Open-Minded Healing
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Open-Minded Healing
Re-Release - Conquering Insomnia and Migraines By Blocking Blue Light
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Learn from Daniel Abbott's compelling journey as he confronts severe insomnia and migraines caused by relentless blue light exposure from screens and artificial lighting. Despite numerous visits to doctors, Daniel couldn't find a cure, leading him to take matters into his own hands. His story is a powerful reminder of the limitations of traditional medicine in addressing lifestyle-induced health problems and the importance of becoming your own health advocate.
Discover the groundbreaking solution that changed Daniel's life: blue light blocking glasses. Hear how these simple yet effective glasses dramatically improved his sleep and reduced his migraines, steering him away from specialized drugs toward a more natural solution. Motivated by his success, Daniel began to source and sell these glasses in Australia and New Zealand, eventually developing optimized lenses to filter specific light frequencies. This episode sheds light on the importance of balanced light exposure, the pitfalls of artificial lighting, and the need to maintain natural light cycles for overall well-being.
We'll also explore practical strategies for managing blue light exposure throughout your day. From choosing the right blue light glasses to selecting optimal indoor lighting, we provide you with actionable tips to mitigate blue light's harmful effects. Learn about innovative lighting products designed to align with natural light cycles, enhancing your circadian rhythms and improving sleep quality. Tune in to understand how simple changes in light exposure can lead to profound improvements in your health and daily life.
You can find Daniel Ebbett at:
Website - https://www.blockbluelight.com/
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I'm going to be speaking with Daniel Abbott about blue light. This is a topic that affects us all because we all have either a TV screen or a computer screen, smartphone or artificial lighting indoors. We're going to really get into this topic and what the symptoms might be that you're experiencing if blue light is affecting your health, as well as solutions and ways that you can mitigate or block blue light from affecting your health. Welcome, daniel.
Speaker 2Hey, thanks for having me. Looking forward to jumping in and giving your listeners a good overview on all things light and health.
Speaker 1Yeah, so today we are going to be talking about light and how it impacts our health. So do you want to talk about how you even first got into this topic and realize it has an impact on our health?
Speaker 2Yeah, sure. So for me it's a bit of a personal journey. That started about nine years ago. I was just starting out my new job, just graduated from university really into health and wellness, then started to enter the workforce and I had this big aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder and making a successful career there. And so my initial job was working in IT under fluorescent lighting in the office all day, on screens all day. But it wasn't only that. I had to do changes in the evening, after hours work so 11pm to midnight, on screens as well. Hours work so 11 pm to midnight, on screens as well.
Speaker 2And back then the awareness of anything to do with screens really being harmful to us didn't really exist, and I myself, being a very someone who was very passionate about health and wellness, also didn't didn't really understand anything about it. And very quickly for me, my health started to take a turn for the worst just from that change in my environment. So I started to get quite severe insomnia and I was waking up at 3am and I was getting quite severe migraines during the day. And then, when it didn't resolve, I did what most people would do, which would go to their doctor to try and understand what's going on. Unfortunately, that model wasn't really designed to help do root cause analysis. The traditional medical model will just look for a drug we can take to band-aid a problem, and that's exactly what they tried to do with me for quite some time.
Speaker 1So what did they suggest you take?
Speaker 2Well, there was certainly no discussion of lifestyle. It was more try like prescription sleeping tablet that didn't work. So then they sort of started to go off label with anti-psychotic medication, anti-idepressants, all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1Now why did they jump to an antipsychotic from lack of sleep and headaches?
Speaker 2Yeah, because it can have a sedative effect on the brain at night right, which it did but it made me feel like a zombie during the day as well. I did do a deep dive into prescription drugs used for sleeping and some people think oh yeah, it works, it knocks me out and I get eight hours of sleep. It doesn't actually give you a restorer of sleep. It literally like tranquilizes and they sedate you, but they don't actually allow you to increase your REM and deep sleep, which are the restorative sleep phases we actually need to get more of. And that was ringing true for me, certainly, because I'd get an eight hours worth of sleep, but I would be like I felt like I've had like an hour, sort of thing, and I felt worse on them than not on them. So it was a long process of them continuing to try different medications and it got to the point where the standard response when they don't know is like oh well, there's nothing wrong with you, it's in your head, sort of thing.
Speaker 1I've heard that so many times. I mean other guests as well as in my own experience, where they don't have an answer, they want to brush it off.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's like you've kind of created this thing in your mind and that's what's creating it. And I got to that point and I was like, I'm sorry, I don't accept that. It became very apparent that that medical model wasn't for me and I was like, well, I need to take this into my own hands.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's great To become your own problem solver, I think is important and necessary. I'm just curious what did they think the cause of it was? Did they think it was stress? Because that seems to be a typical all-around thing. You can tell someone you have too much stress in your life. But was that what they were thinking it was, or they didn't know?
