118. Optimal Lighting for Productivity, Work, and Vitality | Robert Soler, MS

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. Darsha, and I'm Dr. Altamash Raja, and welcome to Medicine Redefined. A podcast where we will explore the often overlooked but necessary components of health, what we consider to be the fundamentals. We will investigate topics and practices that can give you and your patients the best chance to optimize a healthy lifestyle. It's time to move the needle forward and put the health back in healthcare. Our guest today is Robert Soler. He is the vice president of Biological Research and Technology at BIOS, also known as the Biological Lighting Institute. Prior to his work with BIOS, he was most known for his work with the Kennedy Space Center, where he helped design and build the first LED light for use on the International Space Station. He collaborated with scientists to use LED light for photobiological purposes in space, including circadian lighting systems designed to synchronize circadian rhythms of astronauts aboard the space station. He has a Master's of Science degree from the Lighting Research Center at Rensselier Polytechnic Institute, and he has now begun a PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego. He owns over 70 patents in lighting technology and continues to research new applications for lighting. Now, Robert has a very unique background, one that incorporates physics and engineering, and so we had to bring him on to this podcast. Now, throughout our journey here on Medicine Redefined, we've touched many times on circadian rhythms, lighting, blue light, and even how to really use it for our mornings and nights. But given Robert's background, I really wanted to bring him on to talk about lighting, especially for productivity and work. Given his background working with NASA scientists, I thought this would be an awesome chance so that we can learn how to become more productive, how we can think about lighting in a work from home setting, or if we go into our offices. Now, if you go to the show notes, Robert has known to create something called SkyView, which is a lighting device that we can use in our own home. If you visit our show notes at the bottom, you can get a code for 20% off by using the code Redefined20. I highly, highly encourage you to check this product out, just given that the website is even incredible. All right, let's get to the episode. Robert, pleasure having you on the Medicine Redefined podcast. Thank you so much. You know, we're talking offline. I was just telling you that I'm super excited about this podcast. You know, we've had guests come on to this podcast to talk about light, you know, blue light blockers, what light is, how it works with circadian lighting. But I'm really excited to have you on because I think your background is super unique, right? From an engineering perspective, from a physics perspective. And I think delving into that is going to be really eye-opening for a larger audience. The other thing that we're privileged with is that we wake up, the sun comes out, we know what's going to happen. It's going to set and then it comes back the next day, right? But very rarely do we actually think about what's happening, like what light is, how we evolve with it. Do you mind just, you know, we can get nerdy here, that's fine. Going through the basics about what is light actually? Electromagnetic energy that our eyes can pick up. So there's tons of electromagnetic radiation throughout the world. And this is just stuff that our eyes can sense. So by definition, 380 nanometers to 780 nanometers is what light is. The shorter wavelength is 380 and that's more than the violet range. And the 780 is closer to the reds. You have your kind of roigie bib as you go back. And so in our eyes, we know of really kind of five different photo receptors that are looking for light. And there's only only two that are going to the visual cortex that processes vision. So that means there's three other ones that are doing other things. And that's what we're really interested in is the other stuff that light is doing. So, and I think that that's why this topic of light for health and light being fundamental to the health is so overlooked by the general population is because it's not what you see. And you do see light, so you feel like you know everything about it. I always think about it, it's like what we know about the ear, right? So obviously the obvious thing it does is it's you know for hearing, but the vestibular system is also regulated by the ear, right? So balance, we don't even really think about that, right? And so in the same way, the eye has two functions, which is the visual thing, the obvious thing and there are non-obvious things that light is doing through the eye. And so the big one at least as it relates to this topic is circadian rhythms. It's a daytime photoreceptor, so I talked about three new photoreceptors that we know. They're called Opsin 3, 4, and 5. Opsin 1 is Cone, on rods. Opsin 2 is the Cones, which is broken up into three subtypes, red, green, and blue, or short, medium and long wavelengths. But Opsin 3, 4, and 5 are kind of more geared towards the blue end of the spectrum. And they're doing some very interesting things. The one we know most about is melanopsin, which is Opsin 4. And this is a daytime, it's a sky blue photoreceptor, so it has peak sensitivity in the long wavelength blue. Everyone talks about blue light and how it's detrimental to our health and it's keeping us up at night. But really the data is saying that it's not all blue is the same, but it's a long wavelength blue. That drives the circadian responses to light. And so what it does and what this photoreceptor does, I mean your question was what is light, but I don't know. You want me to just jump into circadian rhythms and kind of how this intersection is with biology. Please do. I think the fact that you even highlighted that it's like the ear, right? I love that analogy because again, you're right. I mean, we look at light and we're like, oh, we see it. What else is there, right? And like you said, there's more and more research coming out. We're starting to understand there's different frequencies that other animals that can see that the human species can. So I think that relates very well