Life, Health & The Universe
Welcome to **Life, Health & The Universe**, the podcast dedicated to empowering women in their 40s and 50s to embrace a vibrant and meaningful life. Join us as we explore the intersection of health, wellness, and personal growth, offering insights and inspiration to help you navigate this transformative stage of life.
Each week, we dive into topics that matter most to you— from holistic health and nutrition to mindfulness and self-discovery. With expert interviews, relatable stories, and practical tips, we aim to inspire you to live your best life, cultivate deeper connections, and find purpose in every moment.
Whether you’re seeking to enhance your well-being, explore new passions, or simply find a supportive community, **Life, Health & The Universe** is here to guide you on your journey. Tune in and discover how to thrive in this exciting chapter of life!
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Life, Health & The Universe
From Illness to Innovation - Block Blue Light Founder, Daniel Ebbett
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Could something as simple as light be the key to unlocking better sleep, balanced hormones, and improved overall health? Daniel Ebbett's personal journey suggests exactly that.
When conventional medicine failed to solve his debilitating migraines and insomnia, Daniel discovered research suggesting that his modern light environment—filled with artificial blue light and lacking natural light exposure—was fundamentally disrupting his biology. By strategically changing his light environment, he transformed his health and founded Block Blue Light to help others do the same.
In this enlightening conversation, Daniel reveals the science behind how light affects our circadian rhythms and hormone production. He explains why melanopsin receptors in our eyes are particularly sensitive to blue wavelengths (400-500nm), and how evening exposure to these wavelengths from screens and LED lighting disrupts melatonin production, making quality sleep impossible.
You'll learn startling truths about the blue light blocking industry, including why 95% of blue light glasses on the market are ineffective, and what to look for in products that actually work. Daniel also explores the therapeutic potential of red light (630-660nm) and near-infrared light (800-900nm), explaining how these wavelengths can enhance cellular energy production, promote healing, and support overall wellbeing.
While modern health advice typically focuses on diet and exercise, this episode illuminates how managing your light environment might be the missing piece in your health puzzle. Whether you're struggling with sleep issues, energy problems, or just want to optimise your health, you'll walk away with practical, science-backed strategies to harness the power of light for better living.
Take the first step toward better health by subscribing to our podcast and joining our community of wellness seekers. What light habit will you change first?
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https://lifehealththeuniverse.podcastpage.io/person/daniel-ebbett
Welcome to Life, health and the Universe, bringing you stories that connect us, preventative and holistic health practices to empower us and esoteric wisdom to enlighten us. We invite you to visit our website, where you can access the podcast, watch on YouTube and find all of our guests in the guest directory. Visit lifehealththeuniversepodcastpageio. Now let's get stuck into this week's episode.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm chatting with the founder and CEO of Block Blue Light, daniel Ebbett. The goal of the Block Blue Light business is to pioneer light-based technologies that promote better sleep and overall health, which I think we all need. A little bit more of that and this business strives to be at the forefront of innovation, offering effective solutions and exceptional customer support. So today we're joined by Daniel, and we're going to be learning about the story behind this hugely growing brand, as well as hear about the science of using red light and how we can improve our health with the power of light. That was all a little bit fumbly, wasn't it? Welcome, daniel. Thank you so much for joining us. It's taken a while because you are extremely busy with this business of yours, I believe. So, yeah, really, really appreciate you taking the time today to join us and have a chat about all of these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks, nadine. We're really really excited to be here and want to share your knowledge and experience around how we can improve our health through light.
Speaker 1:Yes, amazing. So, as I mentioned just before, we hit record, my husband and I. We have some of your products. We've got the. We've got some light globes that block blue light at night. My husband wears the eye mask one of the eye masks at night. We're pretty. And we've got a red light panel. We're pretty, uh, like up on. You know, knowing what the benefits are of um light therapy and blocking blue light specifically as well, can you take us through a little bit of a journey of how your business came about, because I know that you've got a personal story, so would you be able to share that with us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I mean. So I haven't always been in the blue light blocking industry or you know that was that sort of. It has come out of our own sort of, I guess, personal health struggle and personal need to sort of unlock how to you know how to restore my own health. So that journey started approximately 10 years ago, just graduated university. Towards the end of my studies at university, I started to get quite into health and wellness. I really really started to see the benefits of you know, when you look after yourself, when you feel good, you know you can perform better mentally, physically, emotionally, and I really started to value that as I was starting to move into my career right.
Speaker 2:So I graduated university from New Zealand, so I moved over to Sydney, australia, to take up a corporate job and had great aspirations of climbing the corporate ladder and yeah, so straight into that sort of world. And I was working in IT. I sort of landed the job as more of a specialist engineer in IT, more of a specialist engineer in IT. And within the space of a couple months of starting that job I started to get quite severe migraine attacks during the day and severe insomnia where I would struggle to fall asleep, or I'd wake up at like 2am and couldn't get back to sleep. So I was sort of getting like two or three hours of sleep a night, then coming into work and having like severe migraine attacks during the day, which wasn't a great way to sort of start your working career when you're really trying to obviously perform and show you know that you've got knowledge and you can start to progress your career. So I did what most people do I went to my GP, to the doctor, and was like I don't know what's going on. I'm looking after myself, I ate well, I exercise well, but I can't sleep and I'm starting to get quite sick. Essentially is the way I looked at it. And over time, with quite a lot of sleep deprivation, became hormonal dysregulation and mood dysregulation.
