How Blue Light Hijacks Your Body: The Hidden Crisis in Executive Health Optimization
“Junk light is the new junk food.”
That line from Dr Martin Moore-Ede stopped me cold.
It was more than a catchy phrase; it’s the cornerstone of a significant, yet overlooked, health crisis, especially among high performers, executives, and individuals striving to extend their healthspan while pushing their limits.
In my recent conversation with Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a Harvard-trained physician and pioneer in circadian science, we explored how artificial light, particularly blue-rich LED lighting, is subtly disrupting sleep, metabolism, and long-term health. Most people think of light as just a tool to see. But as Dr Moore-Ede makes crystal clear, light is a drug, and it’s one you're being dosed with every single day.
This blog post serves as your executive summary of that conversation, providing a tactical roadmap for optimizing CEO health, promoting sleep recovery, and achieving resilient longevity in the era of digital overexposure.
Watch The Executive Health Conversation
The Real Reason You’re Tired, Wired, and Losing Your Edge
If you're a high performer, entrepreneur, executive, founder, or athlete, you already track your sleep, supplements, and maybe even your mitochondrial health. But you may still be struggling with:
Afternoon energy crashes
Poor sleep despite perfect habits
Brain fog or slow mental recovery
Creeping metabolic shifts (weight gain, insulin resistance)
According to Dr Martin Moore-Ede, the problem may be hiding above your head in your lighting.
He explains that modern LED lights, especially those used in homes, offices, and screens, are engineered for brightness and energy efficiency, rather than biological health. And while they look harmless, they're loaded with narrow-spectrum blue light that disrupts your circadian rhythm, suppresses melatonin, and literally hijacks your metabolism.
“We can make healthy people pre-diabetic in just a few hours using the wrong kind of light,” he said. “And no one is talking about this.”
Circadian Rhythm Isn’t Just Sleep: It’s Your System Clock
As someone who's built a career around executive performance coaching, I’ve long emphasized the importance of sleep and rhythm in sustaining cognitive output. However, this episode made me realize that circadian rhythm is the operational system your entire health strategy runs on.
It regulates:
Hormones like cortisol, melatonin, and insulin
Immune function and inflammation cycles
Metabolism and fat storage
Cognitive alertness and recovery
When your light environment is misaligned, your whole system is out of sync, even if your diet, training, and calendar are “optimized.”
The CEO’s Guide to Light Optimization
Dr. Moore-Ede isn't just a researcher; he’s spent decades working with global 24/7 industries (airlines, oil, manufacturing) to improve performance under demanding conditions. So he speaks our language when it comes to elite performance in complex, high-stress environments.
Here’s what he recommends for any high-achieving longevity strategists or anyone serious about reclaiming their biological resilience:
1. Get Outside First Thing in the Morning
Full-spectrum sunlight early in the day resets your circadian clock, increases dopamine, and kickstarts energy. Even 10–15 minutes makes a difference. Below is an introductory video on the various benefits of sunlight.
2. Eliminate Blue Light at Night
Blue-rich LED light at night suppresses melatonin, reduces glucose tolerance, and mimics jet lag, without the travel. Replace your bulbs with zero-blue or red-shifted options, or use quality blue-blocking glasses.
3. Sleep in Total Darkness
Even low levels of bedroom light can disrupt melatonin and increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, and metabolic dysfunction. Total darkness equates to true and effective recovery.
4. Rethink “Energy-Efficient” Lighting
Modern regulations prioritize energy savings, not human health. Dr. Moore-Ede warns that many of today’s LEDs are the biological equivalent of processed food for your cells. Choose lighting that supports circadian biology, not just aesthetics.
5. Audit Your Environment Like a Strategist
As a CEO health optimization coach, you wouldn’t let poor KPIs linger in your company. Treat your environment the same way. Audit your home, office, and screen time for light exposure and take action accordingly.
Why This Matters Now
If you're a driven professional, performance decay rarely manifests as a sudden crash. Instead, it creeps in quietly. As Bitcoiners say: “Gradually, then suddenly.”
You’re still doing the work. You’re showing up. But your recovery is slower. Your sleep is shorter. Your edge is duller.
Light could be the silent culprit. “Light is not just for vision. It’s for health,” Dr Moore-Ede said. “And most of our lights are built for visibility, not biology.”
This episode reframed my perspective on productivity, fatigue, and resilience. It’s not just about how you work. It’s about how your environment works against you.
Final Takeaway: Light Is a Leverage Point
In a world obsessed with hacks and stacks, light is one of the simplest and most powerful variables you can control. Whether you’re biohacking your brain, recovering from burnout, or mapping out a 10-year and beyond healthspan strategy, this is foundational.
If you're a coach, founder, or longevity-focused executive, this is the lever you can’t afford to ignore.
Connect With Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
Website: https://thelightdoctor.com/
Book (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/LIGHT-DOCTOR-Health-Improve-Longer/dp/B0D54SHWS4/
Circadian Light Website: https://circadianlight.org/
Korrus Lighting / OIO circadian light system: https://www.korrus.com/oio/
SORAA (light bulbs with no blue light): https://www.soraa.com/
Dr. Moore-Ede’s Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=lFyCIC0AAAAJ
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-moore-ede-80630a12
Transcript (may not be exact)
Julian Hayes II
(0:28) So welcome everyone to another episode, Dr. Martin Moore-Ede. (0:31) Thank you so much for joining me. (0:33) I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
(0:35) I'm almost done with your book. (0:37) I'm taking copious notes, but I'm just first curious. (0:41) I'm always inspired by what led you to become a doctor?
(0:45) What led you to get into this?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(0:48) Well, that goes back quite a ways. (0:51) Yeah, I was always interested in science and biological sciences. (0:54) And early on, I couldn't figure out how to get into it.
