Dr Chalmers Path to Pro - Light and Health
As the days get shorter in winter, many people notice changes in their mood and energy. Light plays an important role in both mental and physical health helping the body produce Vitamin D and supporting mood-regulating chemicals like serotonin. With less sunlight, it’s common to feel more tired or down, but understanding this connection can make it easier to manage.
Simple habits like getting a bit of morning sunlight, staying active, eating well, and cutting back on artificial light can make a real difference. Sunlight isn’t just about warmth or brightness it’s a key part of feeling balanced and healthy throughout the year.
Highlights of the Podcast
00:04 – Importance of Light and Seasonal Changes
01:20 – Supporting Health When Light Is Limited
01:55 – Exercise and Hormones
02:30 – Getting Natural Light and Grounding
03:00 – Avoiding Artificial Light Issues
03:33 – Takeaway: Light as a Natural Antidepressant
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:00:04] Alright, so, okay, so one of the big things, you know, as times change and, you know, it’s winter time, we’re gonna have less light and it is a big, big, big part of depression. It’s a big part overall health and it’s funny because people don’t recognize it and I thought people would be like, that’s not what’s going on. Seasonal effectiveness disorder is clinically in the DSM. And the seasons as the seasons change we have less light. That’s the thing that’s causing big issue. We’ve all heard about your cell phone light you know the blue lights messing with your eyes and keeping you awake and messing with your brain and we’ve all heard that sunlight travels you know millions and millions of miles and hits your skin and that’s what makes D3. So we know that light has a significant effect on the body. So that’s the big thing that we’re trying to function and figure out how to get back. So if when the sunlight starts getting lower, we have less light, a lot of people are going to start feeling more depressed. So here’s the thing. When we start having, we start losing one of the things that we require for function, we need to up the other ones. So this is where we start upping the water, we’re starting upping in the D3, your nutrients, exercise.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:01:20] So if we’re looking specifically at depression, what we want to make sure of is that we’re making all of the neurotransmitters required for dopamine, serotonin, things like that. So meat is going to be a phenomenal place to start. Tryptophan is your primary precursor for serotonin. There’s a whole list of amino acids your body requires for everything else. Get those in. You can just eat meat. Collagen will get you some of them, but it’s not going to get you all of them. So don’t rely on collagen, but go to meat, go to eggs, that type of thing, and then exercise. Exercise is going to be the number one thing that’s going to help not only keep you healthier, but is going help produce all these neurotransmitters for keeping everything going. The other thing is testosterone. You guys, men, women, everybody needs to get checked for testosterone levels. If your test is low, you gotta get it up. Most men, 800 to 1,000, 800-1,200, somewhere in there. Women, 80-250 is typically the optimal range. Work with someone who knows what they’re doing on that so that you can get it dialed in for you, but that’s typically what we’re looking at. And I would try to get some light as much as you can. On any day where it’s nice, go spend time outside. If it’s warm enough to go outside, go outside and spend time in the sun.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:02:30] You know, you’ll go through your clothes. So even go outside, you know, if you can put a long sleeve shirt on something, go outside and be outside. Grounding is also gonna be beneficial for this, but you guys need to get light in. One of the best things you can do is, even if you’re just gonna bundle up, cool. Go sit outside in the morning if you get a hold of some brass. I know everybody can. But you’ll get on the earth, bare feet on the Earth, and watch the sun come up for 10 minutes. And just literally look at the sun as it’s coming up. No sunglasses or anything like that. And just look in that direction. Get that light in early morning. Get your day started that way. That’ll help. And then try to stay away from as much synthetic light as you can. The LEDs are strobe lights. You can’t see it, but they are. And then the normal... The tube lights the fluorescent lights are also the wrong frequency for human beings And so that’s going to create issues if you can get out in the Sun. That’s gonna be really good Sitting by windows is great.
Dr. Matt Chalmers [00:03:33] The problem is that most glass now has UVA UVB blocking in it So it’s gonna better than nothing, but getting out the actual Sun is gonna help as much as we can So if you guys can get up just 10 15 minutes in the sun a day will help trance. So If you’ve realized that you’re feeling kind of mad and kind of run down and just kind of a little bit depressed, go try to find some light. It will actually help. It’s not the only thing you need, but it is one of the big things that we need. And if you want to look at the research on it, look at seasonal effectiveness disorder or SAD, and you’ll start to see that as the sunlight goes away, lots and lots of people report being depressed. And so this is a real thing. So if you’re starting to feel that way, try to a way to get in the sun. Hey, it’s a great reason to take a trip to Mexico in the middle of the winter, just saying. But anyway, if you guys are looking for anything else, we’ll chat about it later. Have a fantastic day. Thanks for your time.
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Dr. Matt Chalmers
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