Inspired by Liz Earle at the Health Optimisation Summit, we’re looking at morning daylight, red light and why the change of season has us thinking about light again.
There are some people who make you lean in when they speak, and Liz Earle was one of mine at this year’s Health Optimisation Summit.
She exuded vitality and strength, and when she started talking about light, circadian rhythm and some of the things she does to support her health, I found myself listening closely. Not because it was all new to me, but because it was a timely reminder of something I already knew and, if I’m being truthful, haven’t been particularly consistent about.
We do this a lot with wellness. We read something, get really into it, tell all our friends about it and then three months later we’re eating breakfast over our laptop wondering what happened to that morning walk we were absolutely committed to.
Sometimes we don’t need another wellness hack. We need a reminder.
Liz was mine. And now that the days are getting shorter, it feels like a good time to talk about light.
Start With The Free Stuff
Before we get anywhere near red-light panels, clever bulbs or any of the technology, there is the most obvious source of light we have: daylight.
Our circadian rhythm is essentially our internal 24-hour clock, helping to coordinate when we sleep and wake alongside many other processes in the body, and light is one of the strongest environmental signals helping to keep that rhythm aligned.
Or, in very non-scientific Bright Souls language, your body needs to know when it’s morning and it needs to know when it’s night.
Which means getting outside, particularly in the morning. Ideally before you’ve disappeared into your phone, opened the laptop and somehow lost two hours.
It’s free and it’s available even when the British weather is doing its very best impression of there being no sun whatsoever.
I knew this already. Am I doing it every morning? No. Hence the reminder.
THE REGULATED WOMAN REMINDER
You don’t always need another wellness habit. Sometimes you need to restart the one you forgot.
And Then We Come Inside
This is where modern life gets slightly strange. We can spend much of our day indoors, away from really bright natural daylight, and then illuminate our homes and stare at bright screens long after the sun has disappeared.
Blue light itself isn’t the enemy. It’s naturally present in daylight and useful during the day. It’s the timing we’re becoming much more interested in.
For me, that means making the difference between day and night feel like an actual difference. Get outside in the morning, find daylight during the day and, as evening comes, turn things down.
The big light goes off, lamps come on and the phone occasionally gets put somewhere I can’t reach it. Occasionally.
I’ve also become much more interested in the actual bulbs we use at home. We like the Bon Charge Red Light Bulb because their evening lighting is designed to reduce blue-light exposure, and it’s exactly the kind of wellness intervention that works for a busy life: change the bulb and there isn’t another thing to remember to do.
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Ladies Who Lunch Now Ladies Who Light.
And then there’s red light. I have to admit, I haven’t really used mine all summer. I’ve been outside, travelling, swimming and spending much more time in the real thing, so the red-light panel has been largely ignored. But now the daylight hours are getting shorter, I’m getting back to it.
My interest in red light goes back a while. There was a period when a friend and I used to meet at The Light Salon instead of going to the bar. We’d lie under the LEDs, catch up on everything and emerge glowing rather than two glasses of wine down.
The social life of a regulated woman.
I still love this idea. Not because I’m anti-wine, that would be a very short-lived rebrand but because I want more ways of seeing friends that leave us feeling good afterwards too.
A walk and a talk, sauna and chat, a treatment and a catch-up. Or red light and all the news.
What’s Actually Worth Knowing About Red Light?
Red light therapy, also called photobiomodulation or PBM, uses specific wavelengths of red and near-infrared light, and research into PBM now spans areas including skin health, wound healing, pain and exercise recovery. The evidence isn’t equally strong for every claim you’ll see attached to a red-light device, though, which is why it’s worth looking beyond the glow.
A device being red doesn’t automatically make it effective red light therapy.
Wavelength matters, but so do things like irradiance, dose, distance from the device and treatment time. We don’t need everyone to become a photobiomodulation expert, but we do think brands should be transparent about what their devices are actually delivering. That’s one of the reasons we like CELLER8.
Why We Rate CELLER8
There is a lot of red-light technology out there now and, as with most areas of wellness, our job isn’t to tell you to buy all of it. It’s to help work out what’s worth knowing about.
CELLER8 publishes the technical information behind its red-light technology, including wavelengths, irradiance and recommended use, rather than simply telling us that sitting beside something red will change our lives. We like that.
They also combine red light with PEMF, or pulsed electromagnetic field technology, across their wider system, and I’m particularly fond of the portable set-up because it fits into actual life. I can use it beside my desk, at home or take it away with me rather than needing to find another hour in the day for wellness.
Because ultimately, however impressive the technology is, will you actually use it?
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The Regulated Woman Take
What stayed with me from Liz’s talk wasn’t really the discovery of something new. It was being reminded of something simple at exactly the right moment.
There is an enormous industry dedicated to telling us about the next thing we should be doing for our health, and I love discovering new things. It’s a large part of why Bright Souls exists. But discovery doesn’t always have to mean adding something else.
As we move into shorter days, I’m going back to the basics: getting outside in the morning, finding as much proper daylight as I can during the day, turning things down in the evening and bringing the red light back into my routine.
And perhaps before adding another thing to your wellness list this week, ask yourself:
What do I already know makes me feel better that I’ve quietly stopped doing? Maybe start there.
I’ll see you outside tomorrow morning.
Probably.
Lauren x
And one little thing from us…
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