Speaker 2They just didn't know. I think it was brought up at one stage that you've got lots going on, like not more than usual. I'm certainly one that is aware of stress and stuff and how it can impact the body. At that time, or even prior to that, I was an elite powerlifter, so I was actually competing at a national level, so certainly understood the stresses on the body and recovery and Certainly understood the stresses on the body and recovery and that's why I was like, yeah, this is definitely beyond this, like pushing the body through. Then I got to maybe you should try some meditation and stuff like that.
Speaker 2I've got a very analytical mind in my job. I have to problem solve computer systems and design them. And I was like, well, can I apply that kind of thinking to the human system and go, well, it wasn't there before, it's here now, there's a serious problem. Should we not take a few steps back and then work out, well, what's changed? Because things don't just happen for no reason. Right, in a complex system, there's always going to be some root cause. So that's what I was like oh, I'm done with the doctors, I'm done with seeing them. I'm going to just try and work this out, work out what's wrong in the system, what broke and this is eight years ago the internet didn't have the resources of information that we have today certainly in health and wellness, and there's podcasts and there's all sorts of different blogs and there's a lot of resources and a lot of people talking about it in today's world but back then there wasn't.
Speaker 2But I still did jump on the internet and I found a neurosurgeon in the US called Dr Jack Cruz, and he is a little bit more widely known now, certainly for his way of thinking, but back then I'd never really heard of him and I just started listening to a lot of the talks he had done and his blogs he was writing.
Speaker 2He had a book as well and he was really really talking about specifically how light has such biological impacts on the body and what it's doing to the body good and bad and how he thinks that most people have it wrong that they heavily focus on diet and what they're eating but they don't look at the environment they're eating in, which actually has more of an impact than what you're actually eating itself, and it's particularly around not just light, but he's looking at things like EMFs, electromagnetic radiation, which is quite the world we live in, and he's also looking at water and magnetism as well. But light was the one that stood out to me and I was like, okay, there's probably something going on here, something that's worth looking into yeah.
Speaker 2Because he's particularly talking about the blue light frequencies and how most artificial light sources predominantly have that wavelength in them and they don't really have a lot of the restorative wavelengths in them. And when you live it into a lifestyle under that lighting constantly, you're really starting to mess with your hormonal profile and how your biology reacts to light. And that's when I was like, well, I'm inside all the time, I'm not really spending any time outside anymore because I'm working all day, then I'm training in the evening and I'm working at night, and it's all done under artificial light. I then just wanted to test the theory. So I looked into trying to find a set of glasses which are now known as blue light blocking glasses. They certainly weren't. Back then they didn't exist really.
Speaker 2But I wanted to find some glasses that I could block frequencies of blue light to bring that down. So I found a pair of like big safety glasses that could do that relatively well. I think they would block about 95%, just to test the theory. So I ordered them in from Amazon. I was in Australia at the time finally came and I started wearing them in the office. Wearing them around. People were giving me strange looks, but very quickly it did become apparent that there was something going on there, because that was one of the first things I had finally tried that actually started to have a positive change.
Speaker 1So what were the positive changes?
Speaker 2Sleep, both the migraines and sleep significantly started to improve.
Speaker 2But because I had been in such a sleep deprived state for so long, it wasn't like an instant fix, because if the body's being deprived of restorative sleep, your hormonal profile starts to get dysregulated. Circadian rhythm, which is your alignment to the day and night cycles, is completely thrown off. So it does take a little bit of time for that all to come back in alignment, but within the space of two to three months most of that had reversed and I was just so shocked by it I guess because of how much I had been through to literally a simple pair of like $20 safety goggles was the solution. I was like hold on a minute.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's pretty amazing that a somewhat cheap pair of glasses would have a powerful impact on your health versus going on drugs for sleep or for depression and all the symptoms that come along with that. It's really incredible to compare those two solutions.
Speaker 2It's exactly right. I was like you go to see these specialists who like these highly specialized drugs and all this and I'm like none of that work and it's a $20 pair of glasses that literally transformed or turned around my house. So, like literally. From that point I was like I can't have that knowledge and keep it to myself. So I was like, oh, I'm just going to contact that supplier and buy like 50 pairs of them and put a website together and start spreading the message and trying to help other people so they don't have to go through what I went through. And the things have just evolved from there.
Speaker 1really, so you buy these glasses from that manufacturer. You start selling them in where in Australia?
Speaker 2In Australia, new, zealand, yeah.
Speaker 1And spreading the word and saying these help. And now, as an IT person, are you thinking of ways of improving it and changing the model? What did you end up doing?
