150: Dr. Josh Rosenthal, Sleep Medicine Specialist: The Power of Light & Circadian Rhythm in Sleep Optimization

 Welcome to the sleep as a skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of sleep as a skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about.

sleep. Each week I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keep Keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

Welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. Our guest today wrote the book on mitochondrial circadian health. What do I mean by that? I mean that I'm looking at the textbook right now that I purchased that has a whole section in it. All from our guest and you're going to love what he has to say. It's really, really groundbreaking stuff, but practical, practical, groundbreaking stuff, which is hard to do.

So our guest is Joshua Rosenthal, MD. He's a board certified sleep and regenerative medicine specialist in his dedication to understanding true health and wellness. He had to unlearn the current model of healthcare's approach to holding off disease. After using light and circadian biology to successfully treat his own weight and health issues, he continued studying biophysics and discovered why healthcare is failing miserably at helping the population who is increasingly getting sick and staying sick.

By integrating his expertise of circadian biology, mitochondrial medicine, and photobiomodulation, He now helps clients rebuild their mind and body health at the cellular and subcellular levels. We go deep in today's podcast episode. I think you're going to be fascinated by some of the things that Joshua brings to light, no pun intended, as he actually speaks to the topic of sleep as a story of light.

He takes a really fascinating approach and I think you're going to really enjoy and get a lot out of what he has to share. So let's jump into the podcast, but first a few words from our sponsors.  Here at the Sleep as a Skill podcast, we're all about enhancing your sleep and a cornerstone of that journey often revolves around stabilizing your blood sugar levels.

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life and use the code sleep as a skill for a special discount. And just a quick aside, I am using my moonbird every single day, and it's made a profound difference in how I'm managing my stress and improving my own ability to manage my health and wellbeing through heart rate variability technology.  And welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast.

Joshua, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you for having me, Molly. It's a pleasure. Yes. Now, I know I tend to say this and be repetitive sometimes where I'll be like, ugh, I'm really going to be struggling in this upcoming episode to cram all the topics in that we want to do, but I really, really feel like this is going to be the case in this.

In this conversation, because there's a lot  that we can discuss. I mean, even just given your background for those that aren't seeing the video, you've quantum life wellness, quantum is a big, big and small topic. So there is a lot of directions that we could go. But let's start at the beginning. How did you find yourself with this unique angle of this approach to wellness?

How did this come to be? Yeah. So, um, I'm dual board certified and both sleep medicine and otolaryngology head and neck surgery. It's a mouthful. But anyway, so I'm a surgeon and a sleep doctor and sleep medicine. I mean, everything brings you to this if you're paying attention, but sleep medicine was a wonderful thing.

Very cookie cutter. And I don't say that to degrade my sleep medicine colleagues that are out there. But you come in, you say, I can't sleep, I say, go get sleep test, you come back, we go over the results, done. You know, good, bad, indifferent, you know, you have sleep apnea, you have this, you have that, whatever, and then treatment, whatever that is.

And so, I recognized after, you know, over a decade, you know, somewhere before the decade was through, I recognized What happens to all the people that said they couldn't sleep well, we did a sleep test, a polysomnography, so we're looking at like all these different physiologic data points, and I would say congratulations, it's normal, but they still couldn't sleep well.

Right. And it's not like, um,  you know, just say the quality, let's leave it at that. Because I'm not saying insomnia and get into other things, it's like, oh, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And so I recognized there was some meat left on the bone that I was a fraud. I was frauding these people. I was saying normally I knew it wasn't so fast forward after, you know, let's say like a thousand sleep tests.

I've been looking and looking and I'm saying, Where's the common denominator because these people, they're not lying to me, you know, there are people that come in and lie about being sick, but I didn't think that was the case with all these people. Sure. And what did I find? I found, uh, that people commonly who had no problems.

Had no deep sleep, very little deep sleep, no dream sleep, very little dream sleep, maybe no dream and no deep sleep or very little. And then the other thing they had, um, which we call in sleep medicine is sleep fragmentation.  That means that they're like, Jittery, they're jumping in and out of the stages of sleep, you know, it's like kind of like you should be like in different parts and it should be kind of rhythmic and they're kind of like,  so  I said, there's got to be a way to fix that there clearly was a drug that was going to fix that.

And so I did my own citizen science and I said, I got to help these people. And back in the day, there was something called the.  Yes, I had that. You had that? Yes, I did. For those who don't know, it was a little bedside alarm clock with a headband that was an EEG headband. And I would wear that every night and I would do different experiments, different supplements, 5 HTP.

Sure. Bone in different things and see what would happen.  And I was trying to manipulate my sleep stages so that I could help these people manipulate theirs. Because I figured there's got to be some common things.  Long story short, I can't say I found the holy grail of how to fix that, because I think it's more complicated than I knew at the time, but it started me looking deeply into how, how does one control sleep?

And of course, you know, any  board certified sleep guy will have some point talked about circadian rhythms. Sure. Circadian biologies. Most of the time they talk about early phase and late phase, which is like, you know, night owls and early birds, and that's not how you want to think of it. Thank you. Yeah. I, I remembered at some point,  there's a physician that coined the phrase Zeitgeibers.

And Zeitgeibers, which means light givers, right? And it's right there. Light is one of the most important circadian controllers that we know of. But yet we don't do anything. Maybe we, you know, people talk about the light boxes for SAD, Seasonal Affect Disorder, and But that's not really how nature does it and so,  you know, in my goings ons, I decided I wanted to figure this out and one faithful day, uh, I owe my, my, you know, my journey to YouTube.

