159: Peter Adams, Vice President of Vielight, From Brain Health to Sleep Quality: The Impact of Transcranial Photobiomodulation

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 it.

being 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.

Red light therapy. We talk about it often as to how it could be supportive for your mitochondrial health and by extension, your sleep health. But there are very few companies that focus in on transcranial photobiomodulation, which is a much trickier application. Now, today's guest, Peter Adams is the VP of business development at V Lite and they are a company that does exactly that.

So if you are someone that's dealing with things like brain fog, long COVID, traumatic brain injury, various neurodegenerative disorders, et cetera. These things could be impacting your sleep and this could be a potential solution. And thankfully they have a lot of science to support and a little bit about our guests.

Peter Adams has worked in executive consulting and management positions. Both internationally and in Canada in large corporations and startups. He has also worked as a consultant at fortune 500 companies. His current focus is on early market development for V light incorporated. Thankfully V light has also set us up with a code in case you're interested in testing out their products.

It is sleep as a skill for 10 percent off. Now let's get into the podcast, but first a few words from our sponsors.  If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep. And one of the first places that many people begin when they talk to me about sleep is they want to know what's the supplement I can take.

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And welcome to the sleep is a skill podcast. Peter Adams is our guest today. And Peter, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Hi, nice to meet you. And thanks. Thanks for having me on. Yes, absolutely. So for anyone that's not watching this and just listening, Peter has this beautiful background with a fireplace going and just, uh, he's got the guitars and the whole ambience.

So we're going to have a nice fireside chat with Peter today. So Peter, maybe we can begin at the beginning, if you will. This is of course, the Sleep is a Skill podcast. So understanding how, what you are up to. to in the world of health optimization, how that also relates to sleep. So how you found yourself there and how does it relate to sleep?

Oh, cool. Well, thanks. Yeah. I mean, my, I guess way back in the seventies, I was originally a bio engineer working in a hospital in Oxford and in the Radcliffe and I did my degree in applied physics, um, but that kind of took me on to moving to North America. I worked in. In sales, engineering, marketing, both in high tech companies, including Intel, McKesson, some of the heavyweights.

Um, and it was mostly, I just found myself interested in and articulating new technologies and how they fit into humanity or human life or industrial life, et cetera.  Anyway, uh, fast forward from them after a long career working in California, Canada. Europe and England. Um, I came back here and I wound it up as an advisor at Canada's largest incubator, which is Mars Discovery District is actually the, I believe the largest in North America, and it has about 3 billion worth of research, health research going on around that.

That small area. So I became an advisor to startups, mostly in health information technology, because I've worked a lot  with hospitals and tech in hospitals, etc. But they would always throw me some of the oddball ones  to look at, because I also had. An interest, which I've been pursuing for 30 years, which is alternative health in general and alternative health technologies  and that's where I met Lou Lim, who showed me this device.

I mean, it was  Very much like this device. It was  a handheld  double a powered little device, which essentially generated a laser light red light and, uh, and he put it in the nose of some friend of ours, actually, who was quite unwell.  Now, typically, when you're unwell, you get this, um,  well, aggregation or your blood, your hemoglobin clumps together in your blood.

And he showed me, he put it in her nose and half an hour later, the blood disaggregated, all the platelets disaggregated. And I went on to learn that, um, There's a thing called hemorheology, which is the study of the flow and viscosity of blood through hemorheology  tests. This had actually affected that and it showed to increase microcirculation.

So, at that point, I thought this guy has got something going on. This is really. Really interesting. And so I spent some time as an advisor helping him to get some of this technology  taken seriously in the health system, which was which was a challenge, because when you think about it, the light output and the simplicity of it is so simple, yet the effects were so profound.

It's really hard to get people to believe it anyway.  Fast forward a few years, um, I joined Lou as, uh, as I do, I also do, um, uh, you know, fractional executive roles in startups, helping them develop and commercialize their products. And so I joined him as a vice president of business development. I've actually been working with him for six and a half years.

Going through the whole journey from, from that to transcranial photobiomodulation and devices that actually get light into the brain. So that's, that's how I kind of got from here to there. Now, on the journey, you know, we've had fantastic relationships with the researchers, Boston University Hospital, Harvard, UCSF.

Uh, et cetera. So we've, we've, we've developed this wonderful partnership around the world of people are now working on this technology. So that's, that's how I kind of got from here to that. Now, how does that relate to sleep? Well, Lou gave me a device and, uh,  I went home and yeah, I, I don't have any problem getting to sleep.

What I do have a problem with is feeling like a bear with a sore head when I wake up.  Yes. I use this device, I use this device and, uh, the next morning I woke up like I had. Energy i couldn't believe the difference in the energy i had  and as this device found its way around the world by the way just by word of mouth.

