Ed Harrold and Zaid K. Dahhaj explore circadian biology through the relationship among light, sleep, hormones, and daily rhythms.
Ed Harrold with Zaid K. Dahhaj. Originally published on YouTube February 23, 2025. Watch the original conversation on YouTube.
Ed Harrold and Zaid K. Dahhaj explore circadian biology through the relationship among light, sleep, hormones, and daily rhythms.
00:14.1 Hey everybody, I'm Ed. Welcome back. I'm here with Zaid today and we're gonna have an amazing discussion about some new biology or maybe old biology that seems to be coming to human awareness that is gonna allow us to live a more dynamic life, to live longer, to be healthier, to have a greater sense of purpose and love in whatever you're trying to achieve on Earth. So to begin with, if we could just take a minute just to turn off the rat race in between our ears and find a straight spine. Maybe you can find a way of planting your feet firmly down into the earth and, and feeling the connection magnetically that you have through your feet into Mother Earth and the energy of
00:53.0 winter which is coming down and spring which is arising if you're in the Northern Hemisphere. If it feels safe to you, let your eyes close and become aware that your eyes are so much more than what you've been told. And as you rest your eyes back in the sockets and you release your low jaw, there's, there's nothing to say. Is there a way that you could get control of the length, depth, and pace of your inhale and exhale? And on the inhale, just follow the breath up through your sinuses and then down your spine and ground your mind. And on the exhale, gently engage your abdominal muscles and squeeze out the toxins, the excess, and let it come out through your
01:39.1 upper lip. And as you begin to breathe slower, you'll notice you begin to feel more. And whatever you're feeling is fine. Try to relax into it. And as you breathe slower and you begin to feel more, you go deeper inside and you begin to relax. And with that training, try to stretch a little more air in and out. And if you wish, when the inhale is complete, pause, and when the exhale is complete, pause, and you'll notice there aren't any words, but you're still you. Breathe, feel, relax. Breathe, feel, relax. Just another round or two, and get centered and grounded in the intuition and the wisdom of your body.
03:06.4 And allow yourself to be fully present for the next moments of your life. And take this information in, and I think you're gonna love what you find. When you're ready, you can open your eyes, re-engage the moment. Ah, Zaid, thank you so much for the work that you're doing for humanity. Yeah, well, thank you for that guided meditation because that's something I, uh, that's definitely a, an interesting and unique way to start a podcast, and I think it's by far the best way to start it, to be honest. Oh, I appreciate that. So I became aware of your work through Substack, which is an amazing platform.
03:54.2 Uh, before I became aware of your work, I was blown away by, uh, Dr. Jack Kruse, who... He's just Jack Kruse. Uh, this amazing human being, and, uh, can you speak to us a little bit about circadian biology, everything light? And there's so much more going on than I, I think what we care to believe. Yeah, there is so much more going on. I think that, you know, if we look at the way that people view health in this day and age, it's- Mm-hmm ... you could call it surface level, you could call it reductionist, you could call it- Right ... um, y- you know, not good enough.
04:34.5 But at the end of the day, I think that people are ignoring and not understanding the importance of circadian health, and more importantly, light when it comes to the entire body as a whole. And so for me, I'm, I'm looking to go beyond exercise, nutrition, supplementation. Mm-hmm. While all of those things are very important, I'm looking to bring circadian education to the masses, but, um, also applying a circadian lens to all of these health fundamentals because I do value holistic understanding. I do value a comprehensive understanding of this game. Um, and so I, I really like the way of approaching just general health through the circadian lens.
05:11.0 So whether it's exercise through, um, understanding when is the right and wrong time to exercise, whether it's chrononutrition, understanding when and what to eat in relation to your latitude and time and all of that. Um, and so I'm just trying to bring it, bring root cause understanding to, um, a, a health space that desperately needs it, in my opinion, especially from a lot of the stuff that I see online. Well, this is fascinating. Fascinating start. Uh, you know, when I was a, when I was a kid when I got started in this business, you know, circadian was something that I, that I became familiar with in regard to, like, the sleep-wake cycle.
05:45.5 Uh, now it's so much more than that. C- can you elaborate a little bit on that? Yeah, so I mean, the sleep-wake cycle is, is very key for circadian health in general. I mean, you can't divorce the relationship between sleep and light- Mm-hmm ... um, or sleep and circadian health. So they, they go hand in hand. Um, the way I like to approach it is just to understand that every aspect of sleep, every aspect of wakefulness is literally controlled through the circadian mechanism. So if we take a look at, let's say, watching sunrise, that is what's going to regenerate the melatonin cycle in your body, and then that has a downstream effect on helping
06:22.0 you get to sleep faster, helping you have deeper sleep, so on and so forth. Um, and so all of this stuff is intricately, intricately connected, um, wh- which is why I like viewing health from the, that standpoint as well. Like, there is interconnectedness amongst all of these things, and so I don't really like the, the perspective that divorces these things from one another. Like, you can't talk about nutrition without talking about light. You can't talk about supplementation without talking about water. Mm-hmm. And so, um, I absolutely love that point of view. But, um, yeah, I mean, just to go into it, it's like every, every single hormone, every single tissue, cell, organ system in your body is controlled by a circadian mechanism.
