypes briefly. So the coupled mitochondria I mentioned are from more equatorial regions. These mitochondria are called coupled because they've coupled the

flow of electrons to energy production, the flow of electrons through that electron transport chain. That's in contrast to the uncoupled mitochondria for more northern regions where the ground freezes, those mitochondria have uncoupled the flow of electrons from the production of energy, and that allows those mitochondria to liberate heat as a byproduct. And that's beneficial in places that get cold because you want to be able to maintain your core body temperature sufficiently. So that allows the mitochondria to make more heat to defend that body temperature. And so what we see is that the more uncoupled mitochondria from northern regions, they have this plasticity, this ability to generate heat. But if you put people with those mitochondria, which,

side note, you get all your mitochondria from your mom. So if you want to know what kind of mitochondria you've got, follow your mom's lineage back. Where was your mom from, your grandma from, your great grandma? See what part of the world they come from, what color their skin was. That's a sign of whether or not you're basically getting coupled or uncoupled mitochondria from mom. But if you take a person with uncoupled mitochondria and put them at the equator or near the equator for a period of time, their mitochondria can actually morph into more coupled phenotypes. So the northern uncoupled mitochondria have more plasticity, more ability to adapt to an environment versus coupled mitochondria. They do really well

with high quality sun year round. And if you put them somewhere that has poor quality sun, like let's say you take somebody with African mitochondria and you put them in New York state, for example, where, you know, we get pretty crappy quality sun in this time, this part of the world for at least three months a year, that's going to be problematic because those mitochondria do not adapt very well to more Northern environments with poor UV index sun for a period of the year. Um, and so I just think that's important to acknowledge because there are these differences in where our biology will function optimally depending on where our ancestors,

in particular on our maternal side, came from. And the more that we can dial into that information, the more we can optimize our environments for ourselves. And I actually think a lot of the healthcare disparities among Black and Brown communities, especially in the United States, is due to this difference in the ancestral light environment compared to the light environment that's present in the U.S., which is mostly at more northern latitudes. So individuals with darker skin need better quality sun year round. Combine that with all of the propaganda and fear mongering around the sun that, you know, these individuals who actually require the most sun are now also believing the propaganda that the sun is bad for them. And it's to the point where I saw an ad online for like black girl sun screen. And I wanted to like tear my eyeballs out because it's just the exact opposite of what anybody with dark skin would want to do. You want to harness that free energy from the sun that's going to allow you

to have optimal functioning biology in your environment. And so I think there's just a lot to parse through here, but it really does come back to melanin and the power of melanin. But in order to harness that power, like I started by saying, we need to have access to good quality sunlight that's going to unleash the powers of melanin to give you access to free energy, essentially. That was awesome. And I love the explanation. I think back to Jack Cruz talking about that very subject, the coupling and the uncoupling. And I think he used the Korean War as an example where black soldiers were the most common to get frostbite, whereas none of the white soldiers were. And they wore the same boots, and they wore the same boots they had the same socks they had the same conditions for the same timeline and that was one of the first times

where we saw on a mass scale how those differences would be affected um i have buddies that i work with that are indian my brother-in-law is first generation american his parents are from thailand and similar to your upbringing you know his parents would tell him don't go in the sun you'll look like a field worker it's like i was like damn dude your parents are ruthless but they're old school and um and you know that was that's the thing even in thailand it was you know you look you were more uh of a higher born child if you had lighter skin or at least thought of that way because they knew you were raised inside and not outside you know in rice fields and what have you. I'm curious for that. Like, is there a sliding scale? Like I know for a fact, especially looking at my mom has skin like Cruz uncoupled, no question. But, you know, in some of those areas

that are south of the equator, we're so close to places like India, places like Thailand, Southeast Asia. Is that going to be pretty much coupled or is it uncoupled or somewhere in between? How does that look? Yeah, it's definitely a gradient. Like the L mitochondrial haplotypes are really the most equatorial. That would be like Nairobi in Kenya, where not only is it at the equator, but it's also at a really high altitude as well. So you get even more UV light in that environment because as you go up in altitude more uv light is able to reach your skin um and so that's really like the most coupled of all haplotypes and that's why you see like the world record holder for the marathon sub two hour marathon as like the darkest skin imaginable and that's because he's from an area like this that basically he's able to train not only at altitude but in this high uv condition

that's giving him access to way more free energy. And then his coupled mitochondria are capitalizing upon that. They're able to make energy more efficiently than anybody can imagine. And that's why you see all of these, especially in the endurance sports. They're very much dominated by these more coupled mitochondrial haplotypes that are so good at making energy. And energy production is the name of the game when it comes to endurance sports. That's what's going to make or break your performance. So it's yeah, it's definitely a sliding scale. The most coupled are going to be,

you know, at that basically along the equator, you're going to know based on their skin color, if it's extremely dark, like practically like purple, that's a sign that it's like extremely coupled mitochondria versus, you know, you can kind of see the gradient in melanin happening as you kind of go north of that. Like you mentioned India and Southeast Asia, it's like not that dark, but they still have some melanin going on. It's going to be a little less coupled, but still primarily coupled. And so, yeah, it really goes by like a gradient and the color of your skin, let's say a baseline without being exposed to sun is kind of a sign of how coupled your mitochondria are assuming that you've got that skin tone from your mom's side. Because like I said, like I have like a medium skin tone. I'm like a Fitzpatrick three or four.

