This week’s blog is all about energy and how we use light, the light that is only just coming up, as I look through my office window.
We can use light to energise us in different ways. The principle of light is that we want to get as much natural light onto the eyes, and therefore the brain, as early as we can in the morning. As soon as the sun comes up, get the curtains open, get the blinds up and get light onto the retinas. That will also help kickstart your circadian rhythm.
Throughout the day, you want to get exposure to natural light as much as you can. Natural light contains all these different frequencies of light. Including a frequency called blue light, which you might have heard me talk about before or heard in the media.
A blue light is a frequency of light, which disrupts melatonin and suppresses it. So during the day, we don’t mind because melatonin is a hormone that prepares us for sleep. But when it comes to the evening, we don’t want our melatonin suppressed.
All that natural light in the daytime is great, but as night starts to fall or the evening starts to draw in, you want to protect yourself from the blue frequency of light, by wearing something like a pair of blue light blocking glasses – which you can pick up for about 60-70 bucks (most of the brands are American). But you can get some brands in the UK from Amazon as well.
The blue light blocking glasses will block that blue frequency of light, and you’ll also have to completely change the types of light that you subject yourself to. The soft boxes in my office here are no good and the junk light that I’m stood underneath, is also no good.
I’ll wear the blocking glasses to protect me from that sort of light. But I’ll also turn off all the lights in the house as best I can to make it very dim lighting. With dimmer switches and turning off big lights, putting on smaller lamps, all help to protect my eyes, and skin, from some of the harsher lighting in the evening and that helps me to get to sleep better as well.
The other type of light you might be interested in, is called red light – it’s near and far infrared light. I recently recorded a podcast with Bryan Gohl, of Red Light Rising. He manufactures full stack lamps and little target spotlight lamps.
You basically shine these onto the skin and you can get quite close to these lamps. This particular type of light penetrates up to five centimetres into the skin. So it really gets into the bones, into the skin, into the cells of the body, into the bloodstream and into the organs – it has a very restorative effect. It energises your cells as well as encouraging healing, good skin, supple skin, and the production of collagen. There’s an anti-aging and a longevity element to it – a general good health element.
To summarise, get plenty of natural light in the morning during the day. Block off from that light in early evening with blue light blocking glasses and at any point, start to bring in red light, either at the beginning or the ends of the day to help boost your energy and boost your cellular health.
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Leanne Spencer is an entrepreneur, coach, TEDx Speaker, author of Remove the Guesswork, and founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. Bodyshot is a health and fitness consultancy that helps busy professionals get more energy by removing the guesswork around their health, fitness and nutrition. Visit www.bodyshotperformance.com or email [email protected] to register your interest in our services and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.