The Morning Light Ritual That Reprograms Your Mitochondria

Introduction to the Summit and Guest 0:00

Hello and welcome back to Mastering the Menopause Transition Summit 4.0. I'm your host, doctor Sharon Stills. It's always my honor, my privilege and my joy to be here with you all and have these amazing conversations where we all learn and grow together, what we need to do to make this the most powerful, exciting, vital time of our lives. We are totally changing the conversation about what it means to age and go through this hormonal journey. And I'm super excited. You know, one of the perks of being summit host is you get to like, find people that you've been stalking and fangirling after and you get to, like, get them to come on your summit and you get to meet them and interview them.

And that's what's happening right here. I have Carrie Bennett in the house, and she is like one of the people I stalk on Instagram and adore. And she has multiple degrees in biology, nutrition, body work. She has a relentless enthusiasm to learn. And so it's made her one of the leading educators in the emerging field of quantum biology, which is near and dear to my heart. And so we are going to talk about the quantum and circadian rhythms and light. And I see she's got her blue blocker glasses on walking her talk I love it.

And so this is this is good medicine ladies. So grab a pen. Listen up. Because these are the things these conversations are the things you integrate that really move the needle. You know if we have health and death, you know, we want to be moving in a health direction and, you know, putting off putting off disease or living, you know, death is kind of

Carrie's Health Crash and Circadian Discovery 1:56

really finally even disease. Right? We want to. And so the things we're going to talk about today are things you can be doing on your own at home that are going to have a huge impact on you. And so, I hope you're all as excited as I am to hear my conversation with Karen. Carrie. So welcome. Welcome to the summit. As you can see, I'm super excited you're here. Well thank you. You share and I'm equally as excited. This is so much fun to finally connect. Yes, yes. So, I'd love to just know, like, how you got into this and, you know, is there a personal story?

And just tell us a little bit about you before we start going into the meat of the talk? For sure. So, you know, about 13 years ago now, my first child was born. And with that just came a really big health crash that I was not expecting. I was a college athlete, you know, I was a fitness instructor. I had advanced training in body work in traditional Chinese medicine and I just kind of hit me out of the blue. I was like, what happened here? And so I tried so many different routes to overcome chronic fatigue.

Like, you know, the type of fatigue where you're just exhausted all the time. But I had insomnia, so it's like I was so tired, but I couldn't sleep. And then my brain was wired. I had this like, anxiousness about it. I had a horrible digestion. I couldn't digest the slightest thing without debilitating symptoms. I just felt bloated, in pain, just just puffy. And I had done what I thought I had in my toolbox that typically would have worked. I thought, you know, I thought, okay, so let me modify my exercise accordingly.

Let me look at the lens of traditional Chinese medicine and bodywork, which I which are these are beautiful modalities. Let me let me do the perfect elimination diet of the perfect gut health protocol. And none of it moved the needle enough. And I thought to myself, this isn't how I want to feel like there's I'm not. You know, I had, you know, at the time, my well-intentioned friends. So was like, well, you're a mom now. You're like, this is how this is how it's supposed to be. It's like, no, cancel.

No, I'm not interested. And so I was up one night googling different topics. I just don't know. I finally came across, blog posts that mentioned circa in Rhythm and in Relationship to Health. This was specifically an article on jet lag. And I thought to myself, circadian rhythm. That sounds interesting. Like, let me just dive deeper. And so I started diving into this concept of circadian rhythm. And I came to find out that this is supremely important when it comes to how the body knows how to do things like release certain hormones or all hormones, frankly, how to go to how to actually wind ourselves down for sleep, how to know when to repair the gut lining.

And so I started to implement just a couple of very simple strategies. And within three days, I felt better than I had in years. I've tried all of the more beyond the elbow path, like more of a functional medicine model that just wasn't working for me at the time. Well, all right, so everyone's like, what were the three things I read that skip to the end of the interview. That that's amazing. And so then you you know, I love it when people like, help themselves and then they make it their mission to share and help others.