Most of the reports the initial reports we got back his arm i can go to sleep more easily on my sleep is a lot better.  Now, we never did any research. We never did any research on sleep because we had some indications out of Harvard that there was neurogenesis going on from near infrared lights in the brain, and there looked to be, um, you know, a removal of what's called the beta amyloid plaques, which are associated with Alzheimer's.

So that became a focus.  And that's why sleep has, it's always been there as a benefit, but we can talk about such perhaps why, but that's, that's the story thus far. So impressive. And for anyone that can't see this video recording and is listening, I think it's noteworthy too that there are some of these different applications and ways that people, as you noted, but just in case people have a hard time conceptualizing what this might look like.

One, I think it's important to note that the intranasal option is small, portable, affordable, right? Yep, exactly. Very just handheld. And then you put that right into the nose. And I mean, some of the price I'm on your site now range from What anyway, as low as 100 to in the mid like 400s, 500s, that's accurate, right?

Something along those lines. So it's accessible from that perspective from even a financial and the practicality and ease of use for something like that, right? And then beyond that, then there's, so I've had the opportunity to be testing with your product. Thank you so much because you all had sent that over.

So I've gotten to test with that as well as the transcranial device that you pointed to as well, which is. Fascinating. I'm always sharing about this on social media and my newsletters and what have you because it's just, my husband's always like, what is happening? What are you putting on your head? And so you put that on your head.

And so I'm so curious to kind of break down both of these pieces of technology because there's, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe a lot of places that people can go to get this sort of tech in their own home. And then we can start to understand further what some of the benefits of those are.

And to your point, we've got some of that kind of on the ground feedback for people potentially that improvement in sleep, certainly more research to be done. I know you're actively engaged in this research and with many, many different institutions, so more to come there. But I know even before we hit record, you had mentioned some of the benefits for things like, or we talked about TBI traumatic brain injury, which we've had a number of episodes on the podcast of how that can often find its way into sleep disturbances or sleep difficulties for people.

So certainly from that brain health element. and beyond and the overall health and well being because that's another commitment that we have on this podcast is both that our sleep wake that we're living a powerful life and so that while we're awake that we're having all that cognitive processes and beyond.

So maybe we can start to break down a little bit more of the benefits of both of those type of modalities intranasal and the transcranial potentially. Yeah, that's, that's a great intro. Okay. So, um, the intranasal was a very important invention, which Lulin patented.  And the reason he did it, there was research showing those effects many years before by bio infusing the blood with, with fiber optics, bio infusing it with light using fiber optics.

And so he thought, okay, is there a way we can do this more simply? And he chose the nose because the, um, the density of blood vessels at the surface is, is greatest. And it says semi non invasive way of getting that light into the blood, directly into the bloodstream. Um, now One of the things, um, that, that was just using regular red lights.

Now we've moved also to incorporate near infrared. Now near infrared is that sweet spot between, you can't just put infrared straight into your nose or even straight on your head at that power because it'll burn.  And yet you get much more penetration. So near infrared is halfway between where you get the penetration and the frequency of the light, the actual wavelength, the light allows, allows penetration.

Plus it also generates some of these, um, biological effects within, within the body as well. Now, um,  One of the earliest discoveries with near infrared on the brain  was, like I said, it was Alzheimer's in rats using near infrared. And then the second part of this is actually pulsing the light. Originally the light was just continuous, but they found that actually pulsing it had a different effect.

We've chosen two pulse rates, both which relate to pulsing the light. Um, you know, the sort of brainwave stays your I'm sure your readers or dealers or listeners are familiar with alpha, beta, gamma, delta. Okay. So those are the so what we did is we, we tried pulsing at 10 initially. That was the alpha relating to an alpha frequency to get to generate a kind of a calming effect.

And then the second one we tried was 40 hertz, because 40 hertz was a pulsing frequency that initiates gamma, which seemed to get rid of the beta amyloid plaques was shown to get rid of them. So that's why we did 40 hertz. Um,  now, sort of putting this all together. Um, one of the things that we was also going on in Harvard, where at the Wellman Center, uh, Professor Michael Handelman asked a, a neuroscientist, a professor of neuroscience at Boston University Hospital and say, Hey, Can you try using this on the head?

And, uh, she tried it at an initial trial. She thought, let's see how it is good with neuro regeneration with traumatic brain injury. So she tried four ex athletes  who had had repetitive hand injuries. They're footballers.  And one of them's name was Larry Carr. Now, Larry  was, he's in his 70s. He's, he was from the Brigham, he was a Brigham Young Hall of Famer.

He played in the CFL. He went to her, and he, his life was, Absolutely in ruins. I mean, his mood disorders were off the charts. He couldn't teach. He did have a PhD in exercise physiology and psychology. He was a teacher, a professor, and, uh, he just kind of basically lost his career. So she tried putting that helmet on, uh, which was a big multi led helmet.