Speaker 2Yeah, well, so that was how we started. And then after a while I was like, well, why don't we actually start to look at how we can manufacture our own? So I continued to do a lot of research on it and I was like, well, these glasses are really good, they're helping, but when I look at the actual science and the research, they're not probably what I would consider optimal for the frequencies we need to remove at night. So we started looking into how we could manufacture our own lenses, our own glasses, and so that's what we do now. We've got all different types of lenses to filter certain frequencies by certain percentages, based on different times of the day and night.
Speaker 1So maybe you can go into that a little bit. What is the type of light we need and what do we not want at each point in the day? What are we looking to avoid and what would be healthier?
Speaker 2Yeah, so the artificial light issue is twofold.
Speaker 2There is a bit of an issue around the day and the night. They cause different problems and the solutions are slightly different as well. So I'll kind of discuss the day and then I'll kind of discuss the night. So during the daytime most of us will work inside in an indoor environment and most of the time it will be artificially lit through fluorescent or led lighting. A lot of people will be on screens against artificial led backlit screens, and the main issue there is the frequencies we're getting off. Them is very, very high in the blue light frequency. So that's just the way led artificial light's created. It's very, very high in blue and it's very, very low in the yellows, orange and red. It's got a bit of green in there as well. Now the issue isn't blue light is bad. It is actually beneficial to us during the daytime. Our biology needs it to make us feel awake and alert. It helps release neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, which regulate our mood, regulate our energy levels. So certainly you wouldn't want to just like remove it all during the day. I've heard it's bad. I need to remove it because that would actually start to make you feel quite down, quite low in energy, quite tired.
Speaker 2When we look at what the blue light we are supposed to get, which is from the sun, from outdoors, it's a very balanced light, so that's what we'd call full spectrum light. So when you see like a rainbow in the sky, right, it's got all the visible colors in it and so that's the type of light we do get outside. When you actually see a rainbow, it's just the light is being parted so you can actually visibly see it. But when we're outdoors we're getting all those spectrums all the time and they're imbalanced. So the blue light is coming in, but it's also balanced with red, and when you balance the two together the net effect is very beneficial to us. But when you come indoors and you are only getting artificial light sources, the balance is thrown off. So you're not getting all the reds and the yellows and the oranges, you're getting predominantly blue.
Speaker 2Now the problem there is blue light in itself is a very short wavelength and red light is a very long wavelength. When it's a shorter wavelength it's got a lot more energy behind it, and so what that means is when it's absorbed on our skin and in our eyes, it causes oxidative stress, it causes cellular damage and breakdown and red light does the opposite. So red light is restorative, regenerative. So if you put the oxidative stress and cell damage and breakdown in isolation, without any of the restorative wavelengths, the net effect is not good on us. So that can look like dominant in the eyes, because that's where it's mostly coming in from the screens will be headaches and eye strains, mig migraines like I was getting.
Speaker 2Over the longer term we're now seeing research to show that it is actually causing macular degeneration, so like permanent eye damage. So the eye strains and the headaches are like a warning sign You're getting too much of that and it's actually causing damage to the cells in the eyes, but then also on the skin as well. So blue light in isolation on the skin will cause damage to the skin as well. What type of damage when you talk about the skin as well. So blue light in isolation on the skin will cause damage to the skin as well what type of damage when you talk about the skin um.
Speaker 2So it will increase, accelerate aging, but it can also, in isolation, like oxidative stress on the skin, can lead to skin cancers and and stuff like that if it's not restoring, if the collagen is not regenerating.
Speaker 2So yeah, there's certainly issues with the skin as well, and we can talk more about the solutions to that, because a lot of people get focused on glasses, right, and that's only really protecting the eyes, which is very important because the eyes have got the most signaling into the brain.
Speaker 2So when you look at the eye, inside our eyes we've got certain receptors. So for a long time we've only really known them to have visual receptors, which are our rods and cones. So light comes in, activates those and transmits the signal into the brain so we can visually see. In the late 90s they discovered that there was more than visual receptors in the eye and so, like blind people for example, they can't see, but they still have the other receptors that actually are still responding to light. So the receptors that they found were called melanopsin receptors and so what they do is they're heavily activated under blue light. There's an optic nerve that runs into the brain, which is there's a part of the brain called the SCM, which is our central clock, so it runs hormonal secretions and everything based on different times of the day and night, which is receiving signals in through the receptors in the eye.
Speaker 1Oh, very interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's why the eyes are so important, because they've got the highest concentration of melanopsin and the optic nerve is a very short distance into the brain.
Speaker 2But what's actually quite interesting is in 2007, I think so not that long ago, like just over 10 years ago they found the melanopsin that we talked about in the eyes as receptors.
