Improve Memory Using Light | Jim Kwik & Shelley James

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. I am your host, Jim Kwik, of the Kwik Brain Podcast. These are brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster, optimize their brain, really live a limitless life. And I'm excited about this topic today. This is a question actually we get pretty often in our private Facebook group. So I want to encourage everyone to join that. We have over 140,000 people in that private group alone. Many of you are part of our Kwik Brain app. All those links are in our profile on our social media. So make sure you join us. This topic we're going to talk about is how to use light to enhance your memory. Can light actually make you smarter? Can it make you stronger? Can it make you improve your sleep? And on the episode today, we are with Dr. Shelley James. She's an international expert on light and well-being, and she's also a trained glass artist and electrician. So she wears many, many hats. Now, our team came across her work because, as you can imagine, we as a team, we are like an army of brainiacs. We're an army of avid learners. So we're always encouraging each other to read and listen to podcasts, and we share within our team the things that are just— give us those ahas. I call them quickenings, if you will. One of our teammates shared Shelley's recent TEDx talk, and this TEDx talk was amazing. When it came out, it was one of the top 3 most watched TEDx talks for that month that it was released. And it was called How Can Space Station Lighting Help Us Here on Earth? And what an interesting title. Shelley, thank you so much for being on our show. Thank you.

Oh, it's a real privilege to be here. I'm a great fan of your work.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I wanna dive into this. When we were talking, I was watching your TEDx talk. Multiple team members shared it with me kind of that same week also. So I've been looking forward to this conversation. We talk about light a little bit in our work. We are an indoor species, right? You know, and light years away, this, you know, where we're affected, our nervous system, our biochemistry, our bodies, our brain, which is part of our bodies, obviously. You and I, before I get started, you and I share something in common that put us on our paths. It was a traumatic head injury. Maybe you could— maybe we could start there. What happened and where did it lead?

Yeah, so I was zooming around London on my bicycle. I had a very high-powered job in branding, on and off airplanes, and I fell off my bike and cracked the helmet. In fact, I fell over, fell off twice in relatively quick succession. I sort of got up and then went off again, and my brain got shaken around in the skull, and the blood-brain barrier sort swelled up. And all of the different sensory systems, the different filtering systems between my brain and vision and touch and smell, they were all of those switches sort of on the blink, really. So I experienced something a bit like a post-viral syndrome, where I was completely unable to filter or process information correctly or appropriately. So even being in a room with people walking past, or as this air conditioning system might go off in a minute. Those things were almost overwhelming. So I found myself for a number of years in a dark room, just retraining those connections, thanks to a neurologist. I mean, there were various sort of stories about what you could do to support yourself out of this particular kind of trauma. And the one that really resonated with me was a kind of intensive reprogramming time management system, which allowed me to learn how to filter and process that information more accurately and in a way that allowed me to survive in the outside world. And so I did. And that's led to me, my fascination with light really, because that led to a residency at the eye hospital and ongoing. So yes, it's in some ways it was pretty grim. On the other hand, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. And so it could have been the best thing that ever happened to me.

Wow. And it's funny how a disadvantage, I tell people that there's the word advantage is built into disadvantage and that adversity can be an advantage that our struggles could lead to strength. You had extreme amongst other things, I would imagine migraines, headaches, photosensitivity. And then you retrained your— the connection between your eye and your brain, much like I had to when I had my traumatic brain injury. I had to rewire my brain to learn to be able to focus, to be able to read and such. It's interesting how that those challenges could lead to positive change. How did that lead you to connect with the space station? Just out of curiosity, how does one do that even?

