The Importance of the Circadian Rhythm and Why Biological Timing Is Everything With Alex Dimitrov

Episode Highlights With Alex

• What circadian biology is and understanding the foundational aspects of it
• The big factors that impact circadian rhythms 
• How light, temperature, and food timing affect circadian rhythms and sleep
• Why blue light isn’t bad but why timing matters so much
• More reasons why morning sunlight is so important
• Sunlight can help stimulate the mitochondria and even help thyroid function
• How to optimally time light exposure
• Why social media exposure at night can interfere with sleep beyond just the light exposure
• Every organ has a clock and the master clock in the brain is largely controlled by light
• What chronotypes are and how these can shift over time and phases of life
• A light device that can help in rainy or dark climates or for people who can’t get optimal daily light
• 97% of night shift workers are still sticking to circadian cues of day shift and how this is tough on circadian rhythms
• Tips for optimizing light for shift workers or people who have to work at night
• Ways to help minimize jet lag when traveling 

Resources We Mention

• AYO - Circadian Health Wearable (Use code wellnessmama for discount)
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Episode Transcript

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first month subscription at that link.Again, that's Hiya Health dot com slash
wellness Mama. Hello and welcome tothe Wellness Mama podcast. I'm Katie from
Wellness Mama dot com and this episodegoes deep and very practical on tips related
to the importance of circadian rhythm andwhy biological timing is everything. And I'm

(03:04):
here with Alex Demantroff, who haslived all over the world and been passionate
about these aspects of health since hewas young. He was born and raised
in Bulgaria and then experienced firsthand whateffect the lack of light can have when
he studied in the Netherlands and thisled to his research related to the subject
of light exposure and the development ofwearables to actually help improve light signaling related

(03:27):
to circadian rhythm and light biology,and in this episode, we go deep
on what circadian biology is and understandingthe foundational aspects of it, including the
big factors that impacts circadian rhythms likelight, temperature, exercise, and food
and how to use those to youradvantage. Why blue light isn't bad,
but why timing matters so much,and actually how to use it to your
advantage. While you don't want toavoid blue light during the day, we

(03:51):
talk about why even more reasons whymorning sunlight is so important. How sunlight
can help stimulate the mitochondria and evenimprove thyroid function when you get bright light
exposure during the day. How tooptimally time your light exposure for better sleep
and better wakefulness during the day.Why we know blue light is harmful at
night, but why even without theblue light aspect, social media exposure at

(04:12):
night can interfere with sleep beyond justthe light aspect. How every organ has
a clock and the master block inthe brain is largely controlled by light,
what chronotypes are and how these canshift over time and phases of light.
We talk about a device he createdthat can help in rainy or dark climates
or for people who can't get optimalmorning light especially. We talk about shipped
workers, jet lag and special casesrelated to the circadian cues and how to

(04:36):
use them to your advantage, andmany many more topics. Like I said,
very practical episode. We also talkabout sleep tips for children with babies,
with teenagers and how to optimize yoursleep environment at various phases of life.
So let's jump in and join Alex. Alex welcome, Thanks for being
here, my pleasure. Thanks verymuch for the invitation. I'm looking forward

(04:59):
to that. I am too.We're going to get to go deep on
a lot of aspects of what Ithink is a very important topic of circadian
biology and how we can optimize that. Before we jump into the sleep talk,
though, I would love to hearI have a note from your bio
that you've lived in five countries overthe last I think fifteen years, and
I would love to hear which onesand what led to all the moves.
Yes, of course I'm happy toshare that So I'm originally from Bulgaria,

(05:21):
a small eastern European country, andbecause of different reasons, I didn't have
the chance to leave my country togo anywhere. Ntils twenty years old when
I did the move to work intravel in Alaska. Actually, so I
traveled around fifteen thousand kilometers to workduring the summer in a fish factory.

(05:42):
So it's a grueling experience, butwhite insight po in many ways for me
in my personal development. After that, I decided to use my savings what
I managed to earn and save inmy education. So I did a course
in London. I spend some timethere, but I also lived in Germany.

(06:04):
Didn't my change program in Berlin afew years later, and then I
did my masters in Rotternam in theNetherlands. Sent a few years later,
I moved to Spain or I'm currentlybased in Barcelona. Quite the adventures,
and so those are some beautiful countriesto live in. I have a friend
who's actually working on a fishing boatin Alaska right now. Oh really,
wow, that's very difficult. Yeah, well, you are deeply involved in

(06:30):
the research and work around circadian biology, and I think it's believe it's called
chronobiology, which is the science ofunderstanding that. And I would love to
go deep on this topic today,but to start off foundationally, can you
just explain for us maybe some ofthe core aspects of circadian biology, and
then from there we'll talk about thedifferent factors that are big needle movers within
affecting circadian biology. Of course,yes, I'll be happy to So.