Speaker 2Actually they found them in the skin as well, so they do exist in our skin. So there is a link of light exposure on the skin and it actually signaling day and night sort of thing as well. So easiest way to think about like receptors on the skin is UV. Light hits our skin right and we either burn or tan or we absorb vitamin D through there. So UV is a spectrum of light, so is blue light, and I'm sure there's other receptors for other colors as well. But they certainly found that the melanopsin, the same receptors activated on the blue light from the eyes, exist in the skin. Now that signaling wouldn't be nearly as strong because the nerve pathways from your skin into the central clock system of your brain is not a direct link, but it is showing a hypothesis that there is a link between the light exposure on your skin and at the wrong times of day and night will start to affect your circadian clock as well.
Speaker 1All right, so this is the daytime light we're talking about. So how do regular sunglasses play into this? Your circadian clock as well? All right, so this is the daytime light we're talking about. So how do regular sunglasses play into this?
Speaker 2Regular sunglasses. So it's a great question because a lot of people ask about sunglasses and they're a problem because we're wearing them outside. Sunglasses will filter down significant portions of the blue light spectrum significantly, to the point where it's like you're in a dark, darkish room all day. Now what that does is that lowers that signaling of blue light that we want during the daytime, so you're getting suboptimal levels of that. It's going to lower your serotonin and your dopamine levels down, so potentially it can start to impact your mood. There's a thing called SAD, which is seasonal affective disorder. So that's a depressive symptom or disease that's caused purely with one of the only depression listed diseases that is 100% governed through light, and so a lot of people will experience that in winter when they don't go outside enough. But you can actually simulate the same effects of SAD with sunglasses because you start to lower those light levels down you're not getting enough of that light and to stimulate serotonin or the dopamine, which are heavily regulating your mood. Yeah, you'll start to feel low energy. So it's it's very important.
Speaker 2There are use cases for sunglasses and most of them really would be around safety, like clear, so like if you're driving, for example, it's like you do need to take that into consideration. But for the most case, people will wear sunglasses either for fashion or because it's too bright. Now, the reason it's too bright is because their eyes are not accustomed to the sunlight, right. So now that's like a vicious cycle where I have to wear sunglasses because it's too bright. Well, the reason it's too bright is because you should wear sunglasses. You've got to train your way out of wearing them, sort of thing.
Speaker 1So yeah, I do wear sunglasses for the brightness, because sometimes I feel like it's it's way too bright. So you're saying you can train your way out of it by just exposing your eyes to it, slowly, each day a little bit more and more yep, that's it.
Speaker 2I used to wear them and then I, when I learned all about this, I was like, oh, I need to stop wearing sunglasses. Right, like it's part of the puzzle of like ensuring we're getting the right light during the day and mitigating the wrong times of the day, and so for me it was bright, but again, it's just the only reason it's bright is because your eyes aren't used to it. So, yeah, it's just a bit of a training of slowly increasing the amount of time, and now I quite happily spend most of the time outside, with time out, so I put no sunglasses on, but the caveat is I would wear them driving or in situations where there is such a thing as unnatural glare from like artificial objects, buildings, glass all that can actually amplify light, and to the point where it is too much.
Speaker 1So you can wear them when you're driving, but if you're just outside, don't wear them and get used to it.
Speaker 2So there's actually another one interesting piece about this as well. So the eyes will take in the UV and the blue light in the environment and actually signal to the skin that it's about to receive UV light. So there is research to show if you wear sunglasses you are more prone to sunburn than not wearing them, because your eyes aren't receiving the correct signaling of what your skin's been exposed to, Because it's blocking all the UV light. It's significantly filtering down the blue light. So your eyes are sitting there going oh yep, there's very little blue light in the environment, there's no UV. Therefore we're not at solar noon, so the skin itself is not told to prime itself to protect against the UV light or absorbing too much UV light and burning.
Speaker 1Wow, that's fascinating, that little piece of information so interesting. Yeah, well, I'm going to try and train my eyes out of using those sunglasses now. So let's get into the evening light. So the daytime we do need that blue light, but we need it in balance with the other lights, with other shades, and then at night, do we want zero blue light?
Speaker 2yeah, I'll probably just add one more thing to the daytime. So I've just told you all the all the issues with being indoors and what's great about being outdoors. But I was like, what do you do about it, right? So, like you might have to work in an office. You can't control the lighting, you have to work on a screen to make a living. So the daytime is the hardest to control because of the fact that you probably are in an office and you can't turn all the lights off. You've got a work computer. You can't just install software or all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2So the best idea there is a set of blue light glasses specifically designed for the daytime and specifically designed to filter the correct frequencies of blue light by enough to bring it back into balance. So this is where there is a lot of confusion in the market, because there is a lot of different blue light glasses that have entered the scene in the last sort of three to four years because it's become quite a popular topic. So a lot of people have just jumped on that bandwagon to probably try and make a quick buck off people. The issue is really you can't just have a generic set of blue light glass and expect them to do what you think they're going to do. And the reason for that is the frequencies of blue light coming off our screens and our LED lighting is a very specific frequency, so blue light can be measured in a range of it ranges from 400 nanometers to 500. But the actual blue light coming off the screens and all our lighting is at 455 nanometers. So it's got a big peak right on that area that can be measured and so that's the wavelengths you need to actually reduce.