Speaker 2:However, sort of going down that kind of traditional route of medical help was sort of what can we prescribe you sort of thing. So I went through a whole host of like cocktail of different prescription medications, from off-label sleeping tablets to antipsychotic medications and antidepressants. It was just like they were just kind of throwing a kitchen sink at it, trying to say, well, how can we band-aid or how can we sort of mask the symptoms versus how can we actually get to the root cause of the problem, um, that that went on for almost a year. Um, I think I got to the point, because I continue to go back to the dog not working and getting worse. They kind of put their hands up and gave up. So the thing was like well, we don't think there's anything wrong with you. It's in your head, like you're kind of manifesting this in your head like and it was that point I was, I. I was I kind of realized that this is not the way I'm going to get better, this is not the way I'm going to fix my health. Um, so I kind of realised that this is not the way I'm going to get better, this is not the way I'm going to fix my health. So I kind of gave up on that and sort of what I would say is I fired my GP, I wasn't going to go back because they really, really didn't understand or weren't really willing to investigate. I mean, it's just the medical model, right, it's not a how do we maintain optimal health. It's more of like a sick-based care where we've got 10 minutes to spend with you to look through your symptoms and work out a kind of drug we could prescribe you, but I guess I wasn't prepared to kind of accept that.
Speaker 2:I knew what it felt like to be healthy, to feel good, and I wanted to get back to that state. So I started to just research. I keep researching going on the internet. We didn't have I mean, this is 2015, we didn't have the wealth of accessible knowledge we have today. We didn't have podcasts like this, we didn't have people talking and providing accessible information, but I mean, the internet still existed and there still was information out there.
Speaker 2:That was a little bit harder to find, but what I did stumble across in my search for answers was a neurosurgeon in the US. His name is Dr Jack Cruz and he seems to be a bit more widely known now, but back then he certainly wasn't, and his concepts of what it meant to be healthy were very, very different from what I had learned or what I would consider anyone in the mainstream would really look at to to focus on if they were to try and be healthy. And I mean what that would be is most people would say in order to be healthy, you need to eat well, you need to exercise. Um, those are kind of the main pillars of health and that's what I focused on a lot. I was like, okay, well, I'm not healthy, so I mustn't be doing those things enough. Like I mustn't be eating well enough and I mustn't be so I things enough, I mustn't be eating well enough. So I ultimately got myself in quite a big downward spiral because then I would continue to try and exercise more and diet more and I was like these are actually probably the after learning a lot. Those were probably the worst things I could have done. My body was in an extreme state of stress and I was putting more stress on it.
Speaker 2:But his concepts were essentially at a very, very high level that the most sort of biggest driver behind what governs our biology is light. We evolved under the sun and whether it's different frequencies of light using different signals to elicit different biological changes in the body. And he was talking a lot about how everyone's so fixated on what diet they're on, whether it's a keto diet or a vegan or paleo or high fat, like all this sort of stuff. And he was saying, well, but none of this matters, like if you don't, if you're getting exposed to the wrong type of light at the wrong time of day and night. Because if you're getting exposure to the wrong, wrong type of light at the wrong time of day and night, um, because if you're not sleeping and it doesn't actually matter really, you could do everything else, perfect. But if you're having terrible sleep you'll never feel, you'll never be in a good state of health.
Speaker 2:And I just found it really interesting. Um, it was very technical in terms of how he discusses that he gets quite into like quantum biology and very, very technical like ways that the light is affecting our biology. But I really was fascinated by it because it was almost like the opposite of what we were being kind of grown up and taught. So normally I like to focus on that and really understand that. So I spent quite a long time understanding his work and then ultimately, from the end of that, like I kind of was like there's some core principles I can start to apply to see, to test the theory and what I kind of drilled down and understood that I had significantly altered my environment, my environment of light.
Speaker 2:I was getting up normally before sunrise and going into the office so I wouldn't get any natural light exposure in the morning. I would then spend all days under fluorescent lighting on screens all day, leaving the office around sunset, going into the gym training for an hour under fluorescent lighting, coming home then actually having to log on and work at night. Being a graduate in IT, I'd have to implement changes IT system changes out of hours, so that would leave me on a computer screen at like 11 pm at night, and so ultimately I wasn't really getting any natural light exposure in my environment. I was getting significantly high levels of artificial light exposure, which was very, very high in blue light, without any of the other spectrums of light that we normally get exposed to in a natural light environment. So I wanted to test the theory and back in 2015, the concept of blue light blocking glasses or blue light glasses that wasn't a thing, that didn't exist. There wasn't a name for them, but there was kind of some off-label solutions where you could find particular brands of safety glasses that would actually block a very large portion of the blue light spectrum. I couldn't find them in Australia, so I actually ordered them out of the US Big ugly safety glasses. I would wear them during the day. I was putting them on in the office, just really trying to like mitigate the unnatural exposure to too much blue light.
Speaker 2:I would also then start to go outside a lot, getting a lot of like natural light exposure during the day. You know people go out for a smoke break. I would say I was going out for like a light break, just to get like light exposure. And you know, within the first time, within 12 months, I really started to see positive changes. And so then I just doubled down on it. I just continued to dial in and work out how I can mitigate the environment which I can't control sometimes being indoors. But how do I mitigate and how do I just get more exposure outdoors and within the space of it? Well, within the space of a couple weeks I started to see very positive changes in my sleep patterns and then, within a couple months, it almost completely reversed all my symptoms and started to see very, very positive changes around, like hormonal dysregulation, reversing, um, mood energy were all kind of coming back to where they were, um post post these problems.
Speaker 2:So I I was kind of like shocked a little bit. I was like how can I like a 20 pair of safety glasses be the solution to this? Well, that's not the only thing, but that was one of the core tools versus medical doctors, specialists and everything With advanced medicine not be the solution, but it's such a simple thing being the solution. So I was quite passionate from that point that I don't think I would. I didn't live like a highly unusual life and I felt like there would have been more than just me in that situation and but probably what was different is a lot of people would have probably just given up and realize well, this is just the way life is and I kind of just have to deal with it, like once the doctors sort of tell you they can't do anything or that here's the prescription drugs you need to take to continue to mask the symptoms. So I felt quite passionate that I could help people. I felt that I just wanted to. I just thought I had no desire to start a business at this point. I was just like you know what? I'm just going to order like 20 pairs of these, bring them into Australia, and I'm going to stand up a website and I'm going to start to educate and just talk about it.