(0:57) I figured, well, so many of my members of my family were doctors. (1:01) I might as well go to medical school, go that route. (1:05) And that opens up to everything.
(1:08) And then from there, I got more and more intrigued with the science and the questions that were coming up. (1:15) I mean, particularly when I was graduated out of medical school and going to a surgical residency, first year surgical residency, found myself working those 36-hour long shifts off for 12, back in for 36, walking around like a zombie, nodding off in the operating room, holding the retractor, letting it slip, getting yelled at by the surgeon, writing prescriptions. (1:41) I couldn't make sense of it.
(1:42) And I wasn't alone. (1:43) Everyone was doing this. (1:44) I said, you know, I'm kind of interested in the causation of all this.
(1:48) And the key thing at that time was these rhythmic patterns. (1:52) They're very clear. (1:53) However long you've been awake, there were times when you could actually become alert again.
(1:57) And there were times when you got really sleepy, no matter what you did. (2:01) And so that led to this, looking at this brand new field at the time of circadian rhythms, circadian clocks. (2:10) In fact, people didn't really believe it was real science.
(2:12) I was advised not to pursue it by famous professors at MIT and Harvard and elsewhere. (2:19) But I was sufficiently interested in it. (2:22) I went ahead and in turn got my PhD after my medical degree, and then went on, ran a lab at Harvard where we were right at the beginning, identified where the clock was in the human brain that's causing this, the gaining clock called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, identified how it was synchronized by light.
(2:42) People didn't believe it was, humans were synchronized by light. (2:45) And then from then on, really showing how these systems are so important for health. (2:52) And yeah, and we can get into the rest of the story, but that's what got me into this.
(2:58) It's just following my nose, as it were, into asking good questions about things I was seeing that couldn't be explained.
Julian Hayes II
(3:06) Yeah, and I have his book here. (3:07) It's called, it's The Light Doctor. (3:09) It's a fantastic book.
(3:10) It's so much research is behind this. (3:14) I was flipping, I was like, oh my goodness. (3:16) That must've took a super long time to gather up and everything.
(3:21) And I know you've had a bunch of papers published and everything, but it's a lot of research and it's easy to understand. (3:26) So I think it's a fantastic book. (3:28) It's probably one of the best books on light and making it easily understandable for a person who's not deep into this field.
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(3:35) Yeah, that's exactly the audience. (3:36) I mean, I wanted to reach not just the scientific audience, because the scientists know about this and there are 20,000 scientists who've been working in this field over the years. (3:47) So they know about it, but reach the people in the lighting industry who need to understand this.
(3:54) They make lights, which are so unhealthy these days and also reach anybody interested in health and wellness like yourself and also reach the audience that I know very well, which is the businesses that run, particularly those that run the extended hours 24-7. (4:12) I formed a company out of Harvard called Circadian. (4:15) I formed it back in 1983.
(4:17) That's a long time ago. (4:19) It's about 42 years going now. (4:22) And we deal with the problems of health and performance in 24-7 industries and consult with virtually every major company around the world that runs 24-7 in anything that runs shifts, airlines or railroads or oil, the oil industry, et cetera, et cetera, manufacturing.
(4:46) So that's, and that really in turn informed me of a whole new set of problems. (4:51) And that's when this whole issue of light became really critical because the evidence started coming out about 20 plus years ago, that light at night, electric light at night was causing all sorts of ill health problems, increasing the risk of breast cancer by 50% or more in nurses working the night shift, for example, increasing the risk of prostate cancer, heart disease, diabetes. (5:16) And all that evidence said, boy, we've got to rethink this electric light business.
(5:21) We take electric light for granted. (5:24) We just flick the light switch on for heaven's sake. (5:27) Don't even have to, most of the time, half the time it switches on itself because everything's automated these days.
(5:34) Not thinking about it at all, but light, you can say light is light, but light is not just light. (5:39) Light is also health or unhealth depending on what it's made up of and the things it's made up of. (5:46) In other words, the color wavelengths within white light, all the colors of the rainbow.
(5:54) Some are healthy, some are unhealthy, depends on the time of day. (5:58) And the lighting industry builds light for vision and the visibility and aesthetics and attractiveness. (6:04) They want to make a room look attractive.
(6:06) They want to have good visibility without realizing that often they're making lights. (6:12) In fact, most of the time they're making lights that are extremely harmful to health and can render you diabetic in a few hours. (6:19) So yeah, and that's not an exaggeration.
(6:21) We've actually done it. (6:22) Put healthy people in a room with modern LED lights in the evening. (6:28) And within a few hours, we can show that their glucose tolerance is messed up and their insulin resistance.
(6:33) They got the symptoms of pre-diabetes. (6:36) So incredible what we do to ourselves these days with unhealthy electric light.
Julian Hayes II
(6:41) It is. (6:42) And I think this is something that I struggle to communicate, especially with family members because it's not visible and it's not on mainstream TV a lot of times talking about this. (6:56) And they're like, what do you mean the lights is causing?
(6:57) Lights is just lights. (6:59) And not everyone has the time to go back and see before modern lighting became a thing and compare rates of metabolic disease, different types of cancer and all those things and to see the difference. (7:11) And even in countries now that don't have all of this compared to more of a, you can say a more technological Western society and you can see the disparity.
(7:22) And so my first question is, someone's gonna ask about lighting. (7:26) So what is it about lighting, the wrong type of lighting? (7:30) What is it actually doing to my body that's causing these things?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(7:34) Well, there are two major groups of ways that light works. (7:40) And one is vision clearly. (7:41) And that everyone knows the rods and the cones in the eye.
(7:45) They know about the cerebellar cortex or they know that we create the vision in our brains. (7:53) And that's how we guide ourselves around the world. (7:56) And everyone understands that that's been around a long, long time.