(06:54):
Circadian biology or circadian rhythms is andkernal mechanism that each one of us has
also animals plans, and it impactsmore or less every biological process we can
think of, from mood, alertness, sleep, immune response, metabolism.
Everything in our body is dictated byour internal body clock or circadian rhythms,

(07:16):
so anything what circading biology does andchronology is the timing of doing different activities,
whether this is any of those,And we see it as a foundation
in general health because it impacts everythingthat we can think of regarding the body.
And I've talked before about some ofthe factors that really come into play

(07:38):
as big needle movers, and peopleare probably even tired of hearing me talk
about light being such an important needlemover when it comes to this and I
talked extensively about morning sunlight for instance. I've even done a whole podcast just
about that as well as like middaysun in the different way that different types
of light impact our biology. Andso I would say from my just personal
experience, it seems like light,temperature, and food are all big impactors

(08:01):
of circadian biology. So I'd lovefor you to explain maybe at a high
level, how those things impact circadianbiology. And also if there are any
other factors that I've missed, ofcourse, yeah, I'll be happy to
share that. So light is byfar the most powerful signal for our brain
embody to regulate the circadian rhythm.Morning light, of course, it is

(08:22):
essential for resetting the biological rhythm,and the other general light hygiene includes light
during the day and light avoidom seein the evening before going to bed.
So we want to get as brightlight as possible in the morning during the
day. Blue light, as weprobably talk later during our conversation, what
we do with AIO is by farthe most powerful light to suppress all the

(08:48):
time and regulate the circadian rhythm.So that's why we talk a lot also
about blue light in the evening toavoid that. So light is one and
it's the most let's say effective wayto regulate and support our circadian rhythm.
Second is exercise, So the timeof day when we exercise can also shift
the rhythm in long direction or theother who as you said, especially yeah,

(09:13):
breakfast and evening, so the typeof food which is closer to sleep
has a big impact on the circadianrhythm. And as you said, temperature,
so cold showers, warm shower,So this is something that we can
play with too, kind of furthersupport the circadian rhythm. But these are
kind of the main factors that areinfluencing it. And you said something important

(09:35):
there. I think this is importantto delve into, which is the blue
light and when it's important because Ithink thanks to the biohacking movement, people
are starting to understand we want toavoid that type of light at night.
But I've seen almost like a widespread avoidance of blue light because of this,
and I've seen people even wearing reallyheavy blue bloggers during the day.
And I think it's important to parseout blue light itself is not bad from

(09:58):
my understanding. In fact, itactually really important and during the day you
want that right light, you wantblue spectrum of light. It's just the
timing right, So can you walkus through, maybe in an optimal perspective,
what light exposure at different times ofday looks like. Of course,
yes, definitely so. Blue light, especially blue turquoise light, which is
the circadian type of light typically betweenfour hundred and fifteen hive hundred nanometers,

(10:22):
is the light that is most effectivefor supporting the circadian rhythm and suppressing it.
So in the morning, upon wakingup, ideally would want to go
out and get sunlight. That's typicallywithin the first one or two hours during
the day. If we can getlight as well, it's good, but
it's not going to have such abig impact as it is closer to basically

(10:45):
in the morning, you're in theevening before going to bed, because outside
of these hours we get into theso called circadian deb zone, meaning that
if you're getting the light, it'snot going to impact your circucadian rhythm that
much or almost none. So wewant to get bright light, blue light
in the morning upon waking up toreset the rhythm, wake up the body.

(11:05):
So when we get that type oflight, our body gets more alert,
our brain gets more alert. Alot of process happen in the body,
including increasing metabolism any other things.And obviously, as you've heard many
times, avoiding blue light in general, avoiding dimming the lights and avoiding bright

(11:26):
light in the evening before going tobed is essential because our eyes are much
more susceptible to bright light in theevening than it is in the morning and
during the day when we want toget as much bright light as possible.
So even with a little bit oflight in the evening, we can actually
kind of give this alerting effect tothe brain and to keep us awake as

(11:48):
well. So, yeah, ingeneral, a lot of bright light in
the morning and in the evening,we want to dim the lights. Yeah,
And I think often it's this simplestthings that get underestimated simply because they're
so simple. But I always loveto encourage this with people because I've seen
a huge difference in my sleep,in my energy levels when I started making

(12:09):
this a reliable habit. So myadvice from a personal standpoint with my own
experience, is that I set sortof guidelines for myself where before I am
on a screen in the morning,I make sure I go out in the
sunlight, even if it's a cloudyday, you're getting so much more light
outside, not through a window,not through glasses or sunglasses, just outside.
And so I try to also notdrink coffee until about at least ninety

(12:30):
minutes after I wake up, andI try to drink at least thirty two
ounces of water with minerals before Idrink coffee. And just those little habits
have made such a huge difference inmy energy levels, and so I always
encourage that. I'm like, thisis free. We can all do this.
It doesn't cost anything. Same thingwith midday sunlight, to your point
that bright light is so important forletting the body know that it's daytime,

(12:50):
that that's the time when our hormonesare supposed to respond to being awake and
alert and during the day and moving. I think often the bright sunlight gets
discounted because for a while we've hadthis fear of the sun, which I
though it's controversial. I definitely don'tthink that we need to be afraid of
the sun. I know I feeldrastically better when I get bright sunlight as
well. Doesn't have to be fora long period of time, but we

(13:11):
know that the sunlight, that brightmidday light stimulates our mitochondria to function more
optimally. It can be really goodfor the thyroid. And then, like
you said, that starts also.Both of those exposures start our clock for
sleep and so getting good sleep.Actually, I think start when we wake
up, not when we start ourbedtime routine, and I think those little
shifts can make a huge difference.And then to your point, avoiding those