07:02.4 And so there are circadian genes that tell your body where it is in space and time according to these external cues in the environment like light, food, exercise, temperature. Um, and it's just about understanding how to utilize those things to be more so in circadian alignment as opposed to experiencing circadian disruption, which is what a lot of people, arguably most people in society experience today. So this is fascinating, that my body actually knows that it's February and, you know, like winter, spring, summer, fall. It already knows sunrise, sunset, high tide, low tide. My body's already aware of this in, in, on some deeper level than I'm conscious of?
07:41.3 Oh, 100%, and it's, it is subconscious. So I, I do feel like the, the human body, you know, the human animal is attuned to these specific environmental factors, and I, I think that society- Has done a number on that intuitive understanding or that felt experience, in the sense that we're distracted by technology, we're distracted by the things that are going on in our lives, and we have the comfort and the privilege, to be honest, to not focus solely on survival. Um, but if you tap into a deeper intuitive understanding of this work, especially in relation to circadian biology, then we begin to understand that, um, okay,
08:23.3 y- you will have a felt experience of what it's like to have a melatonin rise at night- Mm-hmm ... if you have the right environment for it. Right. You will feel the experience of grounding, um, even though you, you don't really understand the science behind it. So there is definitely that, uh, that intuitive sense that we've lost, and I think through the circadian, uh, work we can bring back very quickly. So this dance that we go through between, uh, cortisol a- and melatonin, can, can you break that down a, a little bit for us? Yeah. So I mean, both cortisol and melatonin are key hormones.
08:59.4 They're circadian hormones in the body that are responsible for different things. Uh, cortisol, you know, when you wake up, cortisol, the cortisol response is responsible for waking you up and, and getting you into the day. Um, y- in terms of melatonin, I mean, there are two different forms of melatonin. You have one daytime form stimulated by near-infrared light from the sun, um, that actually activates, um, the subcellular form of melatonin from the mitochondria. And then you have the nighttime form, which is the circulatory form produced by the pineal gland in response to darkness. And so you can kind of see how this light and dark cycle is playing an, an integral role into melatonin synthesis specifically.
09:37.4 But either way, they have an inverse relationship. Um, so fundamentally when- Mm-hmm ... cortisol is really high, you'll have low melatonin and, uh, vice versa when it comes to the nighttime. But, uh, I, I do think that there is a more... Outside of that, there is a more complex understanding of the, the hormonal dance or play because like I said, there is the daytime melatonin as well. And so even though cortisol might be high in the morning, um, we do know that if you're out in the sun, skin in the game, then you have a high amount of local and cellular melatonin available at the same time.
10:11.9 Interesting. Yeah. Interesting. So, you know, about a year ago I started, uh, looking up at the sun, you know, somewhere between, you know, 6:00 and 8:00 o'clock in the morning, you know? And, and well, first of all, uh, what am I actually... There's different types of light, so like as far as I understand it. So when I'm looking up in the morning, there's something going on in, in the clocks in my eyes and in my brain, uh, you know. What's happening? Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot's happening. I think that- I know. And, and honestly, I wish I could explain the complexity in its full scope, um, to, you know, to an audience, but I think there are also a lot of things that science hasn't figured out
10:57.0 in terms of what's actually going on, because it's just such a complex relationship. And so for me, a few things that come to mind is like when you rise with the sun and you're out there, you're getting your eyes and skin in the game, again, you're regenerating the melatonin cycle. So you're, you're setting the circadian foundation and creating circadian alignment for everything else within the body to, to operate correctly. So not only are you creating that circadian signal that gets to the master circadian clock in the brain, which is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, um, which then sends the signal to all the peripheral clocks linked to every organ, tissue, cell in the body, um, but you're also, you know, getting a massive influx of red and infrared since most- Mm-hmm ...
11:38.1 of that light is gonna be, um, red and infrared depending on, um, something called Rayleigh scattering, which basically describes where the sun's light is, um, in relation to the atmosphere. A- and so from that same point, I view it as like a p- a time of pure systemic regeneration because red and infrared have some incredible capabilities. I have honestly yet to find any piece of evidence that show that they are harmful- Right ... um, or have any side effect on the body. Uh, and so this is where we prepare the skin for midday UV. This is where we, um, light up those skin clocks, uh, those circadian skin clocks.
12:12.5 Uh, this is where we, um, you know, develop more of a, a, a resilience against artificial light during the day. It's responsible for a host of different things, but at the end of the day, that's really the first domino that we push in order to get the most out of this work from a circadian standpoint. So one of the things that I found fascinating, maybe you can help me out with this, is that I've, I've worn glasses for 30 years, and a year ago I started religiously looking up at the sun in the morning and getting that ambient light and, and now I no longer need glasses.