And but that's primarily because of my dad's side. My mom's side is Scandinavian. So although I look like I might be a more coupled haplotype, I'm actually an uncoupled haplotype because my mitochondria came from Scandinavia, which is a very north region. So that's where in like mixed individuals, that's where you have to do just a little bit of digging to see like where mom's side really came from. And if you have like 23andMe data, there's websites that you can plug in your raw data into and it will tell you exactly what haplotype you are if you want to know that information but you can largely just go off of like okay what color skin did my ancestors on my mom's side have and that will give you a good inkling into what kind of mitochondria you have generally speaking i like that and so i mean the general rule of thumb here is the darker the skin

the more sun you actually need yes and and the the more of a detriment it is to you if you don't if you're not getting sun close to where you're from right so and i'm thinking of one of my buddies who's indian who lives in sweden half the year you know and i'm like well hike hike somewhere where you can get altitude and you actually get better ultraviolet while you're while you're there but that's that's a problem for him right um he does spend his other half the year in Park City, Utah, where he is at altitude and he's closer. I'm down in Texas now. I'm not in NorCal. I left that place in 2017 and I've never looked back.

But, you know, we're south of Austin by 30 minutes and I do very well here. I think I burned like once or twice in the spring, never during the summer. And then my body is conditioned to it and I won't burn again after that. What I think is an important piece, you know, I want to send, we'll link to your ebook and everything in the show notes so people can really get that as a breakdown because I've always understood that perfectly well, you know, like the more often I'm in the sun, the less chance I have to burn. I did the same thing for my kids. It's a no brainer, but people don't necessarily think of things in that way. You know Jack will use the analogy when the lion has had enough sun,

he doesn't put on a coat or sunscreen. The lion goes into the shade of a tree, right? And it is as simple as that. When you've had enough, go indoors or go in the shade and then you're good. And sometimes those simple answers are overlooked as you have to answer the similar questions online and things of that nature. But one of the questions that I had with regarding the coupled versus uncoupled is people who have the ability. So people that are from Northern latitudes have the ability to generate their own heat and doing something like an ice bath is really going to benefit them because it's forcing

the mitochondria to really turn up the heat and really work for their bodies. Is this still a benefit for people from the equator to work with ice baths? Or is that not necessarily the same benefit from the mitochondria, but might be helping with inflammation and other things? Yeah, so I would say that regardless of where people are from, you can typically find pretty cold water sources even near equators, whether it's from some springs and things like that like there still tends to be water like like for example el salvador is like bordered by the pacific ocean

pacific ocean is pretty cold um even though that's like a 13th north latitude like the water is still pretty cold so i think that all humans can benefit from cold water immersion um whether or not it's directly working on your mitochondria and helping to uncouple them more to produce heat, or it's helping to build your and like maintain your brown fat stores or to beige white fat to help make it more metabolically active. That, as far as I am aware, can occur across the haplotypes. So even, you know, if you're from more equatorial coupled haplotype, you can still you still have brown fat when you're born. Babies have quite a bit of brown fats, like I think over 30. We can both maintain brown fat and also recultivate brown fat to a certain extent, specifically through, like I mentioned, the beijing of white fat, which basically builds

mitochondrial density within the white fat and makes it more metabolically active, makes it able to generate heat more effectively. And so I think, yeah, like you alluded to, benefits can be had across the the range of mitochondrial hepatotypes when it comes to inflammation and um also mental health as well so like stimulating the production of dopamine and norepinephrine even more than like adderall by far and so it can really help for people who struggle with focus alertness awakeness during the day like you can leverage cold um in particular in the wintertime if you're at a more northern latitude because that temperature is also an important input into the circadian system to tell your body about your environment.

So light is really important, but temperature is too. And so leveraging the temperature of your local environment is going to help your body to be adapted to that environment. So that doesn't mean you have to spend all day every day outside in the wintertime if it's cold out, but maybe doing some targeted cold exposure like a cold plunge or something like that can really help to just get your body adapted to the local environment and help to make you more resilient in that environment as well. It's a huge point you brought up. I always get it as cold as possible here.

