BYRON HINTERLAND RETREAT - Circadian Living by Regenerative Health Retreats

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joined again by Andrew Latour of Gemba Red.
He is an engineer and aphotobiomodulation expert who's
really doing his utmost and whatI believe is probably the most
out of anyone in thephotobiomodulation and red light
therapy industry in actuallyapplying the clinical research
and translating that intoproducts for people and patients

(00:23):
to use.
So, andrew, thanks for joiningme again.
Hey Max, thanks for having meback.
Let's launch into ambientlighting.
I mean, I've talked at lengthabout artificial blue light and
its effect on health andcircadian rhythms.
I've talked recently withRobert Fosbury, an
astrophysicist, who's talkedabout the importance of near
infrared for our health.
So give us an overview of howyou think about this indoor

(00:45):
lighting problem.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I think you know, with a lot of the trends
of blue blockers and you know,like you said, the anti-blue
light kind of movement,especially at night blue
blockers, you know, you got yourred lights on, you know, in
your background, you knowswitching over to you know, red
lights, amber lights and allthat stuff at night, and then
people are starting to thinkabout, OK, what about my

(01:07):
lighting during the day?
What about my lighting, youknow, am I getting enough
sunlight, enough bright light?
So you know, we start to thinkabout when we get into red light
therapy.
We get into, you know, sunlightand, just, you know, getting
that daily dose in the mornings.
People are starting toappreciate like light has a very
strong effect.

(01:27):
So we have to control ourenvironments in order to get the
best health outcome.
But you know, there's just likea lot of not not a lot of
education on how do you choose alight bulb, how do you shop for
a light bulb.
Like it seems like very basicbut it seems like, you know, a
lot of people just have no clueabout all the metrics for a
light bulb.

(01:47):
It's kind of like shopping fora red light therapy device.
What's the intensity,wavelengths, you know EMFs,
flicker.
You know the same things youhave to start to think about
what does a white light bulblook like?
And you know different types ofcolor, temperatures and
applications for for how youdesign things.
And you know the architects andhouse builders are kind of

(02:09):
trying to figure this stuff outand they're starting to become
more mindful of the humanaspects of that.
Like, every once in a while youhear like, oh, some new hotel
is doing human centric lighting,and you know they're starting
to get more and more on boardwith with this, you know, making

(02:30):
your lights good for your humanbiology, which we assumed was
always the case, but it'sobviously not.
Um, so, yeah, so I moved into anew house a couple years ago
and it was just, you know,completely filled with compact
fluorescent bulbs as as thelighting, and so I thought this
would be a good opportunity togo through.
I tested, like you know, 20 orsome odd light bulbs from a

(02:51):
company, lightbulbscom.
I try to avoid amazon wheneverI can.
Um, so I test, you know, gotthem, you know, and I've got the
spectrometer, I've got theflicker meters, I've got the emf
meters and dirty like I've gotthem all.
So I was like, well, you knowthis is totally normal.
I'm going to not just going toreplace some light bulbs, I'm
going to test 20 different youknow models and brands out and

(03:13):
see which ones work best and usethat for myself and then share
my results with everyone else.
So, you know, I think that's abig key of you know biohacking
and alternative health, of justyou're trying to improve your
own condition and you share yourresults with other people.
So that's kind of what I gotinto with one of my blogs that
we'll be referencing and maybeyou can link in the show notes

(03:35):
of you know, if people want tosave some time, I've got my
favorites that I ranked and howto use them and you know all the
criteria there.
So if they want to skim throughand find the bulbs that I
recommend, it's on that blog.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, fantastic.
So what are the metrics?
What are the metrics by whichpeople should consider when they
are purchasing indoor lighting?
And you've alluded to some ofthem, but walk us through all of
them, and maybe in reference tothe old thermal lighting, which

(04:09):
is the incandescent halogen,versus the new LED technology.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, yeah, I think you know.
Just to summarize yeah, youwant the right amount of
brightness.
Obviously, you don't want yourroom too bright and you don't
want it too dim.
It needs to be functional.
Obviously, you don't want yourroom too bright and you don't
want it too dim.
It needs to be functional.
If you've got a workplace or anoffice, you probably want more
lighting.
If it's a living room that youjust hang out in the evening,
you probably want lessbrightness.
So, looking at the brightnessmetrics, sometimes that's

(04:37):
measured in lumens, sometimesthat's lux, in terms of the
distance, and sometimes they gointo like the 40 watt equivalent
or 60 watt equivalent.
And that's how they helpedmarket the newer generation
light bulbs to say, oh, this ledis equivalent to the brightness
of a 60 watt incandescent bulb.
So if you're trying to replaceone for one, you you kind of

(05:00):
look, you can use that.
I think that's not a very goodmetric because I think LEDs are
kind of feel more bright or theykind of feel more intense in
some ways.
So you might want to step down.
So if you had a 60 wattequivalent, a 60 watt
incandescent, you go to like a40 watt LED and that kind of

(05:21):
helps manage the brightness.
So I think sometimes peoplestart switching over to LEDs and
fluorescents and then it's justway too bright.
So I think brightness is superimportant.
You know we have this dim onscent melatonin production at
night that you know we need tobe below a certain amount of lux
, usually like at least below,like 100 or 200 lux in the

(05:43):
evenings.
You know you can even go loweras your eyes kind of acclimate
to lower brightnesses.
So you know you want to thinkabout having the right amount of
brightness, depending on thecircumstances.
So that should be listed onmost bulbs as the lumens, like I
think a standard 60 watt islike around 800 lumens.
You know a 40 watt equivalentis about 400 lumens.

(06:06):
So you kind of want to, youknow, think about that as
brightness.
And again, not a lot of peopleeven think about brightness.
They jump into spectrum andblue light and all this other
stuff.
But you know if you have a bigroom you need a bigger, you know
a higher powered bulb and ifyou have a small room you can
use lower powered bulbs or usemultiple bulbs scattered around.

(06:26):
So yeah, think about thebrightness and you know again,
might be a little bit of trialand error or it might be, you
know, getting one that's kind ofdimmable, that's, that's handy.
But yeah, start with thinkingabout how much brightness you
need.
Then the next thing you want togo into is your color
temperature, your spectrum.
So with white light bulbs, youknow that's a combination of you

(06:50):
know the whole spectrumgenerally of you know red, green
, blue Usually those combined weget the optical illusion of
white light.
Typically, sunlight is kind ofa broad spectrum.
That's well-defined.
Incandescent bulbs are also avery broad spectrum.
They have about 99 CRI, whichis the color rendering index.

(07:13):
So that's how well the spectrumis represented and gives you
kind of a natural feel forgetting all the colors right.
And so with LEDs and evenfluorescents they tend to have
lower CRIs because they'redeficient in certain wavelengths
.
A lot of times it's the red endof the spectrum, so the red
colors don't really pop out asvibrantly.

(07:34):
So you want to look for higherCRIs.
So you know a typical LEDnowadays is about 80 CRI, which
is pretty good.
If you just need some cheap LEDbulbs, you can get 80 CRI,
which is pretty good.
If you just need some cheap uhuh LED bulbs, you can get, get
80 CRI.
But all the ones that I uhrecommended on my blog were
above 90 CRI, um.
So again, it gives you a littlebit more of that red end of the

(07:56):
spectrum and it gives you kindof a more comfortable, you know,
natural feeling, so, um.
And then you want to look at um,the color correction
temperature, the CCT, and it'smeasured in Kelvin.
You know, a standardincandescent bulb is usually
around 2700 Kelvin and you knowthat's literally how hot it

(08:16):
burns.
Because we know from likePlanck's laws and how the
spectrum works, that the hottersomething is, the more visible
light it emits, and sosunlight's about 5500 Kelvin
works.
That the hotter something is,the more visible light it emits,
and so sunlight's about 5,500Kelvin.
So that's why we get a lot moreblue, we get a lot more
brightness from sunlight, but anincandescent bulb burns at
2,700.

