255. Fake Lighting Is Sabotaging Your Natural Rhythm w/ Tristan Scott

Blue light is essential during the day, harmful at night

Blue light is important for daytime biology but problematic when exposure comes from screens at night, distorting the natural light cycle.

"Blue light is not bad for us. It's actually extremely important. How are you going to be able to optimize for that environment if you're getting this distorted input?"

Blue light damages areas without fast cell turnover

Blue light may cause more radical damage than other wavelengths because it affects tissues that lack rapid cell regeneration to repair the damage.

"And they also highlight in that paper how blue light could debatably be more damaging from a radical production perspective because it's happening in areas that don't have this very fast cell turnover. Like on the higher levels, the ultraviolet is only really simulating on a very high."

Infrared light triggers cellular melatonin production

Reactive oxygen species from infrared light exposure may trigger cellular signaling to produce melatonin for intracellular cleanup.

"And it's the same thing. Like you could, you know, say that the reactive oxygen species generated from infrared light exposure may be what's kicking off the cellular signaling to then produce melatonin to clean it all up. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's signals that we've evolved with and been a part of our existence for millions of years as prehominids, hundreds of thousands of years as Homo sapiens, oxidative stress."

Don't eliminate all oxidants with supplements

Over-supplementing with antioxidants can be counterproductive. The body needs some reactive oxygen species for normal signaling.

"I'll have to have somebody on the future in the future to talk about hydrogen water. But it's like at a certain level, You don't want to get rid of all of the oxidants, you know, all of the reactive oxygen species in your body. Your mitochondria won't work without reactive oxygen species. It's about a balance, as everything is. And so, yeah, some of these wavelengths may induce oxidative reactions in the body. They may induce reactive oxygen species. And the question then becomes, with blue light, could exposure to imbalanced forms of blue light like this cause oxidized."

Blue light disrupts melatonin 3-4x more than red light

Blue light suppresses melatonin production at three to four times the rate of red light, making evening blue light exposure particularly harmful for sleep.

"And, you know, it's great because photobiomodulation is real and those wavelengths can be helpful, but it's also unnatural. And the bad part is: if you want to get into, you know, in general, how it's affecting our eyes and circadian rhythm, why are we using red lights? Because blue light disrupts melatonin production around three to four times the rate of red light. It doesn't mean that red light won't disrupt your melatonin or orange or anything. Any light can, any light exposure, and the intensity of that."

Daytime blue light boosts dopamine signaling

Blue light plays an important role in dopamine production during the day, making its timing rather than its existence the key health factor.

"Dopamine during the day, like blue light is far more delicate."

Blue light at night: use zero-flicker red LEDs instead

Switching to zero-flicker red LEDs at night avoids blue light disruption while providing functional ambient lighting.

"Dopamine during the day, like blue light is far more delicate."

Sunlight delivers infrared and UV beyond just vitamin D

Full-spectrum sunlight delivers infrared and ultraviolet wavelengths essential for hormone production, not just vitamin D.

"Like this is without the rest of the sky. Exactly. And it's done without infrared and ultraviolet, you know, light exposures is tremendously important for our biology, for hormone production. You know, vitamin, everyone goes back to vitamin D. That's just like one, one aspect of it. I mean, it's really deeply entrenched and it's something that passes the logic test. You know, we evolved as a species outdoors. Our biology has all these mechanisms to handle."

Blue light increases breast cancer cell growth 5-6x

Research shows blue light exposure increased breast cancer cell growth rates five to six times and expanded tumor size in about 30 days.

"I have it written down here: is that blue light increases breast cancer cell growth rates five to six X the tumor size in like 30 days."

Blue light glasses at restaurants improve sleep quality

Tristan Scott wears blue-light-blocking glasses even at restaurants despite looking odd, prioritizing sleep quality over appearance.

"I went to the restaurant, I even had blue light blocking glasses on, looking like a goober over there eating my grass-fed steak. I don't care. I want to sleep well."

Use software blue light filters on all devices

Software like Iris for computers and the iPhone's built-in red light filter via triple-click can reduce blue light exposure from screens.

"On both of these devices, I use blue light filters. So on my computer, I use iris. I have no financial affiliation. On the iPhone, we can put a link to the video that I've done. You can use a full red light filter with a triple click."

Eye strain from screens may be blue light, not vision

Some people mistake blue-light-induced eye strain for a vision problem and get unnecessary prescriptions instead of filtering blue light.

"One thing that I thought about that I just wanted to mention, circling back to what we were saying earlier, some people, because of the strain they're getting from looking at their computer, they're using like yellow glasses during the day when they're looking at their computer. Do you think this is harmful? Because then you're blocking blue light during the day. So what you want to do, I think what you might want to do is get a better computer, get something that's flickering less, use less blue light on your computer. The ideal, I think, would be to not use blue light blocking glasses even when you're looking at your computer."