Our kids go to bed at like nine o'clock in the summer and and as early as 7 7 30 in the winter time just so that we're kind of following the natural progression but we let it get cold in the winter on purpose you know like i i want to put on layers it always cracks me up like we're in new york um around christmas time and you go from the cab that's scorching hot and you throw your coats back on then you walk into the hotel lobby and it's like you gotta peel everything off and hold it because it's 75 degrees in there again it's like this is not natural at all you know it's 20 outside even if you just warmed it to 60 that would be palpable it'd be a big difference but

it wouldn't be overkill to leave my stuff on um but yeah I say you know I say that it's not a New York thing that's an everywhere thing. Most people aren't allowing it to drop precipitously. We want it at 72 year-round, whatever that number is for that particular family. Yeah. Well, I mean, the crazy thing about that is that the temperatures that people are sitting at year-round indoors, let's say in the 70s, that temperature in the ancestral environment is associated with a certain level of UV light. But at the same time that we're sitting in the 70 degrees indoors, we're sitting behind glass that's completely filtering out UVB light and a decent portion of UVA light as well.

So we're getting this very conflicting information into our bodies. On one hand, we're, you know, at a warmer temperature that's associated with more UV light. But on the other hand, where's the UV light? So it's like we're completely severing the inputs or like the correlation between the inputs that our biology would have encountered before industrialization essentially. And I think we're paying the consequences metabolically. No question. Yeah. And the metabolic piece is a huge one. I've had guys like Dr. Dominic D'Agostino on the podcast, diving into fasting, ketosis, things of that nature. Cali Means was recently on. He and his sister wrote the book Good Energy.

I'm going to get them both on. Just incredible people that really speak to the similar story around Ozempic and all the dumb shit that's out there right now and really what it means to have true health. It does start with metabolic flexibility. And as you're pointing to, and these great authors have pointed to from decades ago, light is a huge mediator of that. It's a massive mediator of that. panel essentially of 670 nanometer light for 15 minutes. Then basically they put those people into an oral glucose tolerance test where they had them drink this glucose solution. They showed that their blood sugar peak was 30% lower on the people who were exposed to the light.

And so essentially you can reduce your glucose response to meals by just exposing yourself to sunlight, which has not only 670 nanometer light, but also a whole range of red and infrared light spectrum as well. And so I always recommend that people just try to take their meals outside as a really great way to help clear nutrients from the bloodstream after a meal and to more efficiently use those nutrients to power mitochondria versus just to be stored in the body. I like that. Well, there's a couple of places that I want to take this, and I'm just thinking briefly here, but let's talk water. You know, we had Gerald Pollack on the podcast,

author of The Force Fades of Water, and Uncle Jack loves his work but also knows that he might still have a little bit of that, you know, the old mindset around just science and the ivory towers and things of that nature. But structured water is a big one. And all the things that happen that take place when we have the right light and all the good things really affects what our water looks like internally. I'd love for you to break this stuff down because I don't think most people, even if they listen to that podcast or another one

that I had done on structured water, there's so much more happening within the cell biology. That's just, there's a kind of a disconnect there. So I'd love for you to break down what you know about water and light and how they interface. Yeah. So I actually just before this podcast finished recording a podcast for my podcast with Carrie Bennett, who if you haven't had her on, she's amazing. She's like a quantum clinician and educator within the space. She's at Carrie B Wellness on Instagram. So we're talking about this exact topic and how water is really the driving force of life and of biology. And that, you know, in the past, we thought of ATP as the cellular energy currency and providing the source of free energy, quote unquote. But now what we really realize is that it's the water that actually has the energy.

The ATP is just helping the water get to where it needs to go in metabolism, in enzymatic reactions, let's say. So water, we're often taught in grade school, has three states, solid, liquid, gas. But as you alluded to, Dr. Pollack's work showed that there's this fourth phase of water that's a gel state that has specific features and qualities to it that makes it really special. So it's also often called like exclusion zone water. And it's called that because an exclusion zone forms where basically you get separation of positive and negative charge that essentially creates a battery and that that battery can actually power cellular processes and can do work within cells. And that exclusion zone water within

cells is formed largely by exposure to infrared light. So getting your skin in the sun, your body out in the sun is a really great way to create this exclusion zone water internally that can power your metabolism essentially. And you can also then see the really big issue with sitting indoors all the time because we're highly become highly deficient in that infrared light all of our window glass is designed to be like insulated and energy efficient so that the heat isn't coming through but that heat is infrared light that that infrared light is structuring the water of our body to allow your metabolism to function so um we're really missing out on the infrared light as this powerful nutrient, essential nutrient for the body. And so reengineering that back into your life,