(08:36):
So if you're trying to shopagain for something that's
comfortable and that's a goodreplacement, you'd look for LEDs
that are 2,700 Kelvin.
So that's usually a good switch.
That's pretty safe and I thinka lot of people accidentally
jumped into leds andfluorescents that were higher
kelvin.
You know those cooler uh colortemperatures like I have behind

(08:57):
me.
I've got, like you know, acouple of 2700s and then I have
one that's 4000 and that's got,you know, that brighter kind of
white, that more of a bluish hueto it, and then the 2700s are
going to have more of thatyellowish hue to it.
That's a little bit more calmerand natural.
But you know, if you jumpedright into 4000 kelvin or even

(09:19):
higher, you're going to get alot of that eye strain from the
high blue light spike in those4,000 Kelvin.
That didn't even exist with,you know, incandescent and
halogen bulbs and so it justfelt like a big, you know jump
for a lot of people.
And that's kind of what youknow caused LEDs to get so
demonized is, you know, they gotinto too much brightness, they

(09:40):
got too high of a Kelvintemperature and it's super
uncomfortable for the eyes inthe long term.
So that's that's.
You know, the main kind ofcomponents that you can usually
find on like a spec sheet whenyou're shopping for an LED bulb.
Then you can go into.
You know what we talk about.
A lot is flicker, which youknow is that modulation of

(10:03):
brightness or intensity.
So you know we've got thealternating current that comes
from our outlets In America it's60 hertz and you know the rest
of the world.
It's usually 50 hertz and so itcycles through zero, you know,
50 or 60 times per second.
And so with incandescent bulbsthat was fine, because it's

(10:25):
warming a filament and it kindof warms and cools and warms and
cools and it's got some mass toit, so it's kind of buffered,
and so incandescent bulbs doflicker.
And there's two major flickermetrics you know we need to go
over.
One is the flicker frequency,which is the hertz, which is,
you know, hertz means per second.
So if we say something'sflickering at 120 hertz, which

(10:48):
is very standard flicker for theUSA, that means it's just
flickering, you know, 120 timesper second.
So you know.
So we've got that metric and Ithink a lot of people only focus
on that one metric.
But the most important one tome is the flicker percentage,
and so that's how high and lowyour modulation goes.

(11:10):
So it's not always a hundredpercent.
So, like, when an incandescentbulb flickers, it's only
flickering at about 10%, it onlydrops 10% of its brightness.
So that's why it's not veryharmful.
It doesn't really disturb usbecause it's very, you know,
relatively low, only being 10%.
So we don't really notice thatkind of flicker.

(11:31):
So it doesn't really disturb us, it's pretty good.
But then when they jumped intofluorescents and LEDs, leds
respond to that AC, you know,much more rapidly, almost
instantaneously.
And so that's why the originalLEDs that came to market they
were turning on and off almostrapidly, almost instantaneously.
And so that's why the originalLEDs that came to market they
were turning on and off almostfully, almost 100%, every cycle.
So that's a lot more dramatic.

(11:52):
So, even though the frequencywas the same, for a lot of these
LEDs, the LED, you know, thefrequency, the Hertz is the same
.
And I think a lot of peopletrying to make up stuff like oh,
leds are flickering at a higherfrequency or this or that and
it's you know, generally theydon't they.
They flicker at a higherpercent but not a higher
frequency.

(12:12):
You know.
I think people were making thatup.
So the percent was a hundredpercent and even though it's
still mostly invisible, causeit's 120 Hertz, so above about
60 or 70 hertz, we have criticalflicker fusion in our eyes.
Our eyes and our brain worktogether to make it seem like a
flickering light looksconsistent, so it's very

(12:35):
insidious.
It's hard to tell when you'vegot flickering lights, except if
you're flicker sensitive likeme, you can feel right away, you
know, kind of that eye strain,kind of a little bit of anxiety,
a little bit of disturbance inyour brain, especially if you're
trying to do tasks or read or,you know, do any kind of
mechanical work or somethingthat's really disturbing for

(12:57):
your brain and you know it mighttrigger some seizures, but the
seizure range is usually more ofa visible range, but it's very
disturbing.
So what they did with modernLEDs and this has been true for
at least a couple of years now,especially now there's standards
in Europe for being low flickeryou can add more circuitry to

(13:20):
the LED and kind of buffer outthat AC cycle so you can get the
flicker very, very low.
So all the you know LEDs Irecommended are less than 10%
flicker, so similar to anincandescent bulb, even better
than a standard incandescentbulb.
So if you really care aboutflicker, you can get high
quality LEDs that have extremelylow flicker.

(13:42):
You know all my products areabout 1% flicker, which is
excellent, you know.
And then some of the whitelight bulbs I recommend are 1%.
So again, so it's thatmodulation is very low.
So even though technically thefrequency is always the same
around 120, or it's about 100.
In other countries like Europeit's about that magnitude of the

(14:04):
frequency.
So I think a lot of people kindof haven't gotten that
education about flicker percentversus flicker frequency.
So it's super important tounderstand both those metrics.
And there's even more advancedmetrics too, but generally those
are kind of simple to wrap yourhead around.
So, yeah, those are really keyfor for the flicker.

(14:24):
Um hey, do you have anythingabout flicker or?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
only to say to link in the clinical aspect, which is
migraine, uh, migraine and uhand epilepsy being the two major
kind of clinical implicationsof of existing under flicker
flicker light, the so-called um,I believe it's the scott
scottistrobic effect, and it wasan episode, was it an episode
of sim the simpsons or uh, thatwas initially setting off.

(14:53):
Uh, people, there was oneepisode of a popular tv show I
referenced um the pokemon.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
There was a pokemon episode in the 90s that um in j,
like hundreds of kids, went tothe hospital for seizures.
There might have been some sortof mass like anxiety, like some
people say.
It wasn't really real, that wasan anxiety thing, but I think a
lot of kids did get some sortof neurological problem from

(15:18):
that and that's what started alot of the Flickr research of
that.
They started putting EEGs onthese kids and tried to figure
out you know what kind offrequencies that were triggering
them, what kind of wavelengthsthey did find deep red was
highly triggering.
So if your red light therapydevice is flickering, then
that's that's kind of the worstwavelength you could flicker.
Um.

(15:39):
But uh, generally you know thehigh contrast like if you're
watching a cartoon and they'reflashing between you know they
generally have brighter colorsand high contrast colors.
If you're flashing between blueand red and things like that,
that's the contrast also helps,you know is part of the problem.
So, yeah, so it was a Pokemonepisode.

