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“I tried everything under the sun—except the sun. And that was what I needed to do,” says Shannon Kates, former investment banker turned wellness advocate, who joins the Quantum Biology Collective Podcast to share her transformational journey from peak career success to debilitating health challenges—and her surprising, science-backed path back to vitality.
In this episode, Shannon Kates reveals how the endless pursuit of solutions in the digital health marketplace left her feeling more overwhelmed and unwell than ever. After running the gauntlet of supplements, specialist diets, and protocols, she discovered that the missing piece wasn’t in her pantry, but just beyond her front door—a fundamental reconnection with natural light, circadian rhythms, and nature itself.
Rooted in research spanning thousands of PubMed studies and Nobel-winning discoveries in circadian biology, Shannon Kates unpacks how light—and darkness—drive our mitochondrial health, shape our metabolism, and even regulate anxiety. She shares how simple, ancient practices like morning sunlight, grounding, and blocking artificial blue light at night offer more powerful results than any trendy biohack.
Tune into the Quantum Biology Collective Podcast to hear how Shannon Kates cut through the chaos, formed Squint Essentials as a “start here” guide for overwhelmed seekers, and why true wellness might be, as she puts it, “embarrassingly simple.” Discover why, if you haven’t thought about light, there’s more room for hope, healing, and energy than you ever realized.
5 Key Takeaways
Light is the overlooked foundation of vibrant health—start reclaiming your biology today with these essentials:
- Get outside for morning sunlight before screens—begin every day with natural light to set your circadian rhythm and energize your body.
- Prioritize real connection with nature—take sun breaks, eat or make calls outside, and ground yourself daily for a stronger body and mind.
- Ditch blue light at night—dim your lights, use blue-blocking glasses, and shut off screens early to protect melatonin and deep sleep.
- Unsubscribe from the chaos—stop chasing endless wellness tips and focus instead on these core routines that move the needle.
- Take small, consistent steps—perfection isn’t required. Every bit of extra sunlight and grounded time counts, so start simple and build from there.
Memorable Quotes
"I tried everything under the sun except the sun, and that was what I needed to do. I didn’t realize that my relationship with light and my daily routines around light were actually what would move the needle on all these issues that were bothering me most."
"My health and wellness was all about my relationship with light. It was about this Nobel Prize winning concept of circadian rhythm—bright days and dark nights. It felt so simple, almost embarrassingly simple, but it’s the foundation for everything else."
"Our body is incredibly complex, but the solution is embarrassingly simple, and that is getting outside every day. We are circadian beings, we live by rhythms, and our health really starts with cycles and routines that are basic and every day."
Connect with Shannon
Website: www.squintessentials.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561011365133
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/squintessentials/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Squintessential
Sunstack Substack: https://squintessentials.substack.com
Resources Mentioned
PubMed – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
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Transcripts
Shannon Kate, welcome to the QVC podcast.
Speaker:Thank you. Happy to be here. Yeah. I'm so excited to do
Speaker:this. So I want to dive into your story,
Speaker:um, because as we were just chatting about, I love, I love
Speaker:the stories of people especially who have, like, a very strong
Speaker:business background or from what we would consider like a very sort of
Speaker:traditional way of doing things in the world. And
Speaker:then they find their way into. The wellness lane because. Right. You know, we
Speaker:can talk about, you know, people are like, oh, you know,
Speaker:I don't do that. That's not my deal. Like, let's go to the doctor and
Speaker:get into all this other nonsense. So walk us through. Walk
Speaker:us through your story. You're an investment banker, you're doing all
Speaker:the things, and now here you are,
Speaker:right, Creating a media company for light. So tell us
Speaker:what happened. Yes. So, yes, I am the I'm pearl wearing
Speaker:hippie dippy now. But anyway, so I
Speaker:did. I worked for an investment bank. I lived in Los Angeles.
Speaker:And, you know, I was. I was doing all
Speaker:the right things and. But I wasn't feeling my best and
Speaker:I knew something was off and I took the
Speaker:traditional route. I went to my functional doctor.
Speaker:By that time, you know, I was in my 40s, my hormones were
Speaker:crashing, and I actually, I went to the doctor and
Speaker:she, this is a true story. She said, I'm sorry, Shannon, I think
Speaker:your ovaries have just fallen asleep. This is just a short
Speaker:period of time. And I said, well, can you wake them?
Speaker:Can you wake them up? And
Speaker:so I was having all these experiences and I wasn't getting, you know, I was.
Speaker:The people that I was expecting to have the answers didn't have them.
Speaker:So I did what everybody else did. And I think my story is no
Speaker:different than anyone else's, which is I searched for answers,
Speaker:and once I didn't get them from the people that I thought should have them,
Speaker:I. I took it upon myself. And when I first took it upon
Speaker:myself, I became, you know,
Speaker:what a marketer's dream. Right? I read every
Speaker:email, I signed up for every
Speaker:influencer's, you know, thoughts on health. And I mean, even
Speaker:this morning when I look in my email, I have to share this with you
Speaker:because my. My struggle with health was
Speaker:that. Not that I didn't have solutions, but. But I was
Speaker:overwhelmed with solutions. There were so many solutions
Speaker:in the health marketplace, and I was completely overwhelmed by
Speaker:them. And so if there was, you know, someone would
Speaker:say, oh, I've got something for that. Oh, text me that, oh, I have someone
Speaker:for that. Oh, I'll do that. So I was just chasing
Speaker:solutions, but still really feeling miserable and
Speaker:not figuring out why I couldn't get my
Speaker:body to a place where I wanted it to be. And so even this
Speaker:morning, I have to share this with you because we are in this chaos of
Speaker:health. It says, okay, so, one. These are all.
Speaker:Okay, so these are all. Because what I love that you did
Speaker:was, okay, so you're. You're having health
Speaker:issues that are affecting your quality of life. Yes. Go to your doctor, everyone.
Speaker:Which we all do. And they're like, yeah, your labs are okay. Don't
Speaker:worry about it. Or whatever. No, you're just, you know, know, getting older. Oh, you
Speaker:have young kids. This is normal. Basically, a
Speaker:million different ways of saying, like, I got nothing. I got
Speaker:nothing. I got nothing. Yeah. So some people slink away and are like,
Speaker:oh, I guess. I guess this is just life now. That's. And
Speaker:then some people, like, you are like, no, I don't accept
Speaker:that. Nope, that was me too. I'm like, this can't be right.
Speaker:Nope. And then the journey begins.
Speaker:It's like, where to go? There's so much.
Speaker:And yeah, you sign up and so you're still. So you are just going to
Speaker:share with us some. Yeah. And then you start to get. Problem isn't like, oh,
Speaker:I got nothing. The problem is I got so much and I don't know exactly
Speaker:thing exactly. And I had everything. So, you
Speaker:know, I wasn't methylating my B vitamins. So I went on, you
Speaker:know, the big chase for methylcobalamin. And I thought if I could get my
Speaker:supplements right, then everything would be fine, you
Speaker:know. And then I, you know, and then I had heavy metals.
Speaker:And so what I didn't know at the time was that my best chelator
Speaker:for heavy metals was actually melanin, was actually the sun.
Speaker:But there were so many things about light that I didn't understand at that time.
