Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today we are joined by Andy Mant. Andy is the founder and CEO of BluBlox, a company that specializes in evidence-based advanced light-filtering eyewear.

Andy started Blublox not only after becoming dissatisfied with the quality and standards of other blue-light-blocking products out there, but also because he had gained a ton of weight and had all kinds of issues with chronic fatigue and lacking in energy. When traditional diet and exercise didn't work for him, he turned towards the research himself, and became a biohacker.

So, today he is a leading figure in understanding how all forms of light, not just the light from our screens, can affect our health and well-being. He and his team have developed all different kinds of products, and Andy even gave us an insight into some of the crazy products that they are in the process of developing.

I wanted to have Andy on the show not just to talk about light blocking glasses, but because I wanted to go much deeper into the research around light as a whole. In the episode, we expanded on the blue light from our screens, and we discovered that some products or apps are better than others. We also talked about sunlight, what times of day you need to be exposed to it, how to know if you are getting enough sunlight in your life, and many more things around the all-important thing we all do in our daily lives, sleep.

I really enjoyed this episode, and I'm sure you will enjoy it as well!

-Jonathan Levi

This episode is brought to you by BluBlox. Click here to save 15% on their amazing blue-blocking glasses, for all orders placed on their website, by adding coupon code SUPERHUMAN at checkout!

This episode is brought to you by Ambronite's AmbroGreens! Click here to grab your exclusive 5-Day AmbroGreens pack now, and treat your body to a full serving of the most powerful greens, veggies and berries nature has to offer.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Who is Andy Mant, what does he do, and how did he get here? [5:45]
• How blue & green light affects our sleep [13:20]
• How well do apps and devices work in limiting blue light? [20:00]
• Flickering on our screens and how it affects us [26:45]
• How to handle sunlight to maximize the benefits you get from it [34:45]
• Does the angle of light matter? [43:30]
• Other sleep hacks that Andy is utilizing [47:10]
• Where can you learn more about Andy Mant and contact him? [56:40]
• Andy Mant's final takeaway message [1:01:20]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• f.lux
• Drift box
• Kindle
• Iris
• Oura ring
• Light and Health FB group
• BluBlox contact page

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the award-winning superhuman academy podcast, where we interview extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible and now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I want to ask you a question. Do you think that you are getting enough whole foods and nutrients in your diet? Chances are you probably aren't. Look it's not your fault. First off, it is expensive and time-consuming, and it's a huge hassle to do all the cooking and all the preparation.

But also we know that our foods today, no matter how much we eat our veg, our topsoil is depleted and there is not enough rich nutrients in our food. And that's why I'm so excited about Ambrose greens, the latest product from one of my favorite nutritional companies out there Ambronite. Ambo greens make it really, really easy to get all of your nutritional bases covered with just one teaspoon in cold water.

The product tastes great. It gives you tons of additional energy, improves their digestion and gut health, and can even boost your immunity. Now I have been having this in the morning, and as you can tell, I have a lot more energy. So I partnered with the folks at Ambronite to give you an awesome deal. If you want to try out AMRO greens, all you have to do is visit Amber night.com/superhuman. That's AMBRONITE.com/superhuman and you can try the product out for just $9 and 90 cents. So go ahead and visit that link to try Ambro greens today.

Greeting SuperFriends and welcome, welcome, welcome to this week's episode, which is lovingly handcrafted thanks to Chrisward91 who left a five-star review entitled “Transformational”. Now, this is a really great review. So I'm going to read it out here.

“I discovered this podcast when I could have easily gone into a depression about two years ago, I searched positivity on Spotify and my life has not been the same since. These interviews have the potential to literally turn you into a SuperHuman. I've listened to each episode multiple times, and I'm truly watching myself grow. Thank you, Jonathan Levi and team.”

Wow. Thank you so much, Chris, that means the absolute world to us. I cannot tell you how happy I am that you are benefiting from our efforts and for those of you who have not left a review, I know that's a really tough one to compete with, but we would love, even if you just left a quick one-liner.

On to today's episode. Today we are joined by Andy Mandt. He is the founder and CEO of blue blocks, a company that specializes in evidence-based advanced light-filtering eyewear. Now he started blue box, not only after becoming dissatisfied with the quality and standards of other blue light blocking products out there but also because he had gained a ton of weight and had all kinds of issues with chronic fatigue and lacking in energy.

When traditional diet and exercise didn't work for him, he turned towards the research himself and became a biohacker. So today he's a leading figure in understanding how all forms of light, not just the light from our screens can affect our health and wellbeing. He and his team have developed all different kinds of products and even gave us an insight into some of the crazy products that they are in the process of developing.