(15:59):
That was one of the most famous.
But there are some you knowexamples that people will send
like flashing images to likejournalists that they don't like
on social media and give them aseizure or whatever.
And so we we can weaponize thisstuff.
Like you know, there's tacticalflashlights that flicker at

(16:20):
like 11 hertz and you can shineat someone and it disorients
them, you know, it messes you up.
So we can weaponize Flickr likereal easy.
So we don't want it in ourdaily lives if we can avoid it.
So yeah, so yeah.
Flickr is super important andyou know, you still see it in a
lot of media that they have aFlickr and seizure warning for

(16:42):
certain tv shows and cartoonsand video games.
You still see that warning alot.
So they know, you know, theyknow it's a real issue.
Um, but you know, you know weget a lot of so gone, gone no,
yeah, we get a lot of peoplethat say, oh, I'm not affected
by flicker, so well, nobody elseis, I don't, you know?
Like, oh, not, you know, Idon't have a peanut allergy, so

(17:05):
nobody else has a peanut allergy.
Like you know, a lot of peopleare sensitive to to flicker.
When I walk into a grocerystore or certain stores, I'm
like these lights are flickeringCause I'm feeling disturbed and
I'll get out my camera and dothe slow motion.
I'm like, yep, they'reflickering.
I'm like a flicker detector.
So you know, you can feel it.
When you get, you know, moreand more used to it and

(17:33):
especially if you kind of youknow you start to enjoy your
life without flicker.
Then when you go out to thestores and restaurants and
they've got flickering lights,then you start really knowing
the difference of how you feel.
Like if you're numb to itbecause you're working in an
office that flickers all thetime, you might not notice it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
That's a great point and I share that personal
experience of having lived freeof flickering artificial light
for a long time to thenexperience it is you have a
heightened sense of awareness.
The interesting point you madeabout inattention as a symptom
of being under flickering lightwe have an epidemic of ADHD

(18:13):
right now in children inpediatrics, and you wonder, we
obviously know that the lightthat they're probably sitting
under in classrooms andkindergartens and preschools is
going to be to some degree ofthis variety, and it's a thought
in my mind of how much we'repossibly medicating kids for an
inappropriate light environment.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, you know some of the old standards I read.
They said if a kid has a mooddisorder, you know some sort of
problem, a mental problem oranxiety or ADHD to move them,
seat them closer to the window.
Seat them closer to the window.
So that way they're not.
They're getting the morecontinuous light from the
sunlight and they're not.
You know, in the rest of theroom that back in that day was

(18:57):
probably all fluorescent lightbulbs, which you know
fluorescent light bulbs.
I can't really think of anyredeeming qualities for I think
they were a crime againsthumanity.
I mean, you can use them forlike I use them.
You know they use fluorescentbulbs for the UVB therapy.
So I guess that's one thing,but otherwise using them for
general lighting is such ahorrible thing and I think a lot

(19:21):
of the stigma from fluorescentbulbs carried over into LED
bulbs of saying oh, they're high.
You know EMFs, which we'll talkabout.
You know fluorescent bulbs werehigh, which we'll talk about.
You know fluorescent bulbs werehigh flicker and how they
resolve the flicker withfluorescence.
They did increase the frequencybecause when you increase the

(19:45):
frequency it kind of reducesthat perceived flickering.
So if you go from 120 hertz toa thousand hertz.
You know, then it kind of is alittle bit better for your brain
.
Uh, you know, then it kind ofit's a little bit better for
your brain, you know, even eventhough it's not great, at least
it's a little bit better, um,for comfort and for for how your
brain processes, because yousee it more and more
continuously.
So, um, yeah, so we can talkabout emfs if you want to get in

(20:06):
there a couple points to beforewe move on.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Is uh called compact fluorescent lamps a crime
against humanity?
I've called artificial lightinginhumane lighting and just
recognizing or emphasizing thedifference between that light
source and the sun, which isthis natural solar radiation

(20:29):
that our biology has evolvedwith and, yes, we're going
through the nuances of how it'sdifferent right now.
Can you talk a bit aboutflicker and natural sunlight and
color temperature and naturalsunlight?
If you observe, using yourinstruments, natural sunlight,
perhaps at different times ofthe day, what do you notice
along some of these metrics?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yes, the sunlight, you know it's got that full
spectrum, like I said, in themiddle of the day it's around
5,500 Kelvin.
So it does you get a bigproportion of blue light.
You know some.
You know between 10 to 30% ofsunlight is that blue light, so
it's pretty significant, butit's balanced with the red and
near infrared and the fullspectrum.

(21:11):
You know, obviously you don'tstare at the sunlight for eye
health.
But generally, you know, maybeyou know as as the sun sets, you
know, in the early morning orlate at night, the sun gets more
filtered by the atmosphere, theblue light and the UV light
gets scattered and so that's whyyou get proportionally more,
you know, red and near infrared.

(21:31):
That's generally helpful forhealing and recovery and all
those great benefits weassociate with red light therapy
.
Sunlight generally is acontinuous light source, so
there's no pulsing, there's noflicker, naturally, from
shimmering light, from waves orfrom the leaves and the waves.

(21:54):
You know the wind kind ofblowing the leaves back and
forth or if, even if you blinkyour eyes too fast, you can get
some flicker distress, you know.
So there are natural ways.
So we do have some copingmechanisms for it.
You can look at the zebra.
You know they have the black andwhite stripes out in the
savanna, which doesn't makesense for camouflage because
they're not blending in with,you know, the grass.

(22:16):
That's kind of brownish andwhatever.
So it doesn't make sense.
But they're using that flickerkind of sensitivity because it
disorients the predators,especially when they're in a
herd, in this big group.
All these striped lines kind ofmess you up.
So whenever you, sometimes whenyou see striped lines in nature
or, you know, in paintings orsomething, even that can

(22:39):
disorient you with with kind ofa similar flicker kind of a
problem.
But yeah, so generally you knowvery low kind of flicker
exposure in in nature, you know,and, and really in nature, you
know, and and really, yeah,that's, that's kind of the best
thing.
If you can sit near a window or, you know, spend as much time
as you can outside, then youknow you don't have to worry

(22:59):
about all these nuances of lightbulbs and electric lighting and
you know all this stuff thatwe're talking about.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, I really like to keep that in the front of
mind of people.
Which is the best option isalways going to be natural solar
light, light radiation, butwhat we're talking about now is
for the fact that we all havelives where we have to do some
form of work that is inside, andtherefore how to choose the

(23:27):
best option.
So let's dive into the nextcriterion in this evaluation.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
So yeah, that's EMFs, which with incandescent bulbs
there's minimal EMF.
Again, there's kind of likepeople lying and saying
incandescent bulbs have noflicker and they have no EMFs.
I mean, they do have someflicker, they do have an
electric field that comes fromyour outlet.
But overall, you know, anincandescent bulb is a very

(23:57):
basic, it's just a filament,right, there's no electronics,
there's nothing fancy inside,it's just a filament and a glass
.
You know glass ball and andthat's it.
So it's very simple in terms ofthe electronics.
So you only get, um, someelectric field coming from it.
It it doesn't really produceits own.
You know kind of EMFs per se.

(24:18):
You know fluorescent bulbs again, they were super problematic
with radio frequencies and youknow dirty electricity and all
that stuff.
You know, with just the waythey had, they called them
ballasts.
You know, with just the waythey had they called them,
ballasts were kind of thesemagnetic drivers that kind of
ran the bulbs.
And then LEDs, again, the earlyLEDs probably suffered from

(24:40):
similar problems of not havingany standards for the
electronics and not reallycaring about this kind of stuff.
But now they're enforcing astandard from the FCC which
governs kind of radiofrequencies and all that stuff.
Then LEDs.

(25:02):
You know, unless it's a smartLED then it gets registered to
emit Wi-Fi or receive signals.
But a standard LED can possiblyemit some radio frequency and
some dirty electricity just bythe nature it has to use kind of
a driver to step down thevoltage and to step down the
flicker.
So some of the early ones didproduce some RF and they still

(25:22):
have some dirty electricity.
But, like I said, if you'rebuying from a major name brand
like Philips, ge, sylvania, youknow, fet, they all need to be
compliant with these standards,otherwise they'll get big fines
from the FCC.
So the radio frequency again isbarely measurable for a lot of

(25:43):
the bulbs I measured in my blog.
The dirty electricity again issuper low.
It's caught up in the noise.
Like I had to unplug a bunch ofmy appliances in my house.
I had to really turn offeverything I could because it's
so low.
Like you know, there's alwaysgoing to be some dirty
electricity in your house If youhave any appliance plugged in a

(26:03):
refrigerator, plugged in arouter, plugged in.
So you're always going to getsome of that dirty electricity
and if you don't turn those off,it's just noise, you know, I
mean it's just caught up in thenoise it's very insignificant
compared to all your otherdevices.
So you know again, you knowmight have been a big problem

(26:23):
with the early generation LEDs,you know 10 years ago or so, but
all the ones I've tested, youknow there's barely any problem
with that.
But again, you know, if you'rea super purist and terrified of
EMFs, then you would still gowith an incandescent bulb and
that's fine.
Just know a lot of LEDs aresuper high quality and it's not

(26:45):
really a big issue anymore.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
A question to quickly revisit back to Flickr.
Have you measured Flickr behinda set of blue light blocking
glasses and can you tell us ifthey mitigate in any way a
flicker coming from a reallyoffensive light?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think I haven't recently doneit.
I might have done it in thepast.
But basically your blue blockeris going to cut down the blue
light you know transmittingthrough your lens.
So if a big portion of yourlight bulb is blue, then you're
cutting out that proportion.
So your flicker kind of metricswill be the same.