ideally from the sun, is going to be great because you also get some benefits of other wavelengths of light within the sun for building this exclusion zone too. And so that's like another major benefit, like outside of the circadian standpoint and the mitochondrial standpoint, also just that direct structuring, like outside of the circadian standpoint and the mitochondrial standpoint. Also, just that direct structuring of the waters of the body by light is just another whole aspect to this story that's extremely important. Another really important part of that story is that I mentioned earlier when red and infrared lights stimulate mitochondria, it stimulates not only energy production, but also water production. So the water that our mitochondria make is really special. It's called what's called deuterium depleted metabolic water. And deuterium is this isotope of hydrogen. If you look at water H2O,

the H is the hydrogen. There's different flavors or forms of hydrogen. Proteum is the kind that our mitochondria love. Deuterium is a heavier form that has an extra neutron, has like one neutron in it. And that form our mitochondria does not like. It's bigger and bulkier. And it basically starts to, if it's in the mitochondrial environment, it begins to break the engine so that energy cannot be produced effectively. And so the water, because deuterium is naturally excluded from the mitochondrial environment, the water that those mitochondria make is deuterium depleted.

That mitochondrially produced water is then in exchange with the cytoplasm, the cellular environment that can ultimately also be in exchange with the blood circulation. And so from a health and disease standpoint, we can see that deuterium accumulates within the body in response to diseases such as cancer and diabetes, and that actually implementing deuterium-depleted water protocols can help to improve outcomes in cancer and help to restore insulin resistance or restore insulin sensitivity, rather, in diabetes and in prediabetes. So deuterium has this really important role here within the world of water and mitochondrial

biology. And so making sure that we're making enough water internally is extremely important from the water standpoint. The water that we drink is important, but it's not as important as the water that we make because the water we make is very special. And the water that we make is essentially a sign of our mitochondrial engines functioning. So the less water our mitochondria make, the less those mitochondria are functioning, the less energy that's being produced, the more our metabolism is going to struggle to function, the higher our

deuterium levels are going to become because we're not now getting that ability to basically exclude deuterium from the mitochondria because the membrane potential is dropping. And that accumulation of deuterium can further break down those engines. And so that's kind of the story as it relates to the water that's made internally. It's a special deuterium depleted metabolic water that we really want to optimize largely through our sun exposure habits. Like anything that promotes mitochondrial health and function is going to support this metabolic deuterium depleted water production just as a byproduct. So like when those electrons are put onto oxygen and electron transport chain, water is the product of that. And it's specifically that deuterium depleted water. So anything we can do to support

a mitochondria, like reducing our non-native EMF exposures as much as we can, getting out into the sun as much as we can, grounding, getting our bare feet and or palms onto the ground, making sure we're getting, you know, enough red and infrared light onto the ground, making sure we're getting, you know, enough red and infrared light from the sun, seeing sunrise, sunset, not blocking light coming into our eyes with like glasses, contacts, sunglasses. That light into the eyes is also really important for regulating metabolism at the central level, like at the level of the brain. And then the brain is sending those signals to the rest of the body. And also our diet is really important too. So So specifically like the DHA content of the diet, which is the

long chain omega-3 is important because DHA, upwards of like 60% of the retina is composed of DHA and like something like 30% of the brain. And that's because DHA actually plays a really important quantum biological role in that it can convert photonic energy into electrical energy. And in essence, what it's allowing you to do is to render reality from moment to moment. So DHA in the retina is not only allowing you to see literally to like render reality, like your computer would render or like load something up when you're, when you're, you know, you click on a video video let's say our bodies are doing that moment to moment and that's facilitated by dha converting that light energy from the environment into an electrical impulse that can be interpreted by

the brain um and that's dr crawford's work he's a really incredible researcher in the dha space um so making sure you're getting enough omega-3s in the diet, not only from the, you know, let's say the cognition or the light to electrical impulse conversion, but also from a circadian standpoint, because the tract that runs from the retina to the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brain is also highly enriched in DHA. So if your DHA gets broken down and you're not replacing it and you're not having enough coming in through the diet, then those tracts can also start to break down, which breaks down the circadian mechanism. And outside of that, we also know that in inferior DHA status associated with more inflammatory

burden in the body as well, which is kind of a tangent, but it's all kind of related because this is all a story of light, the circadian mechanism, water, mitochondria. It is kind of a tangent, but it's all kind of related because this is all a story of light, the circadian mechanism, water, mitochondria. It's kind of like a whole package deal. Yeah, that's great. I'm really happy you brought up DHA too. That was one of the first things that stood out to me. Anybody who does their 23andMe, you can outsource that. I had Dr. Rhonda Patrick's website, found my fitness to it. But nowadays, because they keep learning about it, what you end up with is like 40 pages and maybe like one or two pages is actually telling you something useful. And the rest is just a whole bunch of shit. That's like, all right,