I mean, that's kind of sick and twisted because, you know, we can all have our YouTube. I get it. Yeah. There was the video. It said sleep apnea, migraines, and vitamin D. Oof. And I had no idea how those three things connected. And so I watched that video. It was a neurologist in Texas. And she gave a grand rounds, and it was a beautiful presentation, and I said, holy moly, I didn't know any of that.

It was really about how vitamin D is really not a vitamin, it's a hormone, and, you know, it's a steroid based hormone, and there's receptors in your whole body, and in your brain stem, in the places where  You control your breathing for sleep apnea as well as the places that you control headaches and migraines.

And so she was putting people on huge doses of vitamin D and a lot of them were getting better.  They would sleep all of a sudden for the first time or their headaches would go away. And I thought this was amazing. I didn't understand any of this before this silly video. And so I really got deeply involved in all that.

And it worked a little bit and I started upsetting the endocrinologist in the area because I was replacing very high dose vitamin D on their patients and they were like, what are you doing? But anyway, quick question. Was that with, um, Stasha by any chance? I, yeah, Stasha Gomenak. I just was watching a video with her today.

So this is feels very kismet just anyway, quick aside because she's great. Okay, go ahead. So she red pilled me into this whole vitamin D thing. And, um, once I understood that it started the balls rolling in a way that eventually it landed up to light and then. Um, of course,  I was doing all these silly experiments,  um, but I also had a practice and I had a family, I had two young kids, and I would go home, play with my kids, have dinner, and then I would have electronic health record.

That means sitting on a laptop typing for an hour or so, sometimes before bed, and I would be tired and wired at the end of that. Sure. You know, shut the laptop and try to go to bed and I'd be a little groggy the next day.  So I realized that this light thing and blue light and this needs to be blocked.

And so I got plastic pair of goggles.  Nothing as like, you know, avant garde as we can do now.  So I put these silly things on just in front of the laptop and I would start yawning and then I'd go to bed and feel good the next morning.  And, uh, three months in. I got on a scale and I lost about six, seven pounds without trying.

Mm. I was pretty much paleo template of food. And so I wasn't doing anything different. I wasn't exercising at all. I was busy with a family and a practice. I was a new physician and I said, there's something to this.  So that's when I really said, okay, I don't know a thing about light. And I just dove in and, uh, I popped out the other side.

A physicist rather than a biologist, you know, I think I loved how you pointed to when, because we'll have different experts on the podcast and they'll kind of briefly, you know, just breeze past this circadian topic and then they might speak to it in a disordered fashion of, Oh, circadian delay, or they'll speak to it.

Oh, of course, chronotypes, et cetera. But I get from you that you are taking it to this whole other world that we know is available. And I think, but sadly, I don't think many people, the general public knows how much of a true lifestyle can be kind of garnered the more we dive into this. So. Curious if now you stumbled upon this topic.

So it's this vitamin D component, but then it also there's this practical. So it's not just like, Oh, we'll take, you know, some supplements. There's a lot of behavioral elements here at play. And it sounds like out of what I heard from you before we hit record. It then translated to all these other elements in your life.

So take us through for anyone listening that's just like they're struggling with sleep or they're sleeping and they'd like to improve it. How should they be thinking about this topic of light or beyond that just so many people aren't? So  just to show how I made these connections, right? Vitamin D. I, I was, I was on a paleo kick around that time.

And to me, paleo means what would caveman do? Like, that's the question, right? So  what would cavemen do to get their vitamin D? They weren't taking vitamin D pills. Nope. They went out in the sun. So vitamin D is really a light based hormone. It's not a pill based hormone. And at that time, I didn't understand the power of UV light at the time.

What it can do is create coherent electrons and and really give you the bioenergetics to power life in a very, very meaningful way. But I knew that. It was came from the sun, right? So that changed the perspective. And so  how do you put a framework on this? And I think epigenetics is the best way to do that because zeitgeist  circadian rhythms.

You know, I don't believe in this whole chronotype thing. We get into that later. Ask me again. Thank you. Yes, I am in that camp as well. Yeah. Controversial. I know. In medicine, we call those phenotypes. Those are expressions of a way that you express your body's physiology. But anyhow, epigenetics, right? The environment acts on your genes and it turns on and off these genes.

So light is what does that. You know, light controls that. How does a bear know when to hibernate? How does he know to get fat? Does he just go to eat doughnuts? Like, did he go to the doughnut tree and eat doughnuts and fatten up? Um, no. He, he just keeps eating and his body changes from being a glucose burner to a fat storer.

Mm,  right. Why? Because then he is gonna sit in a cave. And how does his body know to burn fat? 'cause he doesn't eat. Sure. How does he know how to do it? Like nobody really asks. These are like the 5-year-old questions. How does a bear know?  What to do? He doesn't. How does a, uh, how does a, you know, uh, an Arctic rabbit know when to change its fur color to white?

Right. Get the email that says, hey, time to change your fur. You know, daylight savings. Oh, it's automatic now. You know what I mean? No, he reads the environment the same way your phone reads the time server that it's connecting to and adjust the time. You are reading the time server that is the sun and the environment and the latitude and longitude you live in, right?

So there's a whole program that your body has to run this  and it's more than just day and night. It's seasons and it's even more than that, you know, because  I mean, a perfect example  as females, you have the honor and privilege. I say that tongue in cheek to carry on progeny and bring on the next generation of life.

You are more sensitive to environmental signals so that you can transfer the most sensitive information about how the world is going into, into that being that you're creating. Okay. Yeah. And, um, you know, they've shown this and I wrote in a, in a, in a textbook chapter, you know, the egg actually is chosen.

Based on the environment and mitochondrial features, right? And so, you're like trying to create the best thing you could. Like, it makes sense. Like, of course, why wouldn't you? You're not going to, like, pick a sour egg and a rotten egg and make a baby. So, this environmental thing is way more than just, like, light changing the color of your fur, you know, and, uh, and helping you prepare for hibernation.