(27:27):
It's just that you're kind ofcutting out at least part of the
spectrum so you're kind ofreducing the magnitude of the
brightness, that you're kind ofcutting out at least part of the
spectrum so you're kind ofreducing the magnitude of the
brightness that you're receiving.
So it does help kind of bufferit out.
It doesn't really change yourflicker, you know it can't
change your flicker frequency,it can't really change your
flicker percent, but it kind ofreduces the total brightness

(27:49):
that's receiving into your eye.
So I think it's practical toit's practical to wear blue
blockers and maybe the bluelight component when you flash.
That is pretty harsh on theeyes.
So it's a good idea to use blueblockers.
But I don't think itspecifically reduces any kind of
practical metrics of flicker.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, no, but that makes sense.
That's an advantageous andprobably a common reason why
people report that their anxietynot their anxiety, their
migraine symptoms improve simplyfrom just wearing the blue
blockers.
And, having recently spoken toScott Zimmerman, who was a

(28:36):
previous podcast guest, he'stalking about the basically
required minimums of energyefficiency in a lumens per watt
metric, essentially outlawingthe inefficient in inverted
commas, inefficient incandescentlighting that's emitting in
this near-infrared range thatyou know, lo and behold, has
some health benefits, but thesestandards seem to be

(28:59):
incentivizing even more isolatedblue visible only lighting.
So what's your take on that andcan you explain that for the
listeners?

Speaker 2 (29:08):
Yeah, yeah, like you said, you need a certain amount
of lumens per watt.
You know some of the standardswere already rolled out in
California but now the USA has.
You know the whole country hasadopted some of these standards
and you know I don't know theexact number, but basically they
purposely defined it to excludeincandescent bulbs and make it
very hard for an incandescentbulb to be approved for general

(29:33):
lighting purposes.
So that's what the standard'saround.
You can still find incandescentbulbs for specialty purposes
the heat lamps and appliancelamps.
So you can kind of get aroundit sometimes.
But generally they purposelymade it so you can't get.
You know, because anincandescent bulb is you're just
heating up a filament and alarge part of the spectrum is

(29:56):
invisible near infrared, midinfrared, far infrared.
So that's why they'reinefficient.
So a lot of the energy consumedis going into invisible
wavelengths and that doesn'thelp your lumens metric, right,
because lumens is justbrightness that the eye can
perceive.
So you know, that's why theincandescent bulbs are kind of
excluded from that.

(30:16):
You know, I don't think that'sthat's a good way to go.
You know I don't think youshould force regulations.
I think you know you shouldn'thave a nanny state or whatever,
tell you what to do.
If you want to spend more moneyon an incandescent bulb, then
it's your money and you needcompetition.
You can't have the governmentartificially messing with

(30:39):
competition.
Like we're talking about hereis debating if incandescent
bulbs and LEDs can becomfortable or competitive.
You need incandescent bulbs onthe market to incentivize LEDs
to keep getting better.
They need to deliver on thathigher efficiency, saving you
money, lasting longer, havinggood color quality and flicker

(31:03):
metrics, and so all those thingsneed to be there.
You need competition to driveimprovements and change.
If you just monopolize themarket and you can only buy LEDs
now, there's no incentive formanufacturers to improve the
quality of their lights.
So I don't like that kind ofartificial stuff.
But again, I am hopeful thatLEDs are super high quality

(31:25):
nowadays.
I've got a good review.
I think there's a couple ofgood reviews online for finding
those good white light bulbs foryour home and then finding
light bulbs for the day and theevening and what you want to
consider for that.
But yeah, no, I don't likeregulations like that.
It doesn't make sense.
It doesn't help the market.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeah, no, we're definitely agreeing on that
point.
So where are we up to in thisevaluation of lighting?
So we've ticked off EMF.
Is there anything else thatyou're concerned about when
selecting a bulb?

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I think, yeah, I think that covers it.
I think, yeah, you mentionedprice.
I think generally LEDs havealways been a little bit more
expensive than an incandescentbulb.
You can buy them.
Usually back in the day youcould buy them a buck a piece, a
couple bucks a piece, and LEDswould be about 10 bucks a piece.
So you know, again there's thatcost trade off and then maybe
they try to upsell you thatyou're saving electricity in the

(32:23):
long run.
So you know it kind of balancesout.
So again, that's part of thecompetition, of it and shopping
around.
And you know, I one of thebrands I recommended is called
waveform lighting, which issuper high quality.
It's very good.
I've got, um, this yellowishone is the 1700 kelvin, um, so
it's got a very nice, uh,yellowish kind of amber color to

(32:45):
it.
Um, so I use a lot of theirbulbs because they're kind of
photography and filmographygrade.
So you know they made it lowflickers because if you're
trying to record a video and yougot that flicker it messes it
up, you know.
And they made a high CRI tomake the colors right.
So but they're pretty expensive,I forget.

(33:06):
They're like 20 bucks per bulbor something like that.
So there are alternatives, likeI think there's the Phillips
ultra definition.
There's a review on YouTube, sothat's not on my list, but if
you look up Phillips ultradefinition, they've got some
really cheap bulbs that are lowflicker, high CRI.
So you know, that's what I'mall about is finding what's a

(33:26):
cheap solution.
You can replace all the bulbsin your house with, you know, a
full Phillips ultra definitionor some all the bulbs in your
house with a Philips Ultradefinition or some of the bulbs
I recommend, and you shouldn'thave to spend a ton of money for
quality.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
This should be really basic, standard stuff them from
quite human, inappropriate, toa situation where they can

(33:59):
actually be desirable, becausewe've reduced flicker, we've
controlled and specified thespectrum they're emitting and we
can dim potentially dim them toreduce their brightness and lux
, and they're also low EMF andnow they're cheap because the
technology is proliferated.
Is that a good summary?

Speaker 2 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, I just, you know, I want people to have
all the facts and, you know, bereally recent with how the LEDs
have developed to be lowerflicker, lower EMF.
You can choose low blue lights,either like00 kelvin or lower.
Um, you know and uh, you knowchoose, you know learn just how

(34:38):
to choose the right brightness.
And so once you learn all thosethings, you can really empower
yourself and choose the rightthing.
And you know, if you stillprefer incandescent bulbs, it's
fine, uh, but you know we, weneed to have more.
You know options, you know, forour health.
I think one of the things wewanted to talk about was the
health benefits potentially fromthe near infrared of the

(35:03):
incandescent bulbs.
So say, you know, we extractedall these incandescent bulbs
over, you know, from ourhouseholds and offices,
incandescent bulbs over, youknow from our households and
offices, and so now we're kindof relatively less exposed to
near infrared and mid infraredthat we used to get from
incandescent bulbs, right?
So what do you think about that?

(35:23):
I think you talked to Scott abit about that.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, well, that's a great point to bring up, because
it's another consideration,which is, yes, these LEDs,
technology has improved, butwe're still only dealing with
visible, only lighting and, aswe referenced, the natural solar
spectrum, which is over 50% ofnear infrared non-visible.