Well, it's a little bit of a winding road, but essentially I realized that I'd been working in branding, helping people to identify a brand. I worked for Visa International, getting people to use that debit card more often. And I was using vision all the time and I didn't know how it worked. So I set up this residency at the Bristol Eye Hospital, which is ongoing. I started to experiment with glass because it's a wonderful way of creating optical illusions and tricking the brain. So you can essentially lift the lid on what's happening. There's so many things that we do by default that when you trick, when you kind of create a little flip in that default expectation, you can shine a light literally on what's going on, what the defaults are. So that led to a PhD at the Royal College of Art on optics and illusion, working with neurologists and psychologists and others to support me on that journey, which led to working in glass at a higher level. So I worked with Roger Penrose and others to use glass to create optical illusions and patterns, quasar periodic symmetries and others. And then I wanted to make glass which changed color in different lights, so I trained as an electrician. And then in lockdown, I was loving the work I was doing in that field of art and science. I found myself locked down with everybody else and really aware that nobody understood just how important light was. And I saw them suffering some of the things that I'd experienced, and I reached out to scientists around the world who I knew were working on this who might be able to help us to explain. And they weren't traveling anywhere either, so they answered my phone, my emails. And I ended up setting up a little sort of Zoom studio in the back bedroom of my mum's house in the middle of nowhere in Dorset and set up a social media campaign for teens about how light affects them, which led to working. So one of the scientists who responded was somebody who works on the space station program. And we stayed in touch. And after the teen campaign, which reached— yeah, we just went, almost went viral. It was amazing. I realized that the people who buy lights aren't the teens, they're grownups, actually. They're mostly professionals who have zero idea of how light works. So I set up the next campaign, which has led to some of the work I'm doing now, and went back to those scientists and said, can you help me to make the case for better quality lighting in environments, particularly where people spend a lot of time were very vulnerable, like the old people's home where I am right now. They also suggested that I apply to do a TED Talk. And so inspired by their work and realizing how we live like astronauts, we don't go outside, we're online all the time, perhaps we can make that connection. And that, that's been— so that's how that little journey worked.

And you mentioned that the TED Talk also— nowadays most people spend more time indoors than Even incarcerated individuals.

Absolutely. Yeah. The UN minimum standard for people locked up in prison is 1 hour a day, and most people spend less than that. And 1 in 5 children will not go outside to play today at all. The average old person living in residential care will go out for 3 minutes per month. So it's— we sort of have this perception that we're doing fine, but actually most of us live in a kind of permanent jet lag, in a kind of permanent orbit, in disconnect with some of the things that our bodies and brain need. But what's What's really exciting about working in this field right now is that there are now lighting solutions which can— obviously outside is the best, but there are actually some brilliant lighting solutions coming through now which allow us to offer our bodies and brains something a bit closer to that natural cycle that we so desperately need.

Amazing. I want to go into some of those resources and research that you've done. Before we do, what's a quick overview on how light is affecting our brain, you know, our memory? We introduced this conversation about how light can improve your memory, but how does light affect our brain?

If we focus on the memory piece for a moment, I'm inspired by your work. There is a very simple mnemonic that I've created, which is CANDO, which I think is the best way to begin thinking about learning anyway. But that the C stands for chronotype, the A stands for activation, the N stands for nocturnal habits, the D stands for your diet, and the O stands for optics. And I can go into each of those in a little bit more detail, but essentially that is each of those represent one way you can think about light.

I appreciate you. Our audience knows that I love using mnemonics and acronyms just because a lot of people are listening to this and they're working out or they're cleaning the house or they're driving. And so it helps them to be able to retain a little bit more of that. Maybe we could do like a minute or 2 on each of these things just very quickly, because I know these are very actionable for everyone who's listening.

Completely, they are. So the first is your chronotype. So you may be an early bird or a night owl, but the time of day, particularly the number of hours since you've been awake, will define how able you are to take information in. So one of the first things, and one of the ways that we know that you can set your body clock and in fact enhance or reinforce that chronobiology, or your, your, the time of day when you're going to be most alert, is by creating— by giving yourself a blast of bright, cool light, a bit like daylight, if you can possibly go outside first thing in the morning, that is going to help you to make the most of your particular chronotype. So that's the first thing is to be aware of your preferred time of learning and make sure that you are setting your body clock up correctly to deliver that optimum sweet spot when you are in flow, as, as you say in your book.