It's,  it's how you run your entire body. And, um, to just take this into the, you know, esoteric, We all know, you know, they say you're, you're the culmination of the five, your five closest people you keep in your life, right? You know what I mean? Sure. About, you know, because it's, it's,  it's the same idea. This is epigenetics at play, social epigenetics, if you want to say.

Sure. In other words, the people that you're around, they have a certain vibe.  That vibe is either going to raise your vibe, or it's going to lower your vibe. If you hang out with a lot of derelicts, it's going to lower your vibe, and you're going to do stupid stuff. If you hang out with people that are a little, a little more forward thinking, and you're going to probably have that follow along.

And so,  this gets into the whole idea that, you know, a thought An emotion is a vibration. It's electromagnetic.  You know? I mean, we all have seen this. Somebody walks in a room and like, you're like, Oh, who's that? They have this thing. What is that thing? You know? Magnetic personality. People even use that in the phrase, they have this charm, and we use that word too, but magnetic, because it is electromagnetic.

And you can feel it, even though you can't touch it, taste it, sense it. You sense it in a way that's under your conscious level. So you're doing this.  Sure. You know, I think this is also how mob mentality works, you know, cause you ever hear about mob mentality, you hear good people did something terrible and like, I don't know why I did it because everybody was in the same vibe and they all kind of sunk up and that's really what coherence is and it can be good.

It can be for the good or it can be for the bad. Oh my gosh, you're, you're touching on so many topics that are very relevant for me right now. I just started, it's like I'm 20 years late to the party, but just started Sopranos. And speaking of mob mentality, and you watch the show and you're like, there's such redeeming qualities about these individuals.

And yet the environment that they're in then creates these results. And I think if we pan out for some of the things that I'm hearing you speak to. It's just one how important it is that we start getting aware and responsible for the environment that we are in, whether it's the people that are around us, aware that just every signal that we're giving to our body creates a reaction and that there's an opportunity for us to potentially learn more because so many people might want to sleep and say, okay, fine, I'll change my  but not realizing that it can get so nuanced based on the angle of the light that's hitting them and is it through these windows or is it outside or what you know there's so many things so if we pan out for those individuals that are saying all right fine i am with you on these things where do i begin what do you think or when you're speaking with people that come your way and you saw all those people that you said all right the labs we did their sleep tests and you're good how do you Approach these things differently now knowing what you know, where do you begin with people on such a big topic?

Yeah, so the good and bad news of epigenetics is that one you are in control  of your vitality your wellness In other words, this is not some genetic pretermination that you're destined to get it, right? Sure. You can have the BRCA gene and be a centenarian that lives to a hundred, so you're not doomed, right?

So this is the good news. The bad news is that means you have to do the work, you know, and I think today we live in such a toxic world that you realize. I have a lot of work to do. This is a second job. And yes, it is. And I, it sucks and you can be upset, but that's what it is. Like, it's just a choice. You know, you have a choice to do something.

Um, the other bad news is the details matter and you're going to have to start building and learning. Now, the good news is  it doesn't, you don't have to understand quantum physics to get this, but you have to start learning some principles and it gets back to.  The question that I asked at the very beginning is what would caveman do?

What would caveman do? Because now you're starting to think, that question really is what would a natural wild human being do? We are not natural wild right now. I can see windows behind you. Yep. In fact, it's a beautiful day outside. Neither of us are outside. Not at all. Yeah, not at all, which is partly the problem.

Yeah, right. And so I may have a different understanding of light frequencies and artificial light. And so I may be supplementing different lights in my internal room environment that don't exist in yours or the listeners. And that's great for me, but it's complicated, right? So the answer is, first off,  always the answer is, If you don't understand all the details, just get your butt outside, because then you don't need to understand everything.

You're getting it for free, and there's no complicated, what do I do, what do I do. Yeah. Nature, head towards nature, and stray away from technology. And everybody wants a detox, detox, detox. We need a technology detox, you know, we need to  see what our life devoid of technology looks and feels like, you know, I was just with some clients earlier.

My phone is generally on airplane mode for long periods of time.  I'm not like, you know, and I think it's this fear of missing out generation. And And also, I think, I think a lot of that is due to blue light. I think that changes, you know, your dopamine receptors are different. I mean, we're, we're changing how we interact with the world epigenetically is exactly what we're talking about.

So we're, we're waiting for that next thing and we have to be connected, connected, connected. Disconnect get out in nature and see what happens, you know, and  all of a sudden the beginning it's rough, you know, it's like any addiction, you know, it's rough. There's a little withdrawal and then all of a sudden you start to feel really good and you start to reconnect with who you are  and there's nothing more powerful than that.

And once you feel that once you're like, wow, I want to, I want to do that again. So good. And, and bringing it to it. Kind of the origin of where you discovered and stumbled upon that vitamin D connection with sleep apnea for the listener that's like, well, how is that connected? It's that  could be nice, get out in nature, et cetera, but not getting that.

No, this could actually on the ground, measurably change things like your sleep apnea, change things like your sleep results. The people that say, Oh, I, all I want to do is improve my deep sleep scores or whatever. And you're speaking to the code or the path for that. Is that correct? So the body really is a very holistic, systemic, interconnected piece, you know,  whether we like it or not, that's how it works.

It's not as simplistic as I, you know, when you go to the office and the doctor explains to you how this thing works, they're dumbing it down for you. And even they don't see the systemic connections because they don't have the physics.  The mitochondrial and circadian perspective, right? You have to have this mitochondrial  and circadian perspective.