It's such a beautiful thing. So let's talk a little bit about and we'll get to the three things I'm sure. But let's talk about like a little more in depth about the circadian rhythm and how that would apply to perimenopause. Menopausal women like what you feel like they really need to know. Yeah, sure. So I think it really important in this is the idea that, let's talk about what is circadian rhythm is first, you know, I mean, so circadian rhythm is basically this idea that our body has a timing mechanism inbuilt into it.

So my brain wants to know what time of day or night it is throughout the course of a 24 hour clock.

How Light Controls Circadian Rhythm and Hormones 5:47

And what I, you know, the way that the brain knows that is based on the light signaling that's going through the eyes to the brain. There's a direct connection between the eyes, which have sensors for light, and then the clock in the brain in the middle of our brain. And that clock, based on the light it perceives, it's saying it's approximate. It's this time of day now. It's this time of day now. It's this time of day now the day is winding down. Now it's night time. And based on all of those notes that cueing, we organize our tasks.

So we will secrete certain hormones or will rev up energy production in different organ systems, or we will ramp up repair programs at night. So, so we'll really take the time to run the repair programs while we sleep. But this is all dependent on the time that's being perceived by my brain, and that's dependent on the light that's entering my eyes. And what I had been doing at the time. I owned a fitness and wellness facility, and I did what I thought was just a typical morning routine. I would wake up this was at 5 a.m., I would flip out a bunch of lights.

I'd look at my cell phone. I would just get myself ready, pack my lunch, pack my water, drive to the gym, turn on all the fluorescent lights at the gym, get everything prepped and ready for that. I spend all day in the gym, doing classes or helping facilitate, you know, paperwork and things like that. I put my sunglasses on on the car ride home and drive home, and then once I was home, I would just again flip on all the lights in the house and start cooking and and kind of tidying up for the day.

And then I would, wind down with my husband and we would just watch what I was on the TV, you know, typically a sporting event. And I came to realize that the light that I was putting into my eyes was all artificial light. And that matters, because the way that the clock in my brain tells time is by the amount of blue in the light that's coming into my eyes, and nature sets it perfectly. Because at sunrise we have a little bit of blue coming from the sun. That blue grows until the sun reaches the high point in the sky.

Then the blue starts to disappear until after sunset there's darkness. There's no blue light, so changing blue throughout the day. Total time to my brain. And I got just this aggressive blue. And it wasn't ever changing from the bulbs in the screens that I was around all the time and in the opportunities I had, maybe to get to the changing blue. I was putting sunglasses over my eyes and just starting the light signaling. So no wonder my brain didn't know when to elevate the correct hormones for energy.

My libido was tanked because with that, with knowing when to produce hormones, my brain understands that we have a natural surge of hormones in the morning. And so that so let's let's dive into it, because this is really where it ties into, I think, the hormone balance that we can get from natural light signals versus the imbalance that we get from artificial light. And so my work designed to essentially, you know, go from sleeping maybe having a little campfire around right to the sun, right, starts to rise in the sky during those morning hours, during that little first chunk of time in the morning after sunrise, that's where my brain says, oh, there's blues increasing.

This is the start of the day, and my brain communicates to my mitochondria, in my adrenal glands, and in my reproductive organs to start to make a master hormone called pregnant Allo. And that is this hormone is a sex hormone that can become all the other hormones that my body needs for hormone balance. But and that part of that pregnant alone is going to become cortisol in the morning. That's healthy. Right? That's a healthy surge of energy which I was not getting. So I'm we're designed to get that healthy surge of cortisol in the morning.

And then based on perceived time of the month or perceived safety signals, that's a huge one. With menopause, perceived safety signals, the hormones get ferried up into other, into the other steroid hormones or hormones of fertility. And so what I was doing to myself was never giving myself that correct hormone search, and instead it was kind of staying flat lined. And unfortunately, when I was, when I was staring at artificial light at night, that really bright blue light at night, my brain was kind of thinking, oh, I think the day has actually started.

Let me surge the hormones then. And so I was getting this cortisol surge at night that kept me kind of on edge. I couldn't fall asleep. I got a second wind and my other sex hormone surged at the same time, which, which led to symptoms of estrogen dominance, like I said, insomnia, but flatlined energy throughout the day. And so it was through this, all this improper light exposure that I started to realize that a lot of my hormone dysregulation and my signaling stemmed from the fact that that I was surrounded by junk light all the time.