Speaker:And I didn't understand that light was actually what moved
Speaker:the needle on so many of the com. So every complaint
Speaker:that I had, whether it was. Whether it was, you know, gut issues,
Speaker:I was having bloating, I was having hormone issues, I was having sleep
Speaker:issues, I was having thyroid issues. I was, you know,
Speaker:I had anxiety out of nowhere. I just didn't know I wasn't
Speaker:operating optimally. And I couldn't figure it out. And I was
Speaker:given small little tidbits and I chased down there, I chased
Speaker:this, I chased that. And then I'm still
Speaker:noticing. And I mean, no one can even have a conversation
Speaker:anymore with a group of women or a group of men. All
Speaker:people are talking about is, you know, carbs and
Speaker:protein and fat and what should I be doing? And what I know
Speaker:now is that it comes back to
Speaker:energy over inflammation, right? And that one third of the
Speaker:story is food, but two thirds is
Speaker:light and grounding. And our bodies as
Speaker:electromagnetic beings, we are not this kind of,
Speaker:you know, we aren't just a function of these diets. And
Speaker:this, you know, this morning in my email, you know all the
Speaker:headlines and I every morning you open up your email.
Speaker:So one common, one common fruit turns sleep
Speaker:into a fat burning machine. And that was the email that I
Speaker:responded to. What is that common fruit? I need to find out what that
Speaker:common fruit was. And I was a very intelligent person, but boy,
Speaker:they had me because I was searching. I didn't feel well.
Speaker:I wanted answers and I really wanted to find them. And I was,
Speaker:I tried everything. I tried everything under the sun except the sun.
Speaker:And that was what I needed to do. And
Speaker:even this, you know, memory loss linked to five common
Speaker:additives. Are they in your pantry? So I would
Speaker:fall into this kind of. Oh, so I would check my pantry.
Speaker:I probably had, I read that email five years ago, I probably would have
Speaker:undone my pantry, figured out if I had these five ingredients
Speaker:and actually thought that those were contributing to
Speaker:things like why I wasn't sleeping, why I didn't have energy,
Speaker:why my hormones were dysregulated. And I didn't realize that
Speaker:my relationship with light and my daily routines around
Speaker:light were actually what were really going to move the needle on
Speaker:all these issues that were bothering me most.
Speaker:And so that was so,
Speaker:so eye opening. But just in terms of results,
Speaker:just changing how I felt. I mean, I literally
Speaker:was so fatigued. I was so fatigued. I
Speaker:mean, in the afternoon. And then of course, I go to my caffeine
Speaker:and you know, I'm trying, oh, I'm going to load on more
Speaker:supplements. I mean, I kept loading. Oh, it must be the collagen protein.
Speaker:Oh, I didn't juice my celery this morning. Oh, I didn't count my
Speaker:steps. Oh, I didn't do this. I didn't do this. And there's kind of this
Speaker:cycle of disappointment in what I'm not keeping up with
Speaker:because there's so many solutions. So there, it wasn't
Speaker:possible for me to achieve health because I
Speaker:couldn't, I couldn't really follow all these
Speaker:solutions. There were so many when the real solution was
Speaker:embarrassingly simple. It was embarrassingly simple,
Speaker:which was reconnect with nature. And it was
Speaker:starting my day without my phone, not sleeping with my phone
Speaker:in my room. Starting my day with morning light as
Speaker:early as possible. Sunrises are optimal, you know, know,
Speaker:grounded in the earth, facing east, no
Speaker:contacts, light in my eyes, light on my skin.
Speaker:Connecting to nature and actually listening to nature. I mean, I
Speaker:realized that I just had become so disconnected.
Speaker:I didn't even hear birds anymore. I mean, I know that sounds crazy, but
Speaker:I literally was so disconnected that I,
Speaker:I had all these natural frequencies that I were, was just
Speaker:completely disconnected from. So.
Speaker:Wow. Yeah, it's amazing. And it's, you
Speaker:know when you say like I didn't even hear the birds, I totally feel that.
Speaker:And it's like the
Speaker:way that, I mean there's so much in what you just said that we,
Speaker:that we can unpack, but
Speaker:the idea that so many of our health issues
Speaker:have come about because of the artificial barriers that we put up
Speaker:between ourselves and what really
Speaker:drives our biology, which is nature.
Speaker:And then on top of that, within those barriers, we've filled it up
Speaker:with harmful frequencies that
Speaker:are harming our biology and cut ourselves off. And
Speaker:so we go to find solutions for that and we're
Speaker:just inundated. And the,
Speaker:the digital marketing sphere has so
Speaker:completely taken over, which, you know, I, I think
Speaker:it's great that people are able to, to run a business off the Internet and
Speaker:work outside the system. I think that's amazing. I have no problem with it.
Speaker:But in order to maintain your social
Speaker:content, like we're just, just completely overwhelmed
Speaker:with these tips, as you said. So
Speaker:talk to me a little bit. So you were like navigating through like
Speaker:pro tip after pro tip after pro tip,
Speaker:which doesn't lead us to the
Speaker:fundamentals. Right. So how'd you get there?
Speaker:I did a lot of research, a ton of research, and I enjoyed it. And
Speaker:the most shocking part of the research is that
Speaker:it wasn't a deep dive, it was a very shallow dive because there is
Speaker:so much research, there are thousands and thousands,
Speaker:you know, over 80,000 PubMed articles about
Speaker:circadian biology. And so what I learned is
Speaker:that my health and wellness was all about
Speaker:my relationship with light. And it was about this Nobel
Speaker:Prize winning concept of circadian rhythm, which is
Speaker:bright days and dark nights. And it felt so simple,
Speaker:too simple. And I think because we're so marketed
Speaker:with so many solutions, we don't believe it could be that simple.
Speaker:We don't believe that it could be that basic. It must be Harder,
Speaker:you know, we must have to pay for it. It's like, you know, there's, there's,
Speaker:you know, economic theories about how you value things. And some
Speaker:people will value, even if it's the same item, if
Speaker:something's more expensive than the other, then they think that has more
Speaker:value, which is so interesting to me because the best value, I mean,
Speaker:they say the best things in life are, are free. And it's true for your
Speaker:health, whether you want to believe it or not. And I wanted to pay.
Speaker:I said, oh, if there's a detox, I can buy.
Speaker:Oh, there's a juice cleanse. Oh, the collagen proteins. Sign me
Speaker:up. It was this endless cycle of sign
Speaker:me up. And I was signing up for indoor things and I
Speaker:needed to sign up for nature. And interestingly enough,
Speaker:you know, as I did the research and as I really, I love history
Speaker:as well, you know, I looked at how we evolve
Speaker:and where we evolved. You know, we evolved on the Eastern Rift
Speaker:of Africa in the sun, you know, full spectrum
Speaker:sun. And that is how our brains evolved.
Speaker:And yes, you know, we all took these migration paths and we have
Speaker:mitochondrial DNA that really inform, you
Speaker:know, how our bodies work. And if you look at
Speaker:the work of Doug Wallace, he's actually the chief of, I'm sure you know Doug,
Speaker:he's the chief of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Speaker:He has done incred research on our
Speaker:mitochondrial DNA and he's shown us that while
Speaker:we continue to look at research on our nuclear
Speaker:DNA, that our mitochondria are the one that are
Speaker:informing us of whether we get sick or stay
Speaker:well. And that 85 to 90% of
Speaker:cancers and disease are attributable to
Speaker:our mitochondrial dysfunction. And how do our mitochondria do
Speaker:well or not do well? The light we provide them.
Speaker:So the very mechanism in our cells
Speaker:that determines whether we get well, stay well
Speaker:or get sick is dependent on light. It's dependent on
Speaker:frequencies, it's dependent on the daily
Speaker:routines that we do around light. Our mitochondria
Speaker:need full spectrum light, they need infrared light.
Speaker:In fact, they can't produce ATP unless they have
Speaker:infrared light, which is 43% of the
Speaker:daily sun. So just getting outside, you're
Speaker:providing your body energy that has nothing to do with food.