So that's the C for And that could also help with their sleep, right? And help them with their circadian rhythm.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So I was going to come on to that in the N, which is nocturnal habits. So perhaps I'll just come on to that in a moment. The A is for activation. Now, one of the ways that light actually physically shifts the energy levels in your body, you can see the pupil response, you can see galvanic skin. In fact, I've been demonstrating some systems which allow you to actually watch the brain being activated differentially by different types of light. So bright blue cool light tends to activate your, your sort of focused, relatively low-level processing. Warmer light tends to activate your creative, collaborative frontal executive processing. So activation is the second way that you can use light, is simply to use light to activate the kind of learning that you want to be involved with.

And that can increase— when you have that activation, you have increased alertness. which obviously could help with learning. Reaction time improves.

Absolutely. Working memory, a number of different psychomotor visual tests, a number of different measures of alertness are boosted by bright, literally activated by bright light. And the time of day when you're exposed to that bright light makes a difference to how activating it is. But the bottom line is that, and in fact, when you go outside in bright light, which is at least 1,000 times, if not more than times brighter than light indoors, you can see the brain activation shifting. So we can watch that very direct activating quality. So if you're feeling a bit blurry-brained, a bit foggy, bright light can activate your attention so that you're ready to take in some new information and make those connections between different types of information. So one of the other ways that light is activating is that it allows you to associate different types of information. If you create your workspace so that you are able to link bits of information together, then they're going to be easier for you to download and recall as well.

The N?

So the N is for your nocturnal habits. And you were just talking there, Jim, about a good night's sleep. And Limitless book makes some great suggestions about getting sleep. But what we know is that a bright blast of light first thing in the morning will let your central pacemaker, the part of your brain that is driving the body clock, it will let it know that it's time to be up and about. Now that is like a cup of coffee for the brain. It's also, if it's particularly bright light outside, it's like an antidepressant. I mean, it's extraordinary stuff, but it takes about 2 hours to wear off. So in the afternoon or in the evening, about 2 hours before bed, we need to take as much of that blue wavelength out as we can. And that includes moving into different sort of learning modes. Maybe it's listening to things, maybe it's writing things down, maybe it's revising by rehearsing things. So that the brain, the melatonin, has a chance to rise in your body and get you ready to fall into the deep sleep that you need to rehearse and to consolidate those memories. So we know now that different stages of sleep are equally important in consolidation of memory, but we also know that having even light from a bedside light or a computer on or curtains which don't close, shut out streetlights, is enough to stop you from falling into that sleep. You increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, depression. It's extraordinary. And in fact, in Parkinson's, there's been some interesting links between urban pollution or light pollution and prevalence of Parkinson's and depression and some other sort of chronic conditions as well. So that's—

Right.

Your nocturnal habits, your decision to prioritize your sleep and switch off a couple of hours before and switch to other learning modes or Simply allowing your brain to process quietly is going to help you to sleep and consolidate memories too. The other thing that's interesting is that your brain is— light is obviously a very powerful zeitgeber, which is, well, marker. But also we know that things like food, exercise, social interaction are also real, really important wake-up calls. So you're nocturnal. If you love a midnight snack, you're really not doing your sleep any favors at all.

Now you mentioned food. So the D was For diet, for the Can Do, the D?

Yep. So D is for vitamin D, which we know is so important for forming those pathways and consolidating them in a very good, stable way. UVB wavelengths particularly that we get from sun, but from not from most artificial light, is absolutely critical to allowing you to synthesize the vitamin D that you're in, that you're taking in your diet. So you can take it in, but then the body needs then to have a way to synthesize that into a form that it can use usefully in your brain and in your eyes and your muscles. You can also think of your diet of light because exposure in the morning affects your ability to sleep at night. So your photic diet and your nutritional diet make both, both make a big difference.

And even looking at the foods that you eat, even the, the colors, maybe not even focusing on calories as much as you look at colors, but the colors are produced usually by the antioxidants in the foods, which the wavelengths and the spectrum of light, it's, it's fascinating.

So yeah, I mean, if we think about that, your average light bulb is designed to give out a sort of a selection of wavelengths and your eyes mash them up and it looks kind of fine. But actually, the next generation of lighting is able to deliver a balance of wavelengths much closer to what you would receive from the sun. And the colors that you see are a reflection of the colors in the, in the light source. So it seems odd, but a green leaf is actually sending all the green back to you and it's absorbing everything else. But if there isn't any good green coming out of the light source, you're never going to get it in your eye either. So a good quality light source is really important to enjoying the taste of your food.