with this. So yeah, why don't you go ahead and just talk about how it relates to circadian rhythm. Yeah, so these receptors, the Opsin 4, sky blue receptors, they go to different parts of the brain. They don't go to the parts that regulate vision. They go to parts that regulate mood. The parts that regulate circadian rhythms are pupil size, our brightness perceptions, our cognition. So it's going to all these other regions of the brain. And really, what it boils down to is it's a daytime photoreceptor that's really taking, you know, it's a sky blue photoreceptor looking at where that blue sky is. And when it's there, guess what time it is. It's daytime. It's time to be alert, time to be vigilant, time to be aware, time to go out and do stuff. And when that blue signal's gone, that's the time to recover, repair, and get ready for the next day. And so it's actually really one fundamental because before electric lighting, it was the only thing we had, right? And now the problem that we have is that we built up these walls. And now that signal is completely, you know, obscured. We don't have the days aren't bright enough and the nights are too bright. Yeah, yeah, no, it's a real problem, it's a real issue, many, many more people are talking about it. Let's transition on the same topic now into BIOS, which is the company that you're a part of. You talk about having a biology approach, right? Oftentimes with BIOS. So what does that mean exactly when it comes to light having that biology approach? And what is BIOS? What does your company do? Yeah, so we are a NASA spinoff. So I started the company eight years ago. And we were just looking at exactly this, looking at light completely different about what the biology is telling us. So not light for vision, but light for health, wellness, circadian rhythms. We have another side that's focused on plant growth. How do you tailor the spectrum of light to promote biological responses or biological health and well-being? So we are looking at all the parameters that are important for health and wellness. I'll focus on health and wellness because I feel like this is this audience cares probably a little bit more about that side of things. Yeah, so what are the parameters? What are the colors? What are the spectra of light? How does it need to change throughout the day? And how do we have something that's like individualized? Because the problem and why we love electric light so much is because it allows us to do whatever we want on our schedule. We don't all have to operate according to when the sun's up and when the sun goes down. As medical practitioners, shift work is a real 24 hours a day is when you guys are going and you couldn't do that without electric lighting. And so it's really about circadian rhythms doesn't have to be tied to the sun. If you have just like on space station, if you have a strong enough electrical signal that is giving the same 24 hour cycle, you could synchronize that and you could promote and better health just by having something that's a robust Q. I think that that is what we're most passionate about is creating something that's going to be biologically meaningful. And I don't want I won't talk about any other products that are out there, but a lot of times those there's kind of more gimmicky things that will change the color over the course of the day. And visually that feels like a lot's going on. You could see it happen, but that's the obvious thing. But what we're looking for is the non-obvious thing that our eyes are doing. So doing something that just adheres to the color is really not doing a whole lot meaningful to our biology. And so what we have been kind of doing is coming up with ways to give us all steps in the right direction of better health and well-being. And the concept is actually really simple. Brighter days and darker nights is what we need. What we've done is we've put ourselves inside with days that are too dim and nights that are too bright. So the delineation of day versus night is not very obvious to our biology. And so the consequence of doing this, you know, the problem in a nutshell is that that lack of delineation causes our circadian rhythms to drift. And it causes this proliferation of chronotypes, which is our preference or night alasms or early bird isms. And you might think so the consequence primarily of days that are too dim and nights that are too bright is that we tend to drift to more night alism. And if you're listening to this, you might go, well, that's so what, you know, I wake up a little bit later. But all the data says that that's really bad for us, that we should be, you know, we should be waking up early and so the consequence of this kind of circadian disruption, this kind of drift is one that this seems to be at odds with our health and wellness. So we see as a result of being a night al higher risk of depression, higher risk of obesity, higher risk of cardiovascular disorders, there's higher risk of metabolic disorders, mood disorders, mental health issues, all across the board, you attention deficits, you name it. And it really is, you know, it's surprising to most people to hear that, but when you understand that there's so much going on and a robust and you know, constant circadian rhythm aligns not just our sleep and wake cycle, but so many things have to happen at a specific time. I mean, there's as a practitioner, I think that one of the interesting things that are coming out is things like chronotherapy, which is not looking at what medicine to take, but waiting to take it, because our rhythms will change throughout the day, our enzymes activities will change throughout the day, our hormones will change throughout the day. So there's a best time to take any kind of medication just based on your circadian rhythm. So, you know, you could even think about a whole emerging field of, you know, medicine is, you know, doing stuff according to circadian time. And I know every doctor is super busy, but, you know, you could change rhythms to be in line with what makes the most sense for that doctor to be able to get that drug administered most effectively. I think that that's something really interesting for a lot of people. Now, for sure, I think one of the most recent ones I heard it was vitamin D, right? I mean, obviously you're getting sunlight