Why You’re Gaining Weight (It’s Not Your Diet… It’s Your Light)

In today's interview with my dear friend Rudy Nassif from Viva Rays, we go deep into understanding metabolic health and wellness through the perspective of light and circadian rhythm. This is probably one of the most fundamental topics when it comes to your health. We talk about how lighting affects your weight, how it affects your appetite, how it affects a lot of biological processes that are happening in your body. And the beautiful thing about what we're sharing today is that it's absolutely free. It doesn't cost you anything to implement what we're gonna be discussing today. In this interview. So make sure you tune in, you take notes, follow the simple guidelines that we outlined for you to optimize your biology, and watch the weight naturally come off if that's what your goal is, or watch the weight stabilize if that's what your goal is, or watch the weight go up if that's what your goal is. Your circadian biology regulates your metabolic system, and when you combine that with breath and a healthy, nutritious diet and healthy movement, it just catapults your results to a whole new level. So lots of breakthroughs we talk about in this interview that I know you're gonna love. With that being said, enjoy the interview. Rudy, my friend, how are you doing today?

I'm doing wonderful. How are you?

I'm well. It's great to see you. It's great to catch up with you. We had a chance to catch up for about half an hour before we press play and record. There's been a lot of moving parts in your life, things moving in the right direction which is awesome. Same with us, things are moving in the right direction. I just got back from an epic trip down in the Dominican Republic, got to swim with some whales. It was really special. I know you're in Mexico, beautiful background behind you, and you're just living life and bringing light to the world. So excited to get caught up and update our listeners on all the things that you've been up to, and also helping people build a bridge between light and metabolism and energy. And, you know, just how our— that ball in the sky, how it has such an important role in our health that, um, I think it's important for people to, to understand that relationship and develop that relationship a lot better and more deeply. So thank you for being here today. I'm excited for our conversation.

Yeah, I'm really delighted actually to be here. It's been quite some time, maybe some years since we last recorded something together. So thank you for inviting me. And I'm really, I'm really excited to share about light and every aspect of how it impacts our energy, our, our moods and the different things.

Amazing. So let's, let's just dive right in. What excites you the most? What's something that excites you the most that you're working on right now related to light and metabolism?

Yeah. So one thing that excites me the most is to elevate the quality of our light environment to a level that is in alignment with nature's light and dark cycles. There's an epidemic today of being exposed to the wrong frequency of light at the wrong time of the day. And Dr. Jeffrey on the Huberman podcast, he was describing how watching people sitting under LED lights, their mitochondria were gently going downhill and they were essentially, they, they stopped breathing. And most people today are sitting under those lights for 8 hours a day, even more. And they have no idea how this light is impacting them. And that's fundamentally because we think of light as something that allows us to see the world around us. But light is not only illumination, it's very important information. And it impacts us on a cellular level. More specifically the mitochondria, which is this tiny little engine within every cell that's conventionally known to break down the food that we eat to produce our energy. If the mitochondria is working properly, we have great energy. If not, we start struggling with energy.

Mm-hmm.

But what's really fascinating is that when you zoom in at an atomic level, what you will see is that the food that we eat is essentially broken down into light particles. So the tomato that you eat is essentially storing light information from the sun. And in return, when you eat it, it gets broken down into electrons and protons. And the mitochondria brilliantly moves those electrons into the electron transport chain of the mitochondria, allowing us to generate energy. Now, here's something that most people don't realize. Back in 2017, Dr. Douglas Wallace, he won an award for a groundbreaking discovery. And he said, 90% or more of modern chronic diseases, including low energy level, anxiety, depression, cancer and diabetes and more, they generate or they are generated in the mitochondrial nucleus and, and, and, and the mitochondrial genome and not in the nucleus genome. Now, one big reason the mitochondria start losing efficiency is not what most people think it is. Most people today think it's food. An exercise. It turns out it's a lot more than this. It has to do with your light exposure and darkness. So we know Albert Einstein, who contributed a lot to physics, but it turns out he contributed a lot more to biology because he described the photoelectric effect, which literally means that when light shines on matter, it generates electricity and energy. This is how plants photosynthesize and how solar panels work. And here's the fascinating thing, it happens inside of your body every single day. There's a Nobel Prize winner, his name is Albert Szent-Györgyi. He discovered that when sunlight shines on us, it excites the electrons in the electron transport chain of the mitochondria, and it leads to accelerating the motor of the mitochondria, leading to breaking down that food into energy and improving our energy levels. In fact, Sachin, it's now scientifically known that one-third of the energy that we get comes from food and two-thirds comes from sunlight. Now, the aspect that most people miss because we're starting to hear more people talking about the impact of light on our well-being. The second very important aspect is the yin aspect, which is darkness.

Hmm.

So mitochondria is recharged by light during the day. But what does mitochondria need in order to regenerate after the sunset? It needs darkness. The absence of blue and green light. And this is what triggers the release of melatonin, the sleep hormone, which most people know it is the sleep hormone. But what most people don't realize, it's the highest antioxidant in nature. Yeah. And it essentially activates the cellular cleaning crew called autophagy, apoptosis, and mitophagy. But in simple terms, mitophagy is what allows the mitochondria to take away the old ones and replace them with new ones. And in highly metabolic organs like the brain, the gut, the mitochondria is supposed to replace 5 to 20% of the old mitochondria with new mitochondria every single day. Wow. That's, that's crazy because in some of those metabolic organs, your whole, your whole mitochondria web could be replaced in a matter of few weeks. And as long as you are maintaining a proper rhythm of getting sunlight during the day and darkness at night.

