Shining a light on our Mood

Here’s some of the QUESTIONS that people ask me in my practice?

  • Why don’t I have FOMO but JOMO?
  • I’m anxious but I just don’t know why.
  • I’m so tired – always, even after I just wake up.
  • Why can’t I get pregnant?
  • I can’t seem to think straight – everything’s foggy?
  • I want to come off my medications …

We all are touched by these questions every day, and every day we have to put them to the side (and where does that stuff even go?) The questions I’m asked in my practice have changed over the years.  I’m going to shine a light on what’s going on but also give you an insight into how we can live better, with less stress in our screen filled world and reduce that background hum of anxiety we do seem to carry.

With tech we’re like kids in a SWEET SHOP. We know deep down so much of it is bad for us, but we like the stuff and taking it away would be horrible! We’re at a stage where we think tech is the big solution – and we’re not that wrong – but we need to take stock and understand how to combine our digital delights effectively with our lifestyles in order to not get sick.

Much of what we learned in school is outdated – that we only use 5% of our brain the rest just junk -Mistake! The same with DNA the bits we didn’t understand we labeled Junk – Bigger Mistake! And up until recently we were increasingly we taking our arrogant ill-informed wisdom out on the SUN – it’s evil was the guideline for doctors! That is until very recently when the Nobel prize in science and medicine highlighted the importance of circadian biology. The rhythm of day and night.  The sun has got bad press.  But it’s one of the keys to our health and wellbeing.

SUPERCOMPUTER
How would you take it if I said Wifi has been around for – yep, billions of years. The receptors working on data transfer the speed of light with software powered by water and chemicals. That’s us and the sun!   Our Circadian Nobel prize winners discovered what the ancients long knew about the sun. That is’s vital.  Delving deeper into science it turns out, that our eyes do not just do the job of seeing but they run the supercomputer – in not just us but the whole planet – in every single living thing on it. Even in blind people – they still have the receptors to set our software in motion to set our master-clock.

STEPPING INSIDE
We used to live 90% outdoors, now we’re 90% indoors. We’ve lost connection with our WiFi system. Exacerbating the circadian disruption is that inside our bright world we’re further staring into lights – screens. LED and screen or blue light . With the full spectrum missing, the natural built in warning means it’s like you’re staring at the midday sun! Your body thinks it’s high noon – all day and into the night. This excess light time also disrupts our other clocks.  A fundamental one is our digestive clock – it seems as long as our eyes are open our mouth is open too! So not only is our sleep – our reparation time – disrupted so too is our eating cycle – we’re now averaging a span of about 15 hours of light time and eating time. We’ve got a biological mismatch of cogs and clocks.

ILLNESS
Without optimised circadian time keeping – the door opens to obesity, coronary and cancer diseases and emotional disruption – from our moods to our ability to think clearly.  Clocks and cogs keep things running smoothly.  In the way the world eventually agreed to a common clock that GMT is 00:00 meaning we can get flights, launch satellites and use servers globally.  But without which we have costly confusions like with the States who have all their dates backwards and have had to rework space programmes because they were using out of date measuring systems when everyone else is in metric. Having a master clock makes things work .. like clockwork.

OPTIMAL LIVING
Our new tech has not been designed to work with us, the more advanced biologic interface. We’ve got to give ourselves a break though. Mother Nature has had more than a few billion years to get to perfecting us. And she never left us the instruction manual … so how do we keep our sweeties, adjust and go forward. It’s no secret that doctors are overwhelmed and left behind – medicine is not helping as it did and for many it’s now even harming. Coupled with that in this digital age, we’ve also got the age of information, people have taken things into their own hands – it’s called Optimal living or Biohacking or if you don’t buy into the computer analogy it comes down to the same thing. How to live in Harmony with tech.

THE DARK
As with most great things – it starts in the bedroom! This is the only place you’ve got actual control of in your 24 hours of modern living. So it must in this modern age truly be a sanctuary so that you can become physically as well as emotionally resilient of your day. There are 100’s of daytime Biohacks optimising modern living that we could go into, but your bedroom triggering our repairing and sleep hormone, melatonin, must be the place you start.  And actually it’s the most simple.

First it’s the power of the dark that ultimately brings light into our life.   If you’re on your laptop close to bed time or staring at your phone until your turn off your LED light. Well you’ve just told your melatonin that it’s mid day. So it goes away till much later.  Or perhaps you ate close to bed time so your body has to work, not repair.  Basically what’s happening in these instances is that you’re just getting fat and sick at night.  Hack wise, bedrooms must be dark and ideally have red lights only or salt lamps. Think sexy. For that a midnight wee – ideally a night red light in the bathroom.

Learn to respect the bedroom. If you’ve children a red only light is the only light that doesn’t trigger the wake up cells. Red light at night. Parent’s delight!

Wifi – and charging your phone:  Don’t do it in the bedroom.  You’re just charging your head and stopping your hormone system working optimally.  You’re mismatching the code into the supercomputer.  It has to work overtime, you wake up tired.

LIVE LONG LIVE WELL
I’m about Anxiety and Workplace Wellness. I’ve only touched the iceberg of optimal living. It’s just one part of my practice, one that takes in understanding the environment that we’re in so we can be well longer physically and mentally. Thriving in a screen filled world. About respecting the supercomputer that we are. Understanding that we’ve moved far from Nature and that’s not good for us. Getting outside more with a good Circadian understanding and a dash of Biohacks are a fascinating growth area to balance this.

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