(13:33):
types of lights so the body doesn'tthink it's afternoon when it's after sunset.
Even I've talked about this before,but I have red light bulbs and lamps
in my house, and after sunsetwe turn off the big lights and we
turn on the red lights, whichare not like so dark we can't see,
but there are red spectrums. There'snot blue light, and that really
is apparent tends to help calm everybodyin the whole house, which is great
for bedtime, definitely. Absolutely.Two things are very important when dimming the

(13:58):
lights. One is avoiding blue lightwhenever possible, of course, and the
other is dimming the lights to aslittle as possible, so keeping it to
a level where it's obviously not dangerousfor you to walk around, so there
should be enough light, but atthe same time, just keeping it low,
So these two are essential. Obviously, there is the big topic especially

(14:20):
in children, about smartphones, electronicdevices, TVs, etc. Basically digital
screens, and here it's not onlyabout the light and the brightness. It's
also about the fact that when you'rein social media, when you're doing something
that is actively stimulating, especially videogames for example, it has an alerting

(14:41):
effect as well, so it keepsyou awake. Light and you know,
the brightness of light as well aswhat you're actually doing can really have an
impact. And there were some fabulousstudies downe for example, on even using
e tablets for reading a book.Even though it emits light compared to a
book that you read on paper,there has not been a very big difference

(15:05):
in the way in how many minutesyou need to fall asleep if you keep
the light low. So it's notalso that much about you know, having
it an electronic device and emitting alittle bit of lucks. It's also about
what you're actually doing. So ifyou're in social media, you're actually obviously
proactively many times, you know,going through notifications, getting these dopamine kicks,

(15:30):
and then you'll stay awake. Andthat's why to wind down. There
are a lot of things that youcan do. One is obviously light avoiding
food a couple of hours before goingto bed, but also finding your wind
down routine that works. That couldbe reading a book, taking a shower,
anything, you know, avoiding conflicts, avoiding you're not thinking about work,
etc. So you want to getyour mind to a state where you

(15:54):
can actually fall asleep easier. That'sgreat to know because that was going to
be one of my questions was aboutKen and I always try to encourage my
kids to read, and we tryto have a rule that all the phones
and tablets go in the kitchen tocharge at night, so they're all centralized,
not in bedrooms. But I've alwaysbeen okay with them having books or
even their kindle in their room,and if they're not tired, I'll tell
them, like, stay up andread as long as you want, especially

(16:15):
on days where they can get enoughsleep in the morning. So that's great
to know that that's probably not havinga huge impact on their sleep quality as
long as it's not social media orsomething that's very stimulating to the brain,
which makes sense. I would guesspeople listening have probably had that experience where
they were on social media, whereit's just constant dopamine hits and you're getting
new information and notifications, and thenyou have to kind of sort of detox

(16:36):
your brain from that before you cansleep, whereas I feel like books can
actually help you calm the mind andget into better sleep pattern at that point.
You also mentioned not eating food acouple hours before bedtime, and I
would love to talk more about thisbecause I think food is also an underestimated
trigger when it comes to circadian biology, and just on a personal level,
I've noticed, for instance, ifI sort of try to frontload my food

(16:56):
toward the earlier part of the day, get lots of pea nutrients early,
and then taper off by sunset,I tend to have more deep sleep show
up in my sleep scores, whichkind of makes sense from the fact that
the liver is very active at nightand it doesn't have to take resources from
digestion to do all the things thathappen during sleep. But what are some
good guidelines for how long before sleepis optimal? Is there any type of

(17:18):
quality timing of macros or food ornutrients that are better at night versus in
the morning, And what do yousuggest there. Yeah, great question.
I mean you said it more orless? Is it should be? Basically,
you aim to get a great breakfastso that you can kick kickstart your
day, and then with the dayprogressing, you might want to decrease the

(17:44):
quantity or the volume of food thatyou're getting, especially closer to bedtime,
so that you can allow time foryour body to process it and to get
ready for bed. One colory inthe morning, In many ways, it's
not the same as one color inthe evening because your your metabolism slows down
in the evening, so you needmore time potentially to process the food.
And then you want to sleep,So your body, for example, tells

(18:10):
you that it's time to fall asleep, but then your liver because one thing
that we didn't talk about is thatit's not just one clock that we have.
It's actually we have a lot ofclocks. Almost every organ has a
clock. So the master clock isin the brain and it's most impacted by
light. So it's the kind ofthe orchestra and the clock that is directing

(18:34):
all the others. So, forexample, we are getting close to bedtime
and then we are feeding ourselves,the liver clock is saying well, I
need time to process this, butthe master clock is saying, well,
we're going to bed, so metabolismgoes down, etc. And it can
lead to problems there. So that'swhy typically want at least two to three

(18:56):
hours before going to bed to stopeating. If you can just drink water,
if you really are hungry, ifyou're still getting into this, you
know, fasting mode, you mightwant to get some snacks which are maybe
sleep promoting, those that might havesome quantity of melatonin in them, for
example, or promoting melatonium. Youcan see them on the web. You'd