So I'm assuming they're both— there's equally important because they both require each other, right? So you can't have one without the other. Which one do you think people struggle with more, getting bright light during the day or experiencing darkness at night?

That's an excellent question, and I spent quite a bit of time asking people this question and investigating. And what I had originally thought, that people will struggle more with getting light during the day. Because frankly, blocking artificial light at night in my head was kind of simple thing. If you have the proper circadian eyewear that you put on your eyes, it will allow you to filter out that light. But it turns out I was wrong. And most people, it turns out, they struggle more with avoiding artificial light after the sunset. And the reason so, it turns out, because a lot of our behavior is culturally now designed around activities that we tend to do after the sunset that involves being exposed to all this artificial light. And most people after their work, they come back home, they're exhausted, they want to decompress, and they are using tragic methods for decompression, which involves sitting down, watching television, a Netflix movie, scrolling on social media, sitting under LED lights in the ceiling. And the reality is, imagine being around a bonfire. That's 10 lux of warm, natural flickering light. And this is the light that our biology is expecting after the sunset, right? Now go to the living room of most of your neighbors LED lights in the ceiling, phone in the hand, the TV is glowing. So this is not 10 lux of natural brightness. They're getting 500 to 1,000 lux of concentrated blue light into their eyes.

Right.

So that's 50 to 100 times brighter than the fire, which our ancestors have been evolved around. And it's 1,000 times brighter than a full moon. So what this does, it's like living upside down, and it confuses the brain because the brain will think it's mid— midday at midnight.

Mhm.

As a result, the body will start secreting the wrong hormones at the wrong time. Like cortisol will be flooded in the body.

Mhm.

And while cortisol is very necessary first thing in the morning, when you get sunlight because it wakes you up, it gives you the energy to go about your day. It's absolutely tragic to have it at night, right? One, it will cancel melatonin because they're polar opposites. And then second, it will leave you wired, anxious, and stimulated.

So how will that show up for people? Because I, I feel like it's not difficult to make a case for this. Right? Um, and I, I feel like a lot of times, you know, people are waking up tired, well, I'll just drink more coffee. Or, you know, if I have a hard time falling asleep, I'll just drink more alcohol. So people kind of manage their kind of energetic states, uh, with fake energy and fake wind-downs, right? When in reality what they're actually— the thing that would fix it and be free would be just getting outside first thing in the morning, perhaps. And after the sun goes down, just be very conscious of your lighting environment. You know, we have red bulbs in our home. We wear our VRAs in the evening. And then we just— if you drive by our house, you'll think it's a brothel because, like, all the lights are red. And all of our neighbors, you know, sometimes they ask like, "Oh, like what's with the red lights?" But all, you know, most of our neighbors, they're using, you know, the wrong type of lighting in the evening. And it's just, you know, we tell every single client this, but what do you think they need to hear to really drive this point home? Like what are the consequences of this? 'Cause it's not gonna show up right away, right? It's not going to— it might not even show up. The consequences of this might not show up for days or weeks or months. And sometimes people just get used to the way they feel because it's just been part of how they live. So what do people need to hear to really make that change, do you think?

I think the first thing people need to hear, that making that change is a lot easier than what they think it is. It doesn't involve long list of supplements. It doesn't involve counting calories. It's not as complicated as most things are. It's a fundamental principle in nature that dictates our circadian biology. And what is very necessary to understand is that we have like trillions of cells that make energy for us. And in front of each cell, we have a clock sitting in front of it, all of which are connected and synchronized to one central clock in the brain called the circadian clock. Now I want you to think of the circadian clock as the conductor of a musical symphony. Just like the conductor in a musical symphony reads the musical notes and instructs the musician on how to produce harmonious music, this conductor in the brain, it reads sunlight and darkness, and it instructs all of our organs, all of our mitochondria that are responsible for producing energy, on when to do what. And essentially, this conductor, it controls who does what and when we do things. And ultimately, it's controlling when we go to sleep, when we wake up, how rested and energized we feel when we wake up. It's also controlling our mood. Our libido, our bowel movement, and countless different biological processes. So when this circadian clock is broken, it has been scientifically shown that circadian disruption is a lot more dangerous than smoking. In fact, the list of chronic diseases that are associated, associated with circadian disruption is extremely long. I could go on and on listing all of the things that are associated with circadian disruption, from cancer to diabetes to neurodegenerative diseases. The things that show up quickly, or rather quicker than other things, are essentially brain fog, terrible sleep, waking up feeling tired, dragging ourselves throughout the day as though we are wearing a backpack full of rock. Constantly needing to reach out to caffeine and stimulants in order to get the energy that we need, which is not supposed to be the case. When our circadian clock is working properly, we are supposed to decompress effortlessly after the sunset. We're supposed also to have high satiety levels, feeling really satisfied and not needing to munch on food after the sunset. We're supposed to have restful night's sleep and using that time to repair and rejuvenate and also consolidate all the learning that has happened throughout the day. We're supposed to wake up feeling really fresh, springing out of bed with a big smile on our face, having all the energy that we need to achieve anything that we want. We're supposed to have the dopamine in our system that allow us to sit up and pay attention and go after what we really want in life. All of these mechanisms are controlled by having the proper light and darkness. And when we miss that, when, when we spend our evenings exposed to artificial light after the sunset, it creates a, a ball of negative impact that starts with cortisol being elevated, which essentially impacts our blood glucose level. Because cortisol is essentially the hormone that allows our body to drive sugar to the muscles so that we can run away from a predator when we are in nature. But in this case, there's no predator in the room. There's artificial lights. And when this blood glucose is constantly spiking and going down, it creates an emotional roller coaster for us. We become pre-emotional. We even tend to have stronger craving for bad foods in that state. And it's very interesting because it turns out also that leptin, the satiety hormone that is in our, in our fat cutaneous tissues, is a circadian hormone. Now, what does this mean? It means that leptin is timed by nature every night. To go up to the hypothalamus in the brain, tell our bodies that we no longer need food, we're feeling satisfied, and increases our fat burning at night when we are sleeping. Now, this process is completely destroyed when artificial light enters our eyes after the sunset.