Speaker 2:And in 2015, I mean, there wasn't much awareness around this.
Speaker 2:So even just to try and get people to understand the concept or so, it was quite difficult at the start because people weren't so receptive to listening about these kind of concepts.
Speaker 2:But I mean, over time and over the years, I continue to talk about it and also, at the same time, we continue to advance into a more digital age, um, where everyone started to get more devices like smartphones, started to become more common, bigger screens, devices, ipads, and then we also moved from the older style incandescent lighting into the more energy efficient LED lighting, which all these things compound into a greater need for what I was talking about, what I was selling and what I was trying to educate on.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that sort of fast forward to today, that's kind of been my passion for the last 10 years, where it's myself continuously learning myself but then creating products and, yeah, just trying to educate people on how they can live better lives through, um, yeah, giving me a light environment right, and how they can, how they can live in the modern world and not have so much detrimental effects from the kind of lifestyles that we're living now wow, amazing and like just oh god, so things, the fact that it's grown so much in the last 10 years, like in the awareness around it has grown so much in the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:My husband and I we have a background in CrossFit and so there was that whole idea of the paleo lifestyle. You know, that sort of evolved with the CrossFit movement back, yeah, probably 15 years ago. And so Darren, my husband sort of said, you know, apparently you shouldn't be watching, you know, watching telly at night because we didn't have devices, we didn't have an iPhone at that point, or maybe I can't remember, but it was pretty early days, and so we just started not turning the telly on when we got home at night and it was like instantly better sleep. But it's kind of interesting, isn't it, when we adapt to the negative environment quite well, and so we think that we're getting okay sleep when we've, you know, just turned our screen off just before bed or have had overhead lighting on just before bed. And you know, there's that saying that people say, oh, I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow and it's like, well, actually that's a telltale sign that you've been exposed to too much light late at night and your body's over stimulated, like it should take us some time to shut down, so they were real eye-openers for us.
Speaker 1:It's been really great to sort of see the evolution of those things. It's quite hard, though, isn't it like lifestyle wise, to make those changes. What are some of the things that you did? Like you had your glasses, did you change the way that you lit things getting out in natural light first thing in the morning? Like what were some of those like daily routine things that you started to change as well as using your funky glasses?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, I think the big, the big thing was learning about what a circadian rhythm was yeah, a lot of people wouldn't really even understand that, and so the whole concept of a circadian rhythm is our bodies um function on a essentially a 24-hour cycle um so essentially it's a day-night cycle and that is the most strongest driver of that is light or lack of light.
Speaker 2:So essentially the goal here is to try and align to the natural light. Cycle was like when you get up in the morning, not getting, not being exposed to artificial light sources, because this, the the makeup of that spectrum is very different to the natural light source of that time. So getting outdoor, straight away into natural light, getting the um, the natural light into your eyes, so it can, it can continue to set off and it can continue to align your circadian rhythm. So you're essentially you're trying to align to the sun. There's different spectrums of light that come out of the sun at different times of the day and your body is very aware of those different spectrums. Essentially, light spectrums are a form of information that comes into the body and then it will then do certain hormone releases or during the different times of day.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's important to continuously get exposure to natural light outdoors because that allows the circadian rhythm or your body clock to continue to sync for the right time, and so over time, that's where you can you really see benefits of your, your own body, like in sync with nature, so that's when you'll feel the most awake and alert to when you should be feeling, start feeling tired and resting and winding down as well. However, in the modern lifestyle is um, your body gets very confused because we're indoors a lot, we're under artificial light where that spectrum generally doesn't change. It's a very unnatural spectrum that's very, very high in the higher energy wave. It's a blue light and it doesn't have a lot of red or yellow or orange frequencies in it that you would get in full spectrum outdoor light. And then the bigger issue is is well, what would most people do when the sun sets is, will they turn all the lights on?
Speaker 2:in their home so they can see um and again, that's. That's a very unnatural spectrum. And in the evening, where in nature the only natural source of blue light is the sun, um and the sun sets. And then we've evolved to not really have exposure to these frequencies post sunset, so that with our circadian rhythm that allows our body, our brain, to really start to wind down and prepare for rest, that almost replicate, kind of like solar noon, makes your your, your, your internal body clock doesn't really understand that the sun has set because there's what I call artificial suns that are all still still around um in your environment and, like biology takes, you know, hundreds of thousand years to evolve.
Speaker 2:So we've evolved and our biology is created in a way that we've designed to align with the natural cycles of light. So post-sunset, well, we should really only be exposed to frequencies that you would be exposed to post-sunset. So that's generally like a heat source or a fire, which is yellow, orange and red frequencies. There is actually no blue or green frequencies in a natural light source post sunset. So unfortunately the world we live in, um is not not generally um set up that way. So we're really we're fighting against our biology in the kind of environments we live in, particularly post sunset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's that. It's that whole thing, it's that societal thing of like sleep is something that well, it isn't something that we can kind of cut out, but it's something that we do because we're trying to get more time in our day to do all of the things Right do, because we were trying to get more time in our day to do all of the things right.
Speaker 1:Would you say that, like when you you mentioned your migraines? Do you think it was the exposure to those, like that, all that overhead lighting? Do you think it was the lack of that sort of morning sunlight, that evening sunset, or do you think it was like the intensity of the amount of exposure of like the fluorescent lighting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think primarily migraines are driven through.