And he started to get better.  His mood started to dysregulate. After a couple of months of treatment, and then Margaret said, that's it, you know, uh, Trinity studies finished  and he was going, Oh, my God, what happens? Well,  uh, she said, look, I've been working with this company, V light, they have this home device.

Now, the reason, the reason why.  We created this device  was also it was the ability to actually deliver the treatment at home So you need and make it mobile. So it's it only, you know It can use rechargeable batteries and also to get the the light power close to the head and as intense as possible And the general idea was to get this on what's called the default mode network That's the network that's operating when you're basically day daydreaming.

So it kind of interrupts  Um,  so Larry took that device home and he was so thrilled because his whole marriage started to rebuild his mood. This changed his energy came back, et cetera, et cetera. Now, that was 5 years ago. At that time, they did an MRI of his brain  and more recently. Now he's back in Utah.

He actually. Went back to Utah and he encouraged the researchers to start to look at this more seriously. And they did a, a 40 patient study of ex athletes, which, by the way, is about to be published. I can say is the results are off the charts.  They're really, really good. Uh, so Larry has Larry and that group, they did it in their own time, did that study, but they also have recently done an fMRI of his brain, sorry, an MRI of his brain.

And, uh, they have noticed that that his brain has actually regrown.  And when you have CTE, which is that chronic.  , um, part of brain injury. The brain shrinks. It actually shrink.  It's actually regrown. What? Wow. It's regrown. So the neurogenesis has been proven to occur.  Also UCSF in San Francisco, they have also shown neurons, uh, and neuro networks reconnecting, using neuro infrared right light.

So there is a neurogenesis effect and, um, and also studies showing using light in, in the nervous system and in the, in the hippocampus increases. BDNF, which is the brain derived what's called the brain derived neurotropic factor. Sure, wow, so much there. And you know, I think this is actually, I hope, providing some empowerment or possibilities for people listening because one of the things we hear a lot, too, is People that have been dealing with, say, insomnia for extended periods of time, or starting to now have confounding issues as a result, so memory loss over years of poor sleep, or maybe shift workers, and also to your point around the amyloid beta plaques.

I'll give talks and I'll speak to some are concerned with now the understanding of glymphatic drainage throughout our sleep cycles on the first half of the night, largely it appears when we aren't able to do that particularly well, could there be some concern that there's more of that buildup of those amyloid beta plaques?

And again, and again, so many of the through lines of the questions we'll hear are, Oh no, well, if I've been managing my sleep or getting poor sleep for years, am I sick? stuck like this or is there a way to reverse some of the damage of whether it's the memory loss amyloid beta plaques and what I'm hearing from you if I'm hearing this accurately is that it sounds like yes there can be a potential pathway by utilizing these modalities to support our brain health and as a result have some of those benefits for our day to day life.

Exactly. No, that's, that's, that is absolutely true. Now, um, I mean, one of the states, of course, when you are asleep is you're going to the gamma state. And that's when all the, all the cleaning up goes on. And the gamma pulsing frequency seems to induce that. So it's a very, very interesting, um, right now we're, we're doing much more research on, uh, using other frequencies.

We've got some big research devices called the NeuroPro, which have more modules. They can all be pulsed to different frequencies. So we're doing a lot of research in the background to tune that and make it personalizable using AI.  That's what's coming in, in the future. Wow. All right.  But, uh, you know, for now, um, just, just doing,  you know, 40 hertz during the day, maybe 10 hertz in the evening, it is, has profound, profound effects.

Now, we, we did another study, or at least Utah did another study with, uh, a bunch of firefighters in Las Vegas the most, I forget, I think it was. Station 27, which is North America's busiest station, I think, and they have a lot of  PTSD and obviously massive sleep issues  that you used to live there. So you're familiar.

Yes, quite familiar. Oh, wow. So that study is going to be published. It's actually in review as we speak and it's going to be published, but there were there. You're going to see a lot of profound effects.  that those firefighters had from this as well. And both of these pieces of research that you're pointing to are all coming out this year in 2024 as well?

Yeah. Exciting. Okay, amazing. The other question I wanted to ask you about too was my understanding that one of the products that you have has a vagus component and a lot of the people that are tuning in here are often familiar or actively tracking their HRV, their heart rate variability, and I'm just curious, you know, any call outs or maybe it's still more research to be done, but I'm asking because so many people tune in and they'll say, how can I improve my HRV?

And I'm wondering if you would suggest that this could be a path. Yeah. So regarding HRV now, we have a lot of sports professionals.  Uh, and, and we have, um, actually a Guinness world record holder in strength. John Brunier uses our devices,  that's just using, you know, an alpha or gamma pulse, um, uh, neuro device, or just using, uh, pulse, uh, regular intranasal.

Now I'll give you an example. Um, Kevin Clark is a Canadian hockey player who plays in the European league.  He said that, you know, if you're. A professional athlete with teams, you have a really exciting game. And then in the evening, you get on a plane, you fly somewhere to a hotel. Then you've got to go to sleep off and get down from the height.