So let me get this straight. So what leptin does— leptin helps regulate our satiety, right? Which tells us which, in layman's terms, our appetite and how not so much appetite, but how satiated, how satisfied we feel. So if somebody is the type of person that is constantly looking in the fridge, like never feeling full, never feeling satisfied, then we wanna start thinking about leptin. And these people, you'll find them often snacking more often, right? Maybe it's the end of the day and they need a bedtime snack. Right? It sounds so childish when you say it like that, but they need something before bed because they think it's their appetite, but it's really their light that's the problem. They're sending their body the wrong cues. And so therefore the darkness, which their body is expecting, would increase leptin and tell them, hey, I've had enough. So instead of opening up the fridge, dim or turn off the lights. And you will send your body the right message.

Absolutely.

Is that accurate?

Absolutely. And most people could relate to the experience of having insane cravings as soon as they sit down to watch that Netflix movie. And what dietitians will go and tell people is to use their willpower essentially to control, to control their appetite. And while using your willpower could work for a few days, it's going to lead to an insane amount of frustration and guilt-tripping. Because what you need to understand is that you are swimming upstream against thousands of years of evolution and conditioning, where light entering your eyes suppresses your leptin. And guess what it does? It increases your ghrelin, the hunger hormone. And this makes so much sense from an evolutionary perspective because when our ancestors woke up early in the morning and the sun is rising, light entering their eyes increased their ghrelin so that they could go hunt and forage and bring food to the community. And this is an evolutionary response that is very difficult to overcome by using willpower. And this is how people end up being in a circle of self-judgment and guilt-tripping and feeling, you know, more terrible than they have ever felt before they start dieting.

Yeah, they, they feel like failures, you know, and because of the parameters most people are given, what usually diet and movement, they're either not dieting hard enough or they're not working out hard enough. And so, you know, in the classic North American way, if a little bit is good, a lot or, and, or overdoing it must be better. And then that usually backfires. And then they say, oh, I've tried everything. Nothing works for me. So then they feel like a total failure and that might jade their health experience. Like I try, nothing works for me. And they just kind of accept things as they are instead of Understanding what the root mechanism is has actually nothing to do with their body being broken. Their body is doing exactly what it's designed to do. They're just not following the instruction manual. And it's not even that they're not following the instruction manual. They don't even know that that's a chapter in the instruction manual, uh, to be aware of. And most people would never think that their lighting affects their body composition, their hormones, their respiratory rate, even the state of their nervous system, right? Because it's, you know, it's like an invisible force. I always say the most invisible forces in nature are the most powerful, right? So breathing, like we can't see our breath, but try not breathing for a few minutes. And lighting, right? We don't see the light as it's traveling through the air. We just see it reflecting off of the things that we see, but there's an invisible spectrum of light that we're not accounting for and we're not exposed to. So even if it's really bright in our homes, because we crank the lights up, we're artificially cranking up just a small sliver of the spectrum of light coming from the sun. And it's the invisible UV light and infrared light that are, you know, potent, right? Those are the light forms of light that are medicine. The visible spectrums of light help us look around, uh, and, and see what's happening outside of us, but the invisible spectrums of light take care of what's happening inside of us.

