Why Light Is a Pillar of Health, Sleep, and Performance

tell us why light should be you know we think of light as visual but why should we think about light as a biological signal — I mean it you get really technical very quickly here but if you look at just the structure of the eye the supercismatic nucleus which is the body clock there are things in certain spectrums of sunlight which your body reacts to and if it done if you were coming out of the cave to go hunting sun would energize you, keep you focused, keep you energized, and when the sun sets, it tells your body to go home back into the cave and go to sleep. And if you look at where we are as a office, you know, in a building behind glass kind of existence, we're just not getting those right stimulations or triggers that your body um is best suited for. So, we're very much dial. Light keeps us awake, dark tells us to go to sleep. And if you start screwing that up, then there's a whole cascading set of negative effects that come from that. And [clears throat] it can be environmental, it can be social, it can be things you do with devices before bed, when you wake up. And so light is pervasive. You know, it's everywhere. It's a [clears throat] decision that every facility makes guaranteed that it's going to be in the building unless for some reason they don't need light, but I don't know where that would be. And so it's something that we think can be addressed in a way that any humans in a box under a light can be made better, healthier with kind of the natural stuff that happens outside which we're not doing to ourselves inside. — So if we put this in sort of a like health and performance context, everybody listening to this podcast and everybody who's curious about their health online knows that sleep and nutrition and movement are important. um what how do you sort of rank this light piece among that? I mean I realize it's deeply connected to sleep and uh probably movement and and those other things, but like how do you think about it in terms of ranking? Like does it live at the same level as like a pillar of health? Um is it a suble like how do you think about it in terms of its influence on health and performance? Um it's definitely a pillar of health because it drives so much of your sleep and recovery. If you don't get the right light stimulation, the right um inputs, then your building of melatonin or melanopic entrainment is impaired, which means you're not going to sleep and recover well. So if you're not getting good sleep, then your recovery factor is much lower. And it's one of those things that is absolutely in every gym you work out in. you know, it's always above you and it's something that is very passive that can be done to the users of the space very easily if understood how to design it and deliver it correctly. So, it's very achievable if you go out looking to achieve that capability of health and well oneness through light. — We are seeing that the research is indicating that people are going out about 20 minutes a day. Oh, sorry. 20 minutes a week. That was outside We're just we're not spending a lot of time — in these natural lit environments just doesn't happen. And it's not someone's it's not nefarious. I mean it just happens that that's where most people are living their lives indoors. When we talk about lighting isn't all light the same? I mean, you know, I sometimes feel don't feel great after, you know, spending days and days in underground government facilities under incandescent lighting. But can you explain to us what the problem is? I mean, you know, what if I had like a light bulb from the 70s? I mean, how should I be thinking about this? What I don't want people to walk away from this conversation is you know yet another thing we get to put on our listicle of things to like that are killing me or you know messing me — toxic — right yeah right so help us understand the how you are thinking about it what a person can do about it and some potential upsides to this thing because it's not just about hey I'm like you guys and you'll hopefully you'll talk about some of the places that are using your light and some of the applications of it, surgery centers, etc., but you know, this is a performance offense approach where we can actually get more out of our brains if we're thinking differently. So, set up this light conversation with us because I think most of us are like, well, they put lights in my house. What's wrong with those lights? — Right. And light it if lighting is like saying car. What does a car mean? And what's the range of cars? And what's the performance that comes out of a car? Um, you described incandescent, that's a type of light source. There's fluorescent, there's LED. They each have different performance attributes

um that comes out of it. That's the visual portion of it. And um they all have relatively good each of them has kind of a good foundation of okay things. When you start talking about dealing with the biological side or the photo receptor side to create an environment of health and wellness, you need the proper light source with the right spectrum. And then you need to be able to modulate it throughout the course of the day so that — Whoa, whoa, whoa. You you're saying that it's not enough to go on off. — And on off is a very if you I mean I don't know if you can actually see it on the screen. So I've got a brainlet lamp which is kind of blue. Then in my ceiling, I've got commercial lighting because I rent an office space that has commercial light. They're two different colors. And because my brain lit light is modulating throughout the course of the day, I'm getting a different spectrum from when I come in, it's 7 7:38 and by time I leave in the evening, it will gone through a full daylight spectrum. Other versions of lighting are more static. So at some point in the day, it's giving you the wrong type of light. If you then look at how think of a hotel lobby that are very warm and comfortable feeling. You kind of walk in and you relax. Well, that's not great at 2 o'clock in the afternoon when you're trying to go into a big meeting. That color is not energizing you, helping you focus. It's telling you relax and get ready for sleep. So, lighting is type of source. What do you need it to do? pregame energize, postgame decompression, uh, middle of the night patient room where you don't want to energize the patient you're waking up by putting a lot of blue light energy into the space, but you need enough light for sight so the nurse can do a quick exam or, you know, their quick observation. So that's all understanding of what the light is doing, who's in it, what are you trying to achieve from it, and that's outside of the source of the light. It's understanding the design capabilities of what lighting can do and then understanding that depending on who's doing what in a room, the light can be tailored to their best health and wellness, sleep and recovery. And those are kind of different phases of the day. You know, health and wellness and focus and energy is keeping you awake, keeping you energized, making less mistakes. And when you do the right down trend of spectrum and color change that creates melatonin allows for melatonin creation which is then better sleep and recover.