during the day. So there's a theory about taking vitamin D actually in the morning, right? Or around that 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. time frame, because that's probably what it's going to be most active in. And we know vitamin D is a hormone as a steroid. It does just so much and, you know, affects many biochemical reactions in our body. And so that's exactly what you're touching on. Interesting about the prototypes, you know, I know there's like those quizzes that you can take online. And I wonder whether people almost get fooled by thinking that when they take those, it confirms their own bias about, oh, I am a night owl. So now I should be actually staying up even later at night. Is there a role of genetics or do you think this is almost primarily what you see in society now just due to our unhealthy habits and relationship with light? Yeah, well, I'll give you an example. There is a group in Boulder, Colorado that took a bunch of college students on a camping trip, two day camping trip. And so they measured their chronotype so the the melatonin onset of things. So melatonin, as we probably all know, is a sleep hormone. You get over the can over the counter, but our body produces naturally. It usually comes two hours after kind of the sun has set. That's when it starts ramping up. So you get a good sense of your circadian rhythm based on when that starts rising. So they measured these students before they went on the camping trip. Then they went camping had no exposure to exterior light. I'm sorry, electric light. All exterior light was the only thing they had. And they all completely changed their their chronotype. They went from being night owls to being early birds in two days in just two days of light exposure of natural light exposure, I should say. It's just it's so it does absolutely point to this thought that modern society is causing this drift. Now there's going to be some genetic variations. But that's a pretty compelling study that just two days outside completely shift all these quote unquote night owls who took the surveys and would confirm that they're night owls. And yeah, after two days of camping, they showed them that they're not that at all. Yeah, that's absolutely impressive. You know, it gets me also just thinking about just, you know, being natural, right? You talk about how this was natural light. And I think a lot of people would push for that, right? If they're trying to go through therapy or therapeutics, it would be quote unquote something natural. It's almost like a buzz word. But with what you're doing, would you say it's it's possible to create these natural environments artificially through technology that we now have? Yeah, so I mean, that's a great point. You know, I obviously the most natural thing is to go outside and you know, you listen to anyone. First thing in the morning, you know, that's the best time to get outside. And that is the ideal scenario. But we can't be outside all the time. We used to be outside all the time. And so what are you going to do? You know, getting outside every now and then is great. But you know, when we talk about early morning light, that's really a circadian thing. That actually kind of tells your body its daytime, tells you circadian rhythms that it's daytime to start that daytime counter for that, you know, daytime signal. But what I mentioned before is that these receptors go to all sorts of regions of your brain that drive mood, cognition, alertness, vigilance, all the daytime effects. So we we created a lighting system that you know, pinpoint these receptors that drive this natural response. And so if you're inside and you have light exposure to this specific light, the lights called sky view, we saw everything you'd expect, boosts in alertness, boosts in mood, boosts in cognition. We also saw a boost in sleep because they got that exposure during the day, brighter days darker nights. But you know, the early morning light is a circadian response that helps your circadian rhythms. But all those daytime responses that are important for you, you know, remembering things at the office, getting, you know, being as productive as you possibly could be, you know, we saw those things as well. And so as long as we work inside these buildings, you want to bring as much as you possibly can, you know, sit next to a window, get, you know, as much light exposure you can because when you're working, you're treating those daytime receptors that are telling your body, it's daytime. So I need to do these daytime things and do them as best as I can. So it's good for our health, it's good for our productivity, it's good for, you know, pretty much everything. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I can already see that how bios are, you know, how lighting can really influence even the workforce, right? You go to a, you go to a tall building, you're sitting by cubicles and you just mentioned like people have this corner office says, man, it must be in a way better mood and it might not just be the view that they have, but also that light coming in. But I think it's important. Can we talk about the different types of lighting? You know, there's LEDs, there's different types of bulbs, there's light coming from the screen. What do people need to know? Just basics, kind of foundations about the different types of lighting that are out there. Maybe what might be best for them? Great question. So there's a couple of things that I think are a little bit of misnomers. LEDs get a bad rap for, you know, producing too much blue light and the screens coming from it is too blue. And that's partially true. Those screens are very bright though. I think that that's a bigger issue. Some of the studies that have been looking at this, you know, night shift for your iPhone, you know, that removes some of the blue wavelengths of it. But, you know, if you just reduce the brightness down, that's going to have a much more dramatic impact than the color of the light itself. Same thing with like the LED light bulbs and down lights, you know, a lot of people say, oh, they look too bright and they're like, it's messing my rhythm. And that's true. It's the brightness more than the blue that's causing that alertness. And that's a really big misnomer because everyone talks about the blue