Yes, absolutely. And, uh, there's a reason why I was able to instantly, or within a matter of few weeks, go from feeling like absolutely low on energy and dragging myself through the day to becoming like really energized and inspired. And that, that happened on an experience on the farm where I had no idea or no expectation of what would happen. In fact, it was a surprise because my former partner had felt really desperate throughout the time when I was feeling really depressed, low on energy, and unable to function. And after I had watched this, uh, video, 1 AM in the morning. I was, I'm like literally laying down in bed next to my former partner scrolling on social media and the blue light is like shining on my face and I'm feeling drained mentally and physically, but I'm wired and I can't stop scrolling. And suddenly a video popped up on my feed. I almost skipped it, but something magnetized me to it, and it says artificial light is killing us. And here I was at 1 AM watching this video, and my brain is so foggy that I could not understand one word from what Dr. Jack Cruz is saying. But then I wake up the second day, and there's this one sentence that keeps echoing in my mind. You can't get healthy in the late— in the same light environment that made you sick. And this ultimately led me to this farming experience with my former partner where we drove from Toronto to Northern Quebec. And after 7 hours of driving, we arrived to this farm at night. There's no electricity, no artificial light, and something that I haven't seen in many, many years, like canopy of twinkling stars, so brilliant and so alive. It felt like the universe was welcoming me home for the first time. And we went to bed, and it was May, May 2017, day 1. I wake up and I'm feeling like garbage. My body is exhausted. I'm feeling so heavy. I don't want to be outside. I don't want to be talking to people. And it's like on day 3, something absolutely miraculous happens. I wake up with no alarm clock and I literally feel like energy surging through my veins like electricity. I'm feeling deeply rested. Energized and overflowing with joy. Was like, wow. And I spent weeks thinking about this experience. How can I go from chronic fatigue to energized? From sleeping terribly to sleeping well? From struggling to exercise to becoming really like explosive and running and doing all these things? And it wasn't until I started realizing that the quality of our life is entirely dependent on the quality of light that is entering our eyes. And light is a double-edged sword. It can either elevate our well-being and collaborate with us in the creation of wellness Or it could sabotage us and make us sick. See, we know that sunlight entering our eyes raises dopamine. We also know that artificial light at night destroys our dopamine. There's a paper study from Dr. Samer Hattar showing that very little amount of blue and green light after the sunset activate an area in the brain called the hypnola. Known as the disappointment center. And the consequences is that we wake up the second day feeling unsatisfied, low on energy, and unable to achieve the things that we want to achieve in life. That's what most people call a low energy state, and that's where most people go and start reaching out for coffee. We also know that UV light entering our eyes activates alpha MSH in the brain, and that's melanocyte stimulating hormone that leads to the production of melanin in our skin that makes us tan, increase our libido. But here's the most interesting part. Alpha MSH disruption is associated with weight gain and overeating. So we are dealing with an epidemic of people who are avoiding sunlight at all costs when sunlight is the very thing that you need in order to actually burn fat effectively.

You know, it's, what's really hilarious is just the irony. 'Cause I, like I mentioned earlier, I was in the Dominican and the day before our trip started, we had to go to a hotel, and they just— I just booked at the hotel. I didn't even look into it, didn't do much research, uh, in advance, and I just booked at the hotel not thinking much of it. I'm like, oh, they must— they must know like what our taste is, uh, given the, the kind of the, the type of the trip that we were going on and the type of people. It was a breathwork retreat. So I get there and it's this like trashy, like all-inclusive place where there's like, you get in there, there's loud music. There's like a, you know, a foam party happening in the pool and, you know, everyone's wearing sunglasses. Right. And later on, of course, there's, there's food for people to eat. So all these people wearing sunglasses, they look like lobsters because they're not getting that UV light into their eyes. So instead of tanning, they're actually burning.

Burning.

And then you look at their plates and what they're eating. And I'm like, what the hell is going on over here? Like, how is this person eating this much food? And they look like a lot, like they just look like they're on fire. And, you know, statistically, the majority of them, I would say like 95% of them were overweight. And it just drives like everything that you're saying totally home. You know, and then I'm there, I'm not wearing sunglasses. And when I went to go eat, I would eat a reasonable size meal. I almost felt like, is there something wrong with me or is there something wrong with them? Because I'm the only person. And then even at one point, my server came by just to check in and make sure everything's okay. He looks at my plate and he's like, "Good choices," you know, because he sees what other people choose. And you also see how much people waste too. It's kind of crazy, but that's a different topic. Um, but yeah, I, you know, that's, that's where it becomes very self-evident, right? So people, they go on a vacation thinking that they're, you know, going to come back feeling better, but they can actually come back feeling much worse because they're just making all the wrong choices. And, and literally it starts with, you know, how they interact with their light environment.

Yes, absolutely. And There's tons of studies that back this up, you know, like you look at studies with mice and it's very evident that there's a study where mice were put on high-fat diets. One group was exposed to UV and the other group was not exposed to UV, and the group who was exposed to UV showed improved glucose tolerance, lower, lower insulin resistance, and a, a, a 50% greater ability to lose fat without changing their diet. So sunlight is absolutely necessary when it, when it comes to maintaining balanced weight. And what essentially happens is when we are exposed to UV, we're, we're essentially releasing all of that excess that the body doesn't need. And on the other side, of course, making sure that we are blocking artificial light after the sunset. Is the polar opposite that is equally important to equalize that interchange between, between light and, and darkness.

You know, you know, as you're sharing that, it brings up an interesting point, because if you think about an animal in nature, or even human beings in nature— so I live in Canada, you live in Mexico, so you probably, you certainly have way better sun and more ability to, well, you get, certainly get more UV light than we do. So the significance of that is, so if you think about a North American, let's use Canada as an example, not, there's parts of the year where we get no UV light. So even if you're outside, you're not getting that light. And that can actually be very beneficial because in the winter you want to stay warm. So it makes sense to hold on to more fat.

Yes, right.