Speaker:And our emails. My email this morning was all about food
Speaker:and the ingredients in my pantry and the food that's going to help me
Speaker:sleep and the food that's going to do that, and food nourishing food, local
Speaker:grown food, very important. But I'm a numbers person. And if
Speaker:you say I can focus on the 2/3 or the 1/3,
Speaker:I'm going to focus on the 2/3 because that is the driver
Speaker:for me. That's what moved the needle for me. Do you have to eat
Speaker:healthy? Should you eat healthy? Of course. But what I'm saying and
Speaker:what I learned for me is that how our bodies
Speaker:operate was not just about food. It was about the
Speaker:water in our body, the grounding, the energy that
Speaker:we could create by connecting with the sun. And these are kind
Speaker:of basic, you know, I'm dumbing down quantum biology, but it doesn't
Speaker:have to be. It's very
Speaker:simple. If you can't say it in a simple way,
Speaker:I don't think. Yeah, I mean, it's. The sun's stupid. Like, that's
Speaker:it. It's, it's about building
Speaker:your day around light. And we can't always do that. Right? We're,
Speaker:we're not, you know, our ancestors, we're not naked in the sun all
Speaker:day hunting and gathering, but we can
Speaker:create opportunities in our day and prioritize
Speaker:light. And we prioritize light above everything else.
Speaker:That means when you're looking at your day, I'm not just looking at,
Speaker:oh, this is what I'm going to do today. I'm looking at my
Speaker:day of, this is what I'm going to do today. And how
Speaker:does light impact that? Am I going to have a meeting during UVA
Speaker:rise when the sun is around 10 degrees? No, I'm actually going to allow
Speaker:myself to build my day around the sun. I mean, we've
Speaker:built our life and our harvest around the sun
Speaker:for thousands of years. I mean, that's how we live. That is
Speaker:so true. And we're like, oh, let's take this, take the light cycles
Speaker:into account and people like, do you understand my schedule?
Speaker:Right. Exactly. It's not a, this is not
Speaker:a new thing. No, it's not a new thing. And we're about to, you
Speaker:know, go through daylight savings again. I mean, we're constantly
Speaker:toying with Mother Nature and, you know, you sound so
Speaker:silly. Never fool with Mother Nature. Well, don't. It's true.
Speaker:It's very true. We, the sun. The
Speaker:sun is perfectly calibrated for us. Every single
Speaker:wavelength of light is calibrated for a certain reason
Speaker:for our body, to keep us healthy. Whether that is the
Speaker:visible light spectrum that we can see, the red, orange, blue, green, all the
Speaker:things we learned. Or is it infrared that we
Speaker:can't see. Infrared is incredibly important. And it's available to us
Speaker:all day. And uv. UV is incredibly important
Speaker:to us. And so, you know, I got this email this morning. Add this
Speaker:to coffee. 312% faster fat
Speaker:burn. 312% faster fat burn. But what people
Speaker:don't know is that beta oxidation is fat
Speaker:burning. Beta oxidation happens to our body, in our body
Speaker:to help us burn fat. What do we need for beta oxidation?
Speaker:We need UV light. So we're getting all these
Speaker:emails about how we need to burn fat, how
Speaker:we burn fat, we burn fat outside. We burn
Speaker:fat, we help our metabolism outside.
Speaker:And I think it's so funny that, you know, these continuous glucose
Speaker:monitors are all the rage. I was just in New York City, and all these
Speaker:women, you know, slapping them on and saying, oh, my gosh,
Speaker:I can't believe when I ate a hot fudge sundae,
Speaker:it didn't increase my glucose as fast as my
Speaker:quinoa salad. But they're missing controls
Speaker:for light. They are chasing down all these
Speaker:modalities, and they think they're digging deep because they're using a continuous
Speaker:glucose monitor. And that's what doctors use. But the fact is,
Speaker:is the. That light is much more powerful to
Speaker:that equation than anything that they're learning from the continuous glucose
Speaker:monitor. In fact, had they just got 15 minutes of red light,
Speaker:they would have reduced those blood glucose spikes by
Speaker:27% just by getting red light, just by being
Speaker:outside. So they've. We're thinking of food
Speaker:and we're thinking of health in the context of.
Speaker:Of blood sugar. And blood sugar is very important. But how
Speaker:is our blood sugar regulated? Our blood sugar is regulated
Speaker:when our mitochondria are working properly, when we're getting red and
Speaker:infrared light, when our cells are churning. When our cells are
Speaker:churning, they can deal with a whole lot, but we're
Speaker:not letting them work properly. And our mitochondria are
Speaker:powerhouses from 10th grade. They're powering down. And
Speaker:when they power down, we can't accomplish the basic
Speaker:things that we want, like sleep, metabolism. All the
Speaker:things that we're complaining about all come back to light.
Speaker:So it's. Shannon, you're a powerhouse.
Speaker:You're a powerhouse explainer. I love it. I love it. And
Speaker:because, yeah, I mean, this is what's missing, and this is
Speaker:sort of what we're all here for,
Speaker:is to bring this piece back in. And
Speaker:as you said, it's not about replacing anything. I
Speaker:mean, it may end up replacing some things. It turns out you might not need
Speaker:certain things once you get outside, but it's not about replacing modalities or
Speaker:making everything about this. It's about understanding
Speaker:that this is fundamental. So as you said, okay, so Doug Wallace
Speaker:has showed us unless you have a rare genetic
Speaker:disorder, everything, every chronic illness comes back to
Speaker:mitochondria. Right. And all the research has shown us
Speaker:that mitochondria are totally light dependent. Yes.
Speaker:And yet your peers are all drowning in
Speaker:glucose monitors and you know, 800 different email
Speaker:tips every day about a whole array of things
Speaker:without coming back to first
Speaker:principles. Absolutely. And the sad part
Speaker:to me is that you know, and I know you've had
Speaker:some amazing people on your show when you're talking about nervous system
Speaker:regulation. You know, all these solutions,
Speaker:ironically are such a detriment to people's
Speaker:nervous systems. And for our mitochondria to work,
Speaker:we have to begin with our nervous system. We have to be in a
Speaker:state where we can actually accept
Speaker:information and relax into it and research and
Speaker:be curious. But everyone is so
Speaker:dysregulated. We have so much information. So that's
Speaker:kind of number one. That's a big part of it
Speaker:and we are so connected. Say a little bit more about that and
Speaker:like what your personal experience is and what you found in the research.
Speaker:So you know, we've talked a little bit about how light supports our
Speaker:mitochondrial function. We need it to be healthy. And yes, every important
Speaker:biological process. Talk to me
Speaker:about that felt sense of safety because anxiety
Speaker:is, I mean it is so pervasive.
Speaker:It is from 4 year olds to
Speaker:80 year old, you know, like everyone seems to
Speaker:be struggling with that in
Speaker:some capacity. And the way that we all went to food and supplements for
Speaker:our health situations for anxiety, we're all going to a psychological
Speaker:solution, right. Which again, very important.
Speaker:Right. But if we don't look at also from this perspective, we're missing
Speaker:something. So talk to me like what you've seen around that.
Speaker:Well, I think it's, it's, there's two parts, right? There's,
Speaker:there's the daytime light and then there's the avoidance of
Speaker:blue light at night. And what I saw in my experience
Speaker:was that, that second piece, my relationship with
Speaker:artificial light at night was a huge driver
Speaker:in anxiety and cortisol. And so
Speaker:I kind of prided myself, oh, I'm a night owl. And you
Speaker:know, at the time, you know, I had young kids and so I'd get them
Speaker:to bed and then my night, that was, that was my jam. That
Speaker:was when I was going to get stuff done, I was alone, I could,
Speaker:I could think, I could accomplish and so
Speaker:what I actually was doing was, was just the opposite.