this may or may not apply to you. And, and of course, you know, as you really rabbit hole health and wellness, the genetic epi epigenetic on off switches matter a lot more than like what you potentially will wind up with from a cancer standpoint. How you're living your life will determine if you get that or not. Both my wife and I have a high predisposition for type two diabetes and obesity. We're very fit. We're in the sun. We're on a farm, you know, like that. We'll never see those. But you look at my family and you're like, oh yeah, yeah, I can see the genetic similarities there. Type two diabetes, obesity, and those kinds of things. One of the things that stood out to me from a genetic standpoint was that both of us can't take omega-3 fatty acids from plants, from chia seeds or flax seeds and convert the ALA

into EPA and DHA. And about 50% of the population in the US has that polymorphism. And I was like, that's a pretty big deal. That's a pretty big deal that's a pretty big deal especially from childhood development you know as we grow how much the brain needs these these things um i'd love to know like what are some of your because you really jack cruz is right you can do away with a lot of supplements if you're optimizing your light and water and your circadian rhythm i don't disagree with that at all what would would you call, you know, your, your favorite things to optimize, you know, like in terms of, is oysters a big one in your department? I noticed for me, um, not just because of the DHA, but also because the electrons and all the vitamins and minerals that are in there, it's, it's a load. It's a, it is the superfood, in my opinion. Um, we eat beef liverwurst and things like that, but I'd love to know,

you know, because you're working with pro athletes and a lot of different high-end people, what are some of the must-haves from a diet standpoint, from a must-do standpoint, so that people have the basics and they also get something else to give them a little boost? Yeah, so I mean, I really subscribe to Jack's model of eating seasonally as a way to inform your mitochondria about your environment.

So if you live somewhere where the ground freezes, that means in the wintertime, you're primarily focusing on eating more animal-based foods, fats and proteins, bone broths, things like that. Maybe some ferments and maybe some root vegetables at most, but you're really not, you know, you're not eating an avocado in Boston in January, for example. Also highly relevant for the whole conversation

around climate change and stuff. And like it always makes me laugh and roll my eyes when people are talking about, you know, don't eat beef for the climate. Meanwhile, they might be eating avocado toast, you know, in the middle of the winter and not realizing, not putting two and two together, that the global food supply chain to get you that avocado is far more of an offender when it comes to pollution than anything coming out of a cow's backside. So I think there's just a lot of poor quality thinking in that area, which isn't surprising either because everybody's blue light toxic, especially like the more, let's say, liberal types. There's a lot of tech abuse in that sphere. But anyway, so eating a more seasonal diet, that means, you know, go to a shop at a farmer's market, see what's available in your

region and your area for that time of year. And typically that means from like mid-spring through mid-fall, you have access to a variety of plant foods in addition to animal foods. And in the wintertime, you're eating more animal-based foods. And I think throughout the year, getting enough seafood is really important. We do a lot of scallops, so we'll probably eat like, I don't know, we probably have scallops three or four days a week. They're yeah. Yeah. They're also like one of my favorite foods anyway, just like without even thinking about the nutrition quality. They're they're incredible. I fed that to my wife two or three days a week, pretty much the entire pregnancy with with both kids. Good. Yeah. They have good DHA and EPA.

They're a good source of lean protein and they're just like a really solid food. Oysters are also great. They're basically like taking like a multivitamin. Same with like the organ meats as well. Like we like to do chicken hearts and chicken livers and beef liver and things like that I think are really good. And actually, I'm the chief of science for this new meal replacement shake called Signals. It's like at Feed Your Signals on Instagram. And we included like a beef organ complex in the shake. So it's designed to basically feed all of the satiety signals that communicate from your gut to your brain.

So there's like resistant starch and there's like cocoa butter and coconut milk. And we have like extra virgin olive oil in there. We have beef protein isolate and egg white protein and resistant starch to feed the microbiome, as well as the beef organ complex. And it's basically designed to keep you full from a whole foods-based nutrition for hours. And we've even skipped dinner some days because we're so full from having it for lunch. So it really does work. And so anyway, that's just to say that we're definitely big proponents of organ meats as a way of getting diverse nutrients into your body in a way that's more consistent with the way our ancestors would have done it versus like taking a multivitamin that, you know, it doesn't have the right ratios of nutrients, doesn't have

the right forms of nutrients. It may or may not be absorbed very effectively. You might be getting too much of something and not enough of another thing. So I think it's just best to use nutrition when you can to make that happen. There may be very targeted supplementation that's relevant in certain cases, but for the vast majority of people, I would much rather them spend money on like building a really nice outdoor space that they can enjoy spending time in versus taking a dubious supplement that may or may not help to solve their problem. We really want to focus at that foundational level of the health pyramid first, spend money there so that you're focused on, you know, you have that solid foundation built. Then if you want to optimize from there, we can talk about other things. But I think that's like the first and foremost thing. But yeah, so the DHA content, and like you mentioned the conversion, well, even in people who are like maximum converters of ALA into EPA and DHA, at most you're converting about 4%