12:45.4 Uh, yeah. Like how does that happen? I mean, how does my eyes, the genes in my eyes regenerate themselves so that I could see, uh, better than I have for 40 years? It's a great question. I, I think that we have to differentiate between genetics and epigenetics here. Right. So a lot of people use the excuse that, "Okay, my mom and dad or my grandparents had poor eyesight, and so I'm inevitably going to experience something of- Right ... that nature." But when it comes to epigenetics, the lifestyle factors involved, that's gonna be- Right ... really key to, to this whole discussion. So if you take a look at the ocular system, every aspect of it, quite literally every aspect of the ocular system is designed to take in the sun's full spectrum.
13:32.8 So if we cover, you know, the, the mitochondrial concentration within the eye, mitochondria to me are light sensing organelles that use anywhere between 200 nanometers to 900 nanometers- Mm-hmm ... from the full spectrum. Um, they actually emit their own form of light in the form of biophoton emission as well. And, uh, that, that's basically the, the root cause understanding of how we get a specific tissue or organ to operate efficiently. So if you have poor mitochondrial function within the eyes, you're not gonna have great eyesight. It's gonna manifest in some sort of dysfunction there. Um, but knowing that those mitochondria take in that light, improve, uh, mitochondrial efficiency, which then create more energy in the, in that part of the system,
14:16.3 then we get an improvement in function. Outside of that, you have non-visual photoreceptors such as melanopsin, which senses blue. You have rhodopsin, which is responsible for low light vision around green blue type of spectrum. Um, and these are basically light sensitive proteins that are designed to take in and use specific wavelengths of light. That's directly, uh, regenerated through sunlight exposure. And then outside of that you have melanin as well in the eye, like the, within the ciliary body, the iris. And melanin is interesting because it takes in that UV light from the full spectrum and basically uses it for all sorts of things. Right. And the literature shows that melanin has so many different, different benefits as well.
14:57.0 So from that angle, it makes sense to me that we see improvement in eyesight, especially for if you're dealing with some sort of degeneration as well, whether it's myopia, um, age-related macular gen- degeneration. It makes sense from the circadian and the evolutionary standpoint. Fascinating. Fascinating. Wow. So, you know, when I was, when I was young, I was a lifeguard on the beach patrol and I was out in the sun, uh, every day. And I don't know why, but I never used sunscreen. Uh, I, I just... Everybody else did, but I never did, and as far as I know, uh, I'm healthy. Uh, and now I live up in the Wasatch Mountains, uh, the Rocky Mountains out in Utah, and in the dead of winter w- my
15:48.1 wife and I, Wendy, we'll go out for hikes in the morning with- without a shirt on, and it just seems- Like something's happening, that there's a felt sense that what you're doing is really healthy for not just your body, but your mind. Can you elaborate on that? Absolutely. I think that the best way to exemplifies, e- exemplify this is when you first get that hit of light on your skin, you'll notice that your skin gets goosebumps. Yeah. And so for me, that's like, that's the epitome of that felt experience. You might not be able to explain it from a scientific standpoint, but it feels great.
16:28.7 Right. Um, and so it's, you know, it gets into the different benefits that each wavelength offers. I think with sunscreen specifically, um, we're talking about UVA and UVB. Mm-hmm. And I think that the UV light in general is misrepresented grossly within society. There's this whole notion that UV light causes skin cancer, um, and a lot of other things in relation to that, but I, I think those are flawed assumptions. At the end of the day, when it comes to sunscreen, we want that UVA and UVB on, directly onto our skin. And if we are blocking out both forms of that UV with using sunscreen, which is what they're designed to do, that's gonna have some sort of consequence down the road.
17:08.3 Um, so for example, UVA stimulates nitric oxide in the skin, which then gets to your cardiovascular system, so, um, it acts as a vaso- vasodilator. Yeah. And so it opens up those blood vessels, allowing more blood flow. You're not getting that, in my opinion, if you're covering yourself up with sunscreen. Um, UVA also stimulates the POMC system, the proopiomelanocortin system- Mm-hmm ... which creates the world's most powerful peptide hormones that we know of, especially the ones that create melanin, which is protective, like, uh, alpha MSH. And then when it comes to UVB, a, a few of the shared benefits as well, but it's the only light wavelength responsible for vitamin D3 production.
17:47.0 And so this brings in the concern if you're blocking UVB, are you actually able to produce enough vitamin D3? I don't know about that. I, I would caution people to, to not assume that they are producing D3, and to just get their, their natural raw skin in the game, while also having some common sense and using circadian principles. Um, and then there's also the discussion of the potential of sunscreen to change the spectrum from the sun, uh, in harmful ways. So it'll block the UVA, UVB. What is it doing to the blue light? Is it concentrating the blue light relative to those other wavelengths? Um, that can be a potential concern with squamous and basal cell carcinoma.
18:26.9 Uh, it's certain- there's a lot of options that actually block red and infrared, which is hugely problematic in my mind. And so, um, from every angle, I mean, the, the body as a system and the skin as a system is designed to get that full spectrum. It's just about knowing how to use circadian principles to make the most out of melanin production, not burning, so on and so forth. So we've been, uh, chatting about the morning and, you know, preparing the body, the mind for our, our daily activities, and I, I believe we're speaking, uh, predominantly about, about the red light, uh, earlier on in the morning.