light from these LEDs. And when you look at it, if somebody like wants to like get scientific, they'll show a spectral power distribution, they'll see this peak of blue light on that LED spectrum. And that's true. But it was absolutely engineered for vision where it where at pinpoints is exactly where our blue perception is. So LED lights for the same looking color light, you know, when you go to Hum Depot, they have like soft white, bright white and daylight. If you had a LED versus an old, you know, the fluorescent incandescent only really comes in one color or like a halogen is kind of that bright white. LED has the least amount of blue for the same looking light. And that's hard for people to get their head around. So it's really just about because again, it was designed for vision and it was not designed for biology. So the consequence of that is I think that the way that I look at it is we optimize LED lighting is absolutely engineered for the one thing that we knew how to measure, which was lumens. Lumens are a metric that we use for brightness. And so lighting design and everything that goes in those commercial buildings, everything that I was, you know, when I originally became interested in lighting, was about to reduce the amount of watts needed to get the same visual response. And LEDs was absolutely designed to pinpoint the visual receptors specifically. And now that we know that there's something else to measure, it's missing that it's so far off. So standard lighting design and with the standard LEDs and the other bad thing is when you have all these lights are in the ceiling pointing down, that's great for lighting the surfaces, lighting the floors, but we need that light here in our face. And so the combination of the poor, the the visually optimized spectrum and the visually optimized design has led us to being about in a daytime like a third. We get about a third of the light that we need from a wellness standpoint. So we're really putting ourselves in the dark here. And that's what we've been trying to do with the the new Skyview product is put the light where we need it to be more visually, more vertically oriented, the right spectrums, the white wavelengths, the right intensities so that you have something that gives you that alertness profile. And we did clinical research on it, simulated workday, we saw exactly all the things that, you know, you should expect to see. Right. Wow. So let's delve into spatial distribution. When I saw this on your website, I was absolutely wow. I just didn't even realize it was a concept to be even thinking about. But why don't you explain how this spatial distribution of light actually makes a different? You touched on it a little bit, but I know that even peripheries make a difference and below versus above. And I think, you know, for the listeners tune into the video version of this. We'll try to get on social media so that they can see exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So these receptors, if anyone knows anything about vision, so we have rods and cones and then they go through these like inner cellular processing things bipolar cells, bilateral cells and stuff like that. They go these retinal ganglion cells. And the retinal ganglion cells send the information to the brain. While some of these retinal ganglion cells are intrinsically photosensitive, which means that they these have those receptors, those sky blue receptors. And so what's really interesting about that is our vision is really very acute in that central field of view called Arphobia. And so it's just a ton of tons of cones in there that are getting all that accuracy and precision that we need. And it's not included by any of those, you know, retinal ganglion cells or other things. It's just a cluster of cones. And so these receptors aren't in that in that foveal vision. So we call it the two-degree field. So I have this microphone here, but two thumbs out, you know, arm distance away. That little circle is your foveal vision. And so that's where all the cones are. The highest density of cones everywhere else is where these sky blue receptors are. So it's basically it's not what you're looking at. It's everywhere but where you're looking at that these receptors are. And so some research has even shown that the ones on the bottom hemisphere are more sensitive than the rest of them. And so they're looking for their sky blue signal, looking for that blue sky signal to come from above the horizon plane. It kind of makes almost perfect sense of what, you know, what we should be expecting it to do is that and it's looking at all over. So the side periphery is just as good just above us. So it's almost like that horizon is where the strongest signal for circadian rhythms is. And it evolutionarily like makes perfect sense. So what we, you know, what we did when we developed this sky view technology is we didn't exactly that. Figured out where you're probably, so we designed it to be like at an external monitor or a laptop. Just go right next to it. Where those receptors are not where you're looking at but where those receptors are looking at. Put the majority of the stuff above the horizon plane, giving you the benefits you need with no more energy, no more, any, you know, annoyance or anything like that. It's just a pleasant, a really pleasant light that gives you what you need from being outside. That's phenomenal, right. It just makes me think about how many of us from work from home nowadays. Especially since COVID maybe quote unquote doing this for all, right. If I can say doing it wrong, or really so different way of optimizing, which is, which is really cool. So horizon, meaning almost level, or how do you kind of gauge that, right? If somebody were trying to do this on their own, trying to optimize their desk, would you just recommend almost getting like a standing desk or putting yourself a little bit lower? Yeah, so it really goes at your gaze. So when you're, so what we think about it is if you're staring at a computer screen, which I am right now, Skybees right next to it. So and then that horizon is kind of at the center of the screen. We have a short, a smaller one. If you have a laptop, again, the idea is exactly the same. So it's, it's, the horizon isn't about like where, you know, our head position is, it's, it's