And he, he said that, you know, he uses the alpha, uh, he uses the gamma before the game because it increases the focus and he finds that he can maintain focus longer than he uses the alpha when he gets on the plane. So that when he gets to the hotel, he can get a good night's sleep or he just uses. A 10, 10 hertz pulsed, um, uh, intranasal device to go to sleep.

Most of the athletes are finding that they're also finding that the actual recovery time from intense workout, uh, seems to be shortened dramatically, actually,  dramatically.  It's kind of interesting how all this came about was When we were doing, or at least when Utah was doing the head injury study, there were a lot of ex athletes who, there were some triathletes who still perform, you know, they're 50 years old, but they're, they're in senior level, and they said that they're getting much more strength and their strength, their, when they start a workout, their increase in strength and stamina accelerates using light therapy.

So there's, so we thought, oh, there's a sports component to this.  Now, um, HRV, uh, we, I, we also have, um, you know, some psychological Olympic trainers who  actually train using HRV. Now they, they've been using just the neuro alpha and they have found that just doing breath, the HRV breathing technique, and then the neuro alpha really gets, gets that HRV component or at least increases variability very effectively.

Quickly now we Uh, Lou decided to, um, now create a device which you can actually put on the neck, vagus nerve. And it's actually, we actually coming out with it as we speak, it has two modules that go over the vagus nerve bilaterally on the neck.  So that device is in test right now. Um, you know, the options are using electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve.

Um, people who have vagus implants, they're really uncomfortable. And, uh, unpredictable. There's a, you know, you can see all sorts of devices on the market to do that. I can't really comment on the effectiveness, but, uh, I think the, the reason the, the fact that sports people are still trying to solve that problem means that they're not that effective.

Yeah. So I'm hoping.  That this device is going to solve that problem  Is showing it's it's good, but i'm not going to promote it yet  Stay tuned and for anyone listening that that might say well, okay, so red light infrared light Well, I have a red light panel or an infrared access with different pieces.

What makes some of these unique? Solutions different than just sitting in front of a red light or a near infrared panel. Yeah, so You There's nothing wrong with near infrared panels, they're going to penetrate the skin to a certain degree, but if you want to get that deep brain penetration or deep body penetration, you have to have the diode close to the surface, the diodes, the diodes in this device.

Are are custom. Actually, we made them custom. They're they're slightly higher power. They're right in there. Sure.  And they're designed to actually  physically touch the brain. So you get the power density.  1 of the things we had to test. What was is near infrared going through to the whole brain. So we had, um, a, uh, an eminent Canadian researcher, Dr.

Reza Zomorodi, who is an EEG expert, do three dimensional EEGs,  uh, on people. So you could actually look at the power spectrum. Of alpha, beta, gamma, delta in three dimensions across the brain while the light was coming in and he showed pre and post, he showed the changes and he showed that the whole brain was in fact affected by the near infrared when it's put, you know, right close here,  there are, uh, so power density is important for the deep penetration.

Um, you know, near infrared panels, there are.  There are some panels, you know, there's, there's the big beds that the athletes use.  Sure. If you've got $150,000 to spend, right.  , that's not a bad idea. Uh, I can't say I have not been exposed to the research from those beds. Uh, I do know somebody in  who's researching them as we speak.

Mm.  There's, there's nothing, um, that I know that's published in terms of neuro regeneration  or deep body regeneration, uh, you know, using panels.  There's a lot of people selling panels. Um, I, they, they're very impressive. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's our, well,  everything that we've actually made, uh, is, is done by evidence based research.

We don't really put it on the market. And everything is, is actually rigorously tested, uh, before it even comes out. I mean, there are lots of devices you can buy on Amazon, but. Sure. Sure. Uh, if you buy something from us, it's going to be very rigorously tested and evidence based. So amazing. If you want great sleep, you've got to get your temperature, right?

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For anyone that's listening that is saying, okay, well, I am curious about potentially investing in something like this. What, I know you mentioned for some people, some of the protocols around, it sounds like maybe by day and at night, is there a particular amount of time that people could anticipate that they would be investing to use this?

Can they do passive other things during? What does that look like as far as application? I would say if they want to To try a device, a low cost device. Now there's a low this device here, by the way, that the single one you mentioned is we don't make that anymore. We make this device and you can. There is a choice of 4 of these applicators that you can plug into it.

It automatically knows what they are.  And, you know, a minimum might be a red and a near infrared. So that device is around 200 bucks.  If you want all four, you're looking at four 99 us. Now I would recommend, you know, if, if it budgets an issue, just using red and near infrared, and you've also got the ability to pulse it if you wish, but just using, and you can use a continuous.

If you just use red  before you go to sleep,  uh, with no repulsing and you just do it, you switch it on, it'll switch off after half an hour automatically. So even if you fall asleep, it might beep and kind of wake you up a bit and you take it out. But, um, they're, they're very robust. These fall on the floor all the time.