19:07.4 And then, I mean, I love to exercise outside, so I don't... Uh, could you speak a little bit about, w- we could, about this blue light? I, like I'm hearing a lot of things about this blue light and, uh, the, the blue light from the sun is actually completely different than the blue light that we're getting indoors, if I understand it correctly. Could you elaborate on that, Zay? Exactly. That's a great point. So blue light from the sun's full spectrum is a completely different input. Think of it as like a completely different set of information than blue light in isolation from LA- LEDs or fluorescents or any technology.
19:48.2 And so fundamentally what we're looking at is just the, the context of the spectrum involved when it comes to blue light. And so if you're getting blue light from the sun, you're getting a host of benefits, whether it comes to, again, I mentioned melanopsin. It actually senses blue, sky blue, technically, I think within between 420 to 480 nanometers, and this is one of the most abundant chromophores, otherwise light-sensing molecules, um, within the body. So it's found in the fat, found in the brain, the eyes, the skin. If you point to a body part, there's likely going to be melanopsin in it. And so that's hugely responsible for circadian signaling because our, our bodies, in a sense, are very, very sensitive to blue, and so we're designed to pick up on any blue light within the environment
20:33.6 for specific, uh, processes from a circadian standpoint. So blue light from the sun's full spectrum can actually burn body fat. It's been shown to reduce a- adipocytes, which are fat cells. It's been shown to actually improve or increase the amount of fat that, um, that adipocyte can burn. So this is why people have told me that they've actually, um, improved their body composition just from sunbathing, believe it or not. Yeah. Uh, again, circadian signaling, which has a whole host of other co- um, benefits for the body. And so that's blue light within the sun's full spectrum. Blue light in isolation is a completely different story.
21:13.1 Mm-hmm. It's the opposite end of the spectrum where you're essentially looking at an input that the human body was never designed to get. And so as a result, it destroys every aspect of the body, whether it be the skin. I believe that blue light in isolation causes skin cancer, all forms of skin cancer. Um, it creates accelerated, uh, aging of the skin, destroys collagen, elastin, hyaluronic acid. I think it destroys the brain. I think it- Yeah ... leads heavily to all sorts of chronic disease, especially when- Right ... you look through circadian disruption. Um, and so that's, that's basically the breakdown that I, I like to give, just completely different inputs that have vastly different results for the human body.
21:52.9 So it sounds like we're supposed to be outdoors, not indoors. Yes. And, uh, that sounds like, uh, that's not going to change. And, uh, when you think about what the world just went through, you know, go home, pull the shades, wash your hands, wear a mask. That doesn't sound to me like it's strengthening my immune system, but I'm, I'm not a scientist. And you don't really need to be a scientist. It- that's- Right ... the ironic part about this day and age. Um, I feel like it, it's kind of a weird world because somebody like me who doesn't have, like, I don't have any certification to my name.
22:40.6 I, I'm not a doctor. I don't, I didn't go to medical school. I didn't do anything. But it's, it's funny to see physicians- You're doing something. I appreciate that, yeah. It, it's funny to see physicians and MDs approach me and ask for advice on the circadian stuff because, um, a- again, it's just like it has so many potential impacts on human health on a, on an individual basis, but then also on society. Like chronic disease rates are skyrocketing, whether it's autism or autoimmunity, cancer, heart disease, and so I think this has huge implications. And most importantly, if you take a look at how society is set up, upwards of 95% of our time as a collective is spent indoors.
23:23.2 We go from the house to the car to the office, and so we're not getting any full spectrum sunlight. We're deficient in infrared. Um, we're spending most of our time under toxic LEDs that are full of isolated blue, and we're experiencing chronic circadian disruption. And if you look through the literature, I, it's quite literally linked to all sorts of chronic conditions in this day and age, and so it makes complete sense to me as to why we are struggling, because we are an outdoor species that is now indoors It's a fundamental maladaptive mismatch So I, I appreciate that. We've spoken a little bit about the red light a- and the blue light.
24:04.1 Now, uh, I- there's a- there's another type of wave light called green light. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah. I mean, green light's interesting because it's... We're still very early in terms of understanding the effects of green light. So I think it falls in between, like, 520 to 560 nanometers. Um, Tom Seager is an excellent source to go to about this green light because his focus is more so on that subject in relation to headaches and, and reducing migraines because it, it seems like green light has this interesting dynamic with reducing most headaches and more- most forms of migraines altogether. Um, I'm- my hypothesis is that it's activating that, uh, rhodopsin, which is- which senses light in the green-blue, and then that has an impact within the brain s-
24:50.9 uh, systemically. But it seems like it's very good for headaches. I've seen some stuff potentially to skin health. Um, but again, I'm, I'm gonna need to study that more in depth. But either way, my philosophy is that every light wavelength that the sun provides has some sort of benefit, even if we haven't scientifically found that benefit yet. So somewhere along the line, you know, myself and others, like, we were taken off the trail and told that the sun was something different than what we're discovering. Uh, you know, the sun was bad for you. Uh, you know, don't look at, at the sky when the sun is out.