(35:46):
So to me, I think one of thekey problems that we need to
remedy is how do we put thisnon-visible near-infrared back
into our indoor environments ina way that is going to work with
existing LED technology and isgoing to not consume so much

(36:07):
energy that we fall foul ofthese what you and I and others
will call ridiculous regulationsabout energy-saving lighting.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Yeah, yeah, and you know I think it's pretty tough
because if you've got anincandescent bulb, you know your
standard 60 watts that we allused to use, but it's up in the
ceiling and it's like eight feetaway.
But it's up in the ceiling andit's like eight feet away and
you truly have, like you know,the inverse square law of you
know the distance, you get lessand less brightness, you get

(36:39):
less and less intensity.
So I think the actual amount ofnear infrared and infrared that
you got from incandescent bulbswere pretty minuscule, unless
you had like a desk clamp thatwas pretty close to your face.
I can't imagine getting like atherapeutic kind of level of
near-infrared.
And so we're really talkingabout, you know, subclinical,

(36:59):
you know sub-photobiomodulationkind of levels of intensity that
we used to get fromincandescent bulbs that were in
our ceiling.
So there was only one study Ifound that on this topic.
It's called the effects of nearinfrared light on well-being
and health in human subjectswith mild sleep related
complaints, a double blind,randomized, placebo controlled

(37:22):
study.
So you know, maybe we can sharethat in the show notes.
But they modified an Ikea lamp,you know a white desk lamp with
850 nanometer infrared LEDs thepeople were exposed to five
milliwatts per centimetersquared for about three hours a
day and they didn't really theydidn't get a lot of significant

(37:44):
benefits.
They got some overall kind ofgeneral wellness benefits.
They said the sleep improved,the sleep benefits wasn't super
significant.
They said the sleep improved,the sleep benefits wasn't super
significant.
So you know, we're really on theearly phases of trying to
figure out like what's theambient kind of solution for
near infrared.
I think you can.
You know you can solve thiswith some of those infrared

(38:05):
security camera panels that aresuper cheap.
They're on Amazon you can getan 850 security camera panel and
you know, if you want a littlebit of ambient near infrared you
can put that on on yourtabletop or desktop.
But again, it's really it'sgoing to be really subtle and
really hard to quantify that Ithink we're going to start to

(38:26):
think about this like theexercise epidemic with sedentary
kind of office work.
Then, okay, you know, if youwork, you know a sit down job,
maybe every hour or so you takea break, you go for a walk, you
go, you know you go outside andthat's better than nothing.
And then maybe you want like astanding desk and you know,

(38:49):
maybe you the kind of thing weneed to think about with light
as well, of like, hey, maybeevery hour or two I'm going to
turn on a little red lighttherapy panel, you know, get 10
or 20 minutes of a little bit oftherapeutic light, and you know
kind of, you know, do thatoccasionally to help, kind of
help me with my eyes and, youknow, mood and brain and all
this stuff, and get the brightlight therapy that you know we

(39:10):
need bright lights during theday and that helps us sleep at
night, you know.
So that's one of the thingswe're missing too.
We're not just missing UV andnear infrared, we're missing
bright lights in general.
That most indoor lighting isonly up a max of about 500 lux.
And we know sunlight you knowfull direct sunlight is about
10,000 lux.
So sunlight you know fulldirect sunlight is about 10,000

(39:31):
lux.
So we really need, like, somehigh-brightness light therapy as
well and not just, you know,near-infrared UV.
We need those, but we also needbright lights.
So if you can get thatartificially with some bright
lamps or you know a red lighttherapy device or a blue light
device, I like cyan and greenlight for bright light therapy

(39:56):
device or blue light device, orI like cyan and green light for
bright light therapy, but youknow.
So that's another missingcomponent that I think that you
know.
Bright light therapy has a lotof studies.
It helps with a lot of chronicage-related conditions like
Parkinson's.
You know you need to improveyour sleep quality and you can
do that with bright lights inthe morning and during the day.
That's a profound result.
That's why a lot of people thatget the early morning sunlight

(40:17):
are seeing so much benefits,especially for their sleep.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, very nuanced and interesting point, and that
is that it's not just about thespectrum.
That's amusing that thebrightness is a key aspect of
this and especially in thecircadian research which is, you
know, it's grown massively overthe past 10 years, showing that
importance of brightness aswell.
Can you comment?

(40:42):
So obviously, what you'vealluded to is some of the
solutions that we can, I guess,start with to put this near
infrared back into the indoorenvironment.
And you raise great points thatwe're in an embryonic stage of
understanding, as you said,exactly you know the dose and

(41:04):
distances and all this kind ofthing, and it's a fascinating
area of, I guess, buildingbiology or optics and
interactions with the human bodyto really get these distances
and appropriateness.
But one of the solutions isScott Zimmerman's Naira bulb and
that is, it seems to me as alayperson, quite an elegant

(41:25):
solution, which is to run an LEDfor the visible light, for the
lux, but then run a filamentbulb in the same unit at a low
voltage to provide some nearinfrared.
Do you have any thoughts orcomments on that approach?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, I think it's a good concept.
There's still a lot we need tosee how it pans out, what the
actual spectrum really lookslike and you know, I think, how
you actually use it.
Like I said, if you just put itin the ceiling that's eight feet
away from you, that nearinfrared is like so minuscule
you might as well just use astandard cheap bulb.

(42:03):
So maybe you want you know yourincandescent bulbs or your
Neera bulb, or even like a nearinfrared therapy lamp close to
you on your desk that you caneither leave on if it's super
low intensity or turn it onintermittently throughout the
day.
You know, get you know five or10 minutes every couple hours.
So you know you have to thinkabout how practical.

(42:25):
I don't think it'd be practicalto outfit your all your ceiling
lamps with the nearer bulbs.
The same way, an incandescentbulb wouldn't really give you
therapeutic near infrared.
So it's a good concept, but youknow, I think you know there's
not like there's not a lot ofscience to say what's the real
quantifiable benefit at thispoint yeah, and it's, it is so

(42:49):
nuanced because the spaces ofeveryone's indoor environment
are different.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Some people have, you know, two meter high ceilings
and others, uh, very theopposite.
And then, uh to to reallyunderstand these differences is
is uh, yeah, it's, it's a, it'sfraud, and but, as you've
mentioned, um, I think there'sgoing to be a bunch of
innovative solutions.
I mean, I've I've even heard ofof some near infrared emitting

(43:13):
devices that will just sit on alaptop, like almost like that
webcam, like an on webcam kindof thing, and it's emitting in
the near infrared so you can'teven see it, but it's, it's
probably it's providingproviding some beneficial
photobiomodulation wavelengths,like right in the eyes and the
face, which is probably helpingmitigate that high-energy

(43:34):
visible possible relatedphotoaging eye strain if
someone's not wearing blueblockers.
So I think I'm really excitedfor the myriad of solutions to
this problem and it sounds likestepping out of the form factor
of simple, just a screw bulb isalso going to be a major

(43:56):
advancement, because if you'reno longer limited by that single
fitting, then I think we couldprobably design some pretty cool
solutions to this problem thenI think we could probably design
some pretty cool solutions tothis problem.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, for sure, yeah, you can make lights that you
plug into your USB port on yourcomputer.
Or even some lights can bepowered by your phone, you know,
from the battery pack on yourphone.
So yeah, and using, you know,panels which are nice because
it's just plug and play.
And you know, I can make apanel like low EMF and low
flicker and have all theelectronics there.
So it's kind of a one, you know, fit solution.