retinal. So it's wherever your eyes are looking at, that you're going to get that, that best benefit from having the bluest, you know, the bluest light and the bluest photons above that horizon plane. Gotcha. Now, just Skyview pretty much customized per individual, you know, for instance, if I'm somebody who's a night owl, need to kind of adjust my circadian rhythm to be a little bit better versus somebody who, let's say, sleeps on time, gets up on time, feels awake, but then they hit that two o'clock PM, they get really drowsy, or Skyview essentially kind of just working globally in the sense that it's going to just make you feel better overall throughout the day, just given that it's the right amount of blue light, right, brightness, all that. Yeah, so it really depends on use case. So it, so we designed it with an app and the app could use, you know, the local understanding of local sunrise and sunset to basically do what's going on outside, or you could input your, your wake up and bedtime. And so with that, you could, you could basically tailor to wake up with you, go to bed with you. So for work from home, that's the ideal solution. You know, if, but we really designed it to be in the office, that was the main, you know, goal when we put out there was that, you know, all these people talk about, you know, lighting to help your sleep. And that is such a random thing to tell people that something that's not in your bedroom is going to help you sleep is like, you know, as it's kind of like, I made this analogy because we talked a lot of sleep doctors. It's like, almost if you said that this treadmill, you're going to buy it to help you sleep better. Right. That doesn't sound like anything that anyone would, that's not why anyone buys a treadmill. But it's true. I mean, it's true. If you have trouble sleeping, they tell you to get extra, get light and get exercise. Those are the main pillars of trying to promote better sleep. But you don't buy a treadmill for that. You buy it for, you know, you feel better, losing weight and shape, you know, the wellness components of it. And the same thing here is that we thought, you know, this idea of selling a light for your sleep is just such a foreign concept for people to think about. We need to design it for productivity, mood, alertness, vigilance. For all those people who are struggling to, you know, at 2 p.m., you know, having that post launch dip, you know, and know that that really, you know, that's just not good for me. You know, there's something wrong. That's what it's for. It's for, you know, how you feel during the daytime. And as a result of doing that, you do get better sleep. But the idea of selling people that this light will help you sleep is just, we've learned that, you know, we've banged our head on the wall long enough to realize that people just don't understand that concept. Yeah, for sure. And I love that you mentioned that, right? Because sleep is a, getting good night's sleep is a byproduct of what you do during the day, right? For the, for the majority of it, I believe. And, you know, I'm in the camp of when you look at the pillars, a lot of people like to break down the pillars of, you know, sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress relief. While all of them are important, I am definitely in the camp that I think sleep has the biggest lever that we can pull on for overall health, longevity, wellness. I mean, I just don't think there's a reason otherwise we'd be doing it for this long, you know, for our species, given the amount of risk, you know, survival risk at night and things like that, I just think sleep is still something that is still being researched, right? As far as theories go and things like that. So I'm definitely a big component and proponent, I should say, of getting that good night's sleep for everything else to kind of go right. So I do love that you said that. You know, one of the things I saw on your website too was talking about how light, no matter what, is activating. You know, people have this misconception of thinking that red light, fire, the amber colors are actually soothing and can put you to sleep. Can you touch a little bit on that? Yes, that's a great question. I think that there are some people getting, I actually was recently interviewed about red light because somebody came out with a red light product for helping you sleep. And they quoted my light on space station as a reason why that's that's the case. And I said that that's absolutely false. There's no no light is the only thing that could help you to sleep. Any other light is only alerting. It's only going to wake you up. In fact, there's there's research going on in shipwork applications that say if you get red light, that actually has a nice alerting effect and it doesn't, doesn't chain, doesn't shift your circadian rhythms because it's absent of all the blue, but it has this alertness to it. And so it's not soothing at all. You know, dim light and you know, if you have to, if you have to have light, sure, you could have something that's amber. I think I personally think red is just a little bit too foreign. You're doing trying to do a little bit too much. It's got to be, it's got to, you got to be able to render colors. You got to be able to see things, you know, not have to strain yourself in order to, you know, see what's in the cup. So I think amber dim is kind of the ideal approach. It is, you know, it's it's relaxing, but I don't think that it's relaxing in the sense that it's actually actively putting you to sleep. It's just not as alerting as something that's more intense and more blue. So it's got to be, you know, one, I always talk about as warm as possible. And as dim as pot, as dim as, you know, as is acceptable. And then, you know, we talk about the spatial distribution below the horizon to try to keep that light low and below the horizon. And that is a really good start for how to do light at night. Gotcha. So I'm afraid people are going to say, well, I always have my phone below me before I go to sleep. Well, so that, that, of course, okay, well, that's, that's a great point that you bring that up because, yeah, it's about where you're looking relative to where you're looking. So if you're looking right at your phone, you know, it, I always think just keep it down dim