Speaker 2But most of the glasses that you find the cheap $20 pair off Amazon they'll put a cheap reflective coating on the outside. So when you kind of look at it and shot it up to the light, you'll kind of see blue light reflecting off, and that's where people think, oh well, these are. You know, look, I can see the blue light reflecting. That's what it should be doing. Well, unfortunately, that technology and those that very basic kind of coding on the outside won't actually filter any blue light at that 455 nanometers. So it will filter blue light anywhere from five% to maybe 20% at about 420 to 430 nanometers and it's filtering blue light that's not being emitted from our screen, so there is no 420 or 430 coming off your screen in the first place. So the question is, what are they really doing? And it's probably not a lot.
Speaker 1So, to put that in very simple terms, what does that mean?
Speaker 2What that means is if you're buying a set of glasses, it's not as simple as just buying a set that say they're blue light filter glasses. You need to know the exact percentages and the exact nanometers wavelengths that they're filtering, and if the glasses of a company can't even provide that information to you, it's probably a big red flag that they don't know themselves. They've just gone to some factory in China and mass-produced, asked them to put a coating on them that's a blue light coating and said here you go. What I'm trying to say is it's in the detail, right, you need to get into the detail, and if that information isn't available on the website or they're not talking about that, it's questionable whether they will be filtering the actual blue light that's causing the problem. Is it actually filtering that or is it filtering another part of the blue light spectrum that isn't actually a problem?
Speaker 1I see. So what would you look for? If you're looking at glasses and looking at this information and they did provide it what is it that you would want to be buying?
Speaker 2Yeah. So normally a set of glasses for the daytime will either be like a clearish looking lens or a yellow tint. But the company you're buying often should be able to show you like a spectral analysis or a lens testing report, and that report will quickly show you exactly the whole range of the blue light and exactly how much is being filtered at each portion. So that's something that should be readily available on request, because the company themselves should be doing those tests on their lenses to make sure they are doing what they say they are. So if they can't produce those, then it's again. It's a red flag if they're talking about it on their website but not actually able to produce any kind of scientific evidence that it's doing it. So that's a very simple way, and I'll probably say that you wouldn't be going to Amazon and paying $20 for a pair.
Speaker 2Yeah, you'd be normally looking at a dedicated company experts in this area. There's not only us, there are other companies out there, there's a handful of us around that understand it, and you're more looking around entry level with sort of $80 probably up, and that's also a telltale sign, like if it's really cheap, it's not going to have the correct technology in the lenses to actually filter the right amounts. So we say a minimum level you want to filter is 50% of blue light, at that 455 nanometers for the daytime. So that's kind of something to look for that normally looks like a light yellow lens or a slightly off tint clear. If it's crystal clear and it's just got some reflective coating on the outside, it's really not going to probably be fit purpose.
Speaker 1All right, Well, that's very detailed information. Thanks for explaining all that. So now in the evening it's a whole different story. Right With the lighting, yeah.
Speaker 2What are you trying to filter out in the evening? So the sun sets in the evening and that means that there's no more blue light left in the environment. So the only natural source of blue light is our sun. So we know what we talked about earlier, what blue light does in terms from a biological process it wakes us up, it's responsible for keeping us awake and alert. So what happens when the sun sets now in our modern world is we turn on our lights in our home so we can see, and then most of us, a lot of people, will sit down and relax, watch TV again, an LED backlight source or use a phone or a device. So what that's doing our brain does not understand fast-evolving technology from the evolutionary of you know tens of thousands of years of being evolved under the sun. So it just suddenly thinks it's solar noon again. So it continues to keep you awake and alert, and what that means from a hormonal profile is it will continue to keep your cortisol and adrenaline elevated and it will suppress the hormone that we need for sleep, which is melatonin. So we're all indoors, sunset lights are all on, so all these artificial suns are on. The brain is just continuing to think it's the middle of the day, it never gets to understand that the sun has actually set. So it just starts to phase shift your circadian rhythm so that what that means is the brain is wired to work on a 24-hour cycle. But you completely just threw that off by continuing to be exposed to blue light in the evening.
Speaker 2So traditionally, you know, even post 100 years ago, we didn't even have electricity. You know it's a fire source, right. So candles, and even before that, if we go back to caveman days, it's like fire, right. And all those colors are orange, yellow and red. There's no green or blue in them. So it's only become a modern problem for us that the light sources we're using in the evening are now triggering this circadian rhythm disruption which is then causing sleep disruption.