Speaker:So when my kids went down and I was, you know,
Speaker:unknowingly helping them with their circadian rhythm, I was really
Speaker:disrupting mine. And so the night for me
Speaker:was a blue light moment. And what I've learned
Speaker:in my study of light, and it's really fascinating, but
Speaker:that as I said before, the sun is perfectly
Speaker:calibrated and that the sun works as a team, which
Speaker:is what I say, is that all these wavelengths work together. And
Speaker:they never are solo, they're never rogue, they're never alone,
Speaker:they're perfectly designed. And, and even studies on UV
Speaker:light, I mean, when they, when they demonize UV light, they
Speaker:studied UV light on its own. Well, of course it
Speaker:doesn't work when it's on its own. It is always
Speaker:accompanied by infrared and the other visible light
Speaker:spectrum wavelengths. So we never experience
Speaker:light solo, except for one thing on this
Speaker:screen. And this is intense blue
Speaker:light solo, and is not matched by red.
Speaker:It's not matched by infrared or UV or any of the other colors of the
Speaker:visible spectrum. And that's not natural. It's light we
Speaker:created. And it's very useful so you and I can speak
Speaker:to each other. But it's not how we were designed
Speaker:to accept light. And so what I found personally,
Speaker:and as I reflect back, I realized that,
Speaker:boy, in the evening, I was ingesting a lot of
Speaker:high intensity blue light that was unaccompanied by the other
Speaker:wavelengths. And that was what was going in my eyes
Speaker:and on my skin. And what I learned is
Speaker:that we have non visual photoreceptors in our eyes called
Speaker:melanopsin. And melanopsin is particular
Speaker:to, particular to both our eyes and
Speaker:our skin, but it's a blue light detector. So we're designed to
Speaker:see blue light because we're designed to see blue light in
Speaker:nature. And let me explain. So blue light is our
Speaker:timekeeper. When we get up in the morning and we see blue light in the
Speaker:morning, it tells our body to wake up. It's our blue light.
Speaker:It's cortisol. It raises our cortisol. This is when raising cortisol is good
Speaker:in the morning. And blue light allows you to do that. It's your wake
Speaker:up and go wavelength, also accompanied by rain. It's
Speaker:embedded in that spectrum. Embedded in that spectrum. We
Speaker:go outside, there's blue light in there. Okay, there's blue light,
Speaker:but it's not alone. There's blue and red and green
Speaker:in the morning because we need all These wavelengths to start our day.
Speaker:And yes, we need to put our melatonin away, bring our
Speaker:cortisol up and start our day. That's how we do it. But
Speaker:fast forward to the evening. I'm creating
Speaker:an artificial environment on my screens when I'm doing
Speaker:my shopping or whatever I'm doing at night that I need to get done.
Speaker:I'm actually taking blue light that's unaccompanied by these
Speaker:natural wave, other natural wavelengths. How it happens in nature.
Speaker:I'm increasing my cortisol. I'm increasing my blood
Speaker:glucose. I mean, if I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor
Speaker:at 11pm at night while I'm doing my online shopping, it
Speaker:doesn't matter what I'm eating, that monitor is going
Speaker:to spike because of the blue light. It's not about
Speaker:food. It's about light. Okay? So I just wanted to
Speaker:say that again for everyone who may be new to
Speaker:this arena. Blue light
Speaker:at night, even if you're not eating anything,
Speaker:will spike your blood sugar. So ladies with the
Speaker:glucose monitors, put it on.
Speaker:Actually, don't pop open your laptop and watch what happens.
Speaker:Right, right. And that is, I find, like, this piece
Speaker:really blows people's minds. It blows my mind. Every time I hear it, it blows
Speaker:my mind. I'm like, what? Right? And everyone
Speaker:says, oh, gosh, you know, it's late at night, and then they're walking over
Speaker:to their cabinets, right? And they're having the midnight snack.
Speaker:And then the next morning they're saying, oh, why did I do that? Well, I
Speaker:can tell you why you did that. You did that because you were
Speaker:bombarding yourself with blue light. And it's not. I mean,
Speaker:it's not your fault. You don't know it, but it's increasing
Speaker:your glucose, it's increasing your cortisol, and it's actually
Speaker:reducing your insulin sensitivity for the following day.
Speaker:So then you wake up and it's just this vicious cycle. And like, oh,
Speaker:my gosh. So that blue light spiking me, it's going to start a
Speaker:craving. I'm going to have a midnight spot snack, which then wrecks,
Speaker:wrecks my sleep. And I've already wrecked my sleep with the blue light,
Speaker:okay? And it crushes me. So it's increasing
Speaker:your blood glucose, it's making you want more snacks, and
Speaker:it's crushing your melatonin. So your melatonin is this
Speaker:master antioxidant that you need for sleep.
Speaker:And what we found and what the research is showing us
Speaker:is that melatonin is more than just a sleep Hormone.
Speaker:And we kind of treat it as a sleep hormone. Right? I mean, it's who
Speaker:I can't tell you, even my own daughter. I mean, the melatonin gummies by
Speaker:the bedside, that's what everyone's go to is. Oh, good. Okay,
Speaker:I need to get to sleep. I'm gonna pop. Is it a 5 milligram night?
Speaker:Is it a 10 milligram night? And this is kind of the
Speaker:cycle of chaos that we're in because we don't understand
Speaker:melatonin. And melatonin,
Speaker:it's called the night hormone, but it's made all day. In fact, it's
Speaker:only 5% of melatonin is made in your pineal gland.
Speaker:95% is made in your mitochondria. It's made at a cellular
Speaker:level. And how is it made? It's made from all this
Speaker:infrared light, all this red light that you've been in the sun all
Speaker:day, 43% of daytime light.
Speaker:That's your melatonin gummy. That's where you're going to get your sleep.
Speaker:By creating the circadian rhythm by
Speaker:exposing yourself to bright light during the day and this darkness at
Speaker:night. That is where sleep comes from. That's how you build
Speaker:melatonin. And your melatonin is what is required
Speaker:for you to do critical cell repair.
Speaker:So during the night autophagy, this is self
Speaker:cleaning. This is. And I just did a reel about this, I haven't
Speaker:posted it yet, but I had two trash cans, you know, I had
Speaker:the blue recycle and I had the black trash can. So
Speaker:autophagy is what happens when you recycle and repair.
Speaker:That's how you have restorative sleep. So it's not just about
Speaker:sleep, it's about repair. Because if we didn't repair, if
Speaker:we didn't run our dirty dishwasher every night, we're going to wake up with dirty
Speaker:dishes. So we need to recycle and repair. We also have a
Speaker:process called apoptosis, which is cell suicide. It sounds scary, but it's
Speaker:necessary because if cells aren't working for us, if they're cancer cells,
Speaker:we need to get rid of them. But all this is dependent on
Speaker:the melatonin that we're making. This master antioxidant
Speaker:that we think comes in a gummy, but it really comes in our
Speaker:relationship around light.
Speaker:It's just so powerful.
Speaker:It is just so powerful.
Speaker:Shannon, I'm so glad we're doing this. I love a good high level
Speaker:overview. It's like my favorite. I mean, I know
Speaker:the deep dives are very popular. But this is really like, it's because
Speaker:it's just so important to like go up high and look
Speaker:at all of it from a high level perspective. And what you were
Speaker:saying, it's like, what is the thing that is going to move the needle
Speaker:in one direction or the other on all of these things,
Speaker:right? And it's light, slash darkness. Right.
Speaker:And, and I mean when you look at the research, I mean, for anyone that
Speaker:wants to take, I mean, deep dives are really helpful and I,
Speaker:my most important piece of advice is be curious.
Speaker:You know, just keep being curious. Notice the things you
Speaker:know, read your emails, read all your wellness emails and just
Speaker:observe them. Don't act upon them, just observe them
Speaker:and see. I mean, that's a frequency in itself.