Speaker 2:I would say the kind of like narrow bandwidth frequency of light so like any sort of LED light source or fluorescent light source is very, very high in blue light, with very little of the other wavelengths. Why that's really a problem is when you kind of like light can be measured in nanometers, it's kind of got wavelengths to it, so blue light sits down in the lower end, which means the wavelengths are quite short, which makes it much more higher energy light, which makes it more energy efficient as well. So that's why there is a whole thing around energy efficiency and actually putting blue light in there by design. But when it's a sort of a, a high energy waveform without not being balanced with the longer energy waveforms, it can sort of penetrate into the eye quite um and cause a lot of sort of damage in the retina and that's kind of where you see people getting Australian headaches, migraines, um, like, the antidote to too much blue light is red light, but then, in the kind of like the artificial light sources we're exposed to, it doesn't balance itself.
Speaker 2:So blue light isn't ultimately bad for us. Blue light is out in nature, the sky is blue, there's an abundance of blue light. It's very necessary for us to be exposed to it during the day. But when it's out of balance, when it's just isolated blue light by itself, that's when it starts to cause damp, cellular damage, breakdown, oxidative stress, um, which does happen in nature. But the antidote is the opposite of that, which is red, which is regenerative, restoring and healing kind of frequency, so that it nets off against itself in nature, um, but when you bring it into an artificial form, it's very, very different, because it only has the sort of the damaging way we're getting out, the kind of restorative which then the net effect is.
Speaker 2:Those are the symptoms you start to see. Um, yeah, and it's becoming more of a problem. We'll see a lot more people kind of reporting these sort of things around, sort of, uh, tired but wide feeling, dry eyes, uh, I straightened headaches. Those are all kind of like, kind of like symptoms, um, or kind of early, early warning signs of what's kind of a more longer term problem around, like macular degeneration, which is like such a modern disease now as well as everyone's spending so much more time on digital devices as well. But it takes kind of years of that kind of constant exposure to start to see the real problem.
Speaker 1:It's almost like the migraine and the headaches are like they're kind of warning signs like hey, this is not right, like, um, yeah yeah, well, I never used to wear glasses and and, like, when I'm outside I can read a book without glasses on, but when I'm inside, under, under you know, uh, not, not, not natural light I can't see a thing, and I think I'm pretty sure a lot of it is to do with being on computer screens and and phones and that sort of thing. Um, you've talked about the spectrum, the, the light spectrum, a bit like. You've obviously got done a lot of research into how light affects our health. Are there any particular particular spectrums that we should and shouldn't have Like, or is it literally a balance of all of those things that we have from outside light? They're basically the things we need, like what? What is, um, that? That's what is the spectrum we hear about blue light.
Speaker 1:We hear about red light, but you mentioned green, I think, and did you I?
Speaker 2:mean yeah well, full spectrum, full spectrum light is a combination of all the colours of the rainbow, right, that's what makes up full-spectrum light, which will make up a white light which is ultimately all the colours combined. So when you go outdoors you'll have a whole. If you kind of measure that light frequency, you'll see it's kind of a relatively even balance of all those light frequencies apart and you'll have what we call those's kind of a relatively even balance of all those light frequencies apart and you will have what we call those kind of the visible frequencies and you've got non-visible, which is the UV light, and then infrared light as well. So UV light is even further down the spectrum than blue light. So it sort of goes UV then into the blue. So those are the shorter wavelengths. So UV in isolation again very damaging to the blue. So those are the shorter wavelengths. So uv in isolation again very damaging. That's where we start to see problems around sunburn, you know, and damage to the skin, particularly if you isolated uv light that's, you know and so blue is not.
Speaker 2:You know, blue is not as damaging as um uv, but it's still down that end of the spectrum where it's got a lot more energy. You go all the way through the colors of the rainbow, you come into the red spectrum and then past red is infrared, so that's an even long. That's the non-visible on the other end, which is the regenerative, restorative and the healing wavelengths that we commonly see in light therapy devices around. Red light therapy is red light and infrared light. So but, um, ultimately it doesn't mean like, oh, we shouldn't be exposed to u, oh, we shouldn't be exposed to UV and we shouldn't be exposed to blue light. Those are harmful, we don't want those. But context has got to be applied because that's the thing right. People are like, oh, I need to block all this, I should never be exposed to it. Well, uv light is very important for our health. Uv light when it hits our skin, it's how we actually create vitamin D. So we shouldn should be avoiding UV light, but we should also be getting it in the right not overexposing, but like not hopping on a tanning bed, which is like, for example, with isolating UV, but like in full spectrum light. You've got UV and infrared, you've got all the colors kind of like working together, same as blue light. So blue light very, very important for us to be exposed to blue light during the day. That's what actually regulates our energy systems, our energy, our mood, dopamine, serotonin these are kind of neurotransmitters that are heavily mood regulating and they are governed through blue light. So blue light will come into the eyes, it's going to send signals and it's going to throw into the brain.
Speaker 2:We've got certain receptors in our eyes that aren't necessary for vision, for seeing. So we've known for a very long time in science what receptors in our eyes help us see, which are called rods and cones. We've heard of that before, and then kind of in the late 90s is where they discovered that we've got other non-visual photoreceptors, so they're not for seeing, but they are still receptors of light. They discovered that we've got other non-visual photoreceptors, so they're not for seeing, but they are still receptors of light, so they're taking in frequencies of light and then they're actually eliciting other kind of signals into the brain. So we do have these receptors, they're called melanopsin receptors, that sit at the back of our eyes and then from that light signals will transmit through the optic nerve into a part of our brain called the SCN, and that part of our brain then will then essentially govern things like adrenals and thyroid and release of serotonin and dopamine. So these are heavily regulated and so melanopsin receptors are only activated through blue light, so that so blue light is activating them. It's then telling the the um, the brain, that it's daytime.
Speaker 2:I need to make sure I'm releasing quarter dollar adrenaline, because that's my what makes me awake, alert, um, and not tired and sleepy. So that's why people don't go outdoors during the day or like, for example, places where there's low light in winter, and they stay indoors. That's when they start to actually get low mood, low energy, which is normally called like SAD or seasonal affective disorder, which is a depressive disorder that's 100% governed through light exposure. So if someone's got SAD, it's not like they've got some very complex depressive disorder that requires medication. It means it requires them to get some proper light exposure during the day so they actually can regulate their mood and energy levels. So that's very important.