Speaker 2We're not saying that you should like not use electricity and turn all your lights off and live in the dark, or because the reality is we do live in the modern world and there is technology. So how can we interface with the technology so it doesn't actually have a detrimental impact on our health? How can we mitigate those light sources from entering our eyes and being exposed to our skin? The easiest step is blue light blocking glasses, so I've used the term blue light glasses before.
Speaker 2These are blue light blocking glasses, so they're typically seen as like an orange or an amber lens or a red lens and they're designed to completely eliminate that blue light spectrum. So you really want to not have any of that light coming into your eyes. So even if you had a set that, say, blocked 90% of blue light, that 10% of blue light coming into your eyes will still send that signal to the brain that there is some blue light in the environment. That must mean that the sun is still up in some way, shape or form and it will continue to keep that suppression on your melatonin levels. So it's really about blocking 100% of it and keeping that block all the way through till you go to bed and go to sleep.
Speaker 1So I'm sure you'll get into your products and in general, the type of glasses you would wear at night to do that 100% blocking that blue light. But I was also thinking when you do go to bed, I'm guessing you want to block any light, not just on your eyes but also on your skin, because of you saying earlier what did you call it?
Speaker 2that's in our skin, the melanopsin receptors, so the receptors that respond to blue light.
Speaker 1Yeah, so even if you had a night mask on but you had a little light coming in the window or in the hallway or something, your skin is still reading that, even if your eyes are shut and covered with a mask. Is that right?
Speaker 2Yeah, to a degree.
Speaker 2It's not like it's going to have such a strong signal, but again, it is going to have an impact.
Speaker 2And the other part which I didn't talk about is the blue light hitting the skin will eventually kind of send the signal back up to your master clock and your brain.
Speaker 2But also your skin itself has its own cycle as well. So the skin has its own circadian rhythm, so it does different functions during the different times of the day and night. So the skin is actually designed, when it doesn't have blue light being exposed to it, to undergo its own repair mechanism. So it undergoes cellular repair in the evenings in the absence of blue light. It undergoes and increases collagen production in the absence of blue light. So what happens is if we continue to be exposed to blue light to later in the evening, all those repair and regenerative mechanisms for the skin actually get delayed and potentially don't run their cycle. So over time the repairing of the skin doesn't happen, the collagen doesn't regenerate. So that's how these are linked to blue light causing aging and stuff like that, because the skin itself has its own clock which is being disrupted as well, beyond just the sleep pathway. Well, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1The skin has its own circadian rhythm and healing power that it can only utilize at certain times when the light is blocked, wow. So how can someone protect their eyes then in the evening?
Speaker 2Yes, so a different set of glasses. So you need a set of glasses for the day. If you're under artificial light during the day, at nighttime this kind of affects everyone regardless, because we all kind of indoors in the evening and most people are going to use some sort of artificial light source to see. So we actually have two ranges of glasses. Because there has been some research to come out and look at every single frequency of light and they did a study to look at melatonin suppression, or how much your melatonin was suppressed by different frequencies of light, looking at different wavelengths. Now, when you look at the visible color spectrum, like a rainbow, green light is right next to blue light, so blue fades into green and so what they found in the study that melatonin was suppressed about the most suppression happened about midway through the blue light spectrum, but it continued in to the green light spectrum for about three quarters of the green light spectrum to a much lesser degree, but it was actually suppressing it still. So if we look at that and we want to be 100% optimal in terms of removing every single frequency that is causing some form of a wakefulness signal to the brain, you would need to remove all of the blue light spectrum plus about three quarters of the green light spectrum, and so what that looks like in a set of glasses is the lens will be quite red.
Speaker 2But it's not as simple as just going out and buying a set of red lens glasses, because that doesn't necessarily guarantee that they're going to remove those exact frequencies. So what we actually do in our lens is they're red, but they've got special pigments inside the lenses. They're designed to absorb those frequencies of light as they pass through the lens. So that's our like, what we consider like the most optimal type of glasses to use. Now, the downside to that is they are red. So when you put them on, everything's quite red, as you expect.
Speaker 2But for some people that can be, I guess, not as a pleasant of experience in the evening for watching TV or anything. So we do have another option, which is a lighter lens which just removes all that blue light frequency but doesn't start to remove the green light frequency. So still like, if we're looking at, I guess, using nothing to like, using the one that blocks all the blue light, you're still getting like 80 to 90% of the benefits, and it's like, well, if you're wanting to be that last little 10% to be really optimal. Then you'd use a set that removes most of that green light frequency as well.
Speaker 1Well, that's good, you have lots of options. So you basically have how many kinds of glasses. You have one for the day people can use when they're in front of their computers and under all that artificial light, and then you have two pairs at night, one that blocks the blue light and one that blocks blue light, plus some of the green.