Speaker:So you're taking in these frequencies, these marketing frequencies.
Speaker:They all affect you, you know, whether they're positive or negative. You're taking
Speaker:them all in. And so, you know, the research is
Speaker:there. I mean, we can talk about the Swedish Cohort, I mean, 88,000
Speaker:women, you know, is saying that, you know, that
Speaker:your failure to get outside and your failure to get in the sun
Speaker:has a bigger impact on, on your health and smoking. So
Speaker:this is really powerful information. We
Speaker:have to be outside, we have to reconnect with nature
Speaker:and that's how our body works. So it's a light story.
Speaker:But I mean if you look at, you know, if anyone wants to do a
Speaker:deep dive, but I mean, if you look at equals MC squared and the
Speaker:photoelectric effect, we absolutely
Speaker:need electrons to use the photons of light. How do we
Speaker:gather those electrons? Well, some of them come from food.
Speaker:There's electromagnetic, you know, I always say, you know, food
Speaker:is an electron, electron barcode. So we're gathering
Speaker:electrons from food, but that's just part of it.
Speaker:The other part is nature. So we're gathering these
Speaker:electrons from the ground. We have this unlimited supply of
Speaker:electrons and our body needs those electrons to gather
Speaker:these photons. They all work together. They all work
Speaker:together. And these are basic everyday tasks.
Speaker:They're not even tasks, they're just your routine. So in
Speaker:the morning, you absolutely need to see natural sunlight.
Speaker:First thing, do not check your phone. Do not look at what happened last
Speaker:night. Do not start the reels, start in sun,
Speaker:start in light. It is perfectly calibrated. It is your
Speaker:friend, it's outside and it wants to make you better.
Speaker:It wants to make you better. It wants you to operate
Speaker:at your best. You just have to allow it to. You
Speaker:just have to get outside and you have to connect with nature.
Speaker:Love that. And yeah, I mean, on the
Speaker:topic of deep dives, I just wanted to, like,
Speaker:park here for a minute for me. So as
Speaker:a person in the world, right. Like, my interest in
Speaker:health strategies is like, how much do I need to know and how much do
Speaker:I need to do in order to live my. The rest of my life?
Speaker:Now, somebody who works in the health space, those
Speaker:health strategies and how they work may be their life.
Speaker:That might be their. Their entire focus. But
Speaker:for the client or the patient of those people, which is
Speaker:where I put myself, I just need enough
Speaker:information to be motivated to make the change.
Speaker:And I'm good. So if you
Speaker:feel like you need to deep dive into every paper that came out,
Speaker:but it's not unless you're. Unless you really, really want to
Speaker:go for it, but it's like, just give that
Speaker:intellectual part of you enough to chew on to
Speaker:be like, oh, this makes sense. Right? And
Speaker:that's it. That's all we need. Exactly. Because that's what you're providing
Speaker:here today. So thank you very much. Right. I did the deep dive,
Speaker:but it just like, there's chaos in everything, right? And there
Speaker:was time. I really, Yeah, I just really want to talk to that person who's
Speaker:not the researcher, who has a busy life. And it's like, what are you
Speaker:ladies talking about? Right? And I had to
Speaker:look, yeah, I did the deep dive, and
Speaker:that's why. But I had to stop. And I'm
Speaker:always learning. I research every day, but I did a deep
Speaker:dive and I developed a really good foundation. And what
Speaker:I realized is that our body is incredibly
Speaker:complex, but the solution is
Speaker:embarrassingly simple, and that is getting
Speaker:outside every day. And yes, I have
Speaker:poured through research article after research
Speaker:article, and that is really important.
Speaker:And ironically, I think the best way to take the deep
Speaker:dive is to focus on the everyday,
Speaker:because then your mind will open and you will actually
Speaker:be more ready for the deep dive. And the deep dive won't
Speaker:overwhelm you as much. Interestingly enough, I think people
Speaker:start deep dives in places where they
Speaker:actually may still be sick and where
Speaker:they're experiencing cognitive haze and they have brain fog,
Speaker:and then they do these deep dives, and then it becomes more
Speaker:overwhelming. So why I founded Squint was.
Speaker:Well, number one, I wanted to teach my kids early what I learned
Speaker:late because it was overwhelming. I. It was this aha moment, and
Speaker:I thought, oh, my God, Gosh, I need to let them know,
Speaker:let my family know, let my Friends know,
Speaker:but it's really important to know that
Speaker:your health really starts in cycles and
Speaker:routines that are basic and every day. We are
Speaker:circadian beings. We live by rhythms
Speaker:and when. We can live by simple daily rhythms.
Speaker:And just in the back of your mind, think of light.
Speaker:When you're, you know, going to a restaurant and they say,
Speaker:do you want to sit inside or outside? I want to sit outside.
Speaker:Choose light. Whenever you have the choice, choose light.
Speaker:When you can take your coffee outside, when you can
Speaker:take a phone call outside, when you can take your shoes off and
Speaker:be barefoot, and you don't have to be barefoot to ground.
Speaker:You can connect to the earth in so many ways. You can go
Speaker:swimming. That seems extreme to some people, actually, but just
Speaker:go out with shoes on and hold a tree. This isn't about
Speaker:being hippie dippy or being fashionable. You can wear your
Speaker:Manalo's and go hug a tree. You know, you can be
Speaker:all those people. You can. You can be everything, and you can be
Speaker:healthy. It just has to include light in nature. You don't have
Speaker:to, you know, wear, you know, a macrame
Speaker:necklace and a hemp sack skirt
Speaker:to understand nature. It is science. The research
Speaker:is there. It is overwhelming that circadian biology
Speaker:is the biggest driver to your energy and your strength.
Speaker:And if you aren't living your life by light, if you
Speaker:aren't using and being informed
Speaker:by light to manage your day,
Speaker:then you have so much room to be healthy. It's so
Speaker:exciting because it's so simple. And once you start making these
Speaker:changes, you will. You will really, really feel
Speaker:it. And it's really incredible.
Speaker:Yes. And I love that framing because
Speaker:it is exciting. I've, you know, sometimes
Speaker:broached this topic maybe with, like, a mom on the playground. And
Speaker:I have been met with, like, what
Speaker:another thing to worry about, like,
Speaker:all right, like, oh, now I have to think about the light coming out of
Speaker:their eye. Like, well, yeah,
Speaker:sorry. But on
Speaker:the flip side, it's like, if you come at it
Speaker:through the portal of all of the. All of the health issues and all of
Speaker:the mental health issues that everybody is
Speaker:struggling with, and it's like. And you don't know anything about light, there's
Speaker:so much room to grow. It's like, such exciting news. So
Speaker:exciting. It's so exciting. And,
Speaker:you know, I think part
Speaker:of the journey of health
Speaker:is that we are in this chaos, you know, and so the
Speaker:irony is that, you know, there's a lot of us that are doing the research
Speaker:and saying, oh, it's about light, it's about grounding, it's about sound
Speaker:and frequencies. And so we don't want to contribute to
Speaker:chaos. I don't want to contribute to chaos. We don't need any more
Speaker:chaos. So what I offer and why I
Speaker:started Squint Essentials was to create a
Speaker:place for very basic daily routines that were
Speaker:actionable and doable and not overwhelming
Speaker:and that people could build slowly. But you have to
Speaker:build. That's the non positive part. There is
Speaker:an urgency to this and you have to start this now
Speaker:because it's so important. Your mitochondria every day
Speaker:are deciding what kind of environment are you providing them
Speaker:and you need to give them a break. They're overwhelmed.
