The EZ Route #5 blue light and your body clock (circadian rhythm)
When we talk about blue light, we're basically talking about artificial light. The reason we call it 'blue' is because if you were to look at a colour spectrum (I've attached some for clarity) you would see these lights, such as smart phones, tv's, tablets, fluorescent bulbs, led etc are all richer in the blue end than the rest of the curve, such as reds, oranges and yellows.
Blue has the biggest influence in biology. This is why caged hens are kept under this kind of lighting, it keeps them awake by making them think it's constant daytime, so they keep laying eggs.
Makes 'the endless summer' a lot less appealing, right?
Humans make a big deal about eating free range eggs, yet we're doing the same if not worse to ourselves - living and working under the same artificial light
Let me try and explain why, with what we call circadian rhythm, which put simply is our internal body clock.
Hormone secretion is sequential, so every day you would get roughly the same hormones at the same times (not 100%, but then I'm not trying to be, I'm just trying to help with you understanding of the bigger picture)
8am serotonin 9am cortisol 9:30 adrenaline 10am melanin 11am vitamin D 12 noon endorphins 13:00 etc etc etc (I've used times but your body clock and the sun work on angles not times, this is why when the clocks go back and forth our family ignores the time and sticks up the sun, this is the key for babies sleeping through the night, because they can't tell the time either)
Until darkness when a small part of your brain that controls everything recognises darkness, and secrets a very special hormone that makes you sleep, repair and recover. This hormone is called melatonin and it's produced in the pineal gland at the back of our brain, we'll talk more about this later, so I'm just name dropping for now) (My list of hormones is highly inaccurate, this is purely for lay person conceptual purposes)
So roughly around 4 hours (varying) after darkness falls, we start producing melatonin. The amount of melatonin we produce will have not only a significant impact on that nights sleep, but that nights sleep will have a significant impact on tomorrow's cycle and order of hormone production. So there is a follow on consequence
So how does our body know when to produce what hormones then? Well I think I already gave the game away a little with melatonin - light is the answer
Different frequencies of light will shine direct from the sun, into your eye, down your optic nerve, through a few other places and into a part of your brain that is waiting to receive these signals. Think of a light sensor that's acts accordingly when light hits it if it helps.
Each ray of sunlight at each time in the day is programmed to summon a response from your body in the form of different hormone. Light carries a lot of information
It's not a one trick pony either. Higher levels of UVA will produce high levels of melanin (the skins natural protection) higher levels of UVB will produce higher vitamin D synthesis and so on. It's natures way of adjusting to your personal requirements. Like your own private doctor
So on that basis we should all be fit, healthy and disease free, right?
Let's look at a couple of the reasons this hormone cycle is severely disrupted by modern life 1) blue light The light being omitted by the sun is ever changing throughout the day. In the morning it's stronger in blue (this gets us up and ready to rock n roll) and is stronger in the red end at the end of the day (this signals it's time to repair, relax and chill) When after dark we pick up a smart phone, turn on an LED light or let a TV shine directly into our eye, we're telling our brains it's daytime, in the morning, and we're living close to the equator, let's rock n roll So our brains act accordingly They stop producing the melatonin we desperately need, and they start producing one of the hormones you would expect to see first thing in the morning when the sun is producing blue light. Completely mismatch
This kind of stressor causes a blood glucose (blood sugar) response, and of course and insulin (the hormone that deals with blood sugar, you can think of insulin as the sugar police if you like) without the blue lights) So if you were to eat a cheesecake late at night, this would possibly also be a stressor that would cause your blood sugar to rise and then an insulin response to deal with that excess glucose
Neuro surgeon jack kruse claims that in his findings, some people show the same insulin response to blue light every hour after sunset as those eating a cheese cake
Think about that for a moment ... a cheesecake every hour
You come home from work at 6pm (never mind what you did during the day unless you work in the dark) you turn on the lights, turn on the tv, and sit texting on your phone, which I'm sure is familiar to us all. You go to bed at 10pm That means from an insulin standpoint you have done the same damage as eating 4 cheesecakes - without the fun of eating those cheesecakes Now if you were really eating 4 cheesecakes, would you really be breaking your neck worrying about each calorie in each meal? Probably not right Fix your light environment and you could eat the cheesecakes instead (I'm sure you wouldn't eat 4, but you could instead of blue light)
Now can you understand why it's possibly very detrimental to your health and hormone cycles blocking all the colours of the rainbow, whether it's being in an office, classroom, behind a windscreen driving all day or wearing sunglasses or the mother of all light blocking death traps 'contact lenses'
Likewise eating late at night isn't going to help with insulin and without dealing with the excess sugar in your blood you will diminish your ability to up regulate cellular respiration. To understand where I'm coming from, you need to get your head round something
Food is light too
What do I mean? Well consider that everything you eat has been grown (or at least I hope so) In order to grow it needs water and light The local light environment will determine what can be grown Apples in U.K. (Autumn) Bananas in Brazil (summer) Etc etc So every time you eat you are telling your body where you are on the planet and what time of day it is. Or you should be
So eating a banana at 9pm in london in January is going to be a massive disruption to the body clock, fat burn, sleep and a huge geographical mismatch
I hope you can use this info to work out what would be a better choice, but the point is that you understand the better timed your meals are, the more room for error you give yourself. I wouldn't advise someone to eat 4 cheesecakes for lunch, but it would be better than blue light all night for circadian rhythm probably
Likewise the more local you diet, the more you can eat without disruption to body clocks This whole thing is a percentage game, it's not about cutting things out, it's about rigging the game and doing more of what you like. Getting away with murder Eating, living, enjoying yourself whilst be happy healthy and strong
I rarely drink alcohol passed 3pm now... but I drink once or twice a week without issue. Tick tock tick tock
I try not to miss a single ray of light if I can help it for choice, but if you're living or working in an environment that blocks light, I would highly recommend you consider getting out once an hour at the very least... the very least
The EZ method is about making things easier, the lowest hanging fruit. Why would anyone diet knowing this info.
I'm not saying food is immaterial, (it's material in a way you may not have thought of and will see later on) but people love food, hate diets and gyms and if they base a lifestyle change around that, of course it's only going to last a couple of weeks because will power just isn't that powerful. We need habits
So for some people, for most of the year, this will give their lifestyle a 4 cheesecake head start. We're still not talking about any sort of diet or food, but we're getting closer
Next up Method #6 the 3 signals: seasonal fat burning for free