Speaker 2Yeah, we would only ever recommend someone would need one pair for day and one pair for night. It's just more of a preference of how serious they are about it. You know like some people have different tolerances. Some people just want the very best and don't care about what that means. So, yeah, we're just trying to provide different solutions for everyone, but typically most people would want a pair for the day and a pair for the night.
Speaker 2Then a common question is like I just want one that I can wear for both day and night, and the issue with that is they both do a really bad job at the opposing time. So, yeah, you can't really wear a pair of night glasses during the day, because that would tell your brain it's night time. During the day, you're going to start to feel tired and sleepy and you've just caused what we call a circadian rhythm mismatch. So your brain now is suddenly confused and thinks it's nighttime, so it's not suitable. And then daytime ones are not suitable for nighttime because they let too much blue light through still. So your brain still continues to think it's daytime, regardless of the fact that you've filtered some of the blue light out.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, that's amazing that you took this on as a passion and really got into the science behind it all and created these products. So what is the name of your company and how many products do you have now?
Speaker 2So the name of our company is pretty simple and on topic, it's called Block Blue Light is the name of the company Good one, yeah, so nice and easy to remember. And how many products we have now. We've got a lot. So we've got all the range of different glasses. So we've got them all in different styles as well, different frame colors and different frame styles. We do offer also, like a completely custom frame service where you can send us your frame and we'll apply our technology, that lenses, into them.
Speaker 2We've got full prescription as well. So we've got an optics lab that we work with to create prescription glasses, because there are a lot of glasses wearers out there now, so we can cater to that market as well. And then, beyond the glasses, we've got a whole suite of lighting as well. So we've got the screw-in light bulbs, we've got the recessed can lights, we've got night lights. We've got night lights, we've got little book lights, we've got travel lamps. We'll kind of create as a whole probably about 30 or 40 different lighting products that are kind of designed in a way that to help you interface where you use light. We've tried to create a product that is a more optimal one to use so your lighting would replace?
Speaker 1what types of light bulbs?
Speaker 2pretty much most most of them. So just the screw-in one, the ones in the ceiling.
Speaker 1And what are they? You mean it would replace fluorescent lights. Led, is that good or bad? Fluorescent is that good or bad?
Speaker 2Yeah, so it's going to replace both of those pretty much, which is pretty much what's used now. So the older type of lighting we used to use was halogen and incandescent lighting, which wasn't that bad for us. It was a relatively good light source. But that's very, very hard to find now and I think it's by the end of 2023, it's going to be completely banned in the US and most countries are following suit where they're banning the type of light that's actually not that bad for our health, and telling us that we all need to use a light source is actually quite detrimental to our health. Now, the reason for that is under the banner of sustainability.
Speaker 2So the older type of lighting so incandescent and halogen they are a heat source type light. They heat up a filament. It's very energy inefficient to do that. It consumes a lot more power and the life of the lights don't typically last that long. We have to replace them. A lot more power and the life of the lights don't typically last that long. We have to replace them a lot sooner. So there's an increase in energy consumption and an increase in material usage. So they're saying that we need to use a more energy-efficient light source so it's better for the planet, but I kind of go. Well, what's the point in looking after the planet if the humans living on it are all sick due to the light we're using? So that's why we're trying to look at solutions where it's interfacing energy efficiency, long lifespan, so it's good for the planet but then looking at ways to mitigate all those other effects that are happening from the lighting. So we're getting the best of both worlds and that's kind of what we're doing with our lighting.
Speaker 1Well, I'm glad you're on it. So what about people that want to replace their lighting with, say, your products? How do they do that efficiently if they want the daytime bulb and they want the nighttime bulb?
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's a good question. So we used to have just a nighttime bulb. That was where we started with lighting, because that was the most common use cases and most people use lights in the evening, not always during the day, but there certainly is a use case for lights during the day if the room is not well lit, particularly in winter, if it's dark or it's dark day outside, and we look to create what we call a full spectrum light bulb which creates the same, similar spectrum to outdoors. We're not depleting out those beneficial spectrums of red, we're keeping them in, but we're keeping the blue in as well. But then the problem we had was it gets a little bit inconvenient to have to change the bulbs when it's night time or, you know, divide certain bulbs to different rooms and it just gets very complex very quickly. So we decided not to release that daytime bulb.
Speaker 2What we did is we worked on how we could interface the nighttime bulb and the daytime bulb within the same one and allow you to actually switch between them.