Yeah. So let's, Yeah. So let's talk about, like, light hygiene. And what do you recommend? And then, you know, asking for a friend because I have. So I'm really good with I am like so you know and I didn't realize this till I started learning, getting it all onto this. But I have, like, my sunglasses, like, people have addiction. Like I have an addiction to my sunglasses. And it's so challenging for me to like and I, I'm like, all right, I'm going to go to the garbage can. I'm going to go to the curb and not wear my sunglasses.

And then I'm like, okay, you did it. But it hurts them. So I love and and I'm sure I'm not the only one I'd love. If you have any tips on that. Sure. Yeah, I'll I'll start there because I that's the same way. My eyes are very light blue and so, you know, and never have it.

Morning Light, Sunglasses, and Light Hygiene 11:34

What's fascinating, as you know, sharing, is that we think it might be bright in our office environment or we think it's bright in the gym under the fluorescent light. It is ten times brighter outside, even on a cloudy day. And so I was never coaching my eyes to constrict my pupils. Right. My pupils are able to constrict and get smaller and dilate and getting bigger, so they'll get smaller when it's bright, they'll get bigger when it's dim. And I really had never coached that up. And so I kind of assume that when I did go outside without sunglasses and I had that same, you know, sensation is you have like, oh, it's it's bright, it's bright.

I need my sunglasses. What I started to realize was I had to slowly coach that back into my eyes. And so I started out with early morning light and going out where before the sun got really bright to me and I started to recognize it. Okay. Like, I, I don't, I like, I could, I could wear sunglasses because I love my sunglasses too, but I don't have to wear them now. And then just over the course of time, getting those a little increases in the amount of light without the sunglasses. My eyes, I went from being that person who said, oh, I'm sun sensitive.

My eyes are sun sensitive. I have to wear these to like, I don't know when the last time I wore a pair of sunglasses was. It's probably been seven years, maybe more. So it's it's doable. It's just the awareness. And I'm not asking anyone to to to fight it. Right. Like if it really feels uncomfortable, go ahead. One of the good transitions that I did as I was going outside in the middle of the afternoon and trying to not put my sunglasses on, I became a hat person, right? Like the cute little, the cute little hats and stuff like that, so that I could dim some of the intensity of the overhead brightness without resorting to putting my sunglasses on.

I all right, I'm I'm I'm up for a challenge because I'll keep you posted. I feel some kind of menopausal sunglass challenge coming. So, so getting it. Let's talk about getting that morning light. And does it matter? Like if you are not someone who wakes with the sun and, you know, like some women don't wake till 7 or 8:00 and the sun's already up, so can you speak to like for everyone? Like what are best practices? Because this is such an important thing that, like everyone can start doing tomorrow.

And I guess also like you said, you're in Michigan. So if you can also talk to the well, it's too cold or there's snow on the ground like here in Arizona, but I'm sure women are thinking that as well. Oh, totally. Totally. Okay, so yeah, so I used to be way more rigid about like, you must set your alarm for sunrise, get out at sunrise. You know, because I, I don't know why. And that's I just really rigid in my clinical practice. And then I came to realize, or I should say, I was blessed to work with people in Greenland, where the sun rises at 3 a.m.

and it's like, you want me to wake up at 3 a.m. and I'm like, oh no, I certainly don't want you to wake up at three. Okay. That's foolish. So, so we started playing around with it and we said, well, what if as soon as you wake up, if the sun's already up, what if natural light is the first light that enters your eyes? Certainly. I'm not going to ask you to walk, you know, with your eyes closed or your house, but like, you're not putting up an artificial light like a your phone screen in your face and you're out flipping on a bunch of lights in the bathroom or things like that.

What if we just say, as soon as you wake up, if it's after sunrise, go outside? And sure enough, wouldn't you know that the human body is intelligent enough to catch on with that and be able to sync the time of day and understand that this is this? Now, even though this isn't sunrise, this is the start of your day. So this is when we need to surge your hormones. Okay. And you made me just think of something that is different. But at night, like a lot of women who are going through the hormonal journey, they need to get up and pee once, hopefully not more than once, but sometimes more.