Speaker 2:And then, when I'm talking about those kind of receptors in our eyes that activate under blue light and tell your brain it's daytime the opposite is at night time um, you don't want those receptors activating. You don't want them sending signals into your brain to release cortisol and adrenaline. Because if it's releasing cortisol and adrenaline at night you're not going to sleep, you're going to feel awake and alert. And when you kind of look at the hormone system, you've got cortisol which has, which also has its own 24-hour cycle, which is linked into our circadian rhythm.
Speaker 2:A cortisol should peak, kind of, should spike up in the morning from exposure to blue light into the sun, and it should keep up. It should start to elevate and sort of peak around the midday and then it starts to drop back down and starts to come to its lowest point at night. The opposite to that is our melatonin cycle. So melatonin is a hormone that helps us regulate our sleep. So it does the opposite. It should be. As we get into the evening that starts to rise and it does the complete opposite of that follows a complete opposite curve to cortisol. So they're kind of composing hormones and they're both sort of governed through light, and so it's very important that the only way those regulate themselves correctly is through having the right type of light exposure day and night. So it's not as simple as just going I'm gonna put on glasses at night.
Speaker 2:You know like I can last a while, while my light exposure because ultimately it's what you do during the day is very important as well to make sure you're regulating the correct hormonal cycle during the day as well yeah, okay, cool, that was good.
Speaker 1:You answered a lot of questions about some of the things I was going to ask you, because I think that you know, for someone who doesn't know very much about this topic, the UV thing I was going to ask you about that, so that got that answered. So that kind of sunbeds is a UV light which is part of the full spectrum but when it's isolated can cause skin damage, which is why they the full spectrum, but when it's isolated can cause skin damage, which is why they've banned them in this country. And then we've got the infrared, which is like with your saunas, right when you have an infrared sauna. So that's another spectrum of light which has different benefits. Okay, so if there was one or two things that you could do, I want to talk about the red light therapy stuff as well. So we've talked a lot about, like that, the, the negative impacts of blue light and and some of the things that we can do. And obviously being outside is super important, um, um, at regular intervals and probably, like they, ideally getting some morning sunlight right to help us produce the right hormones so that we're in our daytime state and then decreasing at night.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that wearing the glasses isn't enough. I'd like to ask you I've got blue light blocking lenses but they're not tinted, so I'd love to. I'd love to know your. You pulled a little face then like, yeah, that's a load of bs, which is okay, I'm open to that. But I'm curious about it and, like you're currently, we're on screens doing this interview, do you have anything on your screen to make it, to tint it? And, yes, some tips on like for people who who want to start getting blocking blue light and improving that area before we get onto the red light stuff. What are some things that they could do?
Speaker 2:I mean first of all. Yeah, I'd like to just talk about the glasses, because that's, um, I mean glasses, but like glasses become almost like a commodity. Yes, we'll talk about them Sales, they're available everywhere. So the biggest issue with that, which has kind of led to the industry being quite what I'd call like a little bit misleading, is, I'd say, about 95% of the blue-light glasses on the market now simply don't work.
Speaker 2:They're not really aligned to any kind of research or science. So what you'll find is, the large portion of them, clear lenses, kind of like the ones you've got on. They'll have a coating on the outside that you can kind of see this reflectiveness of blue off it, which technically means yes, there is some filtration of blue happening via reflective coating. Now that reflective coating that they put on the glasses is called a UV420 coating. What a UV420 coating means is it predominantly will filter light up to 420 nanometres, so it will block most uv light and violet light, um which, which is kind of irrelevant.
Speaker 2:Irrelevant because I don't really get it yeah well, I mean, I'm sitting indoors, I'm using glasses, I'm not really concerned about any kind of uv light from the sun, um, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:So I mean, again, there's a bit of marketing techniques around like uv and like, oh, my glasses block uv, um, and they will then filter some blue light up to 420 nanometers. But this is where the details really matter. So blue light is like I said, it's a white. Sorry, light is measured in wavelength, which are nanometers. Now blue light will range from 400 to 500 nanometers. That's the range of blue light.
Speaker 2:Now, the artificial light sources we get exposed to, from screens, led lighting, any kind of artificial led backlit source now, which is pretty much any digital devices, or lighting that predominantly emits a spike in blue light 455 nanometers around that range. So that's about the midway, midpoint of the blue light band. Now, at the 420 nanometer mark, it really doesn't even emit, if any blue light. So if you've got classes that are filtering not past 420, if they can't filter anything at 450, they're not really addressing the problem, um, and so, like the ones you've got on now may filter 10 percent or 15, some of them might filter 20, even if they filter 50 at 420, it wouldn't really um address the problem for you, um, it would, because you need to really start to reduce down that big spike of blue light that's coming from the devices, which is around the 455 nanometer mark.
Speaker 2:There's all sorts of gimmicks like. There's these little pins. You can see People shine a pin at the clear lens. It looks like a blue light and then you sort of see it doesn't pass through the lens. And there's the proof.
Speaker 2:Right, there's the proof. It's not blocking it. I actually got quite intrigued by this because I was like that just doesn't make sense to me. You can't have a clear lens and block out a blue light frequency. So I've got a spectrometer, I've got all the devices I tested, so it's not even emitting blue light to start with. It's actually emitting a violet light, a very blue violet, and so violet and UV can be blocked quite easy with a coating because it can reflect they can reflect the light off that lens very easy because it's a much shorter wavelength. So unfortunately, any kind of clear lens is really not going to have very little effect and I think the telltale signs of anyone that's kind of wanting to invest in in blue light glasses is really saying to whoever who are buying them off is like do they list the specifications of the lens, eg? Um, it's not as simple as saying, oh, yeah, filters 20 or 30 percent. It's like, yeah, but what? What frequency is that?