25:29.3 Uh, you know, limit the amount of time that you're outside in the sun because the sun's, uh, you know, debilitating to longevity and the life of your cells and mitochondria health. You know, uh, and now we're pushing back against this with obviously the... I mean, you're an American treasure. I mean, the information that you're putting out is, is fascinating, and it's changing, I mean, our perception of our selves and our environment, uh, very, very quickly. Because I think down deep there's, you know, the people who are questioning what's going on know in their gut something's not quite right. I mean, we can feel our health is being pushed, uh, to a, a limit where we're feeling a lot more, uh,
26:16.1 negative stress, uh, uh, that's... than we, than we pr- you know, typically would have. So there's something percolating. Where along the line did the sun become the enemy? Oh, what a question. Um, this is one that's definitely gonna blow the minds of, of your listeners. I feel like most people don't understand the historical context involved here. So if we start out from... Let's start out from the good aspect of history. Right. The early 1900s, late 1800s, um, you have an individual by the name of Niels Ryberg Finsen, who started to investigate the effects of full-spectrum sunlight on various things like, uh, you know, smallpox, tuberculosis.
26:59.8 He treated smallpox with red light, actually. Um, he magnified full-spectrum light through quartz lenses on patient- on areas of tuberculosis that patients had, and he found magnificent results. And so he actually won the Nobel Prize for his work on, um, full-spectrum sunlight and its benefits for human health. Shortly after that, there was, uh, an individual by the name of Dr. Auguste Rollier, who was like the classical heliotherapist. Early 1900s, lived in Switzerland. Um, he actively took on patients and started to, to run them through this heli- heliotherapy practice and framework, and he saw astonishing results. Like, we're talking about pe- you know, little kids who are maybe two weeks away from death with advanced stage, um, tuberculosis, more specifically the skin type, uh, lupus
27:49.6 vulgaris, and he managed to turn that all around in the span of four, five, six months- Wow ... only using sunbathing. And so this gets into the, the historical context in the sense that we have some real evidence backed by science, backed by history to show that this works. Then if you fast-forward to, let's say, the 1960s, late 1970s, early 1980s, that's when two specific companies came into play, L'Oréal and Nestlé, and they essentially thought of a plan or created a plan to, um, basically make people fear the sun. They created a huge PR campaign, multiple PR campaigns, um, so that people could inherently fear the sun so that they could sell more of their sun creams and sunscreens and
28:36.3 all of this other stuff that they had available, and they did that to a T. It, I mean, it was probably one of the most devastating and effective PR campaigns in the history of, of humanity. And so fast-forward to today when people are scared of the sun, they're scared of UV light, that's kind of the, the historical context of where it comes from. There's also some other stuff because the, the sun scare campaign from L'Oréal and Nestlé actually found its way into the World Health Organization, and they started recommending that as just standard protocol for all doctors, all, you know, leading health agencies and whatnot across the world.
29:12.8 And then, uh, you know, you fundamentally have the problem of centralized science. You're talking about using isolated UV light on nocturnal animals, often albino ones who are susceptible to UV damage, um, done in an artificially blue-lit environment, AKA a lo- laboratory, around a lot of non-native EMF. And so that is the-- that's exactly the science that they're using in order to conclude that UV light causes skin cancer or that sunlight in general causes any form of skin cancer. So it's about as far divorced from nature as you can get. It doesn't explain how we as c- as a circadian diurnal species take in the full spectrum, and it doesn't explain what happens in nature, which is why I really
29:56.5 like to push hard against that notion because I think it's, it's a false paradigm, and it's, it's leading people astray in, in many different respects. So I don't wanna get too far out in front of this, but if I hear you correctly, it seems like not everyone out there is wishing us well. No. So this is a wake-up call where we are all responsible for our temple, and there is several things that we can all do to stay out of the conventional medical system. I mean, if you get in a car accident and you break your leg, you know, go get it repaired. But I, I think there's a whole host of things that, that people can do to be better on an individual basis, regardless
30:44.2 whether, whether you're eight or 88, or whether you're living in Texas or you're living in Alaska. And what I'm hearing from you is that there is some basic things that doesn't seem to cost a lot of money that you can become aware of, live longer. In other words, your chronological age is subjective. Your biological age is kind of important. Yep. And there's certain things that you're recommending that in a 12-month period, you might only be aging six months. It's possible. I will say that if you just-- if you take the evolutionary lens, if you take the circadian lens, if you believe in divine intervention or if you believe in all of the above, I would say that
31:30.7 nature is... You know, our relationship to nature is perfect and therefore it, it's not a surprise to me that the things that offer the most health abundance within our system are free. So if you're talking about sunbathing, getting skin in the game, um, you know, watching sunrise, grounding to a wet surface, whether it be, you know, on the beach or on the- All of this stuff is free, zero cost. And it doesn't matter where you are too latitude-wise. Like, you could be right at the equator, that's fantastic, you're getting a lot of sun. Um, or you could be in Alaska, like you mentioned, and you could take advantage of the cold.