(7:59) And it's intuitive. (8:01) What they don't realize is there are other receptors in the eye that are detecting certain color wavelengths, particularly in the blue part of the spectrum, actually a sky blue color, that for example, are key to our health. (8:17) And they're key to our health because they are the key time cube for our clocks in our brains, our circadian clocks that regulate sleep and our hormone levels and our health levels, our immune systems.
(8:31) And if we get to see that blue light during the day, that's extremely healthy. (8:34) And that's why it's good to get outside and particularly in the mornings and get exposed to full sunlight, daylight and so forth. (8:42) But in the evenings, if your eyes, these receptors in the eyes, these blue detectors in our eyes, they've got a fancy name, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, fancy name, IPRGCs, but those cells in the eye separate, quite not associated with vision, just associated with sending the timing signal to the brain that's so critical for our bodies.
(9:09) So what we've got to understand is that when we design light or use light, that it is not just for vision, it's very much for health. (9:19) And it's by the way, not just the blue. (9:21) There are other parts of the spectrum that are also critical for our health.
(9:25) For example, the infrared part of the spectrum is penetrates our bodies and actually increases the energy that mitochondria in our cells, the energy producing batteries in our cells produce the ATP for energy. (9:42) And that's associated with health and healing. (9:45) We know that light down in the green part of the spectrum is associated with calming us and having a calming effect and actually can reduce pain and migraines.
(9:58) We know that the violet light in the 405 nanometer range is down in the deep violet, actually kills bacteria and so forth. (10:09) So there are many, many aspects to do with health and light that if you've just got a single minded focus on vision, you miss and you do an awful lot of harm. (10:18) And unfortunately today, we live in a world of blue pump LEDs and there's several things very, very wrong with these LED lights that we use.
(10:28) They're claimed to be energy efficient, right? (10:32) And we can get to why it is a total misinformation to say they're energy efficient because they're only energy efficient in producing yellow and green light, which is what our eyes perceive as brightness. (10:46) But essentially, those LED lights have a very narrow spectrum.
(10:53) They don't have any violet. (10:55) They don't have very much by the way of this key blue that you need for the daytime. (11:01) They have very little red, no infrared.
(11:04) In other words, we've converted what used to be a very full spectrum of invisible ultraviolet, invisible infrared and all the colors of the rainbow in between and a visible light. (11:15) And that is a healthy light and we've converted ourselves into living indoors under this very narrow spectrum light that is extremely harmful to our health. (11:27) And so, and it's starting to get recognized and I'll just pick up on one thing you say.
(11:33) You said the mainstream media hasn't got it. (11:36) You're absolutely right. (11:37) One of my frustrations is they get, they're all about ultra processed foods.
(11:42) They get that, they talk about that, the diet and nutrition. (11:46) If you look at the major publishing houses, you know, thousands of titles published on nutrition and diet and health. (11:54) A handful, extremely small number published on light and health.
(11:59) You look at, I've spoken to a lot of people in the media over the years, but it just, they've missed this. (12:06) And what I'm grateful for is that the most recent report (12:11) that just came out from Make American Healthy Again, (12:15) Maha, you know, that whole thing (12:17) that's now come out of the present administration, (12:21) actually now recognizes for the first time (12:24) that the light you see, (12:26) the missing the proper daylight during the day, (12:28) not being outdoors, (12:29) being exposed to a lecture light night (12:31) is one of the major causes of ill health in our society. (12:34) So I'm hopeful that the mainstream media is gonna get it.
(12:37) But even when they, you know, write up about that report, they focus on the ultra processed foods because that's all they understand. (12:45) So anyway, that's enough for me for now. (12:48) We better ask a few questions, otherwise I'll be giving you a continuous lecture on this topic, which you can tell is my passion and what gets me up in the morning.
Julian Hayes II
(12:57) It is. (12:58) And I think there was a book that I'm getting ready to order, I think it's called Light Sculpting Light. (13:04) I think it's by Roland something, I forgot his name.
(13:07) And the whole thing about light, it's, why do you think it's so hard to grasp this idea? (13:16) Because I think to a certain extent, when people say ultra processed food, you know, I can actually see it and it's easier to understand. (13:23) Whereas light, not so much.
(13:25) I just see most of the time, it's a white light, but I don't see all these other spectrums that's happening.
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(13:31) I think it's a fundamental understanding or lack of understanding that when you see white light, they think that's white light. (13:37) Well, it's actually made white by the combination of what's in it. (13:42) And so white light can be very, very different.
(13:46) You can have white light that is very healthy and white light that's very unhealthy and the human eye cannot tell it. (13:54) And that is, that's a bit of a problem. (13:59) You know, one of the things I sort of recently, you know, seen is this whole thing where they've got the, what's the Yuka, right?
(14:09) Isn't it called the food app? (14:10) Have you come across that? (14:12) Where you can actually scan the barcode of anything in the store and it will tell you how healthy it is.
(14:17) You know, I really think we need to do something like that for light. (14:20) So when you go into the Home Depot or wherever and you're saying a light, you can scan it and you can say, this one's gonna cause you cancer, you know, or a high risk of cancer to be accurate. (14:33) Yeah, no, I think that's one of the real problems we have here is that people don't, you know, light is light and as long as I can see properly and as long as my room looks attractive, that's all I need to worry about.
(14:45) That's a huge education thing we've got to deal with now to address that.
Julian Hayes II
(14:49) Yeah, and I'm curious, you mentioned about the cancer incidences and everything and this may be an oversimplification, so correct me, but is one of the big reasons perhaps, I'm just thinking that with all this light and pretty much it can be permanent daytime if we want it, melatonin is being suppressed most of the time and that's kind of leaving our immune system as a whole susceptible.
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(15:16) Yeah, that's certainly part of it. (15:18) Melatonin is a key part of it. (15:20) There are other factors too.