(19:21):
want to get some small snacks thatthey are nutritious, that are not obviously
drunk food which you want to avoidhigh you know, sugary food might not
be also a good option. Sojust you know, healthy food that is
a time in some way, butat the same time it's not making really
full so that you need time toprocess. That's great to know. And

(19:44):
some tips I found is that anotherpodcast us explain certain foods actually help promote
natural melatonin production. One of thosehe listed was pistachios, which I didn't
know this, but they contain asmall amount of melatonin, but it seems
they don't increase your melatonin when youeat them. They increase your melatonin when
your body is naturally ready to producemelatonin at night, so that eating pistachios
during the day it can actually helppromote RESTful sleep, And so I've been

(20:07):
experimenting with at nighttime. I trynot to eat after sunset, but I
will sometimes do a little bit ofpistachios, a little bit of honey and
a little bit of sea salt,which that combination for me personally seems to
lead to good sleep. So that'sjust a tip, and my kids like
to do honey salt. My theoryis that maybe that little bit of sugar
in the honey actually helps with glycogenstability throughout the night, and since we

(20:29):
know the liver's very active during sleep, seems like there might be an element
of supporting that. But just aanecdotal sleep tip that works with my kids.
Yeah, I'm also not an expertthere, but I've also seen that
pistachios definitely are a great great option. Maybe some snack of a handful of
nuts could be also something that isgoing to keep you full, but at

(20:52):
the same time obviously not you don'tneed a lot of time process it.
Fruits such as berries might be alsoa good option because they're very light localoric.
Ideally you just want to avoid food, but if you need to this
there's some good options makes sense.And one thing maybe we can talk about
that a little bit later, butit's about chronotypes and what you want to

(21:15):
achieve actually, because some people aremorning persons, others are evening persons,
and then you have some which arebalanced in the middle. And if you're
an evening person or you want toadapt to a new time zone, for
example, then when you eat obviouslyplays a bigger role, and we might
also talk about that as well.So just a side note that this rule

(21:38):
of two three hours before going tobe might not you know, be fully
applicable in most cases, you know, you know cases God, I do
definitely want to get into chronotypes beforewe jump to that though. We also
talked about temperature as a potential needlemover for good sleep, So I would
love to just touch on temperature andhow someone can use that to their advantage
to improve sleep and to improve focusand wakefulness during the day. Yeah,

(22:03):
So one thing that we want tobring across it's called a minium core body
temperature. So it occurs typically twoto three hours before our nature wake up
time. This is the lowest pointof temperature that we have throughout the day.
If you expose yourself to light beforethis point, you delay your rhythm,
meaning that you start to wake upand go to bed earlier later.

(22:23):
If you get light after this point, let's say in the morning, you
kind of advance your rhythm. Sothat's why the core body temperature is important.
If we link this to how weactually warm up or go down.
If you're having a coach shower inthe morning, this promotes staking up alertness

(22:45):
because with a coachhower, even thoughit sounds controversial, with coach hower,
you actually increase your core body temperature. We want to have higher core body
temperature during the day to be active. That is why if your exercise exercising
very low to going to bed,your core body temperature increases, but you
want to actually pull down. Sotherefore exercising just before going to bed might

(23:08):
not be the best idea. Youmight want to exercise a couple of hours
before so that you allow your bodyto pool down decrease the cor body temperature.
And that is why when you're inthe evening, you might want to
get a warm shower, because withthe warm shower, the after effect is
that you start to decrease your minimumcore body temperature and helping you promote sleep.

(23:33):
That makes sense, Okay, Andyou mentioned the word chronotypes, and
I would love to delve into these. I'm also curious as part of this
conversation, if our chronotype can sortof shift at different phases of life or
when we implement some of these habits. For instance, I always thought I
was a night owl, and Ialways thought I did my best work at
night, and I was not amorning person. And when I started really
getting morning sunlight and innovating these thingswe're talking about, I've discovered that I'm

(23:56):
now naturally waking up around the timethe sun wakes up, and I'm wide
awake, and so I call myselfalmost a morning person now, which I
never thought I would do. SoI'm curious walk us through the chronotypes and
if they can shift depending on ourhabits or depending on our phase of life.
Yes, of course, so thechronotype is a nature inclination towards being
more active in the morning, inthe evening or somewhere, you know,

(24:18):
in the middle so there are differenttypes to classify them. Some classify them
as dolphins, lines, etc.We typically use a more simpler term,
which is morning person, evening person, in a balance someone who is in
the middle. Roughly, we aretypically one third the population is a morning
person, one third our evening andone third or balanced. And it does

(24:45):
as you mentioned, it changes throughoutlife. So if you if you're a
teenager, late teens, lessens,early twenties, your tendency goes towards being
an evening person. Then adults,you know, twenty five to sixty five,
we tend to be a bit moreadvanced, but not as much as

(25:06):
when we're senior. So when we'reelderly, we tend to be a bit
more morning persons. And that's whymany elderly they look for ways to actually
stay away longer and go to bedlater, because they tend to go to
bed very early. Another reason though, why teenage late teens and teenagers in

(25:26):
general adolescens, why they shift theirrhythm and the lay the rhythm in general
is because obviously the social life,electronic device and everything else that might have
happened with you as well that you'veactually been an eye towel. One of
the reasons because of that, you'vebeen very probably social active during these years.