32:08.5 Right. Because cold exposure also has benefit, uh, within the, the overall, you know, system of, of human health. And so I think that it, it gives people's power back. That's the most important thing. So we don't have to act like victims, and we don't have to really talk about the whole conspiratorial rabbit hole, so long as we understand that we are in control and we are able to affect ourselves first and foremost, which then has a massive impact on God knows how many people within our lives. So in, in, for lack of a better term, uh, when we're in a centralized system, we are a number, and whatever the tests say,
32:47.9 you're thrown into a, a, a big vat and, and this is gonna work for you. If I hear you correctly, you're talking about more of a, a decentralized system where you are an individual and you are given certain protocols to turn your body back on. Is that correct? Exactly. And so I'm more of a philosophy of, um, change from the bottom up, more grassroots- Yeah ... as oppo- as opposed to change from the top down. So, you know, I'm, I am excited about the appointment of RFK Jr. on, into HSS now. I'm excited about some things around that, but I'm not gonna expect it to change my health because that's a- Right ...
33:24.6 it's an N equals one game. It's your responsibility. Um, and as a matter of fact, like from what I've seen, grassroots is extremely powerful, um, because I've been able to get this message out there and a lot of other people have as well, so I'm all for it. Well, I think it only takes a few bright lights to lead the masses, you know, out of Plato's cave and into the light. Yeah. And it, it's so funny we talk about this light, and so much of my business is like, you know, being light-hearted. You know, being humbled, lighter thoughts. And here we have, now we're talking about this light that's coming in through our eyes and our iris a- a- and retina and, you know, these smooth muscles
34:08.6 around our eyes. And it's so interesting when you look at someone's magnetism, uh, for a lack of a better term. You know, when you look at someone's eyes, you can see is that healthy, unhealthy? Is that trustworthy? Is that not trustworthy? You know, is there eye movement there? And, like, the work that you're doing, first of all, you're fascinating. I mean, you're a huge rabbit hole trough of knowledge, and you're out in front taking the arrows. You know- Right ... 'cause this is gonna be common knowledge, I think, very, very soon. When you think about trying to get people to tr- maybe try some of this on- Sure ...
34:51.2 uh, what would be the first couple steps if someone wanted to just experiment with this? And what would be a timeframe when you might feel, feel a little better? Well, for me, I would start with sunrise. Certainly watching sunrise is the, like I said, the first domino that you push. So whether you're in Alaska, whether you're in, uh, Costa Rica, make sure to time your wake time around sunrise. And so as soon as the sun starts, begins that rise, you really wanna get outside, get that natural light in, um, into the eyes. That lux, otherwise the intensity, other words known as the intensity of the light, is gonna be massively beneficial from a circadian standpoint.
35:31.6 Um, and then at the end of the day, you wanna get more skin exposed depending on, you know, whether if it permits it or not. But either way, that's gonna be the number one. Um, that you can notice effects from within two to three days from what I've seen. Yeah. I've seen people respond very quickly to that, which is great because it's, it gives people more hope to, you know, go down this rabbit hole. Outside of that, um, a, a dark lens pair of blue light blockers, I actually have a pair like this one. So you can get expensive ones, you can get cheap ones.
36:01.6 I mean, there's a lot of options in the market, but that's essentially- Mm-hmm ... what's going to protect you, exactly, there we go, from that isolated blue, um, which is disruptive to the circadian system, disruptive to the eyes and whatnot. Uh, and I like to use those religiously after sunset, so that's a big one. Making it darker after sunset is important. So, you know, you can also use circadian-friendly lighting, whether it's fire light, beeswax candles. Um, incandescents I'm a huge fan of. So those are typically the lights that I would use after sunset, but the darker the better because again- Mm ... you want that, that rise in pineal melatonin since it needs darkness to build up.
36:39.3 Um, and then grounding probably. I mean, if you can go to the beach, if you can get your bare feet on a natural conductive earth surface, that would be fantastic. Those, again, across the board, I mean, with the glasses you can notice the effect within 10 minutes. Mm-hmm. I've had people report that they already start to feel tired after wearing them because of that, uh, melatonin protection phenomenon. And, um, at the end of the day, your body responds quickly to the right inputs. Yeah, this is such good information and, you know, for the people in, in my world, like when I go out and get that sunlight, you know, I'm doing
37:14.3 conscious breathing. You know, I'm, I'm slowing my breath down. I might be using brief retentions. You know, I'm engaging my diaphragm. I'm engaging my pelvic floor. I'm getting blood flow in, in through my gut. I'm getting blood flow in my pelvis. For someone my age, you know, you, we, we have limited blood flow, uh, in our, in our pelvic bowl. And engaging the core of the body, focusing on transcending man-made time- Mm-hmm ... and, and, and getting a deeper intuitive view of your environment and you and just surrendering to it. And, you know, it's interesting that when we begin to control our breath, you know, time begins to dilate.