(15:22) Melatonin's a good signal what's going on. (15:25) Melatonin, for those who aren't really familiar with it, is a hormone coming out of the pineal gland, comes out in the nighttime hours, peaks around two o'clock in the morning and goes down to very low levels by the time you wake up and normally if you sleep in the dark, you get this big pattern of melatonin. (15:46) It's called this, people named it wrongly, inaccurately as the sleep hormone.
(15:51) It happens during sleep, but it doesn't cause sleep. (15:54) So in other words, you can give people melatonin and they won't fall asleep. (15:58) But what it is, is a key antioxidant hormone, a key cancer fighter.
(16:04) It will suppress cancer cells, it will improve your metabolism and your glucose and other parts of your metabolic system. (16:13) It's a key signal and it's a signal to the whole body that it is night outside. (16:19) In other words, when melatonin is high, it means you're getting none of this blue light that is normally that you see during the day.
(16:27) But if you've got your LEDs on and they're blue rich LEDs and it's evening time, then your melatonin will be suppressed and your risk of cancer and a whole host of other diseases is increased. (16:40) So yeah, there's a vast amount of evidence now and certainly there's a consensus of the leading scientists in the field. (16:48) I put together a panel of 250 of them recently, came out with the conclusion that yes, we absolutely have to control what the light you see.
(16:57) It needs to support our circadian clock, circadian rhythms and our health. (17:01) You can't just sell light as a commodity. (17:05) Cheap and manufactured LEDs with no health benefits to them are really the worst thing we should be dealing with.
(17:14) And so yes, the whole issue is we need to really address the light we see.
Julian Hayes II
(17:19) You mentioned earlier about, you could pretty much make someone pre-diabetic with just the lights. (17:26) And I'm curious about that. (17:27) And I think listeners would probably be interested in that as well.
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(17:30) Yeah, well, you know, one of the things we did is we created as part of this and part of this research we did at the Circadian Light Research Center was to say, okay, let's create LED lights because that's the modern technology. (17:45) Beautiful thing about LEDs per se is you can actually tailor-make them, spectrally design them, use a fancy phrase. (17:52) You know, they have whatever wavelengths of light you want and you can make white light in many, many different ways.
(17:59) If we design white light without any blue in it for use during the evening hours, which we did, those LED lights look much the same as LED lights that have lots of blue in them, the standard LEDs. (18:11) And if we now take people, one week we took them into a room with, you know, eight o'clock in the evening and we put them under standard LED lights. (18:23) And what we found was several things happened.
(18:26) Their glucose levels went up. (18:28) Their insulin resistance was, you know, changed in a way that normally occurs in a pre-diabetic. (18:36) We did a glucose tolerance test on them, which is how you actually test for diabetes.
(18:40) And they show you they were in a pre-diabetic state. (18:44) Interestingly, other things happened too. (18:46) Their appetite, they got ravenous, the people under the LED lights.
(18:49) They wanted to eat. (18:51) They got hungry. (18:52) And that's why people who work at night under LED lights eat twice as many snacks as those who are under light.
(19:00) And then we did the same thing again, only this time we put them in a room, looked the same, same brightness, everything else, but it had been engineered to carve out and remove this blue out of them. (19:14) And then we cured the whole problem. (19:16) So the answer is, and that's why we went ahead and built lights that have been installed in now over 65 Fortune 500 companies, lights that actually prevent, improve health and prevent these metabolic disorders and actually improve the alertness and performance and sleep of the people who use them.
(19:35) So that was part of the research as we sort of developed the whole concept of how we could design lights for health as opposed to designing lights simply for their aesthetic properties.
Julian Hayes II
(19:48) So I'm curious on the design, a healthy white light and an unhealthy white light, and they essentially are gonna look the same. (19:56) Is that correct?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(19:57) Pretty much the same. (19:58) They're gonna be a little yellow or maybe when you take out the blue, you have to do something to, they can become fairly yellow. (20:06) So we can modify that, but they're in the comfortable range of warm looking light.
(20:11) It's not color temperature. (20:13) That's again, another thing that people get misinformed by. (20:18) The industry will provide you color temperature lights, high color temperature lights that look whiter and low color temperature lights that look, they call soft or warm, that look yellower.
(20:28) That actually, they're only really tinkering at the edges of this. (20:32) There's still lots of harmful blue in those low color temperature lights. (20:37) But it's actually engineering lights, you want lights that are zero blue or less than 2% of the total light is in the blue part of the spectrum.
(20:48) So that's the guideline that we use in terms of those lights.
Julian Hayes II
(20:55) How easy is it to find those types of lights for the average person?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(21:00) Well, they are available on the web. (21:03) There are more and more lights coming out with these properties. (21:08) And we should very shortly be seeing lights that you can pick up zero blue light bulbs from various sources.
(21:16) SORA is one of them, S-O-R-A-A.com. (21:22) That's one place you can buy it. (21:24) But they're now lights coming out, being announced imminently due from Chorus.
(21:30) The trade name is Oio. (21:33) Oh, it looks actually like two eyes with a nose between, O-I-O, right? (21:39) And those are lights that automatically change across the 24 hour day.
(21:44) So they'll give you healthy light full of blue during the daytime. (21:48) They'll then take the blue out at night. (21:50) They'll even give you a reddish light ready for sleep.
(21:53) And the whole thing will go automatic without you having to do it. (21:56) That's the ideal. (21:58) So that's just imminently out there.
(22:00) And that can be found on the korrus, K-O-R-R-U-S.com website. (22:06) And those should be out very shortly. (22:09) There are also other lights for commercial use as well that do this.
(22:16) So yes, the lighting industry, but I've warned you that the lighting industry is 98% at least of the traditional somewhat rather harmful lights. (22:28) And this is a problem. (22:30) I've been talking to the lighting industry for years.