(44:30):
So yeah, I think there's a lotof different solutions.
But you know, I would say likeintermittently, getting that
photobiomodulation treatment isgoing to be more practical than
trying to do super low intensityfor a long period of time,
because we don't know how toquantify that yet.
But you know, if you dophotobiomodulation you know

(44:51):
adequate intensity andwavelengths.
You know at least once a dayyou know with the low intensity
and get that bright light andget that red and near infrared
light.
You know that's kind of likeokay, I work a sedentary job but
I work out, you know, 30minutes each day in the morning.
You know there's debate.
Does that really offset youreight hours of sitting?

(45:12):
But it's still better,obviously, much better than
nothing.
Um, so you know it's that kindof mentality that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
It reminds me, it evokes an image of the kids
standing around those early uhArc UV lamps and they're all
sitting around and they'restanding around it in their
undies and it's almost like allright kids, all right office
workers, time to get up.
Everyone stand around and gettheir near-infrared
photobiomodulation dose and thengo back to hopping on Excel and

(45:43):
tapping away at the keyboard.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Yeah, I think they'll get there with wellness rooms.
I think a lot of moderncorporations are trying to be
more hip with some of thosealternative solutions and things
that help you kind of relax anddecompress and different
offerings, so they try to getcreative with that.
I think there's a bigopportunity for consultants to
help them revamp their lightingsituation the flicker, the color

(46:09):
temperatures and all that.
I think some of thecorporations I worked for used
to do little health seminars andwhatnot, so I think that's a
big possibility that more ofthis should be going into the
corporations and helping theoffice workers get better
lighting solutions and ideas.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Yeah, and look, that's who, professor Glenn
Jeffrey, who I talked to, who'sdoing that very interesting work
with six, seven nanometervisible red light and its effect
on blood glucose levels andmitochondrial function in the
retina and the eye.
And he made the point that whencompanies start realizing and

(46:49):
people, their workers, show upat the CEO's office with torches
and pitchforks because they'vebecome pre-diabetic after a
decade under that type oflighting, then there's going to
be some movement, so to speak.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
I mean, yeah, that would be, that'd be good.
You know, sometimes to motivatea corporation you got to get
some lawsuits, you know, and say, hey, I'm connecting my
diabetes to the.
You know the lighting and youknow the, the type of work.
And again they're like you knowI've worked for some they're
super supportive because theydon't want that liability.
If I say, hey, I want astanding desk, they'll get me a

(47:25):
standing desk.
If I want, you know, different,different ergonomic accessories
, they'll get me that.
So if, if that becomes, youknow, the latest kind of trend,
you know the companies won'targue with you that much because
they want to cover their buttsthat they provided you with with
whatever you need for youroffice space.
So you can just start askinghey, boss, can I expense getting

(47:48):
a little red lamp for my youknow, a little near infrared
lamp for my desk here?
You know, I think that would bea real possibility.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, and I've called it diabetic lighting.
And if more people say to theirboss, hey, like you know, this
is a problem, this diabeticlighting that you set me up
under, you know, this is ahealth hazard, this is an
occupational health and safetyhazard, then there could be some
movement and RFK Jr you knowthis titan in kind of corporate

(48:17):
litigation standing up againstcorporations that are having
these negative externalities onsociety.
I mean, he's just started tounderstand the process, probably
a bit longer than just, but inthe past year maybe has started
addressing the processed foodissue and learning more about
how damaging that is for health.

(48:37):
And amazing if we could get himon board with this issue and
say, hey, look, there's thiswhole light contribution to
metabolic syndrome and diabetesthat actually goes beyond the
seed oils and the carbs and it'sclear that they are
exacerbating probably what is,in my opinion, fundamentally a

(49:00):
light circadian mismatch problem.
But maybe, who knows, in thenext couple of years, or maybe
someone can send him thisinterview, I think well, yeah,
and I think, um, nicole shanahan, she was big into light therapy
.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I think she even mentioned she might be doing
some trial for for light therapyfor autism because of her child
, um, so you know, I think she'sgot that bug.
I think there isn't someconference with nicole and jack
cruz going up and that's comingup soon.
And then Jack Cruz and RFK theyhad an interview on the Rick

(49:33):
Rubin podcast but they talk moreabout history and all these
conspiracies and stuff.
I don't think Jack reallypressed the light and health
issue.
That's kind of the next phase.
There's definitely a lot Oncepeople start thinking about
their health.
That's kind of the next phase.
But yeah, there's definitely alot, you know, once people start
thinking about their health.
That's what I did.
You know that's how I got intoall this.
I started dieting and improvingmy diet and that wasn't really

(49:56):
getting me 100% of the way.
I had to start thinking aboutlight.
I started using blue blockers,getting sunlight in the morning,
and then I went down thisrabbit hole of light therapy and
then I started this business.
But it all started with thediet aspect wasn't really
covering me for my goals andenergy levels and sleep, and it
really turned into the lightbeing my biggest focus.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Yes, and that's a common story for people.
So, yeah, it's great to be ableto spread the message I wanted
to ask you about.
We talked about, you know,these different color
temperatures.
I've got a red-only visibleportable lamp with me at the
moment.
So, obviously, when we'resetting up the house, yes, we

(50:42):
can get access to thesedifferent LED bulbs, but what do
you advise in terms of thetypes of LED bulbs?
Would you favour one that has amodular ability to change its
spectrum, the so-calledcircadian appropriate lighting
or would you look to set up yourhouse with lighting of

(51:06):
different spectral emission thatyou would turn on at different
times of the circadian day?
Also, mindful of the role oflight position in the eye that
is also going to influence itseffect on our circadian rhythm?

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Yeah, no, I mean, that's all great stuff.
You know I'm pretty basic.
You know I don't do any kind offancy, I don't do dimming, I
don't do multiple spectrum bulbs, or you know, I just kind of do
really basic bulbs.
So, yeah, I kind of have like aset of bulbs that I use during
the day that are a little bitbrighter, maybe 3,000 to 35,000

(51:41):
Kelvin, 35,000 Kelvin, and thenfor the evening, and you know,
the afternoon and night, then Iturn off my overhead lights and
I've got floor lamps and desklamps.
So that way, you know, like yousaid, if you've got a light
coming from overhead it mighttrick your brain into thinking
it's like sunlight.
So it's better to have yourevening lights, you know, more

(52:02):
horizontal, more on the horizonof being on a, you know a desk
lamp or you know a floor standlamp or you know getting that.
So I think the angle isimportant.
And then those bulbs are, youknow, lower in Kelvin, 2700 or
less.
Or you can go really hardcoreand get, you know, yellows or

(52:23):
ambers or reds, but those are onthe floor lamps.
So I'll turn off my overheadlights, switch to the floor
lamps.
So you can get more automatedwith smart bulbs if you're
comfortable with that, or allthe different dimming bulbs and
whatnot.
But I try to keep things verybasic, no extraneous electronics

(52:43):
, and just use a different setof light bulbs depending on the
circumstance.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
Yeah, and that's great, and I'll just share my
current experience, where I'vejust moved into a new clinic
room and, having turned off thelight overhead, I'm just using a
yellow bulb, essentially at mydesk height, and I've got a
window open for some naturalsunlight, essentially at my desk
height, and I've got a windowopen for some natural sunlight,

(53:12):
and a patient, or many patientstoday commented how much more
relaxing the environment was andit was something that they
appreciated.
As you know, if they're comingin with, you know,
anxiety-related symptoms, and aquestion that I have is some
common lighting options thatsome people might have.
So I don't know if you'refamiliar with the Himalayan salt
lamp at all and have you testedthat with your various

(53:36):
apparatuses and can you reportits suitability?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
I have not specifically tested one.
You know I probably have one inmy basement collecting dust,
but you know they seem nice.
I don't know the benefits ofthe salt lamp.
Purely from an optical point ofview.
Yeah, from the optics I mean itlooks nice.
It's usually got more of ayellow or reddish kind of

(54:05):
enclosure on it and one of themI saw had a little incandescent
bulb inside.
So it depends on what kind ofbulb you have inside of it, but
the ones I saw back in the dayhad little incandescent bulbs,
so that's very nice.
So you've got an incandescentbulb and then it's also kind of
being filtered by this rock thatkind of diffuses the light.