So biologically, there's a reason that we do that. But if we're not getting the ex— you know, if we're not getting any exposure even during the summer months, or a fraction of what we need, then we're not turning that signal on that says, hey, it's not winter anymore. So it's, it's also— there's a seasonal component to light exposure too that we need to take into account. But human beings in our infinite, um genius, we've created light bulbs and other artificial sources of light like screens. And because we don't really adjust our calendars based on the length of the day, like every other animal and plant does on the planet, we're the only ones that don't because we're superior to nature, right? We must know better than Mother Nature. And so then in the wintertime in particular, we get no UV light. So we don't burn, we don't signal fat burning. We get the days are shorter. So we have more artificial light exposure, um, which then increases our, uh, or creates leptin resistance. So then we're hungry all the time. We never feel satiated. And then we're overstimulated in the evening because of that 4 or 5 hours now of blue light exposure versus in the summer, you can get away with less blue light exposure if you're going with the length of the day. Yeah, it just creates a recipe for disaster. And then, you know, and then we tell people January is the best time to lose weight when it's actually the worst time to lose weight because there's no UV in the environment to trigger the fat burning.

Yes, absolutely. That's a, that's an excellent point. And it's, it's remarkable to watch that in nature every animal including the bears, they start putting fat on during the fall season when UV light is dwindling down and the length of the day is shortening. UV light is dwindling down. All of this sends signal to the animals and every biological species on Earth telling their bodies to activate the winter metabolism so that we can better be prepared and equipped to sustain ourselves during that season from every, from every perspective, whether it's sustaining ourselves from a food perspective or making the necessary physiological adaptation in how serotonin and melatonin are working so that we are not feeling sad and depressed during the wintertime. And I think we are the only species that are not in tune with, with this cycle. And we tend to spend our winters in LED lighting that is signaling to our brain that it's 12 noon summertime all year long. And we are in regulated temperature that also signal summertime. And when we go outside, even in wintertime, you'll see, you'll see people wearing sunglasses. Even up in Canada. And it's absolutely mind-blowing because if the argument is you're trying to protect your, your eyes from UV light, then why on earth are you wearing sunglasses during a season when there's actually no UV light? So it makes you wonder how programmed we became. And during that time, most people struggle with, with, with mood issues, with, with, with, with crazy weight gain. Although in, in, in fall, it's a natural process to put on some more weight so that we can burn it during the wintertime. It's, it's absolutely not a natural process to become overly, like, overly obese during that time, or to put on a lot, a lot more weight than is needed. But the way it works in nature is that during the fall, you're, you're essentially gaining weight. And when the winter season come, We have something absolutely magical that replaces the scarcity of sunlight, and that is cold exposure, which nobody is essentially practicing in, in, in the proper way nature has intended. And cold exposure has been shown to increase dopamine in the same way sun, sun, sunlight increases dopamine. We see an increase of 200% of dopamine and motivation and energy levels in people. And what's, what's really remarkable is that the dopamine starts going down very slowly and it stays above baseline. We also— it's, it's, it's absolutely remarkable to see that during, during that time also when we're exposed to cold exposure, cold exposure allow us to burn fat in the same way UV light allow us to burn fat.

Hmm.

So you start, you start realizing that nature is absolutely intelligent. And during the time when sunlight is scarce, we have this, these, these different forces in nature that allow us to access our inner vitality and energy levels in, in, in ways that most people today are not accessing.

You know, one thing I want to catch myself and just raise more awareness around personally is, you know, we're using this language as if nature is something separate and outside from us. And I want people to really hear this as we are amazing because we are nature, right? Like, we're not separate from it. So if I say, or if Rudy says, you know, look to Mother Nature, it's like really looking to yourself. Like, we're the highest, uh, you know, most organized form of nature, and all that beauty and brilliance that we find, you know, outside of us is inside of us as well. It's— we're all part of the whole, you know. And I think that's the greatest tragedy of our species. My mentor many years ago, James Chestnut, said that the greatest biggest mistake we've made as a species is separating ourselves from nature. And, you know, the awe and the beauty and the wonder that nature provides us with, if you've ever seen a beautiful waterfall or, you know, beautiful trees or, you know, animals, like that's part of us, right? It's, that's all that technology lives inside of us as well in a very accessible way. Now what's really fascinating about, you know, being healthy is that I think it— some people have to spend a lot of money and time and energy to figure out what they think is going to work is never going to work, right? Uh, I like to look at what, what you're— we're sharing today as, as really like a, a part of the foundation of what it means to be healthy. You know, I think breath falls into this category. I think that our circadian rhythm, which is kind of what we're really— what we're talking about today falls into that category. Light exposure, You know, water and hydration, like that's a whole different topic, but that's all part of this conversation. And again, water is clear, right? Or steam is like invisible. So we, we take these simple things for granted and we think that being healthy has to be, it's gonna be found at the bottom of a pill bottle or, you know, another gadget that we need to buy. And, you know, while those things can be helpful, I'm not discounting that they can be helpful. You know, we, we really want to make sure we're focusing on the boulders of health, right? Not the grains of sand, right? The small things, the tiny minuscule things. Like, what are the big, big rocks that we can put into this jar of health? And this is one of them. You know, this is a crucial part of it. And it's not something that we would have had to think about. You know, a squirrel and I, you know, when I give presentations, I, I, you know, point out the window at a squirrel. I say, tell me how much that squirrel is thinking about its health right now. Do you think squirrels are gathering like we're gathering right now, talking about how to be healthy? Like, how ridiculous do you think that would be?

Absolutely.

They're just living in alignment, right? And if we could just observe and learn from these animals and these plants and these insects, they're they are just so in tune with their environment and the rhythms of nature, the rhythms of life. And if we just come back to that, right, it's, and it's really just being human. It, the act of being healthy is passive. You know, Da Vinci said that the greatest sign of sophistication is simplicity, right? The ultimate sophistication is simplicity. And, and so if we believe our body is sophisticated, then it should you know, at the same time be simple to take care of. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Yes, absolutely. That's so beautifully said. And that appearing sophistication is running via the simplest form of 1-2, 1-2 rhythmic heartbeat. And that 1-2 rhythmic heartbeat That universal heartbeat is our universal heartbeat. And we can see this in all of nature, which is our nature. And when I refer to nature, nature is God's nature and it's our nature. So there's no, there's no differentiation or separation between when we say nature or human. Nature is our nature. And when we look at nature, And when we look at ourselves, it becomes abundantly clear that all of nature is eternally composed of two opposing forces that are interchanging in balance, and that allows this beautiful continuity in nature. We see this in our inhalation and exhalation, that 1-2, 1-2 rhythmic heartbeat of the inhalation sequentially becoming the exhalation, so that the exhalation gives all of itself back to the inhalation. And there's this rhythm between the two. And it's abundantly clear that if we continue to breathe in and we stop breathing out, we will die. Why isn't it not obvious that every aspect of nature, whether it's light or darkness or masculine and feminine, is dependent on this interchange and balance. Most people run into their lives and they are surprised by crisis of losing friendships or losing the— losing their love of life, and they wonder where did that come from. But the question is, how have you broken the law of balance, rhythmic interchange in your relationships? Again and again and again in small ways, in tiny ways, left and right, that end up accumulating and exploding like a volcano, disrupting your relationship. And in a case like this, no tool from the outside that could enhance libido will, will fix a broken relationship between a man and a woman who don't know how to find their unity by balanced rhythmic interchange.

Mhm.

So what you had mentioned about the tools outside of us that we outsource our power to, thinking that I need to buy this or I need to buy this in order to become healthy— this is absolute rubbish because we are born healthy as humans. We are born to feel great, and nature is at the foundation of this greatness because nature is the foundation of who we are. And frankly, we have fallen away from this greatness. And the biggest trap is, as we fall away from it, and as we continue to disconnect from ourselves and therefore from nature, we continue to outsource solutions outside of ourselves by buying this biohack or that biohack. And hundreds of times I've been into these Summits where people are in Miami in a location that has the absolute most nourishing frequencies of light. Just if they were to open the door and step outside, and here they are inside jumping from one booth to another examining all these light therapies that emit a very narrow band in red and infrared. That is a fraction of what you would get just if you were to open the door and go outside. And people have no idea. They're just fascinated by the technology and not understanding that this is essentially a grain of sand in the beach. But why would you focus on the grain of sand if you have access to the beach outside?

Isn't it so? It's almost become laughable and ridiculous, right? The more, the more, and I know you've seen this, like the more conferences I go to, it just makes me laugh.

And it is hilarious, honestly.

Yeah.

Yes.

And people, people just, people, because we're so good at outsourcing our power and, and just not realizing how capable we are if we just plug back into what Mother Nature has designed in us and has given to us. I think of what— just think about how disruptive that is, right? Just that idea is so disruptive. I mean, there's so many companies now that are just literally taking advantage in the health wellness space of ignorance, right? It's like these— most of these businesses are driven by consumer ignorance that you could just go outside, right? And, you know, I don't wanna say that all devices and things are not helpful, right? 'Cause that may not be accurate too.

Yes.

But I think before you spend any money on something, like just go back to the basics, right? I had a client yesterday, I was supposed to go on a call with her and we were supposed to review some lab work. And I did a BOLT test with her, which is a blood body oxygen level test. The normal test should be over 40 seconds. So it's just basically a simple control-pause CO2 tolerance type test. Hers was 5 seconds. So I told her, I said, listen, you know, we have to fix this at all costs because, um, you're trying to get pregnant. You're trying to have a healthy child, but your ability for your mitochondria to function is so poor. So we put her on a circadian, you know, really leaning in on the circadian protocol, getting her to become self-aware of her breathing patterns and nervous system regulation. And a big part of that is, is not just getting outside more, but it's also like, what environment are we creating indoors when we're inside too, right? Like, what are we looking at. You know, I obviously, I, it's winter right now for me here. It might be hard to tell, but in the spring and summer, I actually sit outside. So my office is, is outdoors. And when I'm indoors, I do have to find ways to kind of compensate. So I have special lighting. I have an infrared lamp that I use to, so at least I'm getting some infrared light that I wouldn't be getting otherwise. And then in the evening, we turn off all the overhead lighting and we use red bulbs and, and blue blockers. We even have modified our television screen screen. So it's— it eliminates certain wavelengths of light. So our screen can be all red if we do want to watch something, and, and if we don't, we can turn the brightness down all the way. So there's so many ways that we can kind of modulate, right? And because it's a spectrum, it doesn't mean that somebody has to be perfect, but they have to be aware.

Yes.

And then they can choose, like, okay, this is the— I— now that I know, here's a consequence that I'm willing to face. But what you and I are not okay with is people not having any idea, right?

And having—

yeah, and having zero awareness that this is impacting them.

Yes, and the context of where this technology and the goodness of technology come from. Because when you understand the context, and when, when it's clearly shared as we're borrowing from nature's goodness, and here's what we're borrowing, and here's where you could have access to all that goodness, and when you don't, here's how you use the technology then it's absolutely awesome. But when it's taken out of context and it's positioned as the ultimate power, although it's being borrowed by— from our nature and from nature, then it becomes out of context and people start outsourcing that power to something that is delusional, right?

Yeah, it's, uh, it's so, so important that, that this— if, if If anything lands from what we talked about, it's really that. It's like, go back to the basics, go back to nature, just really unlock your own inner engineer, your inner technology that you already have, and then do the other stuff if you want to, right? But not to replace the basics.

Yes, absolutely. And I'd love to share a few practical steps also.

Yes, let's do that.

What any person could do starting tomorrow, easy, simple, 3 steps to harness the power of light and darkness. So step number 1, regardless of when you wake up, that's a detail that you can fix later, and naturally your body start shifting you towards sunrise. But regardless of when you wake up, go outside and get at least 10 to 15 minutes of sunlight. Then step number 2, about 90 minutes from that point, go outside again and get UVA light. And UVA, by the way, is pretty much present all year round, even in northern countries. Some countries that are way up north will not have UVA during the winter, but UV is absolutely important because it is the frequency that converts the amino acid in our eyes into serotonin, dopamine, Even melatonin, the sleep hormone, is impacted by that UVA exposure early in the morning. Step number 3, just like so many people have conditioned themselves to take cigarette breaks, let's reinvite the consciousness of getting sunshine breaks. What this looks like for most people working in an office is Every 90 minutes or so, you take a break and you go outside. In fact, this has been shown to increase your productivity and your energy because the brain cannot continue to concentrate. It needs a phase of decentration, and the best place to have that decentration phase and to reset is outside. You get natural sunlight. You don't need to be in direct sun exposure. You could be in the shade. And you will still access those benefits.

No, that's, that's something called the Ultradian Rhythm.

Yes.

Which are— yes, like 90-second sprints, and it's kind of when our brain resets. Yeah, 90 minutes. Yes, thank you. Yes, that's what I meant to say. Yeah, 90 seconds would be too short.

Absolutely. And it's, it's, it's regardless an amazing technique to boost productivity. Step number 4, if you work inside an office that has a lot of artificial lighting and you're in front of a screen and this artificial lighting is dominating the natural light, then wearing a technology that harmonizes the blue light from these inflammatory sources is absolutely necessary. The reason why, for example, I don't need this, and many people may not if they happen to have a light environment like this, is because I'm getting a ton of natural light and I don't want to block this. By wearing anything that blocks my eyes from receiving those signals. But if you're not, then you want a technology that harmonizes that blue without blocking it, making it more balanced, more proportionate, similar to how there's a balance between blue and the other frequencies when you get it from sunlight. Step number 5, around sunset when the day is ending, whether you can watch the sunset directly or not, it doesn't matter. Go outside. And this is very important because light is information. And this is literally the information that will tell your nervous system naturally wind down, and it will send the subconscious messages to your cells to prepare for a restful night's sleep. When you come back from the sunset and you are exposed to artificial lights, whether it's in your house or in your friend's house or in a restaurant, it doesn't matter. What your clock is waiting for is consistency and the absence of blue and green light. So that's why it would be very important to wear the evening lenses, which clip on seamlessly on the daytime lenses, and those eliminate the frequencies that your brain is not supposed to see at around that time of the day. So you can naturally wind down. And step number 7, is about half an hour before bedtime, you can switch to the red, which blocks all of the blue, all of the green, and decreases the brightness by 10 times. That alone increases and optimizes melatonin. Also, growth hormone when you're sleeping is dependent on your circadian biology. And a few little tricks and trips, like little tricks that anybody could do in their homes, making sure that you're turning off overhead lighting. What I like to do in my own apartment or house is putting incandescent light bulbs in Himalayan salt lamps down at the floor level. This is always better than having overhead lighting because of how the proteins in the eye tend to be stimulate— more stimulated by overhead because sunlight is overhead. Also, incandescent lighting inside of Himalayan salt lamps are dim enough and warm enough to not disrupt your circadian biology by a lot. And they're definitely a lot better than any LED technology that anybody could use after the sunset. The second best option is LEDs that don't have blue and green, green light, and they're richer in the red and orange. But I think it's a lot more superior to use incandescent with Himalayan salt lamps after the sunset.