of that ALA into DHA. At least you're converting between 0 and 0.5%. So it's very low regardless of your genetic background, and it's not sufficient for your biology to rely on plant-based sources of omega-3s in the form of ALA to optimize your DHA status. Furthermore, algal omega-3s, algal EPA and DHA have a much lower bioavailability than animal-based sources. So when you look at the structure of the triglycerides that are delivering the EPA and DHA, there's like a three-carbon backbone, and each carbon has a different name in the chemical structure. It's like SN1, SN2, SN3. And in algal oils, we're getting more of this SN1 and SN3 EPA and DHA, which are much lower bioavailability compared to the SN2 position. So in animal-based foods, you're getting much more of the SN2 EPA and DHA, which is allowing it to get into your body more readily and exert its benefits.

You can also further get benefit from incorporating more of the phospholipid forms of EPA and DHA that would be found in something like fish roe. So fish roe is really enriched in the phospholipid form that's really good at getting into your brain and supporting brain omega-3 status. So that would be one thing that's like kind of not really a supplement, but you can kind of treat it that way. It's a food that can be added in as like this little booster to specifically benefit your eyes and your brain. And so I really like to focus on like the omega-3 status. You can get an omega quant test. You can order it from Own Your Labs or Walk-In Labs. You don't even need a doctor to do it. Order it, get your blood test done. It will tell you the ratios of everything.

And it will tell you like some of the optimal ranges. I would shoot for like a bit above their optimal range, typically just because our ranges are kind of suboptimal and based on like average population. So the more you can increase that omega-3 to 6 ratio, the better off you're going to be, especially in the modern food environment where there's just like omega-6.

And those omega-6 fats actually also out-compete the enzymatic machinery that's required to convert that omega-3 ALA into the EPA and DHA. So if you're consuming a lot of omega-6 fats from your processed seed oils, your sunflower, canola, soy, corn, etc., and you're also not getting much ALA in through the diet, you're basically not producing any of your longer-chain omega-3s in the form of EPA and DHA. So I think the more you can reduce a lot of those highly industrially processed seed oils and focus more on getting your omega-3s in through animal-based seafood sources. Lamb is also one land animal that has a pretty decent amount of DHA in it. It's not as much as seafood, but it's still way better than

most other options. So I would say a lot of people call it like land salmon. So I think lamb is good. And obviously your fatty fish, your small fatty fish as well, your anchovies, sardines, mackerel, your fish roe, and then your shellfish, like your scallops and your oysters. Oh, that's perfect. We have a regenerative farm here in Texas and we've got about a hundred sheep right now. And so we, we harvest the rambling every year and we allow the females to continue to grow the size of the flock as best as the land can, can hold for capacity. So it has been like a delicacy. I don't think I've ever,

there's nothing compared to it. Even, even like a full grown you we've had to call for, for health reasons, you know, hoof rot on one leg and she's incredible. You know, we can see too that there's this beautiful yellow fat throughout it

from all the beta carotene becoming vitamin A, all the carotenoids that are in there. And I feel different. I mean, that's as local as I can get. It's my backyard, right? But even before that, I'd go to Rome Ranch and I split a bison with the Force of Nature guys in Fredericksburg. And so we got to build our little baby girl inside the womb with that, with that

bison from down the street. And I think that's such a, from a caloric standpoint, you know, if I'm, if not all my stuff was coming locally, but I can nail the meat locally. I think that does such a big thing. It's, you know, calorically that's vast majority of the calories that I've taken in or my family's taken in. Yeah. I'd love, I'd love to get,

sorry, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, that's great. I definitely strive to eat local meats as well. It's good for your body. It's good for your local economy. It's good for your environment. It's, it's just good in general. Yeah. It's super good. Especially if you follow, you know, some of the more nefarious things, being one of the most important things we could do to support local. Um, I would i would love to you know we're getting close to finish here but i'd love to ask you brought up dr sachi panda from the salk institute he was really one of the first guys to blow my mind with everyone talking about the microbiome and things like that and some conjecture so being uh really important um him talking about

our own circadian rhythm within her gut was something that never left my mind it was something that i always pictured and i understand this if i was training really late in jiu-jitsu i'd come home i'd have to eat really late and then i'd have terrible sleep and i could i could feel terrible sleep but i didn't need a watch to tell me that i wasn't sleeping well uh i think ricola wrote about that pretty early on too like finish your food at least three hours before you go to bed last bite, anything calorically before you go to bed, you want at least three hours. Talk a bit about,

and it doesn't have to be Pena's work, but talk about some of the ways you optimize circadian rhythm. Because this seems to be such an important piece that most people don't think about. They'll just take melatonin or do something before bed to try to knock out as opposed to actually paying it forward throughout their day. You know, I found like