(25:48):
And then now you know, beinga mother, and yeah, I
see that myself as well. Beinga father, you kind of advance your
rhythm because you start waking up withyour baby, you start to get the
morning light, and then you'll shiftyour rhythm. Although naturally you might have
been actually more of a balast personrather than an evening person. That makes

(26:10):
sense as well. And I willsay as a mom, I've noticed that
if you even at the young infantstage, if you also can get your
babies lined up with these light patterns, it seems to help their sleep adapt
more quickly. I also always tryto remind moms anytime we talk about sleep.
I think bombs can get frustrated becausethose early years are difficult for sleep,
just subjectively tough. But it doesseem like we get some helpful hormones

(26:32):
that help us actually be able todeal with interrupted sleep more easily when we
have a newborn. But my tipis always try to integrate these habits also
from a young age with your kidsso they get a solid sleep foundation.
And you also mentioned teenagers. Itdoes seem like even if kids are pretty
careful about avoiding screens and they're noton social media at night, it does
seem like least I notice it inme and now my own teenagers, there's

(26:52):
a phase where we tend to bemore night out like and want to sleep
later. And I've heard sleep expertsbefore. You know, if possible,
lean into that, let these kidsstay up and read it, and I
let them sleep late if possible,because there is a phase where they sort
of naturally more moved toward that,and it eventually will pass as they get
older. But it seems like maybeteenagers waking up at five am to go

(27:15):
to school as tough on there justwhere their phase of life is. And
it's one reason I'm glad to homeschoolsbecause I can let my teenagers sleep till
nine and then do their school versushaving to get up earlier. And that's
not available to everyone. But ifpossible, it seems like rather than wake
them up super early, the roleof my house is you never wake a
sleeping baby and you never wake asleeping teenager. Definitely, I think that.
I mean well said, it's it'scrucial for teenagers to get the sleep

(27:38):
that they need and sadly, Imean, it's a it's a hot topic
nowadays. I think a lot ofschools and even states are looking into delaying
the school time. I think Californiaand they even approved it to start eight
am their list. I remember whenI was in high school, I was
going to the other side of thecity with public transport out five thirty six.

(28:00):
There is no way for me thatI'm awake at that time. I'm
a zombie because we need you know, we go to bed later, wake
up later. So typically maybe aroundten, ten inch eleven, we are
at our peak morning peak, sothe hours before we are not there yet.
So definitely, I mean we work, for example, with a lot

(28:21):
of basketball teams and for them toperform better in the morning, they use
the device so they can get somelight. If you're able to wake up
and get some light before going toschool, this will definitely help you.
If there is a possibility for yourteenager to kind of go to bed earlier,
it's going to help them. Butit's a bit difficult to do unless

(28:45):
you use the tools that you mentionedhere with you know, early waking up,
going to get some light, maybeexercising as well, and eating so
the best comboy thing is get up, get some light outside. If you
can exercise, even you can combinethe two. Get light to our exercising
outside, and then come back andhave a decent breakfast. This can really

(29:07):
this is the best way to startyour circadian rhythm. And let's talk about
the device a little bit because wehaven't mentioned that yet, but I know
that from your research in this you'vebeen involved with this device that actually helps
some of these things we're talking about, especially if you're not able to just
have this perfect pattern of morning sunlightand all these other things. So can
you walk through what led to thecreation of it and what it is doing

(29:29):
when it comes to circadian biology.Yeah, So we came up with Adia
during our Masters with my co founder. He was the kind of the visionary
who came up with the idea.We are both from senior countries. Even
in winter we get this amount ofsun, but in the Netherlands we've experienced
the short winter days that could bequite gloomy as well. We got into

(29:52):
the field of light. We triedsome products on the market which are at
that time just light therapy boxes,and we decided this this is a great
tool to help you get the morninglight, get the daily light if there
is not enough outside, even ifyou want to, because if it's raining,
even if you want to, you'renot really able to get the light
that you need. So we decidedto create a wearable device that you can

(30:15):
actually care, which you can useit in a very easy and convenient way.
It emits blue light, which wementioned is the most it's the most
powerful for suppressing altona, and it'sadjusting the circadian rhythm. So that's the
wearable and we have also an elementwhich is the app as well that is
focused on circadian help. So it'sgiving you, it's giving you all the

(30:37):
guidance that you need that we mentionedhere. So first you create you feel
in a questionnaire, you get yourchronotype based on your chronotype on your goal,
whether this is waking up for exampleit's six, but currently you're waking
up at seven. It gives youguidance on when to use the device,
guidance in terms of light exposure,meal times, exercise times, etc.
Ideally you would be able to getthe some light if you're not, the

(31:00):
second best is using light therapy orproduct light hours, and we've seen that
in our experience is unfortunately, thevast majority of people are not able to
go out and get the morning lightas you and we are able to do,
and they need a tool like this. So our mission is to help

(31:21):
people understand and improve their circadian rhythm, understand that they have something called the
circadian rhythm and how they can takecharge of it. And we provide them
with the tool, which is thewearable giving you the light, and the
knowledge which is the application in givingyou the conjects and recommendations. So this
is basically, like you said,taking the place of something like a light
box, and it's also portable.Is this something that like back to the