Yes, during the night. And so what would you say to them? Like what should they do so that they don't trip and hurt themselves? Go to the bathroom, but that they're not getting that light in the middle of the night? There are the coolest little book lights, literally on Amazon. You get these clip on book lights that are you just look for zero blue light book lights who guys like Brad hoga. You can get them in like a really orange tone or a red tone. And I mean, I'll just I tell people I just have it.

It's like you can essentially carry that around, and the way that you turn it on is you just kind of squeeze the end and you carry it around like a torch, you know, and it gives you plenty of illumination, right? For you to be able to see your way. Don't trip on that. You know what's on the floor, that clothing, whatever it is. And, without disrupting your, your circadian rhythm because those lights don't have any blue light and they're not overly bright. So that allows your brain to still think, oh, it's dark.

Okay, I know it's nighttime. I should still be getting back into my sleep cycles. So I, I'm just thinking one other question. Like, I don't typically like you're wearing your now I know it's late or where you are, but I'm not wearing my blue blockers right now because it's day here, but perfect. If I'm on the computer. Should I always have my blue blockers on it? Depends. I this is that during the day it's a case by case basis. So for me, my eyes have I've done it both ways during the day. Like you can choose, right. Because it's technically bright outside.

The computer screen is bright if you have an open window or if you have a window by you, you know that could that could that's going to overpower what's coming from the screen. So in lots of instances, people don't need them. I have a window, but it's a window, well, a little dimmer. And my so and my screen's not mitigated. I don't have any like my screen not turned into red biohacker mode because I have to do graphics and things like that. And so in the in my instance, I love wearing these, during the daytime, they make my eyes feel really good.

They allow me to keep my focus. Sometimes if I don't wear them or they're upstairs, I want to run and get them. I will feel brain foggy after a certain amount of time, and that just doesn't happen when I have these on. And these are the yellow ones, right? And so yellow, I would say during the day are optional, but if you're prone to looking at the screen and getting migraines or just getting, feeling fatigue, losing focus, losing concentration, I highly recommend you try a pair of yellows and see if those can help you.

And what do you recommend for women who, like, have prescription glasses? Sure, there are some higher end companies like Vive Arrays and raw Optics that will make them in your prescription. But before you invest in that, you got to go to a company like Midwest Red Light Therapy and test out their clip overs. Their clip ends just to kind of see, right. They're not the cutest, but they absolutely do the job. And that way you'll know for like a for a $40 investment, you'll know before you make a 100 something dollar investment.

Nighttime Lighting and Blue Blockers 18:18

Gotcha. Okay. All right. So let's go back to, the morning. So you've got your torch, you've peed in the middle of the night. You know, just make sure you like I make sure before I go to bed. So I have to get up like that. The pathway is clear that if there, I move it. So then you wake up and you're going outside no matter what time it is, and you're gazing to the east? Yes. And so how long? Please don't take your phone with you. Give it. Oh, try not to, you know, try not to. Yeah. So good questions.

So first, and I think it's in part because if, if it's before sunrise when you wake up, which happen in the middle of winter, I mean, you know, so it does arise like eat something. Right? And so I want to make sure that I do wear orange toned blue blockers. And we'll talk about these for the nighttime routine as well. But I'll put on orange tone blue blockers. But in the morning so that I can flip on slightly brighter lights when I'm making, making packing a lunch for myself or for the kids, or when I'm looking for what I'm going to wear for the day, you know?

And so that way when you wear the orange, it prevents that a more aggressive bright blue from entering the eyes and preventing your brain from saying, oh, it's the middle of the afternoon. Let's, you know, skip that whole hormone, that natural hormone progression and search in the morning. So step one, if you wake up before sunrise, orange tone, blue blockers after sunrise, whether it's right at sunrise or whether it's, you know, you wake up an hour or two later, whenever that looks like, go outside for a minimum of three minutes.

Sky gaze east. It's a great time. I've incorporated things like gratitude, prayer, some breathwork I like to earth and ground when it's warm outside. All of those things are really nourishing to my body's safety signals. My body knows the time of day. It knows. By grounding, we help to locate ourselves on the planet and give our get our brain into a balanced brainwave state, which really sends safety signals to start the day. The gratitude as well. So it's just been a great practice for me to be able to go outside first thing in the morning and kind of set my day, but also set my circadian rhythm.