Now, I wanted to have Andy on the show, not because we've never talked about blue light-blocking glasses, but because I wanted to go much deeper into the research around light as a whole. So we talk about, obviously, we all know the blue light from our devices is bad for us, but some products are better than others.

Some apps are better than others at blocking them. We also talk about sunlight. We talk about what times of day you need to be exposed to sunlight, how to know if you're getting enough sunlight, and many, many more things around that. All important function we all do every day, which is sleep. I really enjoyed the episode. I definitely learned a lot from Andy and I know you will as well. So without further ado, Mr. Andy Mant

Mr. Andy Mant, welcome to the show my friend, how are you doing?

Andy Mant: I am great. How are you, Jonathan?

Jonathan Levi: I'm doing really, really well. I'm wishing I was in your summer weather down there in Australia, but, uh, other than that pretty good, pretty good. I'm excited about today's conversation. You know, I was, uh, I was speaking to Dave Asprey about blue blockers, which he's known also for wearing a lot and, uh, and he kind of alluded to me that there's so much more than I got to cover in the last time we talked about them on the show that there's actually a lot more science that's been discovered recently and so I wanted to have you on the show really? Cause I know you're, you've done the work, you've done the research, you've done the science and you've thought a lot about, you know, it's not just as simple as, as having an orange piece of glass in front of your eyes.

We'll get into all of that. But, uh, welcome. I'm really excited to have you here.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, yeah, the weather is absolutely fantastic here at the moment. It's all summer. So, um, you know, lots of beautiful natural lights around lots of sun to, you know, get that, uh, vital vitamin D and, uh, you know, all those messages to our central body clock.

So, you know, I'm, I'm happy and, uh, alive and kicking when it's the summertime. That's for sure as I'm sure, uh, all, uh, the lessons in the Northern hemisphere will be, um, you know, really looking forward to their spring and summer, which hopefully will only be just around the corner and, and nice is, uh, we've had here in Australia this year.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah absolutely. Now, Andy, tell me a bit about your origin story. I mean, we've spoken before, but I never, I never got the chance to ask you how you got into it. I mean, what, what convinced you that this was how you wanted to be a part of the health movement where did you come from and what brought you in this direction?

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely, um, it's a really interesting one. I, um, I didn't get into light initially, so I guess where my journey began was, um, you know, I moved to Australia about 10 years ago because, um, I had a work opportunity over here. Um, and I was also myself and my wife were pretty down and sort of miserable about living in, in the UK.

Um, cause it was just, the weather was just awful and we were just a bit bored with the same old routines. Um, and during that time I managed to get quite fast. I put on quite a lot of weight, um, and I wanted to lose a lot of weight. And, um, I just did the usual, you know, let's cut some calories and, you know, eat a balanced diet and see kind of what happens, and nothing really happened. I was just starving, hungry all the time. So there came a point when I was like, right, I need to critically look into this myself, like obviously what, you know, organizations and governments were saying was, was total BS and it wasn't really working for me. Um, so I took, decided to, you know, sort of follow some health people on Instagram and Twitter.

Um, and then they were posting studies, and then I was like, oh, there's like this pub med type place to go and look at, um, the latest academic literature. So let's sort of do this research myself and I've always had a hunger and a thanks, man. I've always had a hunger and passion for it. Um, You know, learning, um, went to university in the UK and got a bachelor of science, um, there.

So I always had this sort of, um, urge to sort of learning. Um, and I discovered at the time, and this was probably about sort of eight, nine years ago, um, something called a ketogenic diet, which was not really heard of back then, um, and started to sort of mix in those circles. Lost a lot of weight, felt great. Um, slowly put some sort of more targeted carbohydrate back into my diet, put on a bit of muscle, and, and I'm here today sort of with a good sort of aesthetic and, um, decent health. So where I got into lights was off the back of sort of all this independent research. Um, I kind of got a hunger for, wow. I can really radicalize my physique and my nutrition and my sort of health by diet.

Um, and I started to think more about my sleep because it was one thing. Um, since I was about 14, so obviously went through a lot of hormonal changes then like puberty, that kind of thing as, as teenagers do. Um, my sleep just switched, um, around about that time and for a sort of 10, um, 15 years afterward, um, you know, it was still the same, like not sleeping through the night, waking up, feeling exhausted.

Um, and generally just not getting a lot of like REM and deep sleep. And I knew that because I wasn't dreaming and I was just exhausted all the time. So got back into the literature back on pub med and started, um, following people like Dave Asprey, Jack Cruz, bill lack of cos who were all talking about sort of this thing called a circadian rhythm, um, and how this rhythm was tied to light and dark cycles.