Speaker:They're overwhelmed by non native
Speaker:electromagnetic fields, they're overwhelmed by the blue light in
Speaker:our screens, they're overwhelmed by storms, stress, they're
Speaker:overwhelmed by our dysregulated nervous system. So
Speaker:be nice to yourself, be kind to yourself. Start
Speaker:easy. Just start with Morning Sun. Start
Speaker:with Morning Sun. Make that a foundation of your
Speaker:day every day. Don't do anything else, don't read the emails,
Speaker:unsubscribe, unsubscribe to everything that doesn't have to do
Speaker:with light. And start easy, start with Morning sun.
Speaker:And don't beat yourself up. If you have a day where you're not doing
Speaker:it as well as you know, just get out
Speaker:there, get Morning sun and try it and, and make
Speaker:it part of your day. Make it a routine. It's consistency over
Speaker:perfection and just keep doing it.
Speaker:I love, and I love that that you founded Squint
Speaker:Essentials, which is like, would you say a media
Speaker:company with a very, a very tight focus
Speaker:to share this information or tell us how it
Speaker:works. And you talk about sharing protocols like let's, let's hear some of the
Speaker:top. Ones that people, you know,
Speaker:it's light and grounding, you know, it's light
Speaker:and grounding. And what I want Squint
Speaker:to be is, you know, a launch pad to further
Speaker:learning. But it's going to be a place where you're going to start.
Speaker:You're going to start with the basics, you're going to start with Morning Sun.
Speaker:And what I try not to do is create more chaos.
Speaker:I am very boring in the sense that I say the same things
Speaker:over and over. I try to say them in different ways because
Speaker:what I learned through all this is that, you know, I,
Speaker:someone said something about light five times and I didn't understand it and then the
Speaker:sixth time, oh, it clicked and I Said, oh,
Speaker:that makes sense. That makes sense that
Speaker:we are, you know, that vitamin B is a
Speaker:chromophore for light. Like that. All these things that I, all these
Speaker:modalities that I had been trying and trying
Speaker:were all just trying to capture light. I mean, that's what we're about.
Speaker:We're about capturing light, using it, absorbing it,
Speaker:emitting it. It's all about. We do that.
Speaker:And it sounds so basic and a little bit hippie dippy,
Speaker:but the science is showing us that that relationship
Speaker:with light, bright, full spectrum sunlight
Speaker:during the day and darkness at night is.
Speaker:And it's. And the numbers show it, the research
Speaker:shows it. So to the extent that you
Speaker:can kind of move the chaos away, quiet
Speaker:your mind, forget the emails, forget the
Speaker:ingredients in your pantry that they're telling you to hide from,
Speaker:forget, you know, the chocolate that's 37%
Speaker:healthier than broccoli. All these things, you know,
Speaker:we love. Oh, chocolate, red wine, I'm in. And it's not about
Speaker:that. But we get inundated by the chaos of
Speaker:those solutions when really the
Speaker:best thing is to start your day with light,
Speaker:take sun breaks throughout the day, ground as much as you
Speaker:possibly can during the day, and block artificial light
Speaker:at night. It's pretty simple.
Speaker:It's pretty simple. And as you said, you know, as you were
Speaker:saying earlier, almost the reason that,
Speaker:that people reject it, like, oh, what? Like just that, like, you don't have to
Speaker:be true. And there is
Speaker:a certain amount of courage involved in following
Speaker:the guidance that you're offering here, which is to simplify down
Speaker:to the most essential thing and focus on it till it becomes an
Speaker:ingrained part of your life. Right. I think that that
Speaker:feeling of overwhelm underneath,
Speaker:like the avalanche of pro tips that
Speaker:we subscribe to and scroll through every day,
Speaker:there's a certain kind of
Speaker:safety in not having to make a decision, right?
Speaker:Like if there's so much noise, there's so many things and it's like,
Speaker:I'll do this and try this and la la la la la la. And even
Speaker:mixed in there, there might be some light tips. But if they're just. If it's
Speaker:just like this pro tip and that pro tip and this really.
Speaker:Oh, blue blockers are just like a biohacking trend, right? Like, if it's just
Speaker:all locked in there, we don't have
Speaker:to make a decision because it's just so much noise. And it takes
Speaker:courage to pick something and follow through.
Speaker:And I think sometimes we consciously or
Speaker:unconsciously hang out in the Noise, because we're not ready for
Speaker:that commitment. It's very true. And it's not
Speaker:to say that sun and grounding are the only modalities
Speaker:that. I mean, obviously, hydration is a huge part of our health,
Speaker:and I'm a big proponent of, you know, water
Speaker:that's, you know, has minerals added to it. If you want a vortex, I mean,
Speaker:there's a lot. But I guess what I'm saying is
Speaker:part of protecting yourself from this chaos
Speaker:is keeping it simple. Because as soon as
Speaker:you start going down the road, then you're getting into, you know, and
Speaker:all these things are important, fascia and lymph. And there's a lot
Speaker:of things that you potentially could do
Speaker:to improve your health. What I'm saying is
Speaker:start here. This is the start here moment. Start with
Speaker:light, start with grounding, and then you will be
Speaker:in a physical and mental place where
Speaker:you can actually start discerning what makes the
Speaker:most sense. But for me, I was in such
Speaker:a state of nervous system dysregulation, I just. And I'm
Speaker:competitive. I was like, I'm gonna win. I'm gonna win. I'm gonna. I'm gonna
Speaker:get that idea. I'm gonna get the latest hack, and I'm gonna get the hack
Speaker:that everyone's going to, you know, everyone's going to do. And
Speaker:it's insanity. It's so embarrassing. But it was. And
Speaker:then I think, too, our health care,
Speaker:instead of looking inward and
Speaker:thinking about how our body works and how we're connected
Speaker:to nature, we are all about health
Speaker:as it relates to a cocktail party. We're all about health
Speaker:as it relates to conversation and connection. So. So,
Speaker:interestingly enough, I think that
Speaker:we're finding ourselves connecting to other people by
Speaker:speaking about health, because we're speaking about our challenges
Speaker:and what we're trying and what we're doing. I'll send you this. Oh, you send
Speaker:me that? You've got a guy for this. Oh, I've got a gal for that.
Speaker:And so, ironically, we're making these connections
Speaker:on health, but they aren't connecting us to nature. They
Speaker:aren't connecting us to light. They aren't connecting us to the
Speaker:actual solution. So I love the conversation.
Speaker:I love that people are thinking about their health. I love that
Speaker:people are searching for solutions. But I started
Speaker:squint to save you a lot of time, because time is your most valuable
Speaker:asset. And I've done the deep dive. Meredith's done the
Speaker:deepest dive. There's a lot of people that are doing deep dives.
Speaker:But every day, the deep dive
Speaker:presents itself as very easy, actionable
Speaker:daily routines around sun and around grounding
Speaker:and around light. Yeah.
Speaker:And again, just to reiterate, because this is,
Speaker:you know, I really want this episode to be useful for the person who
Speaker:is. Who is not going to take a certification
Speaker:in applied quantum biology. Right. This is for the person. Person who just wants to
Speaker:feel better. Yes. You know, share this with that person in your life.
Speaker:And this is the fundamental. So we. You implement,
Speaker:you know, we implement everything that you've been saying, Shannon. And it's
Speaker:like, okay, then when I go for lymphatic
Speaker:drainage, or then when I go, you know, my. At least I. My. I know
Speaker:where my body is. Is. Yes,
Speaker:I know where it is. Right. And I know what it. It can
Speaker:do on its own. Exactly. Okay, then where do I
Speaker:need help? Yes. And that's the point. That is the
Speaker:ultimate point, knowing what your body can do on its
Speaker:own. Because we never
Speaker:trust our body, because our body gives us a
Speaker:lot of signals. You know, we're hurting, we're aching, we're
Speaker:sore, we're whatever. But those signals are just from
Speaker:our body trying to help us, trying to give us a signal to say,
Speaker:hey, maybe you need to change things up. And those
Speaker:signals are, you need to change things up about light.