37:59.0 Uh, distance begins, you know, it's like, "Wow, I gotta go another mile," or you already went two miles. You know, it's just like our normal clock of the ego gets turned down, and then the, the real clock of our heart and our intuitive self. In other words, like when you go out in nature, nature doesn't speak English, but your body knows exactly what that quantum field of nature is saying to you. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's taking in all the inputs. I think that e- even just a weekend of camping can make that difference, which is incredible. Yeah, so these, uh, I- you spoke a little bit about the light inside the house.
38:47.9 Now, I guess about 10 years ago, they, they started changing all the light bulbs and you, and, uh, s- I guess there's something coming out of that light that is detrimental to our clocks. Is that correct? Yeah, 100%. I mean, look, w- we've already discussed the spectrum p- part of it, so, you know, isolated blue is just foreign to the body and the circadian system as a whole, so it throws off the entire timing of the system. Timing is a very important thing when it comes to circadian biology. Um, outside of that, I would say flicker is a huge problem, usually from LEDs and fluorescents.
39:25.9 This, this flicker is subconscious, so it like, the, the rate at which it, it does flicker is under your ability to consciously perceive it. And so you can even take your iPhone or, you know, put it on a slow-mo, uh, video, take a, a slow-mo video of any of the light sources, and you can see it flicker in real time. That's a really nice hack for people to, to test it out within their homes. Flicker has a massive impact on bi- so you have natural sources of flicker like firelight, candlelight, um, biolum- luminescence, other sources. That is fundamentally healthy, that's not a problem. But flicker from artificial sources just, it is, again, it's foreign to how the body works, and it kind of messes with your brain and your visual system.
40:08.3 Um, I mean, even in the medical field, they use flicker in order to induce epileptic seizures in people who have epilepsy. So this, this goes to show- Oh ... how, how powerful it is. Um, it, it can cause headaches and it c- it can cause migraines. If you've ever felt, like, super off in an office with really bright lights, the flicker's gonna be a very big portion of that. Outside of the light spectrum, the flicker, you have, um, non-native EMF, which is a problem. So certain light bulbs and light fixtures can actually emit radio frequencies, certain electrical fields, certain magnetic fields as well, and, uh, that is highly problem-
40:44.5 problematic to the body from a, a, an EMF standpoint. Because if we look at the body, it's designed to only sense natural electromagnetic frequencies, and so even the mitochondria evolve to sense natural frequencies like the Schumann resonance, um, other, other aspects from, you know, the magnetosphere and, and the earth in general. But, um, 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, all of these things are highly unnatural to the body, and so they certainly cause mitochondrial deficiency. They certainly have a second and third order consequence to the entire body as a whole. Um, and so that's kind of the stuff that we wanna distance ourself from as, as much as possible.
41:20.7 But, uh, again, the lighting sources that nature creates are perfect for our bodies. Yes. The lighting sources that man makes, not so perfect. Well, nature's never late, it's never early. It's right on time. Yep, exactly. You know, and we can be aware of that. It, it sounds like a lot of what we're, what you're speaking of is really gonna lower our entropy. It, it's going to raise our heart rate variability score. It's gonna allow our blood to be more alkaline and oxygenated rather than acidic and inflamed. It's gonna be easier on our capillaries and arteries and our organs. It's just fascinating, Zaid. Yeah, and it's, you know, it's, it's unfortunate that people don't really have access to a lot of the education around this stuff.
42:06.8 I think that they have the pot- like, you can go on the internet and do the work yourself, but it's gonna take a long time. Um, but even outside of that, a lot of these things are actively demonized. Like, we're, we're phasing out incandescent bulbs for more efficient LEDs. You know, we're, um, we're told to, you know, light up our homes with all these, this cool tech stuff and whatnot. But I think that if you look into health as a whole, this is the foundation. The circadian stuff is the foundation, and you build the nutrition, the supplementation, the detox all off of that. Um, and there, there's plenty of evidence to show that all other health fundamentals are controlled by the circadian mechanism.
42:45.9 Um, and so that's what I'm trying to get across. And that's just not through our eyes. It's also through our skin. Yeah, the, the skin is, interestingly enough, kind of like a, a second pair of eyes for us because the skin- Yeah ... contains light-sensing opsins as well. So melanopsin, encephalopsin, rhodopsin. The, the skin is loaded with these light-sensing proteins, and it uses that as information to tell the body where it is in space and time, um, according to the circadian system. And it's also important for the overall function of the system. Like, for example, the, the skin is supposed to-- it knows exactly when it's morning time, midday, and then night.