Speaker 2:it needs to either have kind of a like a spectrum report showing the frequencies, or even in the specs list, like, yeah, it's blocking this much at 455, or like, how much is it blocking at different frequencies? Because that kind of matters. Um, and at the moment we're really only talking about lenses that you would use during the daytime, because, um, it's kind of the dull and the purpose during the daytime is not to block out blue light completely, because of the reasons we kind of talked to before, that you actually want exposure to blue light during the day. If you blocked it completely, you would then tell your brain it's night time during the daytime and then you start to feel like tired, sleepy, unmotivated, um, so what you're trying to sort of the goal during the daytime is to bring the levels of blue light down to a more natural level. So it's not. So, it's not like the predominant wavelength that's like 10 times higher than every other frequency. So you're trying to reduce it by around 50 and you need, um, putting a uv 420 coating on there. It's not going to do it.
Speaker 2:Um, so you actually need, uh, to have special pigments inside the lens that, as the light passes through it doesn't try and reflect the light it actually. It can actually absorb the light. So through it doesn't try and reflect the light, it can actually absorb the light. Okay, yeah, so it absorbs the frequency that passes through it and then what actually ends up in your eyes is the filtered down light frequencies. So that's kind of like daytime and then nighttime.
Speaker 2:You do want to block the blue light, you want to block all of it, you want to block every frequency that has any kind of ability to activate those receptors in our eyes until our brain is daytime. So that results in needing to block at least 100% of blue light. When I say at least, because when you look at the research it actually extends that what I call like a melatonin disruption zone actually passes into the green light frequency. So green light is next to blue light on the color spectrum, and so blue light ranges from 400 to 500, and then green from like 5 to 570. And then, sorry, 580. And then in the research it showed right up to 550 nanometers. There's kind of melatonin disruption. So ultimately a pair of lenses you're wearing at nighttime will block 100% of blue light and green light up to 550 nanometers and that will look like a really dark orange, you really should have lens, so any sort of clear lens is clearly completely off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can say it. Yeah, do any optometrists use the, like what you were talking about? Do what do? Are they available for people who wear glasses like the, the lenses that do actually do what they're supposed to do? Well, not really.
Speaker 2:No so I mean optometrists will. First of all, optometrists will try and convince the public that blue lights are scam. Blue light blocking glasses don't work. There's no research, there's no credible science on this. At the same time, they'll still offer a UV420 coating to you which doesn't work. So, like there's kind of an agreement there, I align with them and say, yeah, the product you're selling is a waste of time, a waste of money. Yet you tell people that you still offer it to them for 50 and on um. But that's.
Speaker 2:It's like the devil's in the details, right like it's not like you can't categorize blue light glasses as one product that's been researched and proven to not work. Um, I like the analogy of like a water filter right, like I could buy a shitty water filter that is supposed to remove all the contaminants and chemicals from my water, but if I get a shitty one and then I do all my science and research and testing on it and I in, I measure my water, at the end it's still full of all these chemicals and stuff and it you've got. Oh, I can't just say water filters don't work in general, like I'm sorry, but there's so many different types of water filters and quality and it's exactly the same in blue light classes. Like any piece of research that was done, I would scrutinise it straight away and say, well, what lenses were used and what frequencies were they trying to filter and block? Because we're actually starting to see this now, because they became so popular.
Speaker 2:Is like meta analysis and studies done? And I'm like, and people will like, send them to me, oh, look, it doesn't work. And I'm like, yeah, but have you actually read the method? And like the glasses we use? And yeah, and all of them they're using a 420 code, like right. So I'm like you can't categorize them as the same. So anyway, back to the question. Is you can buy glasses from an optometrist and they'll give you an add-on of the 420 coding which doesn't work, which is what yep.
Speaker 2:well, most of them will first of all tell you like if you go in there like it's a waste of money to scam, um, but they don't offer the proper tinted glasses. We do so like I mean we've got now, like we have the ability to do full prescription and everything. So we've managed to partner and we've got like a full optics lab that we work with that understands what we're trying to do so.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're kind of like trying to go head-to-head with the optometrists, right, which is probably why they don't kind of want to promote, promote that there is like. You know, there is a problem and there is a solution to it. I think a lot of them sort of. The other issue with it is a optometrist is seen as like eye experts, right, like, oh, they're, you know, they've studied and they're educated and they're like doctors and the experts in eyes, so we should trust and believe in them. The problem with that is, yes, they are, they've gone and they've studied and trained for four or five years. But what they've trained and studied in is how to improve your eyesight if you've got issues with your eyes.
Speaker 2:They haven't learned and studied anything to do with light and how light impacts our eyes or how light impacts our sleep. So giving them the umbrella of we rely on them to be the experts here is completely wrong. Uh, it's I, they've got to stay. I'd say like, stay in their lane, which is like, hey, I've got a problem with my eyesight. Absolutely, you're going to go believe and trust them for what they say, but I've got problems in terms of, like, um, symptoms that are caused by incorrect light exposure. They're not trained in that area, nor should we like rely on them for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah good tips.
Speaker 1:Um what about your screen? Do you have any kind of coating on your screen?
Speaker 2:I, I, yeah, yeah, so screen. So that's why I'm wearing glasses, right?
Speaker 2:now because I don't need to. There's a couple. There's a couple of ways you can Get it. First of all, overhead lighting. All my overhead lighting in this room is fine with our own lighting. So if you're in an environment where you don't have Any significant artificial light sources in your own screens, you can actually use software to to really help mitigate that.
