EP 053: Blue Light & Burnout with Coach Nic Tan Meredith Oke

Are you struggling to find restful sleep in our screen-saturated world? Tune into this episode of the Quantum Biology Collective Podcast where Meredith Oke and sleep guru Coach Nic Tan explore solutions for sleep challenges in our technology-driven era, focusing on blue blocking glasses and circadian rhythm optimization.

 

Coach Nic Tan recounts discovering how blue light was affecting his sleep and health. He sheds light on how our modern, screen-filled lives disrupt our natural sleep-wake cycles and impede melatonin production, often leading to sleep disturbances and other health concerns.

 

He emphasizes the role of light hygiene in sleep improvement, recommending starting with affordable blue blocking glasses and later exploring more sophisticated options. Tech solutions like Iris software and the Night Shift mode on iPhones, which redshift screens to minimize harmful blue light exposure, which Nic suggests are particularly crucial in the evening. In home lighting is also an area where we can improve.  Nic suggests shifting to circadian-friendly lighting options like orange or red bulbs to minimize melatonin disruption. He says this simple change can markedly enhance sleep quality.

 

This episode offers concise, practical strategies for better sleep in our digital world, showcasing Coach Nic Tan's insights on improving sleep hygiene for enhanced well-being.

 

Quotes:

• “Blue light actually interrupts our circadian rhythm and tricks and confuses our body into thinking that it's daytime when it's actually night.” - Nic Tan (10:49) 
• “Up until the invention of the light bulb and even then the earlier light bulbs were not suppressing our melatonin as much. And then the more energy efficient they become, the more and the brighter, the more blue light, the more they're suppressing the melatonin. So now we are basically surrounded, unless we intentionally choose otherwise, if we just default to what's available, we are surrounded by melatonin suppressing agents. Like streetlights, headlights, our light bulbs at home, our screens, all of it.”  - Meredith Oke (17:37) 
• "So typically blue light blocking glasses, that will be the very first step based on my personal experience, as well as, you know, the people that have helped, that seems to be one of the biggest needle movers." - Nic Tan (00:27:03)
• “Iris is one of my favorite circadian rhythm-friendly programs for your desktop or your MacBook. Essentially, it's very intuitive, so you can actually set based on your location, so your latitude, longitude, and it will essentially calculate when there's a sunrise and sunsets, and you can then set the extreme settings. For example, when the sun sets, you may want to remove all the blue. And then during daytime, you may want to kind of like just have a little bit of color on your screen. So when you can set the extreme point between solar noon and sunrise and sunset, the program would then run on its own and help you shift the blue as well as the red throughout the entire day.”  - Nic Tan  (41:01) 

 

Links

Connect with Nic Tan:
Instagram: @coachnictan

For a FREE 30 min lifestyle audit with Nic: click the link in his Instagram bio 

 

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