Yeah, I do the same thing and I love it. I, you know, I'm like, yeah, I can multitask. So yeah, I know, you know, I'm in Arizona. So it's always it's always pretty much warm enough to be barefoot. And we have a tree in the area that we, you know, we have a lot of cactus here, but I happen to have a tree that can be hugged, so. Oh, I love it. I love it. So okay, so you've you've started your day and three minutes like three minutes I don't like I know a lot of us are really busy, but you can do three minutes, right.

You can do three minutes out how often you like scroll and go down a rabbit hole. And 39 minutes have gone by like three minutes. So we can commit to that. We can get to three minutes. Okay. So then take us through like you're like, what happens in the day of light and carries around and what can we do to emanate, you know, like ahead. Sure, sure. So the next so I, I so sunrise is three minutes or so and if you then have to go inside, you know, that's when I could probably go inside. I would maybe eat my breakfast or kind of get like situated for the day or, you know, good times, but then drive to work, drive to the office.

There's another chunk of time in the morning when the sun reaches a little higher in the sky. It's called UVA rise. Now, it's not about it's not perfect, but a little later in the morning when the sun's a little higher, that's when ultraviolet light first appears. And that, appearance of ultraviolet light and the brightness signals so much magic to my brain. My brain will start to make better thyroid hormone. I've literally had people without fibroids start to incorporate this morning time outside that I'm talking about, and have to reduce their thyroid medicine with their, physicians very quickly because you're actually optimizing whatever the signaling pathway is, even if you don't truly have a quote unquote, endogenous thyroid hormone production, that signaling pathway gets optimized.

And so thyroid thyroid health improves. You're going to it's really great for neurotransmitter balance. So a balanced production of serotonin and dopamine and norepinephrine, those are those those neurochemicals that make us feel joy and pleasure and focus and like ready to really take on our day. And so if we can get that time outside, which for me, it sometimes that looks like a walk or sometimes that looks like a client phone call or a phone call with one of my coworker, like my, one of my, you know, colleagues or a team, a team member of my team.

Like, that's a great time to say, okay, within about, you know, let's say two hours after sunrise, give or take, I want to get a chunk of time outside for about 20 minutes. Again, consistency over perfection. But it really if I were to pull all of my clients and community members over the years and I would say what time outside has made the biggest difference for your health, they would say that little walk, late morning walk. Are there, apps you recommend that women can track? Because we have women listening from all over the globe, so so they know when they're UVA rays time.

Yes, I love yes. So my friend and colleague Sarah Kleiner has developed an app called my circadian app. And so you'll put in your location. So we put in where you live and her little dashboard will say, okay, this is sunrise today. This is UVA, right? Right. So when UVA first appears and that's what I'm talking about, that first appearance of you, the light is key. It'll tell you when sunset is. It'll tell you when you can make vitamin D. It'll tell you how bright your environment is, which is kind of key at night, because at nighttime, even I've had clients who've had all red bulbs in their house because they've heard that they're not they don't want to put lights with blue light, you know, on at night, because it could mess up with their hormones and their sleep cycle.

But the the red was so bright and so they realized, oh, gosh, okay. Through the through Sarah's brightness meter, they were like, oh, okay.

Daytime Light, Apps, and Full-Spectrum Bulbs 24:18

Now I know why I'm not feeling like I want to wind down, and start and start my, my sleep mode. So, so yeah, that's a great app to get and to use. So you can start to on what I've done is what I call it, I've developed a different relationship with like it's like, oh gosh, I know now how sunrise varies over the course of a calendar year in Michigan. I know how the sun in the middle of winter is going to rise here in the mid, as in the middle of summer. It's rising over here. I know that the sun's only gets at this point in the sky in the middle of winter, whereas it's going to get here.

It's like it's just completely changed my awareness of light and my appreciation for it. And here's one sharing we're going to get is it doesn't have to be sunny to get these benefits. It can be cloudy, foggy, rainy, snowy. The light is still there. It's just being filtered through a cloud. And so you can still get all of these benefits that we're talking about, even if it's cloudy where you live. Exactly. Yeah. Good point. So after UVA rise then then what comes next? That's because I feel so focused at that point and that my my hormones, you know, my hormones are balance every everything is really feeling good at that point.