Speaker 2:So there's a free piece of software you can hear which is called like flux or flux. It's completely free to download. You can install that. It then picks up your location and then it will adjust the levels of light based on the time of day. So when it starts to get into the evening your screen will get warmer and warmer and warmer, and you can you can adjust the settings so, like by dark, it's like a deep orange color, which is really, really cool. I've always used that for many years. Or there's a paid piece of software called Iris Tech. So Iris Tech is essentially the same thing, it's just a little bit more customizable and a bit more feature rich in terms of how it operates. I think it's like $20 or something like that. It's pretty cheap as well. But that only works if you don't. You can't just put like the software on your screens and then have all, for example, lighting on above. It's kind of yeah, that would still like most work environments and offices.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I would still run the software but I would still have the glasses on as well, because I can't really control the other lighting light sources around me. Yeah, um, and the the light globes that you produce, they have different spectrums of light that you can kind of toggle through, don't they? That you can use for different times of the day.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we create. I mean over the years of evolving our sort of lighting technology. I mean we initially started with creating light bulbs that just removed the blue light spectrum that we could use in the evenings. The benefit of that was the glasses are great. The glasses work, but the glasses require every member of the household to wear them.
Speaker 1:Work, but the glasses require every member of the household to wear them um. So it's a very much like yeah, you have to be fully committed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, I always wear glasses with them on, so, um. But the biggest exposure we get in the evening is all our, is all our lights in our home that we all turn on. So, like, if we can eliminate that exposure by creating a more, um, biologically appropriate light for that time of, for the, for the night, then everyone in that household benefits. They don't benefit when they're on the screens or the devices or the tv, but it still helps, um. So that was kind of. The first evolution was having to create appropriate light sources that we can use in the evening. And then we went to look at well, what do we do during the daytime? We definitely have needs for lighting during the daytime sometimes and I couldn't really recommend anything because we didn't really want to use our lighting during the daytime because it didn't have any blue light in it. But I didn't want to recommend conventional lighting because it's got the wrong like makeup of spectrum, um. So we just thought we'd develop our own.
Speaker 2:So what we looked at is how can we create a full spectrum light bulb? Um, that kind of replicates outdoor light, doesn't have uv or infrared in it, but it has the same kind of makeup of the visible color spectrum, um, so that's like a nice white light to use during the daytime. But then we wanted to incorporate the ability to switch it into an evening bulb as well and so that kind of. Yeah, so we'll kind of create what we call a bio light bulb and it has like three, three modes in it where you can kind of go from a like a morning or a morning light, where it's got a small amount of blue light but not really high amounts, and you can flick it into like your daytime mode and you can kind of go back to like afternoon and right to your evening mode, or with the one light bulb and you just operate it through the light switch by turning it off and on, and it'll kind of change modes that's very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm getting. I'm gonna be shopping after this. I've got some, but not the entire house, so I'm like that's it. Um, we're all, we're all sorting the house out. Um, okay, brilliant, loads of information on that blue light. Um, I am conscious that we've, like we're edging towards our hour. Are you okay to go a little bit over so that we can cover a little bit of red light? Yeah, sure, just a little bit. Um. So talked a little bit about that infrared um, which is, I think, the saunas um that are coming into popularity now, and there's a whole bunch of research. We've I've had a um doctor on who who works with with red light saunas and any saunas actually, and the benefits, the health benefits for um, for us with sauna, sauna bathing, but the red light that you use isn't infrared, right. So we've got red light panels and red light therapy, which is is like growing in popularity and obviously more research is being done about the benefits of that. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's probably best to like classify what's the difference between like infrared sauna and the light therapy panel.
Speaker 2:So infrared saunas will use far, mid and far infrared light. So still infrared light. Infrared light has a very large band of wavelengths, you know, and it kind of starts in the 800 nanometres and goes right up to thousands of nanometres Infrared light in a sauna. So it's mid and far. Its primary mechanism of action and purpose is it penetrates the body and it makes the body heat up because primarily those are heat wavelengths and it makes you sweat and then you sweat and then the benefits of that are sweating helps with detoxification, also kind of helps like lymph and blood flow and so like these things around, like this, these benefits around what they call heat shock protein. So it's like it's kind of stressing the body with heat as well, and so it's like training the body. So it's like there's benefits around like cardiovascular and all sorts around that primarily, though, like it's sweating, detox, that sort of.
Speaker 1:Thing um.
Speaker 2:So and and the benefit of using infrared light is like you don't have to like a traditional sauna will heat the air and so it has to get really hot and uncomfortable with an infrared sauna, it doesn't heat the air, it actually heats you up from the inside out. It makes it a lot easier with a lot lower heat. But a red light therapy panel does not use mid and far infrared in a wide band like that. So red light therapy is using very specific frequencies of red light and near infrared light and kind of like the medical technical term for that is photobiomodulation. It's kind of like what's used in the medical community but like in the consumer community it's like no one has red light therapy. But it's like red and narrow for red light therapy and so what that's doing is kind of two, two benefits. So, uh, very specific frequencies of red light. So normally like the 630 nanometer and 660 nanometer red light um is very good for it. That will kind of elicit a lot of benefits on the skin layer. So it's like anything to the skin health and like making your skin like like wrinkles, blemishes, like scar tissue, anything around the skin. It can help hair growth as well, that skin layer and then you've got neopro red light which kind of ranges around 800 to 900 nanometers. It needs to be in that inlet. As soon as you go post 900 nanometers it's really um moving into the mid range and it's then it's moving into, like heating, more, more thermal wavelengths. So the the key with red light therapy is it's a non-thermal um therapy, so it's not the. The way it works is it doesn't heat you up. You'll feel a slight amount of heat from it, but it's not. You're not going to come out of it like sitting in front of a panel starting to sweat like a lot um. So in that 800 to 900 nanometer range, um, those frequencies of infrared light are very, very um powerful in the energy production system in our body, so in the cell, how our cells produce energy produced through mitochondria which in our cells and essentially they create an energy currency called ATP, and so ATP is the infrared light between those that 800 nanometers can up, regulate that ATP production significantly. So we're talking about how the cells can produce energy more efficiently. That produces a whole host of range of benefits. I mean that's why the benefits are so far reaching, because most problems or diseases or conditions have some form of mitochondrial dysfunction where the cell can't produce ATP efficiently. So this is really supporting the body's ability to create ATP and create energy so it can really up regulate the healing process, the recovery process.