as possible. If you could keep it far away, you know, that would also be nice because remember, it's everywhere, but where you're looking at. So if you have it close, then it's going to get all those receptors. But if you keep it further away, you're going to do a lot better. So, you know, every sleep researcher will tell you that you should, everyone should stop their phones two hours before bedtime. And that's great. That is sound advice. And if, you know, you get three people to do it, that good on you, but the masses are just not going to do it, right? Absolutely, yeah, there's that. So I mean, I think that's, that's kind of how I see it, you know, dark mode. Great. Even the things that, you know, when you're watching a show, you know, Michael, Michael Herf is a guy who, um, who invented efflux that basically reduces the blue content in your screen. He did, they did it before night shift, long before night shift. And he was telling me that, you know, what's on your screen is so content dependent. So if you, you know, if you have a white screen, yeah, you might get, you know, decent dose. But if you put on a movie, you know, it could, it could reduce it down by 90%. So you're only getting 10% of that light because it's dark backgrounds and, you know, all those pixels are just being included by the filters. So it's, um, it's so content driven. And I think the majority of the research is showing that if you have standard content, the light coming out of it is not enough to have a dramatic impact. Now, I will not say that you should actively go use your phone that I'm telling you to go use your phone at night and you don't have no detrimental impacts to it. But, um, I think some people who, you know, are, you know, crying wolf about the detriment of cell phone use at night, um, all the studies that I've seen are kind of white screens, fully, you know, you know, full brightness, full blue. If you just look at it at standard application, it's significantly reduced and it's not nearly as big of a problem. And I think the, the bigger problem is light during the daytime, the fact that we're getting a third of what we're supposed to be getting. The other thing that what I would always shocked me, um, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory did a study and I confirmed it here. Um, that even the windows that you get, um, we think that we're doing enough by having enough windows, but you actually have to be looking out that window in order to do it. So I actually have, you know, my monitors right here on the other side of it is, is a giant window. But if I just turn here towards this wall, now I'm getting like 20% of what I would get if I'm looking out that window. So it's, it's significantly dependent on where you go. And I think what's most interesting as we talk about offices is usually what's on the opposite side of that window is the door. So as an employee, you have to decide do you want to face the window or do you want to face the door? And I think the majority of people prioritize privacy over that view or their, their biology. Um, so I think that even if you get proper window use, we're still not getting enough. And that's, that's, you know, and again, this is what we've always been thinking about is like, you know, we could tell people what's good for them. But if we don't pay attention to common behavior, it's just going to fall on deaf ears and people aren't going to do it. For sure. I mean, I think Andrew Heberman is such a huge proponent of he's always preaching getting up first thing, go outside, get bright light into your eyes, you know, not actually staring at the sun so you go blind, but just getting out there. And, you know, you're, you're really the second person that I'm consistently hearing that we're actually messing up during the day. It's not necessarily just before the, the wee hours before bedtime, but what we should be doing before the day is really what's hurting us. And so do you just recommend people getting out as much as possible or is there an ideal time of the day? Obviously, first thing in the morning, a lot of people say, but if they're unable to do that, do you just recommend walks outside or what can they do to really optimize during the day? Yeah, so I think that first thing in the morning obviously is great. That's sound advice. And again, that's first circadian timing. The other key time for circadian timing is at the end of the day, right? So, so bright light before darkness. So are these circadian receptors also have a little bit of history to them? So what you get before it's all relative. So if you go out at, you know, at the end of the day, go out for a walk, that's going to set the expectation of what daytime is. And then so night is actually going to feel a lot darker as as a result of that. So those are kind of the two things. The beginning of the day, the end of the day, in the middle of the day, it doesn't seem to have as much of an impact. It of course, it does help with those those other things, the vigilance, the moon, the alertness. It's a great way if you're feeling sluggish at 2 p.m. That post lunch tip, if you go outside, you're going to get you're going to get a boost to your to your energy level. Just by getting that light exposure, fresh air obviously helps as well. A two-pronged approach to this, one from the circadian and then one from the mood productivity, kind of just being vigilant standpoint. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But one of the things that I wanted to hit on is a lot of people associate that post lunch dip with, you know, a big lunch. But it's absolutely a circadian process that occurs every single day and it does, you know, food can exacerbate it. But it's absolutely a circadian process that you have every single day. And I we do know that it hits harder if you're sleep deprived. So that's actually a really good test for how sleep deprived you are is how hard that post lunch dip hits you. Because it really is, you have these alerting circadian signals and it just kind of drops off at that post lunch era. And so what happens is when you lose those alerting signals, that's when all that homeostatic sleep pressure from sleep deprivation start hitting you so much harder. Is there, do you know, is there like, is that why there might be a theory for why we did bi-fasic sleeping, for instance, or I mean, typically bi-fasic sleeping for what I've heard is just four hours throughout the night and then maybe even four hours again. But I'm just trying to think, is there a reason why we know there's that dip in the middle of the day for us biologically? Yeah, that's a it's a really interesting thought process. So bi-fasic sleeping is completely different. I have thoughts behind that. But I do think that, you know, this post lunch dip also corresponds with the, you know, the hottest part of the day, right? So it kind of makes a lot of sense from an energy conservation standpoint. This isn't when you're supposed, you know, if you're going to rest and relax, you should probably do it at the middle of the day when it's the most hottest go, you know, find some shade and cool off and not be the most alert and trying to go out and do some things when it's the hottest time because that's the most resistance you're going to have in the most, you know, potential for, you know, overexerting yourself is to get out that day. For bi-fasic sleeping though, when you look at melatonin rhythms, I think that this is a seasonality component. It's really bimodal. It's not one hump. It's actually two. And I think that the reason for that is the bimodality, they split, they could separate and they could come back together. And the reason for that is just seasonality differences. When the days are short, the night is long and so this melatonin rhythm spreads out. And then when you have that dip, that's when, you know, if you wake up in the middle of the night, that's when you're most likely to wake up in the middle of the night when that melatonin kind of hits a little bit of a trough in the middle. So that's really what I've kind of noticed. And for bi-fasic sleep and I don't know, I feel like that's an antiquated thing nowadays because, no, back in, you know, back when we didn't have electric lighting, like that was a real thing. But I don't know anyone who's really, yeah, sleep for a little bit, wake up and actually do something and then go back to sleep for for another four hours. So I was actually forced to kind of do this when I was doing a night shift over at the, at the VA hospital. Luckily, it was kind of quiet overnight. So I would probably get about four hours of sleep. I would drive home at about 6.37 and then I'd probably sleep again for another two and a half, three hours. And what's funny is, so I wear a whoop and I was just tracking my HRB and everything. And my sleep quality, I shouldn't say sleep well, my HRB was at its highest during those months. No idea why. But it was awesome because I had the rest of the day free and then, you know, went back to night shift. But that was kind of the only time where I was, you know, kind of forced, I took advantage of it. I guess I should say just to get, you know, I was asleep at day. This is, yeah, this is super fascinating stuff. Can I just ask you, what are your thoughts on melatonin supplementation? If you have any. I'm so glad you know. I'm so glad you asked. I think that the data says, so melatonin is a hormone that our body produces naturally. And all the science says it doesn't really work, that it doesn't actually help you fall asleep. And the only time that it does, what it does and what circadian researchers and sleep practitioners that I know use it for is to shift your circadian rhythm. So light has a phase response curve. So light early in the morning will shift your rhythm to be earlier. Light late at night will shift your rhythm to be late. And the same thing is true. Well, the opposite is true really for melatonin. If you take melatonin during the kind of the end of the day and the light period, your rhythm will get shifted earlier. If you take it kind of in the early morning, it'll get shifted later because melatonin is the hormone of nighttime of kind of darkness. So when melatonin works is if you've shifted your rhythm to be night owl, then taking melatonin, you know, before you go to bed, a lot of people do it right when you go to bed. That is actually not recommended. When you should be taking it, if you're trying to shift your rhythm is for is like two to three hours before you go to bed, because that's actually when your melatonin rhythm starts producing to begin with is two, three hours before you naturally go to bed. So that's actually when you want to take it is to try to bring that rhythm back together and really you should be taking it one or two times a month and that's it because what you don't want to do is you don't want your your body to, you know, rely on it and stop producing it natural. There's some heavy doses out there. You know, people are taking like five, 10 milligrams. It's heavy doses that I in the hospital at least that people are asking about what I'm like. Let's lower you down if anything, but yeah. Right, right. So yeah, and the data isn't there to say that it actually helps you sleep. I think that there's a lot of people who there's a placebo effect that a lot of people are getting, that they feel like it's going to help them sleep. So they relax themselves and they just think that it's working, but all the markers that sleep researchers use say that it's not doing a lot of anything. Wow, fascinating stuff. Robert, anything else that you want to bring up for the audience, anything that I may have missed or that I want to talk about, I feel like we could have another hour's worth of conversation here just by how much you know, I do want to respect your time as well, but you know, we can always get you here for part two, maybe even talk about plants. Because there might be some plant mom plant dads out there. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that the idea and the concepts are actually pretty simple. Right or days, darker nights is kind of the big takeaway. I think the biggest thing that people overlook is that, you know, light is health. It's really fundamental to health and that's the important thing. And it's almost like that analogy that I said, treadmill, you know, helps put you to sleep, light help put you to sleep during the daytime. It's a very such a weird thing, but they're almost the same. They're almost just key pillars to health. And I think that that's what the viewer or listeners should take away from this is that you never thought light was as important as it is, but I'm here to tell you it absolutely is. And we built these buildings the wrong way and it's really causing a lot of harm to us. Yeah, and that's why we brought you on here, man. Thank you. Where can our listeners find you and bios and skyview? Yeah, so we have a website for the new products skyviewlight.com, so SKY VIEEWlightLIGHT.com. I'm usually thrown out some some of the latest research on LinkedIn. So as studies come up, I'm pretty good friends with the leading chronobiologist in the world. So they individually will push their work and their labs work, but I I'm not aligned with any of them. So I push all the good work. If it's good work, it goes on on my site, on on my page. So so the best of the best is usually is usually there. So I think that that's really good. Robert Solair, S-O-L-E-R is a good spot. Awesome. Well, we're going to link those into the show notes and you know, I'm kind of a it's a weird thing I just noticed. I'm like a fanboy for like very aesthetic websites. Like there's just something pleasurable about scrolling through and your skyview websites actually like absolutely phenomenal. Like it's very aesthetically pleasing. I'm just going through like non-stop on there and be like, wow, I like how the colors change. So yeah, people should definitely check it out. It's what I'm trying to say. Awesome, man. Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, I know it's it's good stuff. All right, last question we ask everyone is how do we add the health back to health care? Because we know it's a broken system. Yeah, you know, it's I think that that's it is a broken system. They want you to be sick, right? That's the problem with it. And you know, they don't want you. I mean, this is proactive health care, right? This is really you know, proving your health so you don't get sick. Yeah, I don't know, man, this is such a great great question is how do you stay out of the hospital? What how do you have health care to stay out of the hospital? Well, the health care system doesn't want you to do that. They want you to they want you in the hospital. Otherwise, they don't get paid. So so I, you know, I I would love to hear your answer. Because I think I think that we need to really start focusing on preventative care. Yeah, no, I think I think you nailed it right there, man, is that right now it's reactive and we got to go proactive and you know, it's it's I think from your standpoint, what you're doing with lighting and things like just to educate these I think that's why I love bringing you on here, man. It's just that it's such a unique perspective. One that our listeners have not heard one that they didn't even really know that there's things coming out to really help us, right? And I think that's like the beauty of this consumerism trend that's happening in medicine is that we're going from medicine 2.0 to a 3.0 and in this 3.0 we're really take telling patients to, you know, be their own patient in a way, right? Like don't just rely on the doctor to kind of tell you everything because I mean, there's so much right there's so much of information. There's just so much research to know and I just I love having that therapeutic alliance with patients so that they can be their best support system, right? And I think looking into things like sky view, doing things like bios, I think that's just going to only help people be enlightened, no pun intended, to to the things that are out there that that really help the other factors like sleep exercise, et cetera, right? So it's all about the being well and yeah, going from there or so. Yeah, I couldn't agree more, man. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, absolutely that. Well, hey, I appreciate you coming on here. You're doing brilliant work. I'm excited to follow you on LinkedIn and keep up with the latest research and are there already sky view products out or are we waiting for those to be launched? Well, yeah, so as of this recording, I know it's not the publication date. So June 20th, the sky view 2 is being launched in, I think in August, our sky view 2 pro, which is the larger ones being launched, we have had the the sky view version one. It's been out for about two years now. But I think that people have not had the opportunity to to really see it and really appreciate it because we had this whole pandemic day. Sure. I kept people from actually getting out and seeing things and seeing what's new in the world. So yeah, it's available, it's commercially available now. And when this podcast comes out, it'll be commercially available. Awesome. Yep. We'll like that in all across the board. Fantastic. Yeah, we should probably get you a coupon code or something for listeners. Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, well, you know me and then we'll get it in there so listeners can take advantage of that because I'm super excited about this. So awesome, man. All right. Thanks, Robert. Appreciate you. Yeah, thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate you. And that's a wrap for this episode. Once again, be sure to check out the show notes or we have linked this sky view website in the product. If you want 20% off, use the code redefine 20. That special offer will not be lasting forever. I think it lasts for about two weeks. So make sure to go ahead and check out the website and the product, especially if you know people who are working from home after pandemic, this product would be a great, great gift or just something. If you need a mood booster, if you really want to set your circadian rhythm with proper lighting, this is the product for you. As always, the disclaimer, everything in this podcast is for educational purposes only. It is not constitute the practice of medicine and we are not providing medical advice, no physician, patient, patient, patient, informed, and anything discussed in this podcast is not represent the views of our employers. We recommend that you seek the guidance at your personal physician regarding any specific health related issues. If you enjoyed this episode, please go ahead and give it five stars and make sure to share it with somebody you love. And I'd like to thank our team, Herita Yapurian, Ethan Jew for the production of this podcast. We'll see you next week.