ice baths, obviously that was something that just gave me like a, if I take an ice bath first thing in the morning, I have no problem going to sleep right when the sun goes down. So I'd love to hear from you. What are some of the ways that you optimize for circadian biology? Yeah. So light is the primary zeitgeber or time giver for the circadian biology? Yeah, so light is the primary zeitgeber or time giver for the circadian clocks. That means it's like the most important lever that you can push on to get the biggest bang for your buck, so to speak. And so, like I mentioned earlier, blue light is the primary input into the system that sets those clocks. So making sure that you're not getting exposed to blue light at night is going to be like the biggest thing that you can do to help improve your sleep quality. So starting at sundown, you're either, you know,

turning all your lights off, putting red light bulbs in or using like candlelight at night. And if you're going to be on screens, you're blocking blue light using something like Iris, which is software for your computer. There's also native ways that you can filter blue light on your Apple devices. And I have a pinned reel in my profile of how to do that. There's also a program called F-Lux that people with Android devices can use. So blocking blue light on your devices is like number one thing you have to do if you value your sleep quality, your sleep quantity, your ability to fall asleep. And you can also, if you, for whatever reason, can't avoid some source of brighter light or light containing blue light, then you should pop on a pair of blue blocking glasses. They really do work, but you have to make sure you're going to get a good pair. So

the good blue blocking glasses for nighttime use will have a dark orange lens. That's a sign that they're probably good. I know there's like, there's raw optics, there's bond charge, there's Viva rays, there's different brands out there that are of good quality. There's Block Blue Light as well. And so those are for like nighttime use. For daytime use, if you're exposed to a lot of artificial lights during the day and you're maybe on screens all day working in an office setting, you may want to invest in also a pair of daytime blue blockers that have a yellow lens that blocks about 60% of blue light. So you want some blue light in, but you just want to kind of attenuate the amount that's coming in because it's not really physiologic, the amount that we're getting from

our screens. And then whenever you can take like breaks to get natural light, or if you can open windows to get some natural light coming in through the windows, that's going to be made really beneficial for your eyes, your brain, your circadian health. Because we not only need dark light at dark darkness at night, but we also need bright light during the day for optimal circadian health. So essentially what that means is, you know, if you're when you're waking up, if you can get up around sunrise and see the sunrise, that's going to be the best thing that you can do. It turns on pregnenolone production in the pituitary gland, which is the precursor to all your primary sex hormones. It helps turn on your metabolism and activate your mitochondria to get your body ready for the day. If you're not up at sunrise, the best thing to do then is just

as soon as you wake up to get natural light into your eyes ASAP. Like the worst thing that you can do is like when you get up, just you start scrolling your phone immediately. That's like the biggest no-no that you really want to just get natural light into your eyes even if it's for only a couple minutes first thing to help set that circadian clock it gets some of the natural blue light from the sun balanced with red and infrared light into your eyes onto your skin that's going to help to anchor in those clocks and then after the morning time you know however long you can stay out, it can vary. If you're really sick, you probably need way more morning sun than somebody who's healthy and just kind of wants to stay that way.

So that's kind of like the morning time. And then midday, you want to optimize your midday sun exposure to your personal needs, which I recommend doing by tracking your vitamin D status. You can use the app D-Minder, which will allow you to plug in your starting vitamin D value. You want to make sure that you're not supplementing vitamin D when you get your vitamin D tested because we need to know your actual baseline level. So I recommend doing like a washout period of maybe six to eight weeks before getting the blood levels tested so that you can see what your actual level is. Then you'll plug that level into the app. You'll tell the app, it will basically detect where you're at. You'll say how much cloud cover there is,

how much clothing you have on. You can get like a Kaniki or cool tan bathing suit that it's like a tan through even better so that your full body can be exposed to natural light and you're not blocking it out. And then you just press start on the app and it will tell you how much vitamin D you're making per unit time. And it will tell you how long you need to be out there, when to turn over to avoid burning, et cetera, et cetera. And you can use that to kind of gamify and track your vitamin D production status over time. And that will help you to optimize your midday sun exposure. And then you kind of want to, in the evening time around sunset, if you can view the sunset, that's great. And that's when you want to start really getting strict about your blue light exposure at night. so if you come over my house around sunset my entire house is like lit up red including my

porch lights um we have like color changing light bulbs from amazon but there's also other bulbs you can get that are strictly red from probably from amazon as well but also in like bond charge and black blue light they have some um dedicated red bulbs too um and that red light is going to really help to not stimulate your nervous system so much it's not going to suppress mel And that red light is going to really help to not stimulate your nervous system so much. It's not going to suppress melatonin. Blue light is the primary wavelength of light that suppresses melatonin. Green light to a lesser extent, blue around the 450 to 480 nanometer range is really what's going to potently inhibit melatonin release. And we really want that melatonin to start rising up in the evening so that you're going to get that sleep pressure that's going to you know allow you to go to sleep feel really