Mitochondria give you the energy to do the work and circadian is really like the information side.  So you need, you know, if we wanted to build a house, you know, or build a building. We would need money, and we would need a blueprint. Yeah. That's it.  Sure. Blueprint and money. Once we have money, we can buy all the pieces.

And then we know how, how do we put them together? And the human being is no different than that building.  So first question is, do you have the blueprint? The more difficult side is, do you have the energy?  What I see today is that people don't have the energy, you know, I just spoke with someone earlier, you know, the chronic Lyme and all the, because the energy systems of their immune system and all these have been broken down so low, they don't have the energy to produce a normal response in those systems anymore.

And then the result is what we call Lyme disease.  Is Lyme disease about a bacteria or is it about your immune system? Well, that's a good question.  Chicken or the egg, you know? And I think if we look at it from the opposite side, a lot of these issues, they start to make more sense.  You know, perfect example, sleep.

You know, first thing people say is, well, what do you do right before bed? First thing, you know, you should be asking, what do you do when you wake up?  That's when sleep starts, right? So again, you have to flip it upside down. But again, the way we look at things, unfortunately, is usually backwards, right?  You know, the epigenetics started when you woke up, what was the light that you were exposed to?

Did you go outside and get natural frequencies of sunlight telling your brain, hey, it's daytime?  Or did you go right to the phone and get a serious dose of blue light, which just triggered dopamine and all this other stuff and now your neurotransmitters are all spiking? And, you know, you're so  You don't need to understand all these details.

All you need to know  is, okay, let's, let's get some natural light, especially in the morning, and let's block all these artificial frequencies. So, you know, the easiest way, and I just showed, you know, my blue blocking glasses. I started with a cheap pair of 10 goggles that I would never be in bed with. But, you know, um, you know, I have clip ons for these.

I'm wearing glasses that don't reflect as much when I have lights and stuff on in here. Um,  You have to tell your body it's nighttime,  you're going to start to make melatonin. What does melatonin do? Well, melatonin sleep hormone. Yeah, that's that's part of it. It's a very small part. Okay. It's an anti cancer hormone.

Yeah, it lowers estrogen that connects it also to breast cancer and other estrogen related cancers. Okay. Um, it helps  stimulate the repair and regenerative processes.  So now you say, okay, if blue light's the greatest oppressor of melatonin  And everybody's around blue light 24 7 until they put their head on the pillow.

Now, it makes sense. No melatonin No regeneration means whatever damage you accumulate  is not going to get fixed  Yeah. Now buy a new car  and never put, never change your oil for the rest of the car's life. Right. That's a big problem. Exactly.  Yeah.  And unfortunately, you know, you can, we all know that people lease cars now, you know, people don't change the oil all the time and they just put the car back, but you're, you're stuck with this body.

Right. So it's eventually going to catch up with you. How is it going to catch up? It might not be like check and oil light. It might be your. Car engine seizes up completely and you need a new engine and that's the problem today is that you don't get these warning signs that are so easy to identify or they don't even fit a disease, you know, they're these strange symptoms.

You don't know what they are. It's tingling. It's rapid heart rate and all these different sometimes autonomic nervous system things that can be the first thing that start to go and you. They don't even get diagnosed because nobody even recognizes they're a, you know, that system's losing energy.  Sure, and I love how you broke it down too, to circadian rhythm and mitochondria.

And we had mentioned, well, part of the access point to making a difference with both of those things can be going outside. What do we say to the people that listen, say, well, okay, I've got two jobs or I live up in, you know, northern latitude locations, upper peaks of Canada or what have you. How do we address those topics?

So we just go back to the first question, what would caveman do? Caveman was outside in the cold. Maybe he had some, you know, woolly mammoth jacket that he was wearing to help him, but he was outside. And so cold is another pathway that is very powerful for mitochondrial health and you know, mitochondrial bioenergetics.

And so that's why cold water immersion and cold plunge has gotten so popular because another way that we can build these things up also connected in studies with improved sleep, better sleep, deeper sleep again. So now we see the connection to sleep. How does cold make your sleep better? It's mitochondria.

So now we're helping just the mitochondrial side. You know, the other thing is cold is  what happens when you're, you know, in the tundra. There's not strong UVB light to make vitamin D. So, cold is actually nature's backdoor pathway to tell your circadian rhythms to run a different way. So, cold turns on an ancient pathway that also offsets and turns you into a more efficient person.

And it's connected with the food that you eat, right? Yeah. We're eating whale blubber, right? I mean, you know, I mean, I don't recommend you eat whale blubber, but Um, the point is, is cold environments make you a fat burner, an ultimate fat burner. And that's the other reason, what do they use cold plunge for?

They use that for losing weight. Mmm. Right? Absolutely. Um,  so yeah. So when you see these things, if you're looking from the circadian side and the mitochondrial side. And you put those two together, you will see how these therapies stack up and how they help. And some of them only help on one side of the equation.

That's okay. But then if you don't do the other side, right? So if you're doing something that's mitochondrial, but it's not circadian, or if you're doing something that's circadian, not mitochondrial, put them together, and then you'll start to see, okay, wow. Now I'm going to make progress in a way that I didn't.

Wow. Somebody on the same therapy who had no success. You put them through a circadian realignment where you start getting them to rebuild their circadian rhythm and you give them the same treatment, they'll have a different response. Same person so even you know, most people think well, I have a different response than you molly And that's just we're different but i'm telling you you can have a different response from you because I  I can change molly by putting her under different light and give her the same therapy and get it totally Yeah that environment piece so when you have people coming in and Previously, you would have a certain, as you put it, you know, some of that formulaic things that used to, or ways that many professionals would approach the topic of, okay, we'll get you a sleep lab and we'll look at your results and send you on your way.