(31:44):
conversation of teenagers that they could takewith them to school in the morning or
on the commute to school, thingslike that to help their brains get more
awaken alert. Yeah, exactly.So if they're unable to get the morning
light, the second best, asthey said, is to get this light
therapy. Use light therapy, usea wake up light. But we've seen
that. We tell you it's justso much cheaier than any lamp or a

(32:06):
light therapy box because you just spokeit of on your face and then you're
ready to go, you can makebreakfast, you can prepare for leaving,
or you can even use it,you know while commuting, not driving,
but in the bus or in thecar while someone else is driving. So
that's something that can really help.And of course during the day you would

(32:30):
want to be engaged with other ofthe techniques that you mentioned here to further
support your circadian rhythm. One thingI want to mention is that obviously the
more you do of these the better, but you know, start from somewhere,
see what works, and then tryto excome from there. And if
you skip one day, it's nota problem. Our body is love consistency.

(32:52):
But if you know, nothing's goingto happen if you don't do it
one day, you know, youdon't get the light, or you don't
eat at the proper times. Weare quite resilient. But the more you
do and the more consistent you are, the better effect you'll have. Yeah,
that's a great point when it comesto the balance aspect of that I
always try to think of. Ithink Volly Mclockin uses the term like social
capital, and that there are timeswhere I'm willing to deviate from this,

(33:15):
Like most days, I want tochoose all the good inputs. But if
there's like a late night gathering withfriends where I'm going to have great social
connection, we know community is veryimportant. I'm willing to sacrifice optimal light
exposure, optimal food timing, allthose things, even sometimes a glass of
wine to have that social connection.But most days, I'm going to choose
the good inputs, and I havelearned over time I think are like stress

(33:36):
and guilt about not doing things perfectlycan be bunch more damaging than not doing
things perfectly. So in those cases, I feel like choosing connection over perfection
some days is actually a very healthymental choice. This podcast is brought to
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slash wellness Mama. I'd also loveto talk about these factors in relation to

(36:36):
a couple of special use cases thatwon't necessarily apply to everyone listening, but
I know will vary directly apply toa few people listening. The first being
things like shift work. I hearfrom a decent amount of readers and listeners
who do some form of shift work, and I know this is a difficult
case to manage in general, becausewe know that our bodies, like we've
talked about, are meant to lineup with the natural light cycles of the

(36:57):
Earth, but there are times thatthey don't. And I'm very grateful for
the people who work all night sothat we can have medical care throughout the
night. But these people probably havesome special considerations when it comes to their
circadian biology. So can you talkabout, first of all, shift workers
and how they can use these samethings we've talked about to optimize their circadian
biology within the constraints of shift work. Definitely, as you said, shiftwork

(37:19):
is essential. Around twenty percent ofthe population is involved in some sort of
shift work. Shiftwork is probably themost challenging case to keep your biological clock
in sync, just because of thefrequency of night shift. It really depends
obviously on the type of shift workthat you have. Some are easier to
tackle rather than others. I wasalso involved in shift work and Alaska,

(37:44):
we used to work six and ahalf hours every day. The good thing
was that it was consistent, soit was the same amount of hours,
same time. But a few yearsbefore, when I was seventeen, I
was working in a supermarket and therewas the shift of two to two,
which is very typical today's day shift, today's night shift, today's resting days,

(38:04):
which although it might seem like agood balance, it really destroys your
circadian rhythm because the change is sofrequent and so quickly that is very difficult
to actually adapt. So in thesecases, if we have two to two,
we give guidance on alertness, forexample, trying to help them understand
and typically keep their rhythm more inlife, in line with their resting days

(38:29):
and days day shifts rather than thenight shift. But in an ideal world,
you're going to talk to your employerif you're really in these frequent shift
works if you can do something aboutit. If you have like a week
or two with one shift, evenif it's night shift, you have a
good chance to align your rhythm withthe night shift. So what you're going

(38:52):
to do is before the night shift, you know, just everything that we
talked about, but in reverse,all that means for your night shift,
especially if you're lucky enough to sleep, you know, a good amount of
hours before starting the night shift,you'd wake up, you would try to
get light. Ideally that would befrom maybe the sunlight. Now in summer,

(39:13):
it's a bit easier if you can, you know, get a light
therapy or just try to turn onthe lights, although light therapy would be
more powerful, so you can reallyhelp your body wake up. The same
goals for food, the same goalsfor exercise, So you can try to
do these things before your night shiftso that you can stay you know,
more active then during the night shift. We in many times also recommend doing

(39:37):
another session if you start to feelsleepy. And then the other aspect is
after the night shift, on youon your way home or when you get
home, you want to avoid food. Obviously a couple of hours before that
before going to bed, also tryto dim the lights, especially if when
you go out it's already there,it is already daylight, so you want

(40:00):
to use sunglasses for example, somethingto dim the lights as much as possible.
And when you go and try tosleep during the day, you try
to ensure a cool, dark andwhite environment. Use your plus anything that
can really isolate you so that youcan try to get some rest. And
when we have like seven fourteen daysor at least a few days, you

(40:22):
are able to get your body abit to the stage of aligning to the
night shift. But unfortunately, thatharsh reality is dead. Around ninety seven
percent able night shift workers are actuallysticking to their day shifts because you're just
not made for such a night shift. So it's very difficult for us to
call for night shift. Obviously nighthours, it might be easier for them