So I wouldn't worry about that.  Just do that and, and start there and see what happens. Now, if,  if, um, when you're going to sleep,  you're,  you're suffering with anxiety, for example. Lots of, uh, racing thoughts, you know, mind monkey stuff going on. Then you can try the 10 hertz pulse because that's going to get you more into the alpha state.

I love that, the ability to kind of customize that. I think I shared with you that I work with a lot of high stakes poker players and a lot of their struggles can be after, you know, a big game, whether on the positive side or the negative side. You know, the, maybe the not so positive side, either way amped up and how to kind of calm those nerves.

And even aside from booger players for all of us at different points, the benefits to have that at our disposal can be profound. For me, I love the ease of traveling with these two. They've been really, really helpful, especially to have those options. Yeah. And they're small portable. I'd put it actually usually on.

with my carry on so that I have access to that. It was actually really great in a trip that I just went on that was at altitude and altitude can often really mess with sleep and all the things and a lot of my stats can get messed with and this was actually a great addition that kind of helped mitigate some of those effects.

So really, really great. I also appreciate too that Given the breadth of research that some of these have those affordable price points so that people can get into this conversation, and then if they want to explore some of the, you know, more robust options, they can look at that as well. Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

I mean, you can, I mean, if you have the budget, um, go for it.  And just remember that you can return it within six months if you feel it's not working for you within 80 percent of a month. Oh, wow. I didn't realize that. Yeah, you can. You can. So, uh, we're, we're very well aware, you know, there could be reasons that light doesn't solve the problem that the person has.

And I mean, an example could be toxins in the brain, like heavy metal poisoning or something. Sure. It might, it might give your immune system a boost. Sure.  The other thing I actually, I just forgot to mention  one of the other proven effects is increasing ATP. So the immune system is definitely affected by this  profoundly.

In fact, we, I'll show you one more device.  So this is an old version of this single model device. It also goes with an infrared, which can go anywhere on the body, but we, in a recent clinical trial, we put it on the thymus and we did a COVID 19 study and we have health Canada approval for treating COVID 19 symptoms.

What?  Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah. So probably since you discovered us, we actually, medical device manufacturer, we're fully approved. Thank you. So.  Pretty much everything we do is goes through a medical device manufacturing process, even if it's just a wellness device. Amazing. Wow. And of course, the ATP piece is particularly noteworthy for us with sleep because more and more from this kind of circadian biology, quantum biology, and how mitochondrial health can support our sleep results, just that kind of  interconnectedness.

That's often a focus for many of the people that we're working with is how to support mitochondrial health, the energy to sleep. And then of course, then the results with strong and powerful sleep the next day to feel great. Cause we really want to have that overall kind of package. So that's really noteworthy.

And I think another interesting thing, Molly, is now this, we're going kind of off science because nothing's here, but the only, well, what I can say is in the nose, this is reaching through to the hippocampus and the pineal gland. So  we have a lot of meditators  and meditation groups that come to us and say, wow, you know, we're using the laser red or near infrared.

Increases I, you know, I focus on my pineal gland and my meditation is off the charts. We've just done a meditation study using using the neuro. Now, the light does reach the pineal gland. We all know the pineal gland does have light receptors on it. We don't know. I haven't seen any studies which are actually measuring melatonin production.

I wouldn't even know how to do it, but, but, um, we, there are, there is a study showing, um, cortisol levels controlled using red light.  Wow. Really? Yeah. So there's some links there. Certainly. Because people, this is, I can't, this is all just kind of hearsay at the moment. Totally. Just discussions. And that's one of the things we're committed to too is how to bring in both the clear science and certainly your company is one that is committed to that.

And the excitement that could come from exploring the kind of that kind of in between. So, and I appreciate that you point to that and the responsibility that you have there. Very well said. Now, uh, another thing that we do with every guest that we do bring on the podcast is ask them four questions about how they're managing their own sleep.

So I'd be very curious, given your breadth of knowledge in this area, how you might be utilizing some of these things and how they all play in with your sleep results. So. And I know you said it sounds like your sleep is like you don't even have to think about it just works, which is fantastic. That's the goal.

So the first question that we do ask everyone is what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now? Yeah, I guess as a, as a family, we typically turn the TV off at least half an hour before we go to bed. Sure. For me.  Best sleep is regular, like a regular circadian clock, which is  10 o'clock  and till six or, or seven.

Now, I, I grew up in the countryside at night. It was black. I mean, there was no light, no streetlights, nothing. So, and I grew up in England. And so the temperature in the room would sometimes drop below zero or below 32 in the U. S. And, uh, so I was used to six or seven blankets. I was used to weight. I really like weight on my bodies to sleep.