Speaker:Because that's what I respond to. That's, you know, deep
Speaker:down this cell in the middle of my body,
Speaker:that's what they're responding to. You know, they don't real. They're not count. Your
Speaker:mitochondria isn't counting calories. It's counting electrons. You
Speaker:know, it's counting frequency. It's counting the environment that you're in.
Speaker:It doesn't care whether you're a paleo or carnivore. It
Speaker:cares about how you are interacting with your
Speaker:environment. We were never intended to live
Speaker:inside, especially in winter, with our thermostats to 80
Speaker:degrees. Our mitochondria respond to both light
Speaker:and temperature. And now that we're going into
Speaker:winter, we need to live by nature.
Speaker:And so what that means is that, you know, if
Speaker:you're living in Minnesota, you know, go
Speaker:out and go ice fishing. You know, go out and. And get
Speaker:in snow, get in ice, be cold.
Speaker:Tell your mitochondria where you are on Earth. Because if
Speaker:you're in your house, in your snuggly loungewear and your
Speaker:ugg boots, your mitochondria doesn't know where you are. They think you're down at the
Speaker:equator, and you're not. And Your diet
Speaker:is also a reflection on where you are too. So your mitochondria are
Speaker:not expecting you to eat mangoes and bananas.
Speaker:You know, they're sensing that you're in a cold environment and so
Speaker:you need to adjust those electrons accordingly. That's a whole
Speaker:different discussion. But the point is, is that our mitochondria,
Speaker:they are our sixth sense. They are telling us, you know,
Speaker:this is what's going on. They sense what's going on. They sense
Speaker:everything, every frequency. They sense a fire engine
Speaker:driving by. You know, they sense noise pollution and sound
Speaker:pollution and, you know, the, the air we breathe,
Speaker:everything, they're taking it all in. And I think we just need to do a
Speaker:better job of allowing them to see what's around. And what's
Speaker:around is the sun and the earth and the trees and
Speaker:being outside. Yeah. And
Speaker:that is a really, I think, like
Speaker:a really, really good way to think about it. And that's what has always
Speaker:stayed with me, is that I'm filled up with sensors
Speaker:sensing my environment, sensing my light environment, sensing my
Speaker:dark environment. And they're, they're instructing my body.
Speaker:So if I cut myself off and then replace that
Speaker:with, with this wi fi and
Speaker:blue light, it's, it's really. We've created like a perfect
Speaker:storm for mitochondrial destruction. Yes.
Speaker:And if we start in that fundamental place,
Speaker:then we can create a foundation that alleviates some of that.
Speaker:That. Right. And it's taking the dog out for a walk on a winter's
Speaker:day. You know, it's all. I'm glad you brought up winter.
Speaker:Yeah. Because I always thought, oh, God, winter, I have to move somewhere warm. It's
Speaker:like, no, I just have to. Like go for a walk every day. Exactly. And
Speaker:maybe you don't bundle up. I mean, maybe you just,
Speaker:you know, maybe you wear a short sleeve shirt. Obviously you don't want
Speaker:hypothermia, but, you know, maybe you push yourself a little
Speaker:bit, but just connect with nature. I think, you know, we have a
Speaker:very, you know, everyone's, you know, trying to get the next answer, even on
Speaker:modalities that are helpful. I mean, cold plunge,
Speaker:great modality, but people are
Speaker:reading into it. You know, oh, I'm doing 47 degrees. Oh, I'm at
Speaker:50. Oh, you're only at 50. Oh, that's not. And it's just,
Speaker:it's just like this cocktail conversation of
Speaker:our health. And it's crazy to me. And the
Speaker:part point is, is that our mitochondria are looking for signals
Speaker:and anything below 98.7. That means,
Speaker:you know, I, I mean, this isn't that complicated. You just
Speaker:need to get cold. You don't need to perfectly perfect your
Speaker:cold plunge temperature. You just need to
Speaker:be more in sync with your environment and you need to,
Speaker:if it's winter and you live in a cold place, you should be
Speaker:cold. That's what your mitochondria are expecting, right?
Speaker:If it's winter where you are, we, you should feel
Speaker:cold on a regular basis because it's cold.
Speaker:It is, it's cold. It's cold. We got our
Speaker:little seat heaters in. The car and we're so
Speaker:smart. We're, you know, they say, you know, we're, we're so smart,
Speaker:we create all this technology, we create seat warmers,
Speaker:you know, we create, you know, meta glasses. You know, we create
Speaker:all these things, but yet are they
Speaker:a reflection of how we evolved? No, we actually
Speaker:evolved our brain in the sun. We didn't evolve it
Speaker:inside. And if we want to continue evolving, if we want to
Speaker:stay curious, if we want to not be
Speaker:overwhelmed by mental health issues and mental health issues,
Speaker:you know, in 2030, the numbers are off the charts.
Speaker:And if we don't change our daily routines,
Speaker:and that's why there is urgency to this, because
Speaker:we're moving in the wrong direction. But the beauty is
Speaker:that the solution is very
Speaker:accessible every day and it's free.
Speaker:Yes, yes.
Speaker:Shannon, this is such an important message and I just love the way
Speaker:that you've framed it.
Speaker:And I think it's time for us to get off
Speaker:the treadmill. Just get off the health tip
Speaker:treadmill, go down to the basics, down to the
Speaker:fundamentals, down to the foundation and live from there.
Speaker:And I obviously, and you and everyone
Speaker:listening, probably we have access to just an abundance
Speaker:of health support. And the beautiful thing is
Speaker:that when we need it, we can go get it.
Speaker:But it, you know, if we're living in,
Speaker:if we've got those fundamentals in place, it
Speaker:doesn't feel like a treadmill. And I, and I also want to say like,
Speaker:there's always, you know, like, and you mentioned this too, right? Like healing
Speaker:is non linear. We could start here and end up somewhere else and go. And
Speaker:it's like now, you know, we just are almost unlocking each
Speaker:door that needs to be unlocked, whether it's healing, trauma, whether it's
Speaker:changing our food, whatever it is, for sure.
Speaker:But this is the, this is the solid ground that we can stand
Speaker:on as we walk that path.
Speaker:Very, very true. And I think we're in an environment, I Mean,
Speaker:even, you know, Hollywood, all the lessons, you know, it's the biggest loser,
Speaker:you know, it's, it's these. But, but health doesn't work that way. I
Speaker:mean, every day we have an opportunity to change our
Speaker:health, which is so exciting. I mean, every day you have
Speaker:an opportunity to reconnect with nature, to
Speaker:reconnect with light, and to rebuild, to rebuild the
Speaker:photoreceptors in your eyes, to rebuild your
Speaker:mitochondria, you know, and it's, it's so hopeful
Speaker:and it's very easy if
Speaker:you just take it slowly and not let it overwhelm you and
Speaker:don't. It's not another thing. Sun and grounding
Speaker:aren't an add on. They're foundations.
Speaker:And I think when you use them as foundations,
Speaker:they'll give you the clarity. It'll make you
Speaker:feel like you're in a place where then, then you can decide what's the
Speaker:next step. Then, then what do I do?
Speaker:And then when you get that clarity, I think when you start
Speaker:reading those emails, you won't be overwhelmed by them. You might even
Speaker:giggle, you know, you might even say, oh,
Speaker:you know, it's overwhelming. So just
Speaker:cancel the chaos and start with the basics. The Squint
Speaker:Essentials. Love. So where can everyone
Speaker:find the Squint Essentials? So I have
Speaker:a website which is
Speaker:www.squintessentials.com. i think the most fun
Speaker:place to find us is on Instagram at
Speaker:Squint Essentials. And so I usually have a
Speaker:theme for the week, but it all comes back to light. So I
Speaker:give checklists every week, but they're always about light.