(22:32) I say, look, guys, you've got to get ahead of this game because now we know that it's harmful. (22:39) You're running into liability problems if you don't address this issue. (22:45) So the world really needs to be selecting healthy lights.
(22:48) And as I say, I'm so glad that Make America Healthy Again has actually flagged this issue. (22:55) It needs to be flagged more and certainly needs to be brought to attention to the mainstream media and elsewhere. (23:00) So people are really consciously talking about light.
Julian Hayes II
(23:04) Yeah, my only hope then, since it's mentioned, and I think I saw your post on LinkedIn and then I went and looked at the document myself. (23:14) Now I just want them to get the order correctly. (23:16) Now I just want them to kind of bump it up.
(23:17) Because a lot of times, sometimes with policies, we'll see they'll mention something and sometimes they just mention it just to make a certain constituent or group happy, but then nothing really happens.
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(23:28) So I want to know. (23:29) It's much more than just, and I mentioned that one thing, because at least it's one. (23:33) And there are lots of reports out there from various agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization pointing out this problem.
(23:42) And they've been documenting this for, since 2007, this problem. (23:48) And my book is, of course, an attempt to get light doctors, an attempt to get this, the world more informed about this. (23:56) But yes, I'm, (23:58) and at the same time, by the way, (24:00) we're, you know, we've got a campaign going on (24:03) for healthy light bulbs (24:04) because the light bulbs that are designed for health, (24:08) you know, that contain infrared (24:09) or that contain the right circadian blue (24:13) or remove the circadian blue at night (24:16) are actually threatened (24:17) by Department of Energy regulations (24:21) that are going to ban them by about 2028 (24:24) because they've given very stringent regulations (24:28) that come to effect in July, 2028 (24:30) that will make it nearly impossible (24:32) to buy healthy light bulbs, which is crazy. (24:36) And so we've got a petition to the DOE, Department of Energy about that.
(24:41) And if you're interested in that, look at my website, circadianlight.org, and circadianlight.org will give you access to the petition and you can sign up and reflect your interest. (24:53) We've got hundreds of people who, you know, signed the petition now and we're trying to get the rules changed. (25:01) So we're not, I don't know, just because of random regulations that claim to be energy efficient.
(25:07) And it's crazy because all they measure is the amount of yellow and green in a light. (25:12) They don't measure the amount of blue in the light, the amount of red in the light. (25:15) They measure just what's associated with brightness.
(25:18) And we end up with, quite frankly, what I call junk light. (25:22) It's just like junk food. (25:24) Cheap junk light, harmful, just like junk food is harmful.
(25:30) And we end up with that's all that's available on the shelves of the hardware stores and big box retailers.
Julian Hayes II
(25:38) Now, this is where like, it's frustrating because is this just about money? (25:44) Because it feels like it's just about money because if we're actually studying this, then we're gonna see there's a clear difference. (25:51) Just like, I believe, was it a little over 10 years ago or maybe even longer about the incandescent bulbs being phased out?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(25:59) Well, they were finally phased out in 23, fairly recently. (26:04) But again, that was due to a misunderstanding and they produced a lot of infrared light, which is actually, we now know, is actually rather critical for health. (26:12) And we've just got those phased out because of the Department of Regulation rules.
(26:17) Yeah, exactly. (26:19) Is it money? (26:22) It's climate policy, right?
(26:25) That has got itself, and I totally get it about global warming and I get it that we need to do things to reduce that risk. (26:36) But don't pick light bulbs, which are only about 6% of your total energy in your home is light bulbs, only 6%. (26:46) And why mess with that?
(26:48) I mean, if you wanna make a more efficient air conditioner, okay, great. (26:52) But messing with light and actually causing ill health because you come in and you ask people to change their light bulbs to these LEDs that are harmful, you're actually bringing harm into the home. (27:06) And that seems to me a horrendous thing we're doing without really understanding why.
(27:13) As I say, it's because people don't understand because energy policy sounds like a good thing. (27:18) And it is a good thing. (27:19) Just don't be dumb about it and pick one thing that's not gonna save you very much energy and create a whole boatload of harm.
(27:27) Let's think about it, for example. (27:28) You get all this, what are the problems? (27:30) Diabetes, we mentioned that, right?
(27:33) Weight, excessive weight gain. (27:35) People who have got too much weight, too much diabetes. (27:37) Big, big problem in America.
(27:39) We got these drugs now, the GLP inhibitors and so forth. (27:45) We've got these drugs like Azempic and Wegovia and all those drugs. (27:50) Hugely expensive, right?
(27:51) Costs you seven, $800 a month, whatever, to have this treatment. (27:57) And change a few light bulbs and you wouldn't even need them, right? (28:02) So much cheaper.
Julian Hayes II
(28:03) Yeah, and it's taking care of the big rocks if you think about it a lot of times now because the more we learn, we learn that the light is actually governing a lot of our behaviors, our moods, our appetite, et cetera. (28:16) And we're trying to fix, you know, food's an issue but there's a whole bigger other thing. (28:22) And so I always like to tell clients and people I talk to that you wanna have things operating in the right sequence and our sequencing a lot of times is out of order.
(28:31) And so this brings me to a question. (28:32) I'm curious, you know, on the organizational side of things working with businesses and companies, how hard was the sale initially when it comes to recommending something like lighting and then connecting it to helping with productivity and ultimately the bottom line?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(28:53) It's all about, and I've spent 40 years as a company, as I say, advising circadian and advising companies around the world how to manage particular issues of sleep, fatigue, performance and so forth and around the clock. (29:06) You know, the key thing there is know what the message is and what, who you're talking to and who is making the buying decision, right? (29:17) Now with lights, the buying decision is not made by the people who are actually affected.
(29:23) It's not even made by their managers. (29:25) In other words, someone who's managing a workforce hasn't virtually no say in the lighting. (29:31) It's done by the building manager who all he's assigned to do is reduce energy costs and he'll get his bonus based on that, right?