(40:45):
to stay awake during the night shiftand kind of adapt easier. Same goals
for if you are having a veryearly dayshift which starts early for morning,
large, I'd be easier for themto kind of cope with that lake up
earlier. But the goal here isto play with these factors, so light,

(41:07):
exercising, food and temperature as welland just try to utilize them in
your benefit and just try to talkto your employer to see what's possible to
make you know the change not asdynamic, if possible, so that you
can really support your rhythm. Wegot it. And another time that is
usually not a consistent thing that happens, but one that definitely does shift our

(41:30):
circadian rhythms is jet lag. AndI have a little bit of travel planned
this year that will involve some prettysubstantial jet lag. And I know many
people listening, i'm sure have hadan experience with jet lag as well.
So are there any things we cando pre international flights or big shifts and
time zones, or during or afterto help minimize the stress on the body
from jet lag? Yeah, exactly. So the good thing with jet lag

(41:52):
is that, as you said,it's not very frequent for most people.
Of course, there are a lotof frequent travelers, executives, etc.
But for most if you're going ona summer vacation, you can actually you
can start adopting these techniques already beforeyour trip so that you can be kind
of halfway there, almost fully adaptedonce you get there. So, for

(42:15):
example, if you're traveling from Eastcause to London, you would want to
have everything in advance, so inthe sense that you'd want to get the
morning light earlier in the morning,exercise early in the morning, so kind
of advance your rhythm. The generalrule of time is that if you're flying

(42:36):
east, you want to advance yourrhythm. If you're flying west, so
from London going back to the US, you'd want to delay your meaning that
you would want to get the lightin the evening. So that's the example
that you mentioned that you might wantto you know, eat later in the
day, exercise later in the dayso that you can stay away longer and

(42:57):
push your rhythm. So you're ableto follow us sleep at the right time,
and you can actually start the adaptatientprocess already before. As I said,
so a couple of days before yourtrip, you can already start waking
up maybe half an hour one hourearlier, get the light at that time,
and you do that for a fewconsecutive days, your body's going to
start adapting then when you're traveling,So in the flight, in the plane

(43:22):
itself, you'd want to think,what is happening now at the local time,
Is it time for me to eatprobably it's not if you're having,
you know, an overnight flight whichis from let's say this calls to London.
As we're mentioning, you might wantto stop eating before the flight or

(43:43):
earlier in the flight and then justtry to get some sleep so that when
you land and it's I don't know, mourning that you can have, you
know, then a proper meal,get the light, etc. Another thing
is when we're flying east, especiallyif you cross a few more times zones,
in the first couple of hours,typically in the morning, we would
want to avoid light, so wewould want to use sunglasses, maybe stay

(44:06):
indoors, and then get the brightlight because it's still daylight. It's still
night. So we want to adapt. And typically when we have our clients
or customers going through Longhold Travel,they reach out to us. We're happy
to provide more personal guidance. Thesame goals for shift to work. As

(44:28):
much as we can. We're happyto help. And we've seen that adapting
earlier before the trip is actually somethingthat is quite beneficial because when you landed,
especially if it's several hours of difference, you will need several days to
adapt, so you want to savethat and just enjoy your vocation. Those

(44:49):
are great tips. I'm curious yourthoughts on melotonin. I never supplement with
melotonin unless I'm traveling internationally, andsimilar to what you just said, my
thought is always try to slowly adaptmy sleep timing a little bit a few
days before. But then I lovetrying to book flights somewhere in like the
three to five pm range where andthen I'll take melatonin usually on the flight,

(45:12):
put on a sleep mass, puton noise canceling headphones, and try
to sleep the whole flight rather thaneat. And then as soon as I
get there it's usually morning time.Then I try to do the things you
said, get bright light exposure,eat something, and also get outside on
the ground as quickly as I can. But it seems like the device is
actually another way to speed up thatbecause you can put that on as soon
as you land in the airport.You don't have to wait till you can

(45:32):
get to the sunlight. But whatare your thoughts on melotonin with international travel
especially, Yeah, we know thata lot of people use it. Typically,
we know AU is having a morenature effect in the sense that it's
providing you the light that is neededfor suppressing alotonin, but when you need
to actually produce melatonin, and weknow that it's more challenging. We know

(45:54):
that a lot of people are usingit. There are not that many side
effects with melotoni as far as Iknow, But the challenge is that you
would want to make sure that you'regetting the right dosage, which is quite
challenging because we don't have a wayto ensure that. So just the way
you're sourcing it, it should befrom I guess you know a good source

(46:15):
so that you can be sure aboutthat, gotcha, And to shift gears
a little bit. I would alsolove to talk about any tips for optimizing
the sleep sleep environment, because we'vetouched on these a little bit in the
idea of temperature being important, oflight exposure at night being a negative thing.
I have gone to over the yearsreally refined my sleep environment and kind

(46:36):
of gone to extreme length, realizingwe spend roughly a third of our life
sleeping, so I try to puta lot of priority toward my sleep environment.
Do you have any tips specific tocreating a good sleep environment for us
for our kids that can help leadto better sleep quality. Yeah, well
I think that, Yeah, themain if you're looking exactly at the sleep
environment. The main ones are youcool, quiet, making sure that you