Speaker:It's all the same things over. But they're good reminders because.
Speaker:Because we get busy in our life and we can't divorce ourselves
Speaker:from tech entirely. But, you know, we can use little
Speaker:tips. You know, maybe you throw away your
Speaker:earbuds. That would be a great start on tech. And maybe
Speaker:instead of those earbuds, you use wired headphones,
Speaker:you know, all these kind of basic things. So be gentle on
Speaker:yourself. Don't do what I did, which is, you know, try
Speaker:everything all at once and just say, I'm gonna win, I'm gonna win.
Speaker:I'm gonna win. Because you're gonna lose that way. You're gonna lose Bitcoin because you're
Speaker:gonna be overwhelmed. So take, just like I said, start with
Speaker:morning sun, you know, and then at night, dim your
Speaker:lights. Figure out ways, you know, as we're about to go through a
Speaker:time change. So I have, I'm talking, you know, next week at
Speaker:squint about, you know, it's dark. You know, we're all having these
Speaker:moments. Oh my gosh, it's 7:30 and it's dark
Speaker:and I'm not even tired yet. You know, what are we going to do?
Speaker:And our normal behavior is, oh, I'm going to go watch four
Speaker:shows of my new favorite show. And that's
Speaker:fun, that's great. But again,
Speaker:what is the context of light and how is that going to help me feel?
Speaker:What's that going to do to my cortisol? What's it going to do to my
Speaker:glucose? What's it going to do to my melatonin? What kind of sleep do
Speaker:I want to have? You know, so you
Speaker:don't have to live by the fire every night,
Speaker:but you do have to make a few
Speaker:changes to your everyday routine and it will
Speaker:feel really good.
Speaker:Yes. And there, you know. Yeah. And
Speaker:some nights there's a show to watch. Of course.
Speaker:Can wear the orange glasses. Yes. You can mitigate
Speaker:little workarounds. There are, I mean
Speaker:every night I. Go to bed really early. Right.
Speaker:You don't have to go to bed at 7. But if your new favorite show
Speaker:is on and then they say, do you want another episode? And then, you know,
Speaker:you better be wearing blue blockers. Your body is wanting you
Speaker:to because your body finished its day. You know
Speaker:this, your cells got the last blue light of the day, that
Speaker:natural blue timekeeper when the sun set. So your body's
Speaker:expecting the day to be over. When you go to your shows,
Speaker:you're starting the day again. You're giving your body that midday
Speaker:blue high intensity light and saying, oh, it's time to wake up again.
Speaker:It's the middle of the day. So use
Speaker:man made smarts which are blue blockers. Block the
Speaker:blue. You don't have to not watch shows anymore,
Speaker:but you might need to watch shows in a
Speaker:more mindful way that is very, very doable.
Speaker:Yes. I'm having flashbacks. I
Speaker:had a job for a while coaching women in
Speaker:finance who had just had babies and
Speaker:they all had their routine and they,
Speaker:they would leave work earlier now that they had a baby
Speaker:and then they'd, but they wouldn't want to fall behind their peers
Speaker:so they would put the baby down and log back on and I,
Speaker:when we, you know, is my job as a coach to support them through to
Speaker:their goals and those were their goals that I think back down like, oh,
Speaker:right. I wish I could have at least told you
Speaker:to put a filter on that. Laptop screen.
Speaker:I know. And you know, we just don't think about it.
Speaker:And I didn't think about it. In fact, you know, when I was working,
Speaker:my badge of honor was that I had three screens. I had
Speaker:a Bloomberg and I had this and I thought
Speaker:I was so cool, you know, this, I had
Speaker:made it. I was a three screen
Speaker:businesswoman, you know, but at the time, oh my gosh,
Speaker:I think about what I did and I think that period of time
Speaker:was incredibly detrimental to my health. You know, I thought I was
Speaker:winning, I thought I was superwoman, but I
Speaker:didn't realize. I mean. And the worst part of it is that I
Speaker:worked market hours. So. But I
Speaker:was in California. So I would wake up at 4:30, I would wake up at
Speaker:4:30 in the morning and then I was a hard worker worker and I would
Speaker:stay at my, you know, desk till 5 o'. Clock, right. In the
Speaker:winter that meant I never saw the sun.
Speaker:I literally never saw the sun during periods of the year.
Speaker:So imagine. And I didn't, you know,
Speaker:imagine. And now we know your poor body,
Speaker:your poor cells. I know, I know, but it's true. We just
Speaker:don't think, like, we just, just don't think about
Speaker:it. No. And there's things that feel so important and they
Speaker:are, I don't, I know that, you know, career is, is of course
Speaker:a really important purpose and I don't want to take away from that.
Speaker:I have, I have friends now who work in Manhattan five days a
Speaker:week and you know, but I tell them like, can you, could you eat
Speaker:lunch outside? Right? You know, just, just these little
Speaker:things because it's just not on the radar. And
Speaker:so I really appreciate, Shannon, that
Speaker:you are putting it on the radar for people and
Speaker:reaching, you know, reaching especially women
Speaker:because the great thing is like, you feel good now. I feel good now.
Speaker:I mean, I do think, I don't know that I'll ever quite
Speaker:get my mitochondria back to where no, I wouldn't have been
Speaker:if I hadn't trashed them. Right. However, I
Speaker:can live my life. So these,
Speaker:whatever is going on with anyone listening,
Speaker:take heart, right? Like when given
Speaker:the correct inputs, our bodies can do amazing
Speaker:things. Yes. And I, and it's very true,
Speaker:you know, I trash my mitochondria too. And
Speaker:truth be told, I trash my mitochondria every day
Speaker:that I live. Where I live that's full of 5G,
Speaker:you know, I, I mean we have so many inputs and then we can talk
Speaker:about food and everything is, that's in Our food.
Speaker:So for me, these daily routines,
Speaker:they're not optional, they're mandatory because
Speaker:I have done enough damage with all my artificial
Speaker:light, and I did enough damage by thinking I was a
Speaker:California girl, but I really wasn't at the beach much, you know,
Speaker:and. But that's not to say, you know, I,
Speaker:you know, I have zoom calls, I'm in meetings, but I take sun
Speaker:breaks, so there's way to mitigate it. It isn't an all or nothing. It isn't.
Speaker:Oh, well, that's all well and good. I have a job. I can't. Of course
Speaker:you have to go to your job. You have to do your job, but take
Speaker:a leadership role at your job. Bring your meeting outside.
Speaker:Encourage these meetings outside. Take sun break. You know, people.
Speaker:Take smoke breaks. Take a sun break. Let's rename it.
Speaker:You know, there's lots of things we can do if we do
Speaker:it together. And once we're all educated, I think we'll all feel
Speaker:better and we can all help each other.
Speaker:Yes. And that's. Yeah, that's a great spot to wrap up, as. I
Speaker:don't. That's another thing people do. They're like, oh, I have to change every light
Speaker:bulb in my house. That's overwhelming. I'm not going to do it. I have to.
Speaker:Overall, I have to quit my job and move to the Bahamas. I can't do
Speaker:it. Never mind. It's like, no, no, no. Any. Every small change.
Speaker:Every small. Any small change makes a difference. Start small, small
Speaker:change. Yes. All right, Shannon, thank you so
Speaker:much. This was incredibly fun. Thank you so much, Meredith. And
Speaker:thank you for all you are doing. You're my hero. And,
Speaker:you know, you were a big part of getting me started on all of this,
Speaker:and so inspired, so grateful for you. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker:thank you, Shannon.