(29:40) The lighting industry is set up in a way so it's a very complex system but basically the manufacturers don't even know who they're selling their lights to by the way because it's done through sales reps. (29:52) And then the sales reps are selling to architects and to lighting designers. (29:55) And those people are on selling it to the contractor, lighting contractors, electrical contractors.
(30:02) It's a whole network of people and they don't know much about it. (30:08) Fortunately, I'm trying to get them to learn more and more about it but essentially the guy at the end who's making the decision is purely based on what's cheapest, you know, for my building. (30:18) Now, how we got around that, we said, ah, there's a lesson here.
(30:22) We actually saw as a very good model in the lighting for cannabis and other products, you know, the agricultural products indoors because there it really matters. (30:37) Well, you know, light makes a huge difference there just like it does with us, but things grow better, grow stronger, grow healthier, you know, under the right lighting. (30:45) And again, it's spectral engineering.
(30:47) You want to give the right light to the right plant and how they sell that is they actually have people who are, you know, botanists and people like that, technical people to go and talk to the end user, scientists to scientists or expert to expert to say, I can get you productivity by these special lights. (31:07) They don't go through this long complicated channel that doesn't have a clue. (31:11) They go through directly.
(31:13) So we went, now we had the fortune with we are fortunate at Circadian because we've got long-term relationships with most of the big companies around the world. (31:24) You can name them. (31:25) I mean, all the major oil companies, all the major car manufacturers, the railroads, the airlines, you name it.
(31:34) They're all customers of ours. (31:36) American Airlines, Delta, you name all the big companies, Honda, you know, et cetera, et cetera. (31:42) So we knew we had relationships with their managers.
(31:44) We went to the managers associated who are managing the productivity performance of people. (31:51) Now, those people, when you say, I've got a solution for you, that's going to increase the performance of your people, reduce absenteeism because they won't get sick so much, improve their health, improve their morale, improve their performance. (32:03) It's a pretty easy sell.
(32:05) Now, now you've got to do is you say, so now they go, but you've got to give them a spec that their lighting buyer can't get around. (32:16) You know, it's a spec lock. (32:18) And you say, this light has to have less than 2% blue at night, right?
(32:23) So, and if they give that and insist on it, then it weeds out all the other crap in the industry. (32:30) And then all they can do is buy these lights because that's the only way you're going to get light that is, you know, that spec. (32:37) Now it's not the only, there's more than one manufacturer that makes it.
(32:40) But I mean, at least you're going to pick something that actually works as opposed to something that's light. (32:44) Otherwise there'll be offering, oh, I could do much cheaper. (32:47) I get this cheaper light for you as they're selling sort of harmful ill health.
(32:53) So yeah, it's really a question of how you're selling. (32:56) To the consumer, it's again, it's at home, it's educating a healthy consumer about their health. (33:03) It's going to have more traction in health conscious people.
(33:07) And that's where, you know, that's where the biggest pickup is at the beginning. (33:10) But certainly managers in industry will then go to the effort of saying, no, I need these lights. (33:16) I mean, they'll go, you know, when we worked in the control rooms of many of these major companies, now you got a guy there who's in a control room who's managing, you know, half a billion dollars worth of equipment.
(33:29) And he's the guy at the control, managing this whole equipment. (33:34) You know, whatever, it's a refinery, it's whatever type of plant. (33:37) You know, they'll buy him $2,000 ergometric chairs if it makes him to sit in, if it makes a difference to his performance, right?
(33:45) So selling a few extra dollars extra on lights, you know, again, it's not a very hard sell. (33:51) So it's really, you know, know your customer, know who is the person who cares and has a, you know, a what's it, you go to someone with him, what's in it for me, that's always the issue. (34:03) And to the employees you're selling, you know, the people in the building, you're selling their own health and their wellbeing to the manager saying, you're gonna have less sickness, absenteeism, less turnover.
(34:14) Your people will be performing better, their morale will be better. (34:17) You know, their sleep will be better. (34:19) So, you know, that's an easy sell.
(34:23) The trouble is the whole, you've got the multi-billion, I mean, it's $150 billion lighting industry pushing out the wrong light message, right? (34:35) And so there is a challenge of you're just a small noise in a very noisy environment of marketing. (34:44) And that's part of it, but get to the right person and you open the door.
Julian Hayes II
(34:49) Absolutely. (34:50) And so I'm gonna shift now to probably some practical takeaways that people could do. (34:54) And so I guess, starting with someone that has a pretty busy schedule and they're wanting to improve their light relationship and light discipline and overall, what do you think is maybe two to three habits that they could start with?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(35:07) Well, first of all, adopt a healthy light diet. (35:11) What I mean by that is you'll find amazingly the effects are really quite quick. (35:16) Many people who started adopting this say, oh my gosh, I feel so much better.
(35:21) First of all, make it a point to get out in the mornings, particularly in the first half of the morning, outside, outdoors, because the amount of light and the broad spectrum of that light is incredibly good for our health and our bodies. (35:37) And so before going on this broadcast, I was out there doing my morning walk, right? (35:41) And getting the full benefits of sunlight.
(35:44) And when I do it, I don't wear sunglasses. (35:46) I wanna get full benefits of that, of the full spectrum of light, the ultraviolet, all the colors of the rainbow and the infrared light and just absorb that in. (35:57) And that's really, because that sets your circadian clock.
(35:59) It boosts your mitochondria and your health. (36:03) It has a broad range of health benefits. (36:06) So it gets your day really established the right way.