Um,  and then in terms of prep for sleep, I think I like, I think having  good hydration  for me before eight o'clock, like getting a decent amount of water into your system helps me. I feel more refreshed in the morning.  Um, and then if,  if I've got kind of, if I've had a really excitable day,  I will probably meditate or listen to a meditation tape in bed lying down.

Um, so, and maybe some binaural beats, but you know, the, the light therapy, um, that's, I'm not saying that that helps me to get to sleep quicker, so what I am saying is when I wake up, I have much more energy just using regular red laser. Okay. Is that a part of your routine evening or is that like when there's more of that excitatory day?

Like you're speaking to your, how, what's the frequency there? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I would say two or three times a week. I may have been doing something mentally intense and exciting. I'm kind of fortunate because I see a lot of technologies. I get excited about  my  music. So if I'm, if I'm sometimes I'll go to the recording studio, I got a friend who has been playing on stuff and, uh, you know, you come back and you're feeling, um,  You're feeling pretty awake and alive and excited, you know, so, uh, to that regard, I, I would say I use the red light about three times a week.

Now, if you're in trouble, you can use it six times a week and then take a day off. That's the recommended regimen. Okay.  And then if you're going to use the neuro alpha, the headset, I would use a 10 hertz pulse. Now, for my, my regimen, I don't need to use the neuro alpha, but I can tell you people do. Um, I would use it around, you know, somewhere after dinner.

It's okay.  And you can use the neuro gamma frequency. In the morning, neuro gamma really helps you to get focused. And if you've had a head injury, you're pretty much your executive function is wacky and you have brain fog. The gamma is really awesome for that. I had a head injury myself, so  car accident.

So, yeah. Yeah, basically. Rear ended. Got it. Okay.  Amazing. It's so great to, I like how you phrase that too, of kind of the ways that we can pull in some of these tools when given a different, you know, dynamic nature of our lives. We see that for a lot of clients too with um, Say they get in a fight with their spouse or they go out to an event and it was all exciting.

They had all kinds of conversations or what have you and whatever the source point they're having are struggling to now wind down in the evening like they might normally without those. So this could potentially be something that they could bring in to help support that or if things are working just to further support great sleep and presumably great energy the next day.

At least what we're hearing from feedback from people. No, I agree. And I think the name of the game, Mollie, it's not,  I hate to say people, you know, do this six times a day. You already get stressed out thinking, Oh God, I got to do this. It's a discovery. It's a relationship process, really. Try it. And if you get sick of it, stop.

And then after a while you go, I can't sleep and you'll go, Oh, I'll try that again. And you'll know, you'll get to, to, to really understand what it's doing for you. And once  it's a relationship, like anything, even the amount you, you put energy and into your head. For me, I can only now put about five minutes of energy from that device.

I'm pretty sensitive, but when I first had a head injury, I was doing the full 20. Okay.  Every other day. Oh, interesting. Yeah, so it's a discovery process, I, I think, and I think it's just like any regimen,  especially with sleep. If you get too stressed out implementing it,  you're not going to sleep.  Okay, I love that.

Okay, so that's my take. It could be a bit of an accordion model. Maybe kind of ebb and flow And adjust. Okay. Love that And then the second question would be what might your morning quote unquote sleep routine look like meaning That making the argument that how we start our day could potentially support our sleep So what might we see in your mornings as far as a routine?

Yeah, okay So for me, I never wake up and jump out of bed I wake up and, um,  it's a kind of a, I, I watch my thoughts when I wake up  and, um, I, I try to ignore saying what I'm going to do.  What I do do is  I watch my thoughts and I say, I'm going to give myself 10 minutes  to get grounded and just recalibrate to waking life.

I give myself 10 minutes rest.  Um, I find that if I, if I lie too long and process those thoughts, it's not productive. It really isn't. So I, I do that. Then I, then I get up. Um, I, and you know, I have a regimen. Well, I, I will obviously I'll, I'll clean my teeth, but I don't, I don't wash when I get up,  I go downstairs, I either meditate or I'll make a cup of tea and And just sit and have a cup of tea for half an hour and then maybe i'll do some kind of mental puzzle just to  Start to wake up gently something fun  Um, and then and then I go and i'm wash and get ready  And then start to look at emails and get in touch with people now that start point 5  30 and 7 30 depending on what's happened the night before so I try to You But I, I really, I love to go to sleep at 10 and wake up at six.

That's my favorite. Yes, love that. And so I like that level of consistency and then, of course, flexibility given different situations that might happen in your evening. And then that peace in the morning with the meditation, the tea, those routines and rituals seem to really be quite important for the people that we're working with to bring about that kind of created element to their days and support.

their sleep. Amazing. And then environmentally, what might we see on your nightstand or maybe proverbial nightstand if you're traveling or ambiance? There is just a lamp. There's my phone, which I switch off. Yeah. I don't, I rarely use an alarm. I have a kind of an automatic wake up. Love that. And there's my intranasal.