sleepy and then get good quality sleep after that and so that's what you want to do in the evening routine that's really going to help you know overnight you can experience the benefits of this from just a single day and that was like my experience as well when I first heard Jack's podcast on tetragrammaton and I started making those changes like the next day in my life for the first time in my life I was not a quote-unquote night owl I always thought I was a night owl that I just like to be up late and that's just who I was that was my quote-unquote chronotype but now I really see chronotypes as this modern um this modern manifestation of our artificial light environments. If there's no artificial

light in your environment, you're naturally going to get sleepy due to biochemical production of this melatonin that's going to naturally emerge when it gets dark out. And so for the first time in my life, I actually enjoyed waking up early and spending more time out in the sun in the morning and just developing a relationship with the sun. And on the days that it's cloudy or when the sun starts, you know, the angle starts changing, which I've already noticed at this point in late August, that it starts to make me like a little bit sad too, because I can, I can feel things shifting, but yeah. So the more that you can, you know, just optimizing your light environment in general is going to be the biggest thing from a circadian standpoint, from a sleep optimization standpoint, and also from like an

energy and cognition optimization standpoint too. Because if you're circadian styled in, you're going to have better energy focus, neurotransmitter levels during the day as well. So focusing on that light piece is huge. Basically trying to see sunrise, getting some midday sun, and then blocking blue light at night would be like the three primary things that I would want people to do. And then from there, you can like see the benefits from yourself and you'll, you'll just be motivated to continue down the rabbit hole. Essentially. This has been incredible. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. Um, where can people find you? I'm going to link to all this in the show notes from your IgE handle to website. People want to work with you and things of that nature.

Yeah. So I'm primarily active on Instagram at DrAlexisJasmine, J-A-Z-M-Y-N. Not taking one-on-one clients right now. I've been slim because I'm working with a bunch of athletes. Like I said, I'm doing a pilot study for basically quantum biology and mitochondrial medicine showing like performance benefits so i've been working really hard on that and um also developing a couple like products within startups in the water and the light space so you guys can stay tuned for that um but i'm very active on instagram i post free content all the time i recently published a quantum health ebook called the luxe living health optimization handbook that people can read it's 92 pages it. It's very visual. It's very concise. And it just

outlines essentially everything we talked about today, plus more and all the actionable takeaways, everything you need to know about light, dark water and magnetism to optimize that foundational aspect of your health. So I definitely point people there. I have a few pre-recorded courses that people can take if they're interested in learning in a more intensive environment. And yeah, so those are some of the primary ways people can work with me for now. I'm very active in stories. I answer almost every DM at this point. So if people have questions, they can feel free to reach out. And yeah, there's going to be a lot coming up too. So people can stay tuned for all the goodness, whether it's like products and content and all those things. So I'm really excited for what's to come.

I think this is like literally just the beginning, but I feel a lot of momentum building in this space. And I'm really excited about where it's going and exerting a positive impact in not only in sports and athletics, but in medicine and hospitals and nursing homes and schools. Like I'm really doing my best to spread this message far and wide. I'm talking at two high schools over the next couple of months, trying to go talk at my stepson's middle school as well.

I really want to get this information out to young kids who are explicitly vulnerable to the harms of non-native EMS and artificial blue light because their nervous systems are not yet fully myelinated until the mid twenties. So their nervous systems really take a hit when they're exposed to a lot of artificial light. And yet at the same time, we see like digital babysitting and kids glued to their phones, iPads, computers now more than ever before. And

it's leading to this absolute crisis when it comes to mental health and children and also like metabolic health and children as well. So I'm really trying to get the message out to younger age groups. I had a sixth grader interview me like two weeks ago for a class project and it was just like so heartwarming. And I feel like people are so receptive. Like you mentioned early, like at the very beginning of the podcast

about pushback and like dissent within the community. But I honestly can say that I've received very minimal pushback. And I think people are extremely receptive and ready for this information, especially post COVID where a lot of people are waking up to the major systemic issues we have within our healthcare system and just within the way that we're living. And so I'm really excited for what's to come and the kinds of shifts that we might be able to see at a larger scale. Hell yeah. You got me excited. Well, I'm excited for what's to come and I definitely want

to have you back on. Anytime you have anything, just hit me up stuff you want to share with the group but that'd be awesome to run it back at some point yeah i would love to link to everything the show yeah we'll absolutely we'll link to everything in the show notes and i i will continue to enjoy unpacking everything that you're putting out it's been awesome getting to know you and chat with you and i look forward to in the future thank you the pleasure is mine and we'll talk again soon