Speaker 2And so that's what we've created. It's called the bio light and what that does is it's got the full spectrum daytime setting and it's also got in between setting and then it's got a night setting, so three settings in the same bowl, when you literally just turn your light switch, turn it off and then back on again and it will shift to the next mode. So know, you might get up in the morning and you'd put it on like the in-between mode, which is a lower blue mode, so like early morning, and then you would switch it off and on and it would go into the full spectrum mode, which is kind of like midday, sort of full day mode, and then, like late afternoon, early evening, you would switch it back to the warmer lower blue light mode and then right at the evening you'd switch it once more and take it right into the, the night mode, so you're able to essentially change your lighting indoors to align to the different phases of lighting we're typically getting outside.
Speaker 1So that's pretty amazing if it all connects under one light switch and you just keep flipping it off and on to change it. So can you tell quite easily the difference between those modes to make sure you're in the right one at the right time?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's quite obvious, because when it's night mode it's a very amber, very orange color. When you strip out the blue light spectrum, the blue light's what makes white light white. So when there's a lot of blue in there, it's a very bright white light. So the day mode is a lot whiter. It's very obvious that it's daytime with that one.
Speaker 1So you said there were three different ones Daytime, nighttime and the mid.
Speaker 2The middle mode. So because blue light outside actually it does change during the day. So if you think about sunrise and sunset it's a lot warmer, there's a lot of orangey-redder hues in there and that's because the blue light it's not at its full amount. Around midday is when it gets to its highest. So what we did with the bulb was it's still there in the environment in the morning and in the late afternoon but it's a lot lower. So that mode on ours is the low blue mode, where it's got much lower amounts of blue light than the red to simulate early morning and late afternoon. So that when we look at, like the older style lighting, your incandescent lighting that it's a similar kind of color to that, it's like a warmer color. But then when you go to the night mode, when you strip it it all out, it's a very prominent like orangey amber. So it's very distinct differences in the three modes.
Speaker 1Oh good, so is there anything that you want to share that we haven't covered? Regarding the lighting or the glasses?
Speaker 2I think we've covered a lot there. My only other thing would be just something that doesn't cost anything is to try and, just during the daytime, just try and get outside as much as possible, even if it's just five minutes. It's particularly important in the morning, when we first wake up in the morning, instead of looking at your phone or turning on like artificial lights, because what that does is it instantly tells your brain it's like midday due to the spectrum is going outside and getting exposed to the natural light spectrums which will like tell your brain or your clock that it's the morning, not the middle of the day, and allowing it to set or what we call ankylose circadian rhythm. So if you keep doing it on a daily basis, it starts to entrain, so then it knows when it's the start of the day and it knows when it's the end of the day.
Speaker 1So it's a very easy and free thing that everyone can do to start improving their light exposure and, in turn, get better sleep yeah, that's a great idea, and how much time would you need to trigger your circadian rhythm, like if you go outside for 15 minutes, or how long does it have to be?
Speaker 2like five minutes is good, but like 10 minutes is better than five. But if you can only do two minutes that's even better than none sort of thing. A good rule of thumb is like five to ten minutes is pretty good yeah okay, and it has to be actually outside.
Speaker 1I mean not just the light coming in through the window right, yeah, that's yeah.
Speaker 2So light coming in through the window is filtered light still. So it's still artificial in a way that it's not a natural spectrum anymore. So the window itself will filter a lot of the infrared light out and it will filter a lot of the red light as well. So it's still beneficial to try and get light through the window, but it's not the same as getting unfiltered light from outside.
Speaker 1That's good to know. So just yeah, 10 to 15 minutes in the morning first thing, and then in the evening when it gets dark. Do you go out to signal it?
Speaker 2If you're really wanting to dial things in, you'd be outside as the sun's setting because you're getting a lot of the red, the hues from the sun, which does start to signal to the brain that sun's setting. That's not as important. It's really good if you can do that. Another thing that's really good is even just taking a few breaks during the day and getting outside like eat your lunch outside, because again, those changing spectrums of light during the day and us receiving through our eyes also continues to entrain the different times of the day to the brain. So if we continue to have a stable spectrum indoors where it's not changing, people go outside. Just go for a walk or just a five minute break out. There is really really beneficial couple times a day as well yeah, that's good for a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1Go out and just take a break, give your brain a break and get your circadian rhythm on track. That's right. Where could people find you and your company and order products?
Speaker 2our website is blockbluelightcom, so that's the best place to come and have a look at everything we've got there. Yeah, we're pretty active on social media, so you'll find us on Facebook and Instagram under the same handle, block Blue Light. If you're browsing the website and overwhelmed by all the selection, we're pretty contactable through a messaging service or use a contact form. We'd like to certainly help people understand the different options. You know, if they tell us the situation and what they're trying to do, we can normally come back and suggest the right type of products to help.
Speaker 1That's so great. I'm definitely going to go on there and check out the glasses. Thank you very much for all this education and information. I mean always learning something new, and today was no exception. Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 2No worries, thanks a lot.