43:25.6 Yes. I mean, this, this is also why I recommend that people get their, um, if they do get an X-ray or any sort of medical imaging that requires radiation, do it within that midday period, anywhere from 10:00 AM to around maybe 2:00 PM, because that happens to be when UV light, UV radiation from the sun comes in. And so our skin is most prepared, whether it's autophagy, apoptosis, senescence from a biological standpoint, to be able to hand- handle that radiation. It's extremely fascinating. So our skin, uh, is kinda like little solar panels then. It's like building energy in our mitochondria? Yeah. Essentially, yeah. It's, I mean, it depends on what topic you wanna focus on, but, like, even just the, the interaction between red and infrared and the skin is incredibly
44:15.9 fascinating. Red and infrared have the, the deepest penetration, um, level when it comes to the skin barrier, and so it can get into the tissues and actually scatter enough and then eventually meet a weak absorber or a strong absorber of that light to then get in deep, deep into the body. Like, that red and infrared actually makes it into the crevices of the gray matter in your brain. It makes it into all organs. It makes it into, you know, bone marrow. Like, you, you can talk about any aspect. That, that light reaches and penetrates, which is, um, awesome. It's fasc- And, and we're, we're sp- uh, when we speak of the light, uh, a- am I correct in saying that we're s- we're stimulating electrons in the subatomic particles
44:58.3 of our body? And this is really deep stuff. Yes. Way inside. Super deep, super deep into it. Um, but yes, I believe it's called the photoelectric effect. So what I've seen is that when photons from the sun interact with the skin, more importantly melanin- Mm-hmm ... um, it, it is, you know, hypothesized that we're able to create free electrons from that interaction. And so that's one part of increasing energy production from, from the circadian standpoint. Outside of that, I mean, you obviously have the mitochondria, which, um, if you think about a single mitochondrion, there is an electron transport chain made of five complexes that is designed to basically pass electrons, um, to create ATP at the end of the process.
45:42.3 Right. And what's interesting is that, you know, if you get more sunlight, you block artificial light, you ground, all of these are methods to improving the electron transport chain and generating more ATP from the mitochondria. I... This is just amazing. Hold on. Hold on. Dude, this is, this is so awesome. I, I hope people-- You're gonna have to listen to this a couple times, folks, to really do... And then do your research, okay? Go online. A lot of the things that Zaid's saying it, it might be new to you, but it's coming down the track, and you wanna get out in front of this. And I, I really think you're gonna like, uh, how you feel by taking on some of these strategies.
46:23.7 Is there anything else you care to share before we wrap it up? I think it's just gonna, you know, uh, I think the collective conscious is picking up on the circadian work, and, um, I- my job is to just push as much of the research out there and as much of the common sense understanding around this as possible. I would just urge people to experiment. It's, you know, a lot of the stuff is free. It doesn't-- There's no barrier to entry, regardless of even latitude. Um, and again, you will experience results rel- relatively quickly, so just get into the work, experiment, and you'll, you'll find some incredible effects as a result of that.
46:57.9 I'm gonna have in the show notes how people can, can get with you. You're in California? Correct, yeah. Okay, great. And you probably do stuff online, in, you know, privates and groups and... Yeah, I mean, I do some one-on-one coaching. Um, if, if people are interested in that, I can, I can offer that certainly. But, um, either way, I, I probably have a service for people who need help. And what's a website where people can get you? That would be www.zaidkdahhaj.com. That's beautiful, man. Thank you so much for doing this work. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Fascinating conversation. Y- Dude, you made my life. This was great.
47:40.3 Thank you, man. All right. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye. um, it, it is, you know, hypothesized that we're able to create free electrons from that interaction. And so that's one part of increasing energy production from, from the circadian standpoint. Outside of that, I mean, you obviously have the mitochondria, which, um, if you think about a single mitochondrion, there is an electron transport chain made of five complexes that is designed to basically pass electrons, um, to create ATP at the end of the process. Right. And what's interesting is that, you know, if you get more sunlight, you block artificial light, you ground, all of these are methods to improving the electron transport chain and generating more
45:52.9 ATP from the mitochondria. I... This is just amazing. Hold on. Hold on. Dude, this is, this is so awesome. I, I hope people-- You're gonna have to listen to this a couple times, folks, to really do... And then do your research, okay? Go online. A lot of the things that Zaid's saying it, it might be new to you, but it's coming down the track, and you wanna get out in front of this. And I, I really think you're gonna like, uh, how you feel by taking on some of these strategies. Is there anything else you care to share before we wrap it up? I think it's just gonna, you know, uh, I think the collective conscious is picking up on the circadian work, and, um, I- my job is to just push
46:36.7 as much of the research out there and as much of the common sense understanding around this as possible. I would just urge people to experiment. It's, you know, a lot of the stuff is free. It doesn't-- There's no barrier to entry, regardless of even latitude. Um, and again, you will experience results rel- relatively quickly, so just get into the work, experiment, and you'll, you'll find some incredible effects as a result of that. I'm gonna have in the show notes how people can, can get with you. You're in California? Correct, yeah. Okay, great. And you probably do stuff online, in, you know, privates and groups and...
47:11.0 Yeah, I mean, I do some one-on-one coaching. Um, if, if people are interested in that, I can, I can offer that certainly. But, um, either way, I, I probably have a service for people who need help. And what's a website where people can get you? That would be www.zaidkdahhaj.com. That's beautiful, man. Thank you so much for doing this work. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. Fascinating conversation. Y- Dude, you made my life. This was great. Thank you, man. All right. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye.