Light plays a critical, and often overlooked aspect in our health. Were going to go over sunlight, artificial light, and light therapy devices. By the end of this, you will know how to incorporate more light into your life.

How Light Has Been Used Throughout History

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, had prescribed sunlight for a variety of aliments. He even had a large solarium for his patients as a part of their therapy. Ancient Greek Olympians were advised to use heliotherapy (sunlight) as a part of their training, and to improve the health of their muscles. In 1903, Niels Finsen discovers UV light from sun kills tuberculosis of the skin, and won the Nobel prize.

Sunlight

Sunlight has largely been vilified by the media. People are afraid of the sun. The reality is that people who rarely go out in the sun are at greatest risk for skin cancer. People who gradually build their exposure have very low rates of skin cancer. The benefits of sunlight are enormous. It’s responsible for the synthesis of vitamin D, lowers blood pressure, increases nitric oxide, efficiency of the heart, regulates cholesterol, generates ATP, and influences countless other hormones and neurotransmitters.

How to Optimize Light

1. Get as much light in the morning as possible. This helps set your circadian rhythm, and increase serotonin.
2. Don’t overuse sunglasses, and sunscreen. Sunglasses block out much of the sun, thus blocking out the beneficial effects. Sunlight through the eyes actually stimulates the skin to produce melanin. Wear sunglasses only when it’s necessary, or at a party on occasion. Sunscreen often contains carcinogenic compounds ironically. It has it’s place in spot instances, but look for a natural version containing zinc oxide.
3. Avoid artificial light at night, and during the day. They often contain light that is not full spectrum, and has an abnormal amount of blue light. Blue light at night especially disrupts the circadian rhythm.
4. Use incandescent bulbs instead of LEDs, and fluorescents. Look for a high CRI (color rendering index), this is the ability to reflect natural light accurately. Look for a CRI of 97, or higher, incandescent bulbs have 100. The other thing to look for is degrees K. The sun has 5500 K generally, many LEDs have higher degrees than that. Look for bulbs below 3000 K. The other thing to consider is flicker rate. LEDs operate digitally using PWM (pulse width modulation), or the lights switching from full intensity, to switching off, over, and over again. This is called flicker. Even know you can’t perceive this happening consciously, your retina does. Research shows that this causes retina damage, and cell death. Incandescent bulbs don’t have these issues.
5. Use photobiomodulation when necessary. PBM is the use of light therapy devices. Many of us, especially in the winter months do not get enough light. Infrared, and red light has been heavily researched for, nitric oxide, blood flow, stem cells, endocrine function, kidney function, and skin health. These light frequencies are between 750-1200NM of light. I use the Joovv light, as many other health experts recommend.
6. Use light dims, and Iristech software. Light dims are dark stickers you can put over artificial light sources in your home. For example, the lights on the dishwasher, or other appliances. You can get these at light dims, or trudark.com. Iristech software is a software for the computer that takes out the blue light from the screen. It also modulates the flicker rate of the screen. This will make the screen much easier on your eyes, and overall health. Some people talk about F.lux software. This has benefits, but Iris has way more features.