(54:26):
Yeah, so it diffuses the lightand kind of probably blocks a
little bit more of the bluelight so it appears a little
more red or yellow.
But then if they insert an LED,kind of okay, what's the
quality in the spectrum of theLED?
And then it's kind of gettingfiltered by this crystal which
again it seems to help drop someof the blue light, makes it a

(54:48):
little bit warmer kind of colortemperature.
So you know, it seems nice, youknow, but the same things, you
can try to check it with yourphone camera, the slow motion
video, check for flicker andthings like that.
You know, if it feels good, iflooks good, for for your eyes
and um seems mostly kind ofyellow, then then I have no

(55:09):
problem with it yeah, thatthat's uh.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
That's great because it's it's a really a common
option because that people have,um, some people have handy, so
it's great to be able to uh torecommend that.
The other kind of workaroundthat some people use and this is
this is a hack, uh that even alot of kind of influencers have
have also kind of shared videosdoing is applying cellophane,

(55:34):
like the transparent plastic uhfilm, essentially over things
like a, a light, a fridge light,particularly.
That's a.
That's a common one.
What's your take on essentiallyjust changing the emission via,
say, a covering like atransparent film?
What does that do to itssuitability of the light, based

(55:58):
on what we've just been talkingabout?

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, yeah, when I did a lot, lot of travel, I
would carry some blackelectrical tape and cover up
tons of indicator lights and andlight bulbs and whatnot.
So sometimes if you have anindicator light that you don't
need at all, just cover it withblack tape, um, you know.
So sometimes you can do that,um, but yeah, I mean you can.
Basically it's like putting ablue blocker on the light source

(56:23):
itself rather than needing towear it on your face.
You can put these, you know redcellophanes, um, there's one
called roscoe lux, number 19, soyou know you can see it's
drastically changed the spectrumthat you can see through it.
So it's Roscoe Lux, number 19.
I get it from B&Hphotocom.

(56:45):
They sell it because it's madefor, you know, photography and
so it's really nice.
It's like the fire red spectrum.
It blocks, you know, themajority of blue and green light
and it's got a very nice kindof orangey, kind of red color.
So it's definitely viable.
So I've cut out little bits ofit and then taped it on to

(57:05):
different, you know, light bulbsor indicator lights.
So if I still want theindicator light to be kind of
mildly functional, you know, butI don't want to block it all
the way.
So I'll use that and kind ofcover up different lights with
that and you can try to use it.
Sometimes you can put it over ascreen or some companies are
selling like a screen, you know,blocker, you know, and tape it

(57:26):
onto your screens.
Tape it onto your TV, you doget more kind of reflections and
glare like.
So it's kind of annoying to useit on a TV, but you know it
could be a viable option.
If you have, like a lot of ledlamps are like hardwired, it's
not like a bulb you can replace,so you could cover it with the
cellophane.
Or, like a lot of people, theyasked me about the um recess

(57:48):
lighting and they're making therecess lighting as like a
permanent led fixture, which islike nonsense, because what do
you do when they burn out?
Um, but you know you could tryto color, cover that with
cellophane.
If you don't have the you knowelectrical tools to to swap it
out, um, you know you couldcolor.
And then they do sell likeyellows and and ambers, and so

(58:10):
they have a whole range ofdifferent yellow cellophanes and
orange ones, so you can really,you know, customize your, your
colors if you really need towith the with the rascalux uh
line of uh, you know thesecellophanes, or whatever that's
it.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
That's great.
Well, thanks for bringing thatup.
That's a real practical tip.
So we'll include those, thosecellophanes, uh, in the show
notes.
What about uva?
And are you aware of any easilypurchasable product that can
put some UVA light into theambient environment during the
day?

Speaker 2 (58:47):
I have not.
That gets kind of risky withthose kinds of recommendations.
I have one of the Spur-Tvitamin D lamps.
I think it's a little bit morevitamin D lamps, I think it's a
little bit more.
The vitamin D version is alittle bit more heavy towards
the UVB for vitamin D but theydo have like a tanning lamp
that's a little bit more towardsthe UVA.

(59:08):
You know it'd be interesting tosee because there are a lot of
like violet lights that areright around 400 nanometers, so
the old black lights and the old, you know, fluorescent black
lights and things like that.
So those would be interestingif those could be kind of an
ambient light solution.
Otherwise you're kind ofgetting like a reptile bulb.
You know there's tons of UVreptile bulbs and you know you

(59:31):
could have it.
You know a safe distance awayso you're not causing any harm.
And again, maybe you want alittle bit of that UV in your
environment.
You know, I don't know.
That's one of the things.
It's not worth the risk untilyou really measure the intensity
, measure the exposure,understand the safety limits of.
You know you don't want tohaphazardly start putting UVA
all around your house unless youreally know what you're working

(59:55):
with.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Yeah.
But theoretically that'll bethe next kind of step of, you
know, figuring out the indoorlifestyle yeah, we should
definitely um, if you don't mind, sharing the brands of your,
your meters, and we'll put thatin the show notes too, so people
can stop, um, you know, ifthey're really interested
putting together a toolkit to,uh, to test for their

(01:00:17):
environment all these metrics.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
So one of my Flickr meters they stopped
manufacturing.
It was awesome, it was 120bucks, it's called Radix Lupin
and I tried to be a distributorfor it.
I was like, don't go out ofbusiness, I'll distribute.
But they're like, nope, we'redone.
But yeah, it was amazing.
So I don't have a good Flickrmeter.
Maybe I'll shop around for fora different one.
You know I have other ones butthey're expensive.

(01:00:42):
But yeah, you know, use yourphone camera, your slow motion
video.
You can see, um, you know youcan mostly trust your eyes If
something looks red.
I think you had mentioned ifsomething looks red, it.
You know it's red.
I've had a lot of people try toconvince me my color perception
is pretty spot on at this point, and so I was saying the booth

(01:01:06):
at the Planet Fitness that Itested.
I tested three differentlocations and they're garbage.
They emit a lot of blue, theyemit a lot of green, they emit
some red and barely any nearinfrared and it's like 12
milliwatts per centimetersquared.
But the intensity is fine,except some of the spectrums,
blue and green.
So like, what are you doing?

(01:01:27):
And so, because they'recombining blue, green and red,
it looks very pink and likewhite, and tons of people tell
me that.
Tons of people reported that tome and I saw it too.
It's hard to see it through acamera and so, but people still
comment on that video of like,no, it's totally red, that's
what the spec sheet says, that'swhat the manufacturer
advertises, and I was like Idon't know, I don't think.