Amazing. I love that. I know it's so funny out of now the, I don't know, 150 something people or more that are kind of in the vault to be released of the many people we've talked to about what's on their nightstand. It's interesting how much is some of the peaceful and happy and contented sleepers often have that minimalist approach, it seems.

Not exclusively, but often, it seems. Love that.  Sometimes it's not possible, like, if you're in a bachelor apartment, you'd be But I think, I don't like having a TV in my bedroom. I really don't. It's like  Totally, yeah, and some of the stories that we've heard from people that have a lot of Things. Oh, we've got this piece of tech to fall asleep and this supplement and this stuff and blah, blah, blah.

And often those can be some of the people that are still struggling with their sleep. And it's not to say that it's not great and have that moments, but there might be something to that minimalist approach. The last question would be, what might you say has made the biggest change to your sleep game or said another way, maybe biggest aha moment in managing your own I would say exercises is probably Aggressive exercise, fun exercise is probably something that you just go to sleep like that when you've had a good workout.

So true. Yeah, no, it's true, actually. I've had to kind of adjust my day because my dog is now old. I used to walk six miles a day with the dog. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. So she goes slow now. So I have to go slow, but it is what it is. Oh my gosh.  So for you, would you find the difference in the type of exercise or the length or duration or just kind of noteworthy like any call outs there?

Not particularly. I mean, I, my favorite was TRX and we don't have TRX here. I'm, I'm actually moving soon to where we will have  TRX. But that's for me personally. I think some people seem to really thrive on a more static yoga type of exercise. I've  done yoga. extensively. Um, but personally, I think your certain constitutions do better with, you know, just moving.

I mean, I used to do modern dance at one time. I used to love doing that, that kind of movement. It's more of a free form movement.  Um, yeah, yeah. I would say that that would be, I don't like repetition. You won't see me on a treadmill every day. Okay. Got to mix it up for me. Yeah. That's, that's the secret to me.

Love that. Okay, so good. Because it's so interesting the different answers that different people will say. And I think you're one of the first people that has pointed to the, the level variety of the type of movement we can have. You know, a lot of people will just say, uh, going to the gym or what have you.

But I like that kind of flavor that you're bringing in there with the dance and having fun with it. So amazing. Yeah, I think I think, uh, the key is just really being conscious of your own thoughts and your what's happening in front of you.  And, uh, do I really like this? I'm told I should be working out.  I think that things I think there's a There's a formula to fun for you and the appropriate workout for you.

I really do a formula for fun. I like that one. Very nicely said. Amazing. And so given what we've discussed on this podcast, I'm sure people are going to want to learn what one going to want to follow the work that you're all doing to check out the products that you have and then be on the lookout for these studies that are coming out.

So what are the best ways to do that? Okay, so very simple. You've all heard of the name V Light. That's the name of the company. V I E L I G H T. So if you go to V Light. com, everything is there. And there's, there's a research, um, drop down. And in that research, it covers all of the research that's sorted by condition and disease.

Everything's there and it might be overwhelming and there's a volume, you know, there's a large volume of it. So, I mean, you can always call our 800 number, which is on the website. Just go to the V Lite website. The, when the  webinars that are coming out, we're, we're trying this year, we have a goal to do one every month.

We're doing V Lite expert series. Of each research expert in each field, um, on what, what they've discovered what's going on. We'll have one coming up on autism shortly from, uh, Milan for a professor in Milan. We've got sports at the end of this month, at the end of January, we have some professional trainers talking about that.

So all of that, you can find. On the website now you can also on the websites just sign up for our newsletter. That's another good idea. Um, you'll you'll find it. All right there. Oh, actually, I don't know if I'm on this newsletter and I think I'm going to do that myself because I got to get on the newsletter.

What am I doing? Amazing. Yeah, I think actually, if I send you an email, you'll see it in the bottom of my email, but I can't send all your members emails. If  you want to  just send the link to you, if you like, you can send it to him. Amazing. Okay. Fantastic. And we'll make sure to, to put any relevant information for when we release this podcast to, to put those in the show notes too, if we want to call out, if it's around the time of some of the release of some of these things that we alluded to, we can include that too.

Definitely encourage everyone listening to check out that website. I'm going to make sure I'm properly on that newsletter too, because I want to get that. And I just so appreciate you taking the time. So impressed. I know there's a lot of. Excitement around photobiomodulation, red light, all of this, but I really am struck by your level of integrity and responsibility and curiosity and then just leadership in this area to really put out a tremendous and thoughtful and effective product.

So thank you so much for taking the time to share more about this as a option for people that are looking for more out of the box solutions than they might be aware that are on the market. Thank you. Thank you. No, I can't take credit for developing this device. I can take credit for  believing it. That's for sure.