That's when I set aside a big chunk of time to really get focused work done, whether it's like, you know, the computer work or write a blog or make a post or, record a video, those types of things. So I will probably spend a couple hours there, take a lunch break and then another couple hours. But during my lunch break, I try to eat my lunch break outside, or at least close to an open window to also then just do a little sunlight check in there, which I think makes a huge difference as well. Yes.

And then what are the lights look like in your home? Like what do you do as the sun goes down? Are you watching the sunset and then what? How are you lighting like? Because that's a great point. You've run of like, yeah, the red light and then it's too bright and you think you're doing something good and it's backfire. So if you could take us through the. Yeah sure. So I'll, I'll try to see the sunset and be outside at sunset. You know, my husband and I like to sit on our porch if at all possible.

If the weather permits for us to do that. And then after hour after sunset, then that's the time to put those Orange town blue blockers back on. Okay, so that's the first thing that I'll do is put my orange shell blue blockers back on, and then we will go into kind of what I call dim house mode. And for me, we tried red bulbs, in my house number one, there's, there's five of us, right? I'm not the only one. And my husband and my kids are like, well, yeah. Is it Christmas? Like, get it? Yeah. But, my neighbors have some questions too. So.

And so I found out that we really resonate and it's now more accessible to get these little what are called Edison style incandescent bulbs, which and you just get them in a really warm amber tone. And I have like just little. So in the evening we just do a little table lamps, you know, a couple of table lamps throughout the house. We do that little tiny light over the kitchen sink. Those are the we kind of go into that dim mode. The one thing that I encourage people to think about is one of the ways and one of the ways that the brain knows it's the middle of the afternoon is because the brightness of the light is happening overhead.

Right? The sun's here. And that angle with which that light is coming into the eyes is, is a big signal to my brain. And so if you're someone who has a lot of the recessed lighting which is popular these days, I do encourage you to turn those off at night if it feels safe and for you to instead get table lamps or little tour shear lamps that you can turn on instead and have a lower level for your lighting. But, you know, old school incandescents here and old and, you know, just keep them dim, keep it simple.

I have some clients who also love salt, Himalayan salt lamps as well. Yeah. They're cool. And so what about what should the women be using just for lighting? Like during the day when it's okay to have a light? Yeah. So there's some really savvy companies these days. Like, for example, black Blue Light and Bomb Charge are two really savvy companies that make daytime what are called full spectrum bulbs. The reason LEDs, your average LED is, dysregulated and it's because it has a sharp spike of blue and very little of the other colors and no red.

Right. Enough. And that's not like what sunlight looks like. Sunlight during the middle of the afternoon would have the full spectrum of colors, right? We'd have a full bleed, never blue, being that dominant. And so these savvier companies are doing more balanced amounts of all the colors for the middle of the afternoon at a brightness as well. That stimulates us, because in the middle of the afternoon, I don't want, I don't need, I don't want to wear orange blue blockers in the middle of the afternoon.

I don't want to have red bulbs everywhere, like I want to be stimulated, but just in a balanced way. And so I would say that a company like that would be a really good way to go. Awesome. Oh my God. I want to, like, keep you here all day, bro. Always got a time. What any what else? That. I mean, that's I think that was just like, this is like one of my favorite talks of the whole summit. This is so important. So and so. Anything else you just want to, like drop on the ladies listening. That's helpful because I always say, like, if I was going to get a hashtag rolling and a trending hashtag, it, it would be not all medicine comes in a pill bottle, because I think we are so conditioned, even when patients come to me.

Right, like they don't want a pharmaceutical, but they still want me to give them the magic pill. They just want it to be an herb or homeopathic, rather something. So, this is exactly what I'm talking about. And I love how, you know, have it like we are so cut off from nature and so, like, having a relationship with the sun and remembering like, oh, yeah, we're this is our terrain. Like we have our internal terrain in our body, but like, this is our macro terrain. We're part of it. We're part of the Earth's terrain and the universe is terrain.