Um, and light at the wrong time of the day could impact your melatonin secretion and, you know, downstream effects would be poor sleep and poor recovery. So what I did was I found out that. Um, blue and a lot of green light actually. Um, when it, when you're exposed to that after dark. So, you know, things like, know your TV, your smartphone, your laptop, less obvious things like your fridge, light, your house lights, all contain this blue and green light in very large quantities, right?

It was telling our brain that you know, it's daytime and let's, you know, stay awake and not get a good night's sleep. So discovered something that all those guys I was talking about Asprey um, Cru and lack of cost. We were talking about which of these like blue light blocking glasses. So I just jumped on to Amazon or eBay, um, bought myself a pair of those initially pop them on and my sleep improved a little bit.

Um, you know, it still wasn't perfect, but it was an improvement. Um, and then I, I had this sort of thought of like, well, what if these glasses. Um, blocking what the literature saying you should block. Like it was actually very clear in the literature. There's been clinical trials on humans wearing specific glasses, um, with, with different tents in there's studies out there that show what the melatonin disruption zone is.

And it was, it was quite clear that the zone of fell between 400 – 550 nanometers. So all of the blue spectrum and about 70% of the green spectrum and I had some friends that worked in an optics lab in Australia and I just reached out to them. I just said, um, um, sort of geeking out a little bit on a light at the moment.

Do you have a spectrometer that you could test? What frequencies of light? These, my glass is basically blocking and they said, yeah, no problem. We've got that in the loudest standard bit of kit and, you know, bring in a pair of glasses or two and, um, we'll test them. So I got excited and bought 20 pairs of different brands of glasses.

Um, took them down to these, um, these boffins down at the lab and just said, run these for and tell me what that blocking and not one single one of these Amber blue light blocking glasses were even blocking all of the blue light, um, let alone any in this green spectrum. Um, so I just said to him, I said crazy idea, but if I wanted to develop a specific 10, that blocked a hundred percent in the melatonin disruption zone, which is 400 to 550 nanometers.

Could you create that for me? And they were like, yeah, couple of samples. Yeah. It'll cost you this amount where we'll get it done for you. Run it through the spectrometer and we'll show you, you know what we got? So that was how the blue box was created. They managed to create this, um, this incredible sort of light-filtering technology for me, um, that we then eventually put in the daytime lenses as well at different frequencies. Cause I like needs change throughout the day. And I can go on and talk about that a little bit more later, but I guess our flagship product, I was asleep plus lens, which is like a red lens and it only targets the specific frequencies that disrupt your melatonin. So decided to, um, you know, start getting that on a lot of people that already wore blue blockers and just sort of explain to them what I'd done.

And we had literally every single person that was sort of the leader in their field in nutrition, how thumbs Katie rhythms come back and be like. You know, holy cow, we've actually got something here that, you know, we already wear blue blockers and we've just won yours and the sleep compared to wearing those. Like standard box standard lenses that we bought off Amazon or eBay is just a different level. And like, how have you done this and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, we, we, we've been around only actually about two years. A lot of people think we've been around a lot longer because we've, you know, because of the evidence-backed, um, an evidence-based approach, we put into our lens technology and the honesty and transparency about our lens testing results, um, both by us and independently by other people with spectrometers, you know, we've just gained the trust of people that, you know, are happy to pay a bit more for something that actually is backed by science and work.

So, you know, that's really why I'm here today and, um, how I've got that today.

Jonathan Levi: Really cool and I love it. It's so simple, right? Like read the research and then produce something that corresponds to the research. It's not rocket science, but so many people take that shortcut. So you mentioned blue and a lot of green, I think, you know, it's easy.

It's, it's a, it's a fun handle. It's we all say blue blockers. Cause it's so much easier than blue and green blockers, but I think many people don't realize it's blue and it's green and it's, it's some spectrums of violet. Elaborate a little bit more on that for me.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. So lights, um, it's, it's very clear now in the literature that light frequencies.

So, you know, a frequency of light is, um, like a, it comes in a banding. So for instance, blue runs from 400 to 495 nanometers. You've got violet light that runs from about 380 to 400 nanometers. You've got green that runs from about 495 up to 570. Then you go into the yellows, then you go into the oranges and the reds.

And when you look at the different frequencies of light in those bandings, they all play a role in human physiology and human um, uh, I guess functioning for are either the day or the night time. So for instance, um, blue light is, um, essential during the day, um, when it comes from the sun, um, the reason that's more essential, it's essential during the day from the sun and not artificial devices is because, um, the sun contains a balance of all the different colors of light, hence a rainbow, um, and the artificial light source has hardly any red, orange, and yellow, and just basically all blue and green that within its in its artificial system. Um, so blue light plays a role during the day from the sun in, um, stimulating cortisol awakening responses.

Um, it also increases the production of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin. Um, dopamines are essential to make us feel great, that reward response. Um, it's also, um, on a set on a serotonin side that's needed later to mix with a trip to fan in your gut to then create something called melatonin, which is an antioxidant and a sleep hormone after sunset.