(01:01:48):
So it's mostly white and pink.
Uh, you know, but anyway.
So, yeah, the color is key.
But you know, with blue blockersI did find you know, I was
testing a lot of blue blockersback in the day If you have a
red-blue blocker, sometimes itlets through some blue, like you

(01:02:12):
know, because there's kind oflike a gradient of how dark a
tint can be.
So if you have orange or red oryellow, you're pretty
comfortable.
It's definitely reducing someblue light.
So you know that for sure.
And obviously we know the clearblue blockers only can block a
minuscule amount of blue light,because that's the nature of how
optics work.
If you reduce too much bluelight it's going to start to

(01:02:32):
appear yellow.
So you know they're all limitedjust by physics of how much
blue light they can actuallyreduce with a clear, you know
appearing lens, and a lot oftimes the best clear lenses have
a very subtle yellow hue thatyou can only see up close.
But you know.
So generally you can trust youknow yellow is going to reduce a

(01:02:54):
significant amount of blue.
Orange cuts out most of theblue and red cuts out most blue
and green.
But again, you know, you stillwant to verify.
If you're really hardcore, doesit block 100% of blue or 95% of
blue or 90% of blue?
And you know, again, it's not aterrible thing.
Maybe you want a little bit ofblue so you can kind of

(01:03:16):
appreciate the full spectrum.
But you know, just know, youknow, know what you're shopping
for.
You have to shop from a goodbrand.
I have another blog about somecheap brands that you can get
that have really good bluereduction.
So so, yeah, so you know youcan mostly trust your eyes.
You can hold it up to a bluelight and see, ok, well, blacks

(01:03:36):
that blue light.
You can trust your eyes.
Your eyes are pretty sensitiveto photons, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
So, yeah, so there's a lot of ways to evaluate it and
not need a lot of fancyequipment.
Yeah, fantastic, and that's whyI appreciate your work, because
you're really not advocating orselling anything that's
extraneously or you know bellsand whistles, it's just pure
functionality and cost, whichthe people really appreciate.
I know we've got already anhour in and apologies if I

(01:04:07):
haven't made this clearer to amore lay listener, but the
reason why we want to block bluelight, especially after dark,
is because of its suppressiveeffect on melatonin, a hormone
that will help us induce sleepand keep us asleep and kick off
all these cellular repairmechanisms.
So, from a circadian point ofview, that is why we're so

(01:04:30):
interested in blue-free lighting, particularly after dark,
particularly, uh, after dark.
So, um, what what more can wesay about?
Um, uh, indoor lighting?
I know you make a gamma red,you make a red led bulb, so, uh,
maybe talk a bit about thatbulb and what, what problem you
were solving when you, when you,designed that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:52):
yeah, yeah, I made um .
You know there are, you know, alot of pure red bulbs on the
market, so I wanted to makesomething unique.
I do recommend on my blog a TCPbrand red party bulb.
It's only three watts but it'sa low brightness red bulb.
I checked it out, it's reallygreat.
So and that's only like eightbucks, you know, on

(01:05:15):
lightbulbscom, plus shipping,but so that's a really cheap
solution.
But I wanted something that umwas brighter, because a lot of
the red bulbs are not verybright um, and a lot of people
were complaining that thosebulbs were were not bright
enough.
And then I also wanted to have,like that, 660 nanometer
spectrum, so it's all 660nanometer wavelength, so it's

(01:05:37):
like one of the deepest reds youcan really appreciate without
getting too dim.
So it's like a really nice deepred.
It's very bright because it'sseven watts.
So you know it's a very niceelegant solution and it's in
this what's called a corncobtype light bulb format, so it
just looks like all the LEDs areon the outside and it kind of

(01:05:59):
looks like a corncob.
So you know it's a really veryneat, unique design and got
great brightness, break call,great color.
So you know it's a good optionfor if you need a screw and
light bulb to replace.
You know some that some of yourindoor lighting at night, but
yeah, yeah, you know there's,there's good options on the

(01:06:19):
market.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
That sounds really good and I'll have to maybe
somehow get a couple toAustralia.
I'd love to try them out.
I'm guessing, I don't know, butis this the fitting standards?
Is it like an E27?
Screw yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
E27.
I don't know if it's right.
I don't think we made itofficially rated for
international use.
So if you have a differentvoltage or frequency I'd have to
do like a little voltage testto make sure, because you know
it was really specificallydesigned for the US for 60 hertz
, 60 hertz and 120 volts.
So that's one of my only onlyproducts and some of my plug in

(01:06:57):
nightlights.
I do have plug-in nightlightsbut again, they're specifically
designed for the US grid so Idon't recommend them for outside
use.
But, like some of my therapypanels, they have power adapters
that work internationally, butthese are smaller devices, so we
just focused on making it forthe US voltages.

Speaker 1 (01:07:18):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's good, okay, great.
Is there anything else you wantto say about indoor lighting or
any of these lighting optionsor any kind of guidance that you
give to the listener?

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
I think we covered it .
I think a little bit moreemphasis on bright light therapy
we didn't discuss.
If you get up in the morningyou get your morning sunlight,
that counts as bright lighttherapy.
If you can't do that for somereason, and even on a cloudy day
, you know you still get highlux from being outside, but to
get some bright lights in themornings or even, you know,

(01:07:57):
during the morning, and thathelps anchor your circadian
rhythm, so your sleep schedulekind of starts in the morning,
getting bright lights in themorning, whether it's sunlight
or a bright light tool, again,you can just get a high-quality
white light bulb and just kindof use it relatively close to
the face.
So you don't have to buyanything expensive or fancy
that's marketed for sad.

(01:08:20):
So you don't have to buyanything expensive or fancy
that's marketed for sad.
But you know that's the keything is you know the melatonin
is a major antioxidant and evenif you're using your screens
late at night and you're like oh, I use my phone screen late to

(01:08:41):
be a slow degradation and thatmight be a strong correlation to
a lot of the chronic diseaseswe're seeing is the poor quality
sleep, the lack of melatoninproduction.
So even though you think you'resleeping fine, you still
haven't produced enoughmelatonin, naturally.
So you know we're trying tocombat all these things that
lead to big problems down theroad and they're proving that if
they improve the sleep ofParkinson's patients and
different types of chronicdiseases, they're improving that

(01:09:04):
whole quality of life.
So the sleep and getting yourlight bulbs right during the day
, in the mornings, at night, youknow, really think about that
whole system that's going tohelp you, you know, with
longevity and quality of lifeand sleep and focus and energy.
So that's the key we weretrying to hit home today.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Yeah, very well put.
Very well put, andrew.
And really, this sleep is socritical to human thriving and
optimal health it's almostdifficult to overstate it.
It's almost difficult tooverstate it.
And even Brian Johnson, who isspending millions of dollars
biohacking his way to hisversion of immortality, his

(01:09:48):
emphasis on sleep isunparalleled and it's something
that he puts so much emphasis on.
I think his last protocol washe's down to such a fine art
that he's even timed his eating,uh, into a window, to to a
really early eating window, andthat's that's another way of of

(01:10:08):
preventing desynchronization ofof your peripheral gut clocks
with, with your, your, yoursuprachiasmatic gluteus, your
central clock.
Yeah, and the other point thatI'll make is that this is so out
of field for the decentralizedmedical paradigm that it's.
You know you're an engineer, achemical engineer turned

(01:10:30):
photobiomodulation and lightingexpert.
You know, and I'm a familymedicine, you know, trainee
talking about, you know, lightand health, and you know,
trainee talking about, you know,light and health, and, uh, you
know there's not a lot of peopletalking about this and
obviously, glenn jeff, professorglenn jeffrey, and bob fosbury,
astrophysicist andneuroscientist, uh, these are
all disparate professions, um,and we are trying to, in

(01:10:54):
different ways, talk about asubject that really needs to be
the domain of more and moredoctors, but it's just this
collective misunderstanding orlack of appreciation ignorance
is a strong word, but that'sprobably appropriate of the role
of light in health, and so Ithink we've done a pretty good
job.
I really appreciate yourinsights, andrew, into this

(01:11:18):
topic.
So let's include all thatinformation, all those, into the
show notes so people can gothrough this, click on them and
really set them up, andhopefully a lot of them are
US-based, but I'm sure we couldtry and find some Australian
shipping options or equivalentsin Australia.
Yeah Cool, all right, thanksvery much in.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Australia.
Yeah, cool, all right, thanksvery much.
Great, yeah, thank you, thankyou.

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79. Best Indoor Lighting For Optimal Health & Circadian Rhythms

BYRON HINTERLAND RETREAT - Circadian Living by Regenerative Health Retreats

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BYRON HINTERLAND RETREAT - Circadian Living by Regenerative Health Retreats

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79. Best Indoor Lighting For Optimal Health & Circadian Rhythms

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