Are you now having a whole different protocol that you're putting people down, whether they have sleep apnea or not? And is it multifaceted? Are there any kind of supplements or things that they purchase? Or is it more in the realm of, listen, you can get this stuff for free and it's behavioral based.

What do you see there? Yeah. So to me, the first step is some sort of circadian light realignment, right? And we've mentioned it. I mean, the basics, the 101 maneuver is a. m. morning sunlight when you wake up close to sunrise, hopefully. Yeah, even little sunbreaks. You know, people used to take smoke breaks. You can take a five minute sunbreak and just walk outside like you're not going to die.

And it's like, Oh, I'm so busy. Yeah, you can walk to the water cooler. You can walk outside and walk back in. Like, it's a good break. They tell you you should get away from the screen every hour anyway. So  So that's good. But then you have to reestablish nighttime in your brain. And, um, so you need some sort of eyeglasses.

Uh, that's the starting point that will only protect your eye clock, you know, your clock in your brain, you have clocks in all your cells and any light that's exposed to your body is still doing that. So now you have skin and other things, but. For a beginner, just start with the brain and the eye clock.

That's something. Um,  can you change all the lights in your house? Yeah, you can, but again, details now matter, and now you need to understand a whole lot. It's not hard for me to say, put these glasses on when the sun goes down, and don't put them, don't take them off until the sun goes up. Obviously, you can take them off to go to bed, but if you get up in the middle of the night and want to go do something or grab something, then put them on.

Okay? Because that's how you can protect your circadian rhythm. Um,  so that's the step one. You know, after that.  What are the things that are, I mean, I, I do use supplements, but I think supplements are just a little boost when you're getting, and I think you have to think, uh, one is from a cost standpoint, you know, people are, you know, usually don't just spew unending.

You know, financial streams at their health. So, you know, supplements become this unending financial stream. It's just another form of big pharma. It's just big pharma that you can buy and you don't need a doctor's prescription. So that's, it's good, but it's also like, it has to be appropriate and it has to be end points and you have to decide why am I doing this.

Um, I, I'm a bigger fan of electromagnetic  supplementation, right? So in other words, like I'm going into vitamin D winter soon in New York, I'm going to do to get UVB light, right? So again, you know, nothing is perfect and you, you know, certainly should work with somebody that understands this, but you know, can I add UVB light in my life?

In an artificial fashion,  because it's not there naturally, you know, still not the ideal. But in other words, so now you start saying, okay, and this is where I think I usually start rather with photobiomodulation with red light and near infrared light, because these are powerful ways that we can offset damage and things that are much safer, um, and much more mainstream now.

And you're not likely to hurt yourself. You would be obviously you can so that you have to be, you know, Be more aware of the details. But so, you know, a single purchase of an expensive but powerful red light device.  Could move you for a decade You know unless it dies on you and you know, but so but you know The same amount of supplements might last you two months three months, right?

and so  You know, I mean, I know people have spent five six hundred dollars a month on supplements You say  you could buy so many tools. That would be so much more powerful. You could use every day Possibly for the rest of your life at least for a decade And, you know, so when you're looking at this, this is my job, how do I keep my health?

Good.  Uh, you got to do work. So the work is going to be to the taking a pill, which again, I'm not a huge fan of is a point. There's a purpose for doing that, but doing things like photo by modulation and, um, you know, again, cold water. And that's a natural way of doing this. So again, you know, you can get into P.

M. F. And other things. And there's pros and cons and controversies over that. But cold water, I mean, you know, again, There's cold water all over the globe. I mean, this is not a need to reinvent the wheel, right? So, you know, um, but again, you have to, you have to do this gradually. There's a way to do it and safely.

And, um, that's important, obviously.  Sure. While we're on the topic of those light therapies, so many people I'll speak with will say, well, I wake up before the sun or I have odd schedules or it's freezing outside and they're not registering what you just spoke to of that could actually be a great plus.

But then they immediately go to well, I'll get one of the sad lamps or what have you thoughts on that. What do you see? Yeah, so I'm not a huge fan of sad lamps because I think they're light heavy and while they will help to reset somebody's circadian rhythm, it's doing so in a destructive fashion. I mean, yeah.

I laid out all the details if somebody really wants to hear the hard core, uh, in chapter 20 of this book. Oh, I didn't see that. Okay, great. And wait, can you say the title of that book real quick in case? Sure, sure. And I can get you, you know, nutrition and integrative medicine for clinicians. Thank you. Um,  and so I went over the nitty gritty of how this works, but you don't need to understand all that.

Yeah. End of the day. If you can just let nature dictate what you do, I mean, there'll be some resistance. I really don't have a winter coat. I live in New York. I have a spring jacket that I wear in the winter. You say, that's nuts. Yeah, because when the weather like it's in the 60s, I'm not cold. I would, I sometimes wear a jacket just to be socially, you know, acceptable, but  I'm cold.

And then sometimes, you know, it gets really cold and I have a jacket and people will be wearing these like. You know, North Face Arctic Park is that look like they're going to zero degrees and it's 50 degrees out  and I'm like, what's going on here? Right? And so, because my body has adapted, I've done a lot of cold water immersion therapy and it changes how your body works, right?

The Eskimos wore all these clothes.  Those clothes weren't enough to get through like negative 20. So you have to start saying how to do it. Their bodies adapted and they adapted because the environment taught them how to adapt.  We're not adapted. Okay. Domesticated humans. So they were back to the same idea.

It's like, why do zoo animals not live as healthy as wild animals? They can do the same artificial crap that we do. So now can you get outside? Yeah, you can. Is it going to annoy you in the beginning? Yeah, it probably will push through. I mean, you know, anything worth doing is probably, you know, not going to be super easy.