And then finally, the, the O in CANDO.

So the O is optics, and that means the way that you are arranging your workspace, particularly with light, to offer your brain a clear hierarchy and very good ordered system for recognising objects and learning. So for example, we can improve reading speed with the quality of light, which I know is very dear to all of your hearts. So a good, bright, cool light has been shown to improve acquisition of reading in young people. It's also been shown to improve things like error rates in prescriptions in older people who are trying to read the bottle. So good quality of— so the optics, both in terms of the quality of the light, so bright, Glare-free, shadow-free to allow you to acquire information, but also creating a hierarchy so that your brain is not distracted by kind of confusing shadows or strong shadows or odd combinations of shapes, which the brain keeps on going back to to try and work out what's going on. So, optics is about creating a visual environment which really supports your ability to focus.

I love that. So again, everybody just remember CANDU. So, it's the C again is chronotype, the A is The N was the nocturnal habits. The D is vitamin D and potentially our diet of light. And then the O is our optics and how we're organizing the— another O is like organization, how we're organizing our environment to be supportive of that. You mentioned some resources. If people aren't able to get indirect sunlight from where they work, are there certain light sources or bulbs that would be not quite as good but better than what's maybe available in someone's office or school?

Absolutely. So The field is shifting quite fast, but there are a couple of companies, and maybe the simplest solution would be for me to, if people would like to reach out, or I can write a list because there are different. So there are domestic light fittings, and then there are sort of more commercial fittings for an office or a school. At the moment, they are working through quite different sort of channels and quite different types of manufacturers. So if people would like to reach out, I'll prepare a list of resources and places to go to have a look. I don't want to endorse necessarily a particular brand because it's so important to me to remain independent. But There are some people who are doing some great work. So I'll share that in a sheet.

Absolutely. And we can link to that in our show notes. We'll put it as always at jimkwik.com/notes. We'll put a link to Shelli's website, to her social media, and then a link to the best way to get those kinds of resources. If you share with us, we'll post it and link to it for our audience to be able to go deeper with you. Dr. Shelli James, how can people stay in touch with you? How can they learn more? Where do you recommend they connect with you?

So I have a website and there's an invitation to book a call on that. So it'd be lovely to hear from any of you to continue the conversation and hear what you heard and perhaps see how I can support you. I'm also quite active on LinkedIn, so please reach out there. Those are probably the 2 best ways really. So via the website, ageoflightinnovations.com, and via my LinkedIn, which is Dr. Shelley James.

Amazing. I would love everybody to share their thoughts, you know, on this conversation and share how you're using light to be smarter. I think light could also make you even stronger physically. We could maybe do a follow-up episode. I know you're doing more research and maybe plan to write a book one day.

It's currently, yes, it's currently being edited actually. So yes, it's, I'm aiming to get it out by the end of the year. So.

Wonderful. Maybe we could have you back also when that's ready. But until then, connect with Dr. Shelley James on her website, on her LinkedIn. Are you on Twitter also?

I am.

I am.

I'm not so active on there, but I'm, I'm on, I'm on all the normal platforms. So please reach out on any of them. Absolutely.

And we'll put all the links again at jimkwik.com/notes. So please share this episode with your friends, your family, your followers, because that's the best way to pass on information. And I, when we're talking about light, you know, I think this is a timely conversation. I think too many people metaphorically, they, they dim their own light because it's sometimes shining in somebody else's eyes. They, you know, they're afraid. And I think Now is the time when we, we need to be our brightest so we could inspire other people to, to be— to do the same. So, Shelley, thank you so much for being on our show, and we look forward to having you back.

It was a real privilege.

Thank you. And everyone, thank you so much for listening. Make sure you leave a review on Spotify or iTunes or on YouTube. Make sure you share it. And most importantly, please make sure you utilize this. Remember, knowledge by itself is not power. It has the potential to be power. It only becomes power when you put it Thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you in our next episode. Until then, be limitless, everybody.