You cannot beat a sunrise. The benefits stack up, even if it isn’t as epic as this one. What makes all the difference is to be outside around sunrise, to show up every day, even when it is grey, when it is raining, when you went to bed later than intended, etc. This is called entrainment. For your body to be ready, to anticipate, to function and process optimally, you have to be consistent; otherwise, you create a circadian disruption. The more disruptions, the more chaos, the more inflammation, the more disease.

What is important to understand about light is the overall composition of the light spectrum. The various frequencies need to be in balance, and changes in that balance serve different biological purposes. Artificial light is almost always out of balance.

At sunrise, the absence of UV and the appearance of blue light makes for an awesome steroid kick as the pituitary gland is turned on. Simultaneously the massive amount of red and IR light gives you free energy while keeping your nervous system calm. When UVA light appears, the steroid hormones start to be rained in as UV rays destroy some of the sex and steroid hormones in your blood (that blue light keeps on producing) while releasing nitric oxide in your skin and triggering the production of dopamine, serotonin and beta-endorphin.

And these are just some of the few things we know now. So much more will be discovered about light that we currently have no clue about. Or in the words of a brilliant man:

Fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer of the question “What are light quanta”? Nowadays, every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken.

– Albert Einstein

The short of it? Mind your light. See you outside! ☀️