Uh, and that's okay, you know, it's still worth doing. So I would just say stick to it. Give it a try Um, you know, you can't tell in one shot and that's the other thing people they go out and say Oh, the sun hurts my eyes. Oh, I don't feel good, right? Well, that's you know, you can't go out also in august and uh in the strongest sun, you know And expect to do well like go out in april and may when it's not so bad and get a little bit of experience build up You know your body's adaptation same thing with cold You know, um,  Client I work with in buffalo who you know walking outside and she loved it And I first thing I told her just walk outside without your hat on  So she was getting the morning Light and cold on her head and she was like, oh my god, I feel so amazing all day So she got two therapies.

She we realigned her circadian rhythm and she got cold therapy on her head  So actually You know when you say oh, I don't want to go outside. It's cold. That's free, you know, like you can go You know, I helped someone establish a cold weather You can go and pay money to go you could just go outside like hey  There's no barrier to entry, just use what nature gives you.

Go outside, don't put a hat on, it's not that hard, you know, and then before you know it, you'll be shoveling snow in shorts and a t shirt and feel okay. It doesn't start that way, but you build up to that, right, you know, oh my gosh, it's so funny. My husband always says I should have a show Molly ruins everything because that will often be the responses.

People will say, well, it's well, well and good in the summer, but then the winter comes and I don't want to be outside for the 10, 20, 30 beyond minutes each morning. But one of the things that we're pointing to is that while it might. Kind of suck in the beginning or feel as if it's an adjustment. What we're pointing to is that this can be a part of the access point or key to really making a measurable and resounding difference in your overall health and experience of life.

And we're just scratching the surface of the impact of what this can have. But this can affect our mental health, our longevity and just. It's beyond so one of the things i'm so curious about given How far down the rabbit hole you have gone on this topic and it expands Is how you are managing your own sleep and we do ask every person for questions.

I'm always curious to hear everyone's Responses, but i'm particularly curious with yours. So the first question is What is your nightly sleep routine looking like right now? I'm sure it evolves and changes, but what would we see? Yeah, I mean, and again, it's like, it's going to depend on where you're located because this is when in the season, the time of year, right?

So, but for me, I have blue blockers on at sundown every day without fail, I will, you know, since I use a modular system that Viva Rays has, I will sometimes go to a red. Uh, half hour an hour before I want to go to bed if I'm really motivated or I remember because that's sometimes if I'm out and about, it's a little trickier and having access,  but so that's it without fail.

And I maybe 11  day a year. I miss.  It's important to me. I know how, I know how powerful it is. Yeah. Um,  the other side of that is my morning routine. You know, I have a cup of, you know, oftentimes green tea, maybe mud water, rarely coffee. Um,  and I try to do that. You know, like on the back porch with my glasses down so I can get light in my eye.

Um, you know, even on a cold day if you have a screen room or something you can go out in the screen room you could sit in a warm cup of Something I'd say cup of java because I don't really drink coffee, but a cup of java, whatever it is. Yeah, whatever it is Yeah, um could be mushroom cough, whatever you are into.

That's fine. Start there. It will keep you warm Um, you know, you're usually still warm from getting out of the bed So your body is much more resilient than you're aware of  And, you know, as you're waking up, the sun hits you. And if  Tom is, if you're waking up at 12 o'clock noon, you know, it's going to be so you got to start to work yourself back.

But, you know, those two things without fail, like those are the one on one basics. Um, and then from there it varies based on what's going on in my life. You know, I mean, um, you know, I have two kids, a teenage son and, you know, we're going out to, you know, he's into jazz and we go to watch some jazz group and, you know, it's night.

And so I do different things on a night like that. This is, you know, but on a perfect night. On a like, uh, you know, everything's in my favor. Maybe I take a warm, relaxing bath with some Epsom salts and lavender. Maybe I have a cup of  chamomile tea, you know, again. So here's natural supplementations and food form that we can enjoy that just and it puts us in the right mindset to write.

In other words.  Forget about the fact that lavender and Epsom salts are going to have health benefits. You know a bath is relaxing Yeah, how often do you take 20 minutes and just relax? So there's that aspect of it too, right in other words and you know, usually in a bath With, you know, Epsom salts and lavender and maybe some essential oils, whatever you really want to be lavish about it.

You're not going to be thinking about crazy thoughts. It's going to try to put you in a state. And so again, now your mind and these psychological epigenetics, your mind is thinking like peaceful, you know, calming thoughts, you know, and then of course. There's actually physiology behind that warm bath helping you if you don't take it right before bed It will actually create a cooling effect.

Your body will try to cool off. So now we're back to cold water immersion This is like tricking your body into having cold water immersion at night. And so that's gonna set you up Melatonin, of course lowers your body temperature a few degrees at night. So that's part of Getting cold is part of sleep.

So cold is connected to sleep and in a kind of ancient way, you know, so now here we have this, this, this routine that, you know, again, even just a cup of hot chamomile tea, your body will try to dissipate some of that heat.  Um, you know,  turn down your thermostat. You know, these are simple things like, oh, it's got to be so warm.

Does it? Does it really? Or is that just what your mind told you or your parents told you or your husband or spouse said? Oh, it's too cold. It may not be. Give it a try. You know, sometimes two degrees down on the on the thermostat, you know, clients will notice. Improvement in their sleep. Absolutely. And it goes back to that.

You know, you're saving money, right? Exactly.  It's not hard, you know, it doesn't matter, but they don't all have to be expensive regenerative therapies. We can do those to you too. I'm happy to do them, but Yeah, there's really simple things you can start with. Yeah, and it goes back to that blueprint piece you were speaking to is that we're just really mimicking what's happening in nature naturally, and we're trying to bring it inside as much as possible.