(46:59):
don't get light, easier to removethe electronic devices so you don't you know,
your brain is quite you know thatthis is your space for you.
And outside of that, obviously likethe exposure, it's very important. We
talked about that. I think themain one is really finding your wind down
routine that works for you, becausethat plays a major role. You want

(47:21):
to go in the in bed andbe ready to sleep. You don't want
to crush because this means that you'reyou know, exhausted and then you're maybe
sleep deprived, et cetera. Sonormally it takes up to I think twenty
minutes to fall asleep, and thisis you know, normal range. But
you don't want to go there andnot be ready to fall asleep. So

(47:42):
the goal is to wind down,find the thing that works for you.
For me, that is typically youknow, breeding or even listening to something
that is monotonous and helps me getinto this state. Other things, for
example, pets unfortunately are not typicallyhelping you promote sleep because of many reasons.
Even you know, you just wantto make sure that the sleep environment

(48:07):
is such that you don't wake upthat often. You might be careful with
liquids as well, so you mightstop drinking any liquids sometime before bed,
depending of course on the season,if it's too warm, etc. But
in general, you don't want towake up in the middle of the night
to go to the toilet. Sothat's one we talked about food. So

(48:31):
these are typically the main ones.There are also some supplements as well that
you can potentially try. Magnesium isprobably the one that has been mostly recommended
by experts, so different ones.I think these are probably the main factors
awesome. I've been making notes forthe show notes and I agree with everything

(48:52):
you're saying. Magnesium is also,I think one that almost universally people can
benefit from. Just I've talked aboutthis before, but our soils much more
depleted of my museum than it usedto be. It's hard to get enough
from food. Even people at ChrisCreusser, who in the past have been
very anti supplement, now says,you know, this is one that we
just simply cannot get enough from foodanymore. And it's one that seems to

(49:12):
be very impactful for sleep. AndI feel like this whole episode has been
very applicable and practical tips for improvingsleep quality, and of course also make
sure I link to the device inthe show notes for people who want a
much more convenient way to get thatlight exposure in the morning, especially on
the go. But there's a fewquestions I love to ask for the end
of interviews, the first being ifthere is a book or number of books
that have profoundly impacted your life,and if so, what they are and

(49:36):
why. Yeah, there are definitelymany books and many things that have impacted
in my life. The one thatI can think of is probably Victor Franco's
Man Search for Meaning, because it'sjust so deep, profound, and it
really price really hard to help youunderstand what's your why in a way that

(49:59):
you know it's easy to understand.And I think that wes people having a
why is so impactful in the sensethat we can just dedicate our lives in
something that could be meaningful. Soit's something that has had a big impact
on me certainly. Second that recommendation, that's one of my yearly early in

(50:20):
the year reads rereads, because itjust really I feel like, put so
many things in perspective and really isimpactful for mindset, so it's one I
love to recommend as well. I'lllink to that in the show notes for
you guys listening, all that willbe a wellness Mama dot FM. And
lastly, any parting advice for thelisteners today that could be related to sleep
in circadian biology as we've been talkingabout, or entirely unrelated life advice that

(50:42):
you have found valuable. As Isaid, my mission currently in life is
really to help people understand that theyhave something which is called the circadian rhythm,
and it's an internal mechanism that wehave power to control, but we
just need to understand how. Andit's something that I believe it's going to
have much bigger importance in the yearsto come because we're understanding more and more

(51:07):
of it. So we know alot about it, but we are still
at the beginning of how it actuallyworks in cases such as a medicine for
example, or supplements when it's thebest time for us in terms of chronotypes.
So basically it can really affect aneffective for example, a drug when
we're taking a drug for cardiovascular diseaseor for cancer going through chemotherapy, etc.

(51:34):
It can have a profound effect thetiming of the day or night.
So it's an advice I can justshare. Think about your circadian rhythm,
make sure that I always keep atthe back of your mind and try to
really live in sync with it,because it can help you live better,
healthier, and longer. Great advice. And I know that you have resources

(51:58):
also on your website as well asthe device itself, so I'll make sure
that's linked you guys check it out. That is all at wellness Mama dot
FM. Like I said, andAlex, this has been such a fun
conversation. I think the importance ofsleep cannot be overstated, especially in today's
world. We know we're not gettingquality sleep, and I really appreciate you
providing all these super applicable tips tohelp us all improve our sleep, even

(52:20):
at the phases of life where that'snaturally tougher, like motherhood, like shift
work, like having teenagers. SoI'm very grateful for your time today.
Thank you so much for being here. It's my pleasure, kidd. I
appreciate the invitation. I really hopethat it's been helpful to the audience,
And thanks to all of you asalways for listening and sharing your most valuable
resources, your time, your energy, and your attention with us today.

(52:42):
We're both so grateful that you didand I hope that you will join me
again on the next episode of theWellness Mama podcast. If you're enjoying these
interviews, would you please take twominutes to leave a rating or review on
iTunes for me. Doing this helpsmore people to find the podcast, which
means even more moms and family leastcould benefit from the information. I really
appreciate your time and thanks as alwaysfor listening.