How Darkness Heals the Brain, Mitochondria, and Memory

Darkness Deficiency and Modern Light Exposure 0:00

What is the number one deficiency that I see in our society today? Well, you might be surprised to know it's not actually a nutrient we get from our diet. It's actually something called darkness, something that our ancestors were exposed to a lot more than we are today because we've got artificial lights, we've got blue lights. And so my colleague Diana minnick, she actually came up with this term. She's a nutrition scientist, and she came up with this term that we are suffering from an epidemic of darkness, deficiency in our society today.

And we think about most people are not getting as much sun as many of our ancestors were. And we can actually see that when we do blood tests for vitamin D levels, the sun obviously, hits our skin and we, our bodies are able to create

Sunlight, Vitamin D, and Benefits of Darkness 0:52

vitamin D through a chemical process from the sun, exposure from the UV light. Well, we can supplement with vitamin D to support our vitamin D. Now, there are many other benefits to sun exposure. I'm a huge advocate of that helps reduce inflammation a lot of a lot of powerful benefits to it. But at least we can support our vitamin D with vitamin D supplements. When it comes to darkness. What happens when we're in darkness? We actually increase melatonin and we increase human growth hormone. Melatonin is is an amazing anti-aging hormone, and not only is it help us sleep, but on top of that, melatonin will actually get into the mitochondrial membrane.

It slips through the double membrane of the mitochondria and protects the mitochondria from oxidative stress better than any other antioxidant out there. So it's one of those powerful antioxidants to support the mitochondria so we can produce more cellular energy. So it's very important for mitochondrial energy production as a whole. And the research has shown that the combination of human growth hormone, which is our quintessential anti-aging hormone that helps us burn fat, preserve lean body tissue, balance our immune system and reduce inflammation.

Melatonin, Growth Hormone, and Mitochondrial Protection 2:03

That combination is very important for having a immune modulating effect, meaning our immune system is really good at targeting and getting rid of viruses, bacteria and different pathogens. But it doesn't attack our own self tissues. And so we don't have chronic inflammatory conditions so keeps inflammation under control. But it targets and gets rid of viruses. Bad bacteria things like that. So we really need optimal melatonin an optimal human growth hormone release in order to get those benefits.

Also, it protects the mitochondria and has anti-cancer benefits. Most people are just not getting enough melatonin. And we also have a human growth hormone deficiency in our society today as well. And a big reason for that is we're not getting the darkness that we need when we have darkness, it basically takes the brake pedal off of our melatonin production. Light. Light exposure, particularly blue light exposure, puts the brakes on our production of melatonin. So during the day we don't want a lot of melatonin production.

So we're exposed to lights. But in the evening and at night we should have very minimal and then eventually no exposure to blue light at all. So we can produce the melatonin that we need. And that melatonin also trigger the growth hormone release that we need as well. And so we need to make sure we're getting out of the blue light. Right. And we know that heavy blue light exposure at night actually doubles

Blue Light at Night and Health Risks 3:34

your risk of getting certain types of cancers. Research showed that it doubled the risk of breast cancer prostate cancer. So getting out of blue light at night, you should be dimming all of your lights. You want to make sure you put on blue light blocking glasses. We can be exposed to kind of an amber, like a dim, not bright, amber or red light that does not suppress melatonin levels. And so that is okay. It's kind of like fire that our ancestors would have been exposed to. But we don't want the blue light, the, you know, the strong artificial lighting.

We don't want screens, laptops. Right, TVs, things like that. We want to turn those off, or at least put on our blue light blocking glasses, which is a red amber light. So we get less of the melatonin inhibition that comes with that. So that's super important at when we're sleeping at night, you want to make sure your room is as dark as possible. And I also I wear an eye mask as well to block out any sort of ambient light. And I started doing that years ago, and I noticed my sleep quality improved dramatically when I started doing that.

Better melatonin release, better growth hormone release. When I'm doing that now, what my goal is for everybody is to get at least at a minimum ten hours out of blue light

Creating a Dark Night Routine 4:52

where you're only in very dim, amber, reddish light or complete darkness. So let's say, you know, I always recommend sleeping at least 7 to 8 hours, at night. And then you might have two hours, let's say, you know, at 8:00 at night, for example, you turn off all the lights in your house, you dim them, at least you turn on the amber red lights and you can actually get amber red lights, and you put on your blue light blocking glasses. And let's say you stay up till 10 or 1030, and then you sleep till 6 or 630.

You know, the next morning before you get up and you turn on a light that would give you ten hours roughly, or maybe even a little bit more of time where you are out of blue light exposure, where you're in darkness or at least you're an amber red light, and your body's able to produce the melatonin that it needs. And so that is what you want to go for. And that's the way that you're going to get enough darkness to produce the melatonin and the growth hormone. You need to get the great anti-aging benefits, the benefits on improving your mitochondrial energy production, the brain detoxification that takes place with the lymphatic drainage, the ability to reset the neurotransmitters for a really healthy mood and healthy memory.

And then ultimately the better anti-cancer immune modulating benefits that you'll have. So you have less sick days, less sick time, and you spend more time thriving in life. So you may be dealing with the darkness efficiency, but let's stop that starting tonight. Let's address that and get the amount of darkness your body needs to really thrive in life.