And we're trying to get ourselves outside, of course, but when we are inside, what would be happening out here? Let's bring it in. Okay, so good. And you actually touched on the first two questions, really, unless we missed anything, is that so we see what happens in your nighttime routine. So you're mindful of the light environment.

Your temperature environment, the thought environment that you're kind of creating for yourself, and then it spills into your morning. Anything else we miss in your morning routine that's noteworthy? Because, of course, you pointed to the ability to get outside and, you know, get that sun. Yeah, I mean, I don't I go through waves of doing it, so I'm not going to, but  a pen and paper notebook, a small pen and paper notebook, and you can do whatever you want.

You can write down your to do list. You can journal some thoughts. You can, you know, and again, that's with that coffee. Like, that's a little sacred period of time. You could read a book. You could, you know, so there are other things you can do in that. And, you know, you can look at like, uh, Miracle Morning, you know, was it?

Oh, that's a great, Hal Alrod. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, any of those ideas, but whatever, whatever resonates with you, I think, again, we're getting into the epigenetics. Setting up your day  puts you in a good state of mind. It's like, you know, there's a, why do you make your bed in the morning? So if you have a terrible day and you come back home, at least you get to look at a well made bed.

It puts you in a good mood. Set up your day. So taking, writing four things you want to get done today or three things, like make it really easy.  And now, you know, I just have to get to these three things and I'll feel like today's a success.  Great. What a great mindset play when you accomplish those three things, which aren't so hard and the day is over.

And so again, you know, these small epigenetic, uh, factors, you can, you can manipulate them positively. And if you're just all over the place, you forget to do those things.  Then you come home and you're pissed off and you're aggravated and now that frequency is in your body and it's affecting you and your health and maybe that will interfere with your sleep and maybe it will stimulate stress hormone, cortisol.

That's the opposite of melatonin. So now you're, you're, you're shifting your circadian rhythm away from sleep. Yeah. Iron wired. Which is such a signature for so many people that have disruptive sleep, that delayed cortisol pulse problem. So good point. And then visually in your environment, I know you hit on some, certainly with the glasses and certain things.

Is there anything, you know, we always ask, is there anything on your nightstand, but it could extend to, you know, your environment that we should be aware of that you use. Sure. I was recently like I picked up something and so I was having some disturbed sleep when I was there. So what's on my nightstand?

It's very simple. It's usually a book and a small led red light because by chance I wake up and I'm like, Oh, this was just, you know, I'm a human being too. Like we all have that. You can all be human. Oh, I sleep great.  Everyone's in a blue moon. And you know what I do? Oh God, I'm up. It's four in the morning.

What the hell am I going to do? I.  The book and my red light and I can read and then you know what, it might put me and I might be able to go back. Maybe I can't, but you know, this way again, um, and I always have a different book on my nightstand, you know, as I'm moving along. Um, could be about, you know, self actualization, could be about health.

And I recommend people do this. You know, I didn't learn any of this stuff in med school. Yeah. Everybody says, oh, well, you're a doctor, you know, you knew all this. I didn't know any of this stuff. Mm mm. Nobody taught me. I learned this all on my own, reading tons of books. So if you want to say, I want to understand this, you have the opportunity to.

It's a lot of books, but start somewhere. You know, if anybody wants to read a great book to kind of  Help you understand that light and, you know, electromagnetism is really important. Go buy a book by the name of Health and Light by John Ott. Yeah, so good. That's a small, easy to read book with so much hidden knowledge that you won't understand until you read it the second time after you really have learned some of this stuff.

And you're like, wow. We knew about this in the 70s. Yep, we did.  Absolutely. Oh, such a good one. I'm glad you answered because I was thinking I was like, Oh, well, what are some of the books that you recommend with all that kind of library? That's a great one. So good. Okay. And then, oh, real quick. I know you'd mentioned briefly EMFs.

Is there anything noteworthy that you make sure to have or not have in your bedroom environment or beyond as it relates to that? Go to airplane mode. Okay. Put a timer on your Wi Fi. I mean, here's the thing. Blue light suppresses melatonin. So does EMS. Yeah. You can see the light, at least, so you know it's on.

But if you just, you know, your phone's on and it's on your nightstand. That's buzzing at millions of times per second, millions and billions now, you know what I mean? It's like, brain is right next to it. So, you know, we're beings of light and frequency and vibration. And so, when you realize, remember those stages of sleep, and I said sleep fragmentation in the beginning?

All the stages have a frequency, right? Deep sleep, delta waves, that's a small, slow wave frequency. We're going three, like, beats per, you know, per minute, per second. Uh, so slow waves, and then you have this,  like,  you're not gonna stay in that. You know, so you start to understand, um, okay, I gotta quiet my room.

But quiet doesn't just mean sound. It means quiet all these other  aberrant frequencies and devices, right? So, you know, try the hard wire. You know, shut your phones off, you know, people freak out like, oh, it's not going to work, you know, your alarm clock still works when you're in airplane mode. So I just would anybody who's like, oh, I can't do that.

You know, yeah, it works. It really does.  Yeah, put it on the opposite side of your room, you know, start somewhere distance.  You know, so yeah, I mean, these are simple things, but you can do them so good. And our last question is, what would you say has made the biggest change to your sleep game to the management of your sleep or said another way, maybe biggest aha moment in the management of that sleep?

Yeah, I mean, it really goes back to that day and I'm sitting at that laptop computer when I, when I realized this was a story of light  and so good.  You know, everybody's so concerned with what food you should be eating and everybody should be worried about what light you're consuming, you know, and it's like,  it's really hard to unbrainwash that because that's how we were brought up.

You know, that health and wellness is a diet and exercise story.  And if that was true, God, wouldn't we all be healthy? Because you know how many people are doing that? And then when you see the people who look healthy, who are these cross fitting 40 year olds who break their back, die of heart attacks.