Speaker 2:So the common things we hear about with robot therapy is like any kind of like recovery, pain, joint health, um anything around brain conditions like alzheimer's, parkinson's, um it's yeah and and then overall it's just like it's. So I can be kind of used for two things where it's like I've got this like disease and condition. I want. I want support and help or regular healing and it's also helped with this general wellness and like immune system modulation and like energy production and just feeling good and healthy and preventing sickness and disease as well. Um, and like it is a. I mean it's becoming a very growing like popular like therapy and awareness of like real life therapy is very popular um, but it's actually existed um in the medical community for a very, very long time. Um, there's there's over 8 000 pubmed studies on like real life therapy or photobiomodulation now using um, which is essentially using like light therapy um and studies. So it's it is it's not like a new, it's not like a new thing. That's kind of like oh well, there's not much research, just kind of this new thing that it is new that people coming aware of it, um, but yeah, it's existed for a while and it's very, very powerful.
Speaker 2:Um, light is very, very powerful in healing and can elicit such you know a lot of different benefits in the body.
Speaker 2:Um, the key things are when looking at red light therapy again, there's just like all these different devices out there now and things is um, red light face masks are becoming very popular. Um, so they're they're primarily eliciting on the skin. So that's like using the red light frequencies and that's where people are seeing a lot of benefits and it's more in like the beauty space versus like quite large panels that are a lot more powerful. Have the infrared frequencies uh, uh kind of more used in the wellness space or recovery and in helping that space. But it's very important that they're um emitting enough intensity of light as well. So it's quite important. It's like not only the frequencies but the intensity, because, like someone who's got like a little flexible, battery powered little thing that's emitting a bit of light is probably not going to have the desired effect people are looking for so that's um, obviously you, you know your stuff and that's one of the beauties of of your business, block blue light is that you are dedicated to finding the right, creating the right product based on the research.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it'd be easy to kind of go on Amazon and just find a red light panel or red light mask, but if it doesn't have that same kind of backing or just as you mentioned again, also with the glasses glasses then it's not necessarily going to be getting uh, we're not going to be necessarily getting the same benefits.
Speaker 1:I did a little experiment this week. So we've got a red light panel that we've got hung on the back of a door from block blue light and, um, I've had a little bit of uh, tennessee elbow type thing from just gripping in training, just a niggle, and I was like I'm just going to go in front of the red light. So I've just been doing like five to 10 minutes a couple of times a day and it's like D diminished I wouldn't say it's gone, but it's definitely improved over the last five days. I thought that was perfect timing because you were going to be here today. But in terms of like how long someone should use a red light panel, like how many times a week? Because I think that we often think you know you have a niggle and you go in front of the red light panel and you do it once and then you're like, oh, that didn't work.
Speaker 1:Like do you have to be a bit more consistent with the routine of using something like that to help aid recovery injury yeah, correct, I mean.
Speaker 2:So, like normally, you want to use it like five to seven days a week. You can do it every day, like it only needs, like a treatment area only needs 10 minutes sort of thing um, like the bigger, the bigger units you can do like full body kind of treatment in one go um. But yeah, it's not like a miracle cure it kind of is yeah, I guess it's got to be it's not a tablet. You can't you can't, just, you can't just do it once and it's gonna. It's like cumulative benefits, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Generally how it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, brilliant. I am very conscious of your time, daniel. I know you're very busy. Can I just ask you one more question? I'm really curious because obviously your business is kind of it became a thing without you necessarily ever having a big vision of like I'm going to start this business how? And lifestyle was an important part of you finding and creating this business right, because you were experiencing ill health because of some lifestyle factors. How do you manage your lifestyle now when you've got such a know exploding business exploding in a good way?
Speaker 2:yeah, I mean yeah, like my days can be quite hectic and I sometimes have to work at nights and stuff as well. Right, and I think the big thing for me is like I've just got non-negotiables that will. Will you know, it's like it's kind of like brushing your teeth. It just becomes a routine and habit that just happens every day. And that for me is getting outside in the morning every day for a walk. So I've got, you know, 20, 30 minutes of light exposure in the day and then that's just my negotiables at night around light exposure.
Speaker 2:I do those things like it helps, you know, if I can, regardless of how stressful my day gets, as long as I can rest and recover, and you know, each day and reset. That's very important. I mean it would be a very different story if I was very stressed but wasn't doing things to make sure you know that I'm sleeping well and recovering well. So, yeah, I've just kind of got those non-negotiables around. Pretty much everything I talked about, like getting morning light exposure, making sure I'm getting outside during the day for regular breaks, making sure I'm either wearing glasses or putting software on my screen and just continuously yeah, those things happen no matter how hectic life is yeah, yeah, cool.
Speaker 1:It's good to know, because I think that it can be a challenge for for many people, but it's like in trying to find those ways to integrate it into your everyday life, isn't it? Yeah, brilliant, daniel. We're going to share you all of the details about uh, the, the products, your website. Uh, in the guest directory, um, so people can find you easily. Is there anywhere? Is it best to go direct to the website? Do you have an Instagram following that you use for tips?
Speaker 2:and whatnot. Yeah, we do have Instagram as well. Okay, we're like official, but the website is probably the best resource we've got.
Speaker 1:Lots of information on the benefits. Yeah, over 100 blogs now. Yeah, Articles. Plenty of information on there as well and obviously um lots of information on the product so that people can kind of understand what the benefits are, and so on and so forth. Fabulous, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. It's um, yeah, especially um, all of the work you're doing. Yeah, um. I think this is really beneficial for the listeners. So I really appreciate you taking the time today. No worries.
Speaker 2:Great to be here, cheers.
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