Light Right with Sachin Patel

Hello, my friend. It's Sachin again. Hope you're awesome. As you can see, I am giving away your metabolic optimization tip number two, and that is to get more sunlight. Sunlight is one of the most effective tools at optimizing your metabolic function, because sunlight is more than just the actual light rays that are hitting your beautiful body and signaling to your body to make vitamin D, but it's also the signal that the sun sends to the eyes. The positioning of the sun, as you'll notice, changes minute by minute, moment by moment, and that sends an important signal to our brain and to our biology of what time of day it is. This sets our circadian rhythm. Our circadian rhythm basically explains why different hormones are at different levels at different times during the day. And the way we have, as humans, managed this response is by natural sunlight. So the rising and setting of the sun is one of the most important pieces of information to our biology and to our metabolism. So when we get sunlight in the morning, especially first thing in the morning, that helps us raise an important neurotransmitter called dopamine. Dopamine helps us stay motivated, it helps us stay focused, and it helps us feel a sense of reward, it helps us exercise, it helps us see our goals through completion. And of course, that's super important for your metabolism. Why dopamine is also important is because dopamine regulates our behaviors. If we are low in dopamine because we're lacking sunlight, especially first thing in the morning, then one of the things that we're going to do is we are going to crave dopamine, increasing activities. We are going to partake in activities that increase dopamine. And this would include things like eating foods that are high in fat, foods that are high in sugar. And this obviously messes up our metabolism. So it's really important for you to understand that sunlight is very critical. Another hormone that sunlight helps us balance and appropriately manage is cortisol and melatonin. So what's interesting about melatonin and cortisol is they work antagonist to one another. So what that means is that when melatonin is elevated, then cortisol is low. However, if cortisol is elevated, then melatonin will not be where it should be. So here's a fun fact. The average human being used to sleep about 10 hours a night until they invented the light bulb. And now the average human being sleeps less than seven hours a night. And those three hours are hours that are disrupted from healing because of artificial lighting. We are not getting as much Melatonin production. Melatonin is one of our most immunomodulating hormones, and it helps us get into the correct stages and depths of sleep so we can restore and regenerate. If you're looking to burn more fat, if you're looking for better cognitive function, if you're looking for better detoxification, then one of the best things that you need to be focused on is, is getting deep restorative sleep, and that is determined by our exposure to natural and artificial light. As much as you possibly can, you want to expose yourself to sunlight at different times during the day. The three best times that I recommend would be in the morning when the sun is rising, whatever that means to you. Okay. The other time is midday. So midday is when the sun is in the highest position. That's different than noon. Okay. Midday is when the sun is at its peak. That's going to help increase serotonin production. And then the next time that you want to watch the sun or be in the sun is during sunset. So sunrise, midday, and sunset. This is a great way to rebalance your circadian rhythm. And, of course, you can sprinkle in as much outdoor time as you like after that. This is going to help you tremendously in balancing your hormones, balancing your metabolic function, getting into deeper stages of sleep, which is the most important piece of healing and the lowest hanging fruit. However, it gets disrupted when we're not exposed to the right type of lighting. Now, I know for some of you, it's difficult to turn off all the lights after the sun goes down, which is ideal. You can use candlelights, and you can also use red bulbs. And I'll post a link to the red bulbs that we use, and I'll even show you a picture of what our home looks like after the sun goes down. We try to turn off all overhead lighting because the position of the lighting determines where that light hits our retina, and that tells our brain what time of day it is. So think of it this way. The only time that lighting would be coming from directly overhead would be midday, right? And so all of our lighting in our home, for the most part, might be overhead lighting. And so our brain thinks it's daylight all the time or it's day, midday all the time. In the evenings, after the sun goes down, we would never be exposed to lighting from overhead sources. We would be exposed to lighting from sources below the horizon, which means a campfire or a candle. Right? You hold a candle, and that hits the top of your retina, the back of your retina and that signals to your body it's time to wind down. The color temperature also makes a difference. So during the day, we have a full spectrum of light. In the evenings, if you're exposed to campfire or candlelight, or even the proper red bulbs, then that's going to be a completely different color temperature. You're going to go down into the 1200,800 Kelvin color temperatures, which are going to be yellow, orange and red. And this important message to our brain tells us again what time of day it is, and it tells us exactly what hormones to produce so so that our body can function at its peak. So I hope that helps, and I hope that gives you some insights into what you can do to get better sleep and more importantly, to use sunlight as a tool to regulate and automate and really get your metabolic systems working for you. Talk to you soon. Bye for now.