(36:12) Then during the day, as much as possible, try to be, if you can't be outside, be near a window. (36:19) People who, by the way, have offices with windows in them, you know, big picture windows, typically sleep half an hour longer or significantly longer sleep than people who are in the cubicles who are not getting that light during the daytime. (36:34) When it comes to the evening hours, you know, when the sun sets, after the sun sets, you really need to go and replace your lights with zero blue light bulbs, with light bulbs that don't have any blue in them.
(36:46) In other words, remove that out of the, and we tend to say as a rule of thumb, for the three hours before bedtime would be the time you'd want to avoid, you know, being exposed to blue. (36:57) And then finally, when you do sleep, sleep in the dark. (37:01) Amazing number of people sleep with the lights on.
(37:04) It's often to do with anxiety or nervousness, but you know, it's 40% of the general population, over 50% of people, elderly people, are sleeping with the lights on. (37:13) And that's associated with increased risk of cancer, heart disease, diabetes. (37:18) It's like working the night shift, you know, even though you're in bed, you're getting exposed to lights.
(37:22) And when I say, I mean really pitch dark. (37:25) Now, you will need some lights to guide your way to the bedroom. (37:28) If you do use lights, use yellow, orange, or red lights that have no blue in them.
(37:34) If you've got a clock in the bedroom, don't have one of those white face clocks like hotels always give you, or even worse, blue clocks. (37:41) Use a red, you know, a clock. (37:45) And, you know, have lights close to the floor if you need them to find your way to the bathroom, things like that.
(37:51) But essentially sleep in the dark. (37:53) And then the final step about that is keep on a regular schedule. (37:57) And if you do all those things, just huge benefits.
(38:00) I mean, you're literally increasing your lifespan. (38:03) And this is not an exaggeration by years. (38:05) We know that people who spend more time outdoors, we know that people who sleep in the dark at night are living years, multiple years longer, healthier lives than people who are, you know, don't get, live indoors and sleep with the lights on, for example.
(38:23) That is, it affects your psychiatric health, your depression, anxiety, affects all sorts of aspects, your vulnerability to colds and viruses and flus and everything else. (38:35) So yeah, that's the key message. (38:38) Have a light diet with these key ingredients to it.
Julian Hayes II
(38:41) Yeah, I mean, I can concur on, you know, I change, I used to say I'm a morning, or I'm a night owl. (38:48) And I used to just say about that. (38:50) And then I really honed in even more on my light.
(38:54) And I wake up easily now at 5.30, catch, go out for sunrise, walk, and all those things. (39:01) And it's night and day difference. (39:04) I'm already been a pretty optimized guy, but it's even improved more just by those things, just by those things, like you said, and then going out during the day for light as well.
(39:15) Yeah, I have a question about, excuse me. (39:20) I have a lot of family. (39:21) I started to smile when you said keep the lights on because I have a lot of family members who, and they're a little older, who insist on having the TV on and all those things.
(39:31) And I keep trying to tell them to do that, but I don't wanna scare them or anything. (39:36) So any advice when you tell people that who are a little resistant to getting rid of the TV and other lighting and having it pitch black, and they might have a little anxiety?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(39:47) Yeah, well, I think that's a challenge. (39:50) I mean, I would tell my own story is, I was traveling a lot, because we consult all over the world. (39:58) And of course, I'm talking about light and everything else.
(40:02) And then to my surprise, I find out years later that whenever I was out of town, my wife slept with the lights on. (40:12) What didn't she hear about what I was saying? (40:14) So yeah, I sympathize.
(40:17) It's really a question of do other things for security. (40:20) You can make sure your doors are locked and whatever else. (40:24) And you certainly can have lights as long as they're down low at the floor level and they're not yellowish or whatever, yellow, orange, or red lights, you can use that.
(40:38) But yeah, it is the number of people when they made the switch, they find, as you've just said, they find they're so much healthier if they do this. (40:49) Amazing.
Julian Hayes II
(40:50) That might be a solution. (40:51) And I'm gonna look for some options of finding some healthier light that's at the very bottom, that at least to maybe offset it a little bit. (41:01) Now, what do you think about blue blocking glasses?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(41:06) Okay, well, blue blocking glasses are, they can be good, but they can be useless. (41:12) And also they can even be harmful. (41:14) So here's the story, right?
(41:16) If you think about it, we need to see this blue light and particularly the sky blue part of the spectrum. (41:22) Now, blue is a very big word, very big term. (41:26) It covers everything from violet type light all the way through to royal blue, to sky blue, to aqua.
(41:35) You know, there's a huge wide range of colors in blue. (41:38) Unfortunately, many of the blue blocking glasses, they may look very nice, but they block entirely the wrong blue, right? (41:48) So blue really is a scale between about 400 and 500 nanometers.
(41:53) And where we've got to block is around 460, you know, 460, 495, you know, the upper end of that blue range is where we need to block. (42:03) But if you block things below 440, below 430, you're doing absolutely no benefit whatsoever. (42:09) So you can, you know, some of the most well-known makes of eyewear are selling these blue things on glasses.
(42:22) They've got a little blue tint to them. (42:24) They look rather attractive. (42:26) You spend another few hundred dollars, you know, on your pair of glasses for these darn things.
(42:31) And they absolutely don't do the right thing. (42:32) That's number one. (42:33) All right, so secondly, when to wear them.
(42:36) It makes no sense to wear them during the day, right? (42:39) Because you don't want to block blue during the day. (42:41) This particular, you don't want to block this sky blue color during the day.
(42:45) You want as much of it as you can get. (42:47) So wearing them all day makes no sense whatsoever. (42:51) There are interestingly now sunglasses out, a company called Blue Sync, or at least their trade name is Blue Sync.
(42:59) They're by RA Optics, which actually are sunglasses that block the harmful parts of the spectrum or the parts that cause glare, but actually allow the blue to come through. (43:11) And they also allow the infrared to come through. (43:14) Very interesting concept.