But, uh, thank you very much, Molly. That's, it was, you're doing good work too. I'm sure it helps a lot of people sleep is everything. Uh, well, I so appreciate that and I so appreciate your time and can't wait to get this out for people to listen to. And definitely for those listeners, make sure you stay abreast of some of this exciting new research because it's going to give us more science to support some of these, you know, exciting things that we've been hearing to have some of this backing is a big, big deal.

So really, really cool. Just one, one final thing about brain injury. Yeah, please. The chances you haven't had a brain injury, anybody listening to this, are close to zero. That's affected your brain physically. Yes.  And, and if it affects your brain, part of it will stop you from realizing that it's affecting it.

And, well, so it affects your performance, your coordination, your thought process, your strength. everything.  And one of the things we're, we're really confident now with is that photovoltaic modulation works on traumatic brain injury. There's no question in my mind now that it's  very powerful.  And that's what's going to be announced this year.

I'm wondering if you can underscore that real quick too, because I like that you said that because people listening might say, wait, well, I don't recall A car accident or some dramatic thing, but we've had guests on who have pointed to similar things of just even, you know, you hit your head briefly or just kind of some certain thing.

I wonder if you could share more about what you see there.  Well, first of all, when you were a baby, for example, how many times have you seen mothers picking up babies and their heads go back? They don't know how to pick them up or, or a member of the family, right. And, you know, causing a shear or a tear and there are  the left and right ventricles are still not fully joined.

And, um, in fact, uh, some of the studies right now are showing that  even just playing sports, if we've got, for example, just playing soccer, heading a ball.  Is there anybody who's never headed a ball? Totally. How about just being jerked back? How about going on a roller coaster? Right. You know, some of these, I remember going on the Atomic in, in San Jose, which is kind of like Top Gun.

Sure. And you've got something for your head, but it's not holding a head. Your head's the G force on your brain. And it's that, and there are, you know, tissues that connect the ventricles, which  allow them to communicate together and just those  turns and shifts can shear those tissues. They get damaged in the smallest of ways.

Sometimes it doesn't make any difference. Just like sometimes you have a stroke and it doesn't make any difference. Theoretically.  Sure. It's surprising. Um, I'm, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I've been around a lot of that. Some of the world experts and, uh, and. It's, it's um, it's probably one of the things that contributes to aging more than anything.

So a real quick question that you made me think of too, one area of research that we've been really doing some work on over here at Sleep As A Skills through Dr. Chris Palmer's look at, so he is speaking to what he's looking at as mitochondrial psychiatry, kind of looking to recoin this conversation of both brain inflammation resulting in psychiatric disorders, metabolic health impacting psychiatric disorders.

Anyway, I know it's a much bigger topic, but I'm curious if you have seen. seen, I know we've alluded to anxiety, but have been much of a look at other psychiatric disorders and some of this photobiomodulation in, in your work? Yeah, well, this conversation is going to go on. So you just mentioned mitochondria and thank you for doing that.

Um, it's, it's proven that Light the mitochondria contains cytochrome oxidase C, which actually converts photons into cell building energy. So that that's a known fact. That's how it works. It generates energy and cell building energy  now, in terms of research that's going on in other conditions,  whether there are early successes now  in Parkinson's.

Obviously, we talked about Alzheimer's, there's depression study out of Harvard, um, we have, we even have a creativity study  out of Spain, uh, which has been published, uh, and we have an autism study, uh, out of, um, Italy. Now that's not just photobiomodulation on the brain, it includes  a microbiome as well.

Also, uh, uh, stomach,  uh, in that study and, and other factors. Um,  and, and I guess  it's somebody you might be really, if you want to pursue this conversation,  you might want to talk to Wayne Hulon, who's the, um, director of the American College of Psychotherapy.  The nice thing about psychotherapy is all of those conditions arrive at that desk,  right?

Yes.  And, uh, he has been treating ex athletes. He, he evaluates, uh, people  who are, you know, on the last mile in prison, uh, on death row.  He has a spectrum. And, uh,  You know, he can, he can talk to you about, uh, a lot of that area quite happily,  so you could talk to him or, or a psychiatrist called Susan Blank, who's another, who's been doing a lot with addictions as well.

Wow. So good. I know such big topics. I know. I so appreciate. You don't have to have this on your show, but you know, um, you can, that might be something that people would be really interested.  Absolutely. And then have Larry Carr himself. I talking to Larry about sport.  It's a psychology. performance. I mean, he's, and he's, he's recovered.

I mean, he's an expert and he's  in the center of everything that's going on in Utah. I would, I would invite you to talk to him. Oh, amazing. So good. Well, thank you so much for just one diving into some of these areas in depth and then entertaining some of the tangents that I want to bring us on as well.

I appreciate all of that. So just thank you. Thank you. And I'm excited to release this for people. You're welcome. I never thought I knew anything about sleep, and I guess I do. Yes, you do. Absolutely. And you're excelling on your own. So fantastic. Thank you so much.  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.

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