Obviously that's not the right answer either. So, but you know, we all don't exercise like they did in Huntington beach out in the, you know, on the actual beach working out in the sunlight. Yeah. We're operating in gyms with, you know, terrible led blue light. And we're doing it all hours of the day and night, as if that's healthy.

And that's another thing, like, when should I work out? I mean, these are questions, nobody asks these questions. Well, it's convenient. I start work at nine, so I'm going to go at six o'clock in the morning. Okay, maybe that's good for you now, but I can promise you, when your adrenal glands are really not happy,  When you go work out at the time that your adrenal glands are working at their highest to wake you up Because your adrenal glands actually give you this cortisol spike to wake you up And then you go and stress them even more that doesn't sound like a smart thing for me  And people say but it fits in my schedule that's the important oh That convenience is killing you Look around your life.

And if you just find out the things that make your life more convenient I promise those are the things that are actually killing you No, good. And real quick on the exercise front, then we're speaking to to this kind of circadian or rhythmic lifestyle and how to have this all kind of have a place. Do you see a place that can be optimal for the average person that you would suggest putting in a hard workout for most people?

Yeah, so morning, I think morning movement like walking. I don't consider that a hard so that's your side. But again, let that take you outside. Yeah, the big problem is that I think the most favorable circadian time to work out is like before you finish work or right after work. And so that is just not convenient.

So again. This is unfortunate, but that's what it is like. Can you change your job so you can go work out and come back and work out? No, they're not going to let you do that. So you go home, you do this and then you go work out. And now it's 7, 8 o'clock. And that's probably now going to start to get late enough where it might start to impact your sleep.

Right positive and negative ways. It's tricky. It depends on you know, now, what are you doing?  But so the earlier in the evening the better and into the early afternoon again, it's seasonal too It depends what time of year it's going to change it even more too. So sure You're gonna have a lot more leeway In you know the long photo period spring and summer versus in the winter, you know, um We should be going to bed earlier and that's the other thing people say.

Oh seven eight hours is good What time of year is it? Because yeah If it's the winter, I might be getting eight or nine, and if it's summer, I might be getting seven or eight. And so you see,  all these questions have a context, and, um, the context really matters, because context is the epigenetics. The context is, what is your environment?

So, you know, that's why people say, well, you're in Chicago, and I'm in New York, so we might be able to have a similar routine, but there's somebody in Texas that's listening to this. Yeah, I am. Yeah Yeah, so you and I have very different sun exposures right now. I moved to texas for the sun Yeah, if I told you what I did in the winter for you, you may not need to do that You may have a totally different, you know time frame.

Yeah, so that's the other part that people want to copy, you know, who they, but that's not copyable because you don't have the same environment. Oh, so wise. And for anyone listening too, that's like, oh geez, okay, so we need to know where we are on the globe, what season it is, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's, I hope that we're also inspiring for people a curiosity, uh, intrigue that this, there is this sort of hidden kind of global element here that are beyond just not in the globe, but you know, a quantum component that really has some of these answers embedded in it that we could get curious on and go down the rabbit hole and discover like a whole new way of living.

I don't know if I shared with you, but I work with a lot of high stakes poker players and they've got, you know, they're living. upside down and in an environment that's designed on purpose to confuse the circadian rhythm these casinos and what have you and for them to be able to even begin to grab back and carve out the day mode the night mode and reclaim those things life changing and how can we extend beyond those you know kind of niche environments for all of us that we've all gone so indoors it's a real problem so what does it look like to marry the nature with our indoor environment and hopefully have more of that nature than the average person.

So I so appreciate you just sharing some of the things that you've gleaned out of your immense research and knowledge. I know we only just scratched the surface. So for people that want to follow more of what you are up to, what you're learning, work with you beyond, how can they do that? Sure, they can check out my website at  quantumlifewellness.

com. You know, I'm on the social media, but it's this love hate relationship, right? Because the more you're on social media, you know, it's like the more you're sitting in front of that same thing we're talking about. So, you know, I have ways where I get very, I don't want to say preachy, but like I want to like spread more stuff.

And then I get ways like I'm spending too much time on it. I got to get off it, you know? And it's like, so it's that dance. So you may catch me and I'm doing things and you may not. But, um,  You know, I think opportunities like this where people listen, you know,  there's so much of an onus of, of you have to take ownership of this, you know, of your health and, um,  you know, even if I could  give all the data right now that you need to know, it would be, you know, maybe we'd be talking for the next three weeks straight and  nobody's going to listen to it.

That's why we have the TLDR, you know, memes, right? It's like nobody. If I had the Bible, you know, of what you needed to do to get healthy from whatever place you're at, nobody would read it because it's too many pages. So start somewhere, start where you're at, have some level of curiosity, and, you know,  but realize that the perspective has to be about light.

Yeah. And mitochondria. And when you start learning these things, it will take time, but you'll build it up and then you'll become smarter than your doctor because you'll understand how to interact with these fundamental subcellular pieces of your health that I'm going to determine whether you're, you're, you're getting the results you want or not.

Uh, so, so well said. So wise. And I so appreciate that there are doctors like you out there,  pioneers and it just, uh, fantastic. Maybe we'll have to do some sort of part two down the road and touch on the chronotype topic. Cause I love that one too. So. More goodness to come, but thank you so much for taking the time to share your hard won wisdom and really just make such a difference knowing that there are practitioners like yourself out there.

It's really important. Thank you for having me and, you know, I just hope people will take something from this. and build from there. Absolutely. Well, thank you.

You've been listening to the sleep as a skill podcast, the top podcast for people who want to take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday, I send out the sleep obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting.

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