(43:16) And these are new glasses that do that. (43:18) So you can, you know, have glasses that are anti-blue blockers, if you like. (43:23) I mean, in other words, they're like sunglasses, but they let through the correct blue you want to see during the day.
(43:29) So it's really a question of finding glasses that are the correct glass. (43:34) We went, the key is also balancing the color distortion and everything else. (43:40) You want something that will produce, you know, have a nice color vision.
(43:44) We developed a company with something called Blue Sync 24, which is available. (43:53) And, you know, these are blue blocking glasses that block exactly the right blue and do it with the minimum color distortion. (44:00) One of our partners that did this, called Andrew Smato, was the guy who invented the lights for colorblind, or the glasses for colorblind people.
(44:09) A really expert in terms of engineering, engineering glasses. (44:15) So, yeah. (44:15) So the bottom answer is yes, they can be very helpful in the evening hours.
(44:20) If you can't, and when you want to use them is if you're somewhere, you can't, you're in the library, you're in the public building, you're somewhere, a workplace in the evenings, and you can't change the lights. (44:30) You don't have the power to do it. (44:33) But then, you know, wearing blue blocking glasses can actually protect you.
(44:37) It's better to get rid of the light itself by changing the light bulbs or light fixtures, but certainly blue blocking is part of the story.
Julian Hayes II
(44:45) So what if during the daytime you're in an office and it's terrible lighting, it's like unhealthy, fluorescent white light, would you have maybe like a yellow tint on then, or would you still not even worry about having the glasses on?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(44:59) I wouldn't put the, I wouldn't put blue blocking glasses during the day. (45:03) Now, what I would use is there are light sources on desk lamps that you can get that actually are, will emit the correct blue color that will enhance your daytime experience. (45:12) And there are a number of brands of those available, like your own, add your own desk lamp to get added blue if you're stuck in a cubicle or stuck in a place that's rather far away from the windows.
Julian Hayes II
(45:25) Okay. (45:25) And the last part about this is when you're looking for a color, to my understanding, it's, would you say just orange or red, or would you include yellow as well in terms of the tint color?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(45:37) Yeah, well, essentially that's really the visual appearance. (45:41) It needs to be a yellow, orangey color. (45:45) It doesn't have to be red, but it's yellow doesn't necessarily do it.
(45:49) You're not necessarily blocking the right colors, but that's a rule of thumb. (45:54) The only way really to test them is to take the glasses off and measure the light transmission through them. (45:59) And what are they exactly blocking or not blocking to know that you've got the right thing.
Julian Hayes II
(46:04) Okay. (46:05) And the last question here is, what's maybe one or two things that you're most excited about right now?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(46:12) Well, I'm really excited about the fact that we're gonna finally get more and more products coming to market that are helping this solution. (46:21) The problem is we've got to educate two things. (46:23) You've got to educate the marketplace for demand, but you've also got to get the supply available, right?
(46:31) So demand without supply doesn't solve the problem or supply and no demand and the manufacturers will give up. (46:37) So it's a two-phase thing. (46:39) And I think we're getting increasing momentum there and I'm excited about the new products coming online that are gonna make, I think, a big difference of availability.
(46:49) I'm also thinking there is also, the research is really exciting. (46:55) We're learning more and more about infrared and particularly near-infrared light and what it does in terms of health. (47:01) So there are areas of lighting.
(47:03) We're learning things about some parts of the deep violet spectrum that seem to be critical for preventing myopia in children. (47:12) So there's a lot of very exciting things. (47:14) And I have a sub-stack column, which I write every couple of weeks.
(47:18) Which talks about the latest advances in this area because it is a dynamic area. (47:24) So I'm excited about where this area is going. (47:28) And it's gotta be, it takes time.
(47:30) I always like to say, you've heard about the greatest inventions is sliced bread. (47:36) Well, it took 10 years after the guy invented sliced bread for it to actually become, get picked up in the marketplace. (47:43) These things are always a lag.
(47:44) So I'm excited to see this thing take off. (47:47) We've got to get to the tipping point and get over there. (47:51) And we've got to get the media, mainstream media understanding this.
(47:56) I'm doing a podcast with people like yourself who are already knowledgeable and passionate. (48:00) And that really helps get the word out. (48:03) But yeah, it's a campaign, but I think it's a hugely important one.
(48:08) And it's one that we're just doing harm to ourselves by living, moving indoors more and more, being tied to screens more and more and living in this very artificial light environment. (48:21) It comes from the screens as well, of course, as well as the light fixtures. (48:25) And so I'm very excited to see new screens starting to come available, which can also remove the blue in the evenings.
(48:32) So there's a lot of exciting things going on.
Julian Hayes II
(48:35) Absolutely. (48:36) And you mentioned your sub stack and where else can listeners keep up with you at?
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede
(48:40) Well, as I mentioned, the book is available on Amazon and bookstores. (48:48) And so, and I've got a website, thelightdoctor.com, which gives you information about the book. (48:54) I've got a website called circadianlight.org, which really is the guide to finding these products. (49:01) Where are the products available? (49:03) And also this campaign to educate public opinion and also particularly educate government regulators and try to get the regulations changed. (49:11) And that's circadianlight.org.
(49:13) And then in addition, the substack column is a regular feature and I recommend people sign up for that. (49:23) And I also obviously post on LinkedIn and elsewhere just to bring awareness, but it's a campaign. (49:30) And- It is.
(49:31) But it's one worth winning, let's put it this way.
Julian Hayes II
(49:35) Absolutely. (49:36) And I will have the links to all of that, that he mentioned in there, in case somebody's running or biking or driving whatever right now. (49:42) Thank you so much for joining me again.
(49:44) I really enjoyed this conversation. (49:46) I probably could have talked to you for a couple hours. (49:50) So, listeners out there, stay awesome, be limitless and as always optimize today so you can lead tomorrow.
(49:55) Peace.