How about the bedroom? I know light even creeping into the bedroom can be a problem. So maybe talk about that because some people might live in cities. And I know that, you know, obviously, you know, try not to have screens in the bedroom, maybe phone on airplane mode somewhere accessible but safe, safely away from your body. But like there's a lot of light pollution these days. So maybe just touching on that a little bit. And you mentioned temperature, so maybe you can talk about that too, because there is a natural drop in our temperature that I believe is regulated by our circadian biology, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, that's an excellent point. So the moment we wake up first thing in the morning, there's a sharp rise in our, in our body temperature and that signals wakefulness. So any activities that we do in the morning that increase the sharpness of that rise in body temperature, such as exercise or cold plunging, is working with our circadian biology. On the other side, it's really bad to do anything at night that will cause that increase in body temperature, like eating food, cold plunging, exercising. Now, another important aspect is you want to make sure that your bedroom is allowing for that natural drop in temperature to occur. So if you're in regulated temperature all of the time and you're blasting the heaters at night when you're sleeping, that disrupts your circadian biology and disrupts your sleep. Also, it's absolutely necessary that you make your bedroom similar to a cave because any form of artificial light and very little amount at night profoundly disrupts our circadian biology. And our hormones. And one thing about our eyes, our eyes are light hungry first thing in the morning. So they're expecting 100,000 lux of sunlight. But what happens is after 12 hours of being awake, your retinal sensitivity increase, meaning very little amount of light at that time can have a profound impact on our hormones. So making sure that we're blocking out using curtains, if you don't have access to those curtains, also sleeping mask that black out. We have organic cotton sleeping masks, Vivarese, that are excellent for that. I always take them with me when I'm traveling. Also use them a lot for meditation to block out and be able to like go inwards. And you have touch around electronics and Wi-Fi. It's absolutely necessary that your, your bedroom is free of electronics. That you're not plugging things in the wall because you may have dirty electricity in the room and you're not even aware, and that will disrupt your brainwave frequencies dropping into deeper states when you sleep. So you don't want a current that is chaotically impacting your brainwave frequencies and your cells' electric signals at night when you're sleeping. The easy way to avoid this is unplug everything from electricity in your bedroom. Also make sure that the Wi-Fi is off when you are sleeping. And the easiest way to do this and forget about it is go on Amazon, buy essentially a timer that you plug into the— into your Wi-Fi and you set it up to go on and off at specific times of the day. And this way you don't need to think about it. Wi-Fi is an invisible light frequency at a microwave, 2.7 gigahertz. Now it's being higher. And there are many studies way back from the 1970s showing how Wi-Fi essentially widely open your blood-brain barrier. And it has been done on mice with 1.2 GHz pulsing frequency by Dr. Alan Frey, who essentially injected the mice brain with fluorescence. And he, he, he took 3 group of mice, one that was exposed to 1.2 GHz pulsing frequency. Another group that was exposed to 1.2 GHz non-pulsing frequency. And those are pretty much the same frequencies that we're exposed to from phones and Bluetooth and whatnot, although now the frequencies that we're being exposed to are at a higher frequency because of 5G and 6G. The third group of mice was a sham group that was not exposed to any frequencies. And what happened next is absolutely crazy. Because when they slaughtered the mice and they look at their brain, the group who was exposed to 1.2 GHz pulsing frequency had 20 times higher fluorescence compared to the sham group. So their blood-brain barrier, that barrier that God has given us to protect our brains from toxins, from pathogens, from heavy metals was wide open. And that's, that's, that's essentially, hopefully, is a great reason for you to start rethinking your relationship to Wi-Fi, turning it off at night and turning, putting your phone on airplane mode when you're sleeping. Also throughout the day, often if I'm not using my phone and I'm not expecting to receive a call, I tend to put it on airplane. I also have wired my internet. Through Ethernet cable. It's pretty simple. In fact, I have just written a blog that teach people step by step what to do in order to wire and in order to decrease electromagnetic radiation. I could send that to you, uh, Sachin.

So that'd be great. Yeah, that'd be amazing.

Yep.

This is, uh, I could talk to you for hours, man. We're gonna have to do a part, uh, a second interview, so we'll have to do a part 3. Where can people learn more about your work and what's a great way for them to connect and follow your work?

Yeah, absolutely. So our website, vivares.com, V-I-V-A-R-A-Y-S.com. You can see all of our circadian glasses there, the sleeping mask, EMF-free earphones. And we also have a lot of educational materials. We often launch one blog per week on Thursday. And we share one newsletter that is purely educational, talking, talking about different strategies to mitigate the impact of artificial light on us, all of which are pretty practical and easy and are based on the science of behavioral change, where we understand that people change best by feeling good and not feeling bad. So we break it down in a way that is digestible and that anybody could implement it. And you could also follow us on Instagram where I'm starting to share a lot more educational materials about light and all things health.

Amazing. I love it. Well, thank you, brother. We'll be sure to share these resources and, and links in the show notes for everyone to have access to. And, you know, this is such a fundamental and important topic. That I'm glad we had a chance to discuss it and share this with our community. And here's the thing, guys and gals who are watching this, a lot of your goals on the other side of making really simple changes, this is, you know, in a sense, a very passive technology that's available to us, right? Turning off the lights saves you energy. Going outside will save you a lot of money. If two-thirds of our energy comes from sunlight and you're spending zero time in the sun, your cravings in your paradigm of more food equals more energy, right, is, is actually not true. More sunlight equals more energy. And the food industry is not going to want you to know this. They want you to be indoors. They want you to be under LED light. They want you being under LED light, especially after the sun goes down, right? So don't expect this message to come from, you know, the a lot of what drives our economy, which is nonsense. You really have to go back to this, this deep knowing that this is important. And we all feel good in the sun, right? We all know in the winter when we get the winter blues, like we're not craving, oh man, I wish I had more vitamin D supplements that I could take, right? We're craving the sun, we're craving the beach, we're craving Mother Nature, right? That's really what we're craving. So don't wait till it gets to that point, you know, make it an active part of what you do and how you live. And you will reap the benefits, you know, for life. So thank you again, Rudy. Appreciate you, my friend, and so much love to you and the work at VivaRay that you're doing. And I'm excited for all the new tech that you're rolling out here too, which we'll talk about at an upcoming interview.

Amazing. Thank you so much for having me, Sachin.

My pleasure. Have a wonderful day.