And we it's it's such an important mind shift. Like like what you said about thyroid that's super powerful. And that's just from having your relationship with the sun, with being at one of my things. So right now and then I'll let you give your last words. But like right now I am I work out of my house, so I am I have, you know, one story and I have my yarn and I'm in and out of my yard all day doing what you're talking about, and we're opening up a big 7000 square foot clinic in the fall here in Scottsdale.

And it's a major part of the second story of an office building. And I don't have a I don't have a yard outside my office. We have like, I can go in, so I'm like, can I build something on the roof? Like, it's like, and we do have it does back up to what we call here in Scottsdale. The Greenbelt. And so I'm going to like have to go downstairs, walk around the whole building. But I'm like, I've got like I don't know if I'm putting up a hammock there, but like I already see like they're going to be like, oh,

Practical Takeaways and Where to Find Carrie 31:28

there goes that still again walking around and no one goes back there. But I'm like, that's like my I'm so excited at the clinic. But I'm a little like concerned about that. I don't have like access. And so yeah. You know with that. So yeah, what I tell people is with the awareness, then you become intentional. You build it into your routine. I didn't know any better. So I just booked my clients back in the day. Back to back to back to back to back to back. And now it's like, oh no, I think even a little 15 minute window in there is really important.

Number one, my bladder is not what it used to be. And number two, I want to go outside. Right. And so I think I think just the awareness or I want to really people who resonate with are here. This is like it doesn't have to be hours and hours, hours of being in the sun. 30s the sun is changing all the time, so that 30s gives your brain an opportunity to sync up that one minute, the two minute. So like those periodic check ins that you can get throughout your day. Beautiful. Or when I'm driving, when those are down or like whenever, whenever possible sunroof is open because again get the the complete natural light.

Unfortunately modern window glass blocks some of these key signals. So we want to try to get it unfiltered through naked eyes. Open windows if at all possible. So I just encourage people to figure out how throughout the day they can become more intentional about getting that natural light exposure. And it adds up. It really does make a difference. And something else you said that I just want to circle back to and reiterate was you said, you know, what did you say? Be consistent, but you don't have to be perfect.

And I think like, let's like, don't you don't don't kill yourself. Right. And don't beat yourself up. Like consistency over perfection heals the nervous system with like for the win every time. So like, you know, you're learning something really important here and just integrate, be intentional and start to develop that relationship. And you will see I do it too. You know, when I was younger, I also I used to see patients like from early in the morning to late at night, we'd always give away my lunch break because I'd always be someone sick or an emergency.

And and now I'm like, I chunk when I see patients. So I can take a break so I can go outside so I can get my son so I can regulate my nervous system so I can scale. And so everyone, no matter who you are or what you do like this is really important for us, especially as we are aging. We we we deserve this. And it's not you know, it's not like some luxury, like we deserve to have a flow to our day and a connection to to the earth and the sun and all that we're a part of. So, oh my God, thank you so much for being here.

And thanks for having me. So where can they know that? I know I said I stopped you on Instagram, but you probably do. Like, where else is there a website? Are you other places? Yeah, yeah. So Instagram, my Instagram name is Carrie B wellness and that's also my website Carrie B well, Nasscom, I've got really affordable courses if you're interested. And I've got a free circadian starter kit as well. So Carrie below the stack. Com slash start and I'll take you through this. You'll get a bunch of lessons about this. You'll learn more about blue blockers.

Just really my FAQs for people in terms of, you know, how do I really start to implement this. So feel free just to snag that if you're interested, because it really gets the journey started when it comes to light. But don't wait, right? Don't. Even if you're listening to this on on a mobile device right now, go. Just go outside or take your sunglasses off or roll the window down right. And just start engaging with light a little bit differently and just see how your body responds. Amen to that.

Well thank you thank you. This is so awesome. Thank you for coming and for all that you do and all the wisdom you're putting out in the world. And so we got this ladies. This is an actionable talk. We can do this. I'm going to I'm going to where you're going I'm going to do a video. You're going to see me down the road. I'm gonna be like, no more sunglasses I can't wait. Tag me to, you know I can't wait. Game on. All right. Well, sending you all so much love. And thank you for being here. And we'll be back.