Um, what light does in the blue range? It's obviously cortisol keeps us awake and alert. So what we're doing is when we are, and Greenlight does this as well, by the way. So once you go home after sunset, you switch on your tally or your house lights or open your fridge, you're sending the same message to your brain because it can't distinguish between, um, artificial or, um, or sunlight. It basically tells the brain, right? It's it's it's daytime still. I don't, I can keep cortisol levels high. I don't need to start reducing cortisol levels. So over time, blue light could lead to things like highly elevated cortisol levels, which can lead to things like anxiety, low mood depression, but more importantly, Melatonin, which is obviously, I just mentioned for my trip to fan and serotonin in the gut can only occur in the absence of blue and green light. So in darkness, in physiological darkness, so think of your ancestors, they would have come back from the Huns, maybe sat in front of the campfire. Um, those, um, colors of those lights were reds, ambers and yellows. There was no blue or green present in those lights. So they wouldn't have had that same message sense of that brain that would have had a more, you know, um, relaxed approach. Cortisol levels would have dropped melatonin levels would have increased. So when we're actually putting on the blue and green light, after dark, we're telling our brain it's daytime and we don't need to relax and we don't need to sleep, you know? Well, so people might be able to get to sleep, but they're not having good quality sleep and I feel like, I wake up, feeling groggy and tired. Then you've got other frequencies of light. So. Things like yellow light that makes you feel really happy. Um, it gives you, it releases suddenly again, hormones and transmitters that make you feel happy and, and really sort of, you know, in high spirits, in good mood, then you move into the oranges and reds.

And these are very long wavelengths of light and there used to be, um, in the, in the human body to heal and restore, but also to calm and relax. So, you know, you see things like red light therapy devices that are out now where they give out a specific frequency of 660 nanometers red light and then they give out an invisible light in the near-infrared range around about 850 nanometers.

And those two frequencies of light, um, in the visible red range, it repairs any damage to your skin cause it's it only penetrates sort of into the skin. Whereas if you expose yourself to art, to near-infrared light, that repairs any muscle or tissue damage that may have occurred during the day. So, you know, Light in all the different fixes plays a very different role in the body.

And you know, the fact that we've now seemed to spend the majority of our time indoors, we're only really exposed to blue and green. We're not really getting much of the red anymore. Um, and you know, a lot of people say, oh, you know, I need blue light during the day. So I don't need to wear blue light glasses, but yeah, you need blue light during the day, but you also need the reds that are balanced in there. You also don't need the amount of blue light that your laptop or your, um, led and fresh lights are giving out because blue light, whether it's in the sun or whether it's in your artificial, um, back-lit digital devices causes cell damage. Okay. But nature is very, very clever nature always puts an antidote in things, you know, so that double-edged sword that blue light yet causes you to feel awake and alert, but it also damages the cells in your eyes and your skin.

But. It's very balanced in the red light range. So the red light heals and restores, and, and helps to, uh, you know, restore homeostasis in, in the skin system and in, in the body. So what we're doing is we've selectively taken out specific frequencies of light in our artificial sort of Halian lit environment, which is now having consequences on our, on our health.

You know, we're seeing increases in anxiety and depression. We're also seeing increases in skin cancer rates, despite people wearing sunscreen. Um, you know, these things don't add up. There has to be something more at play here. Um, and there's plenty of studies on that. We can talk about a bit later, but ultimately each color within the light spectrum plays a vital role and the fact that humans have taken out and added it in specific, um, or increased specific frequencies of light has wreaked havoc on our, um, you know, biological and physiological system.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I was going to ask you, I think a lot of us say, well, during the day blue light is okay, but if I am understanding correctly, the stuff coming out of your screen, it's, it's, you know, filtered it's, it's only blue.

It's not full spectrum. So it, it really is a case where we kind of need to change that light. I do want to ask you, you know, I, for many, many years have used, uh, flux, which is a software that adapts your screen and it will change the color of the light of the screen depending on the time. So you tell it where you're located. It figures out what sunset is and your screen gets more and more and more yellow and eventually red in the evening. Uh, Apple famously has come out with screen time, which does a similar thing for your Mac, your iPad. How far do those go realistically? Cause I'm a huge advocate of the blue walking glasses for my simpler devices. Like I have, uh, I bought a box called I think it's called shift for the TV. It does the same thing, but it didn't, it didn't work properly with 4k or something like that. The Kindle is a real problem for me. I love to read in bed with the Kindle. I find it, you know, more environmentally friendly, easier when you're a speed reader to carry a hundred books with you. But the screen is so white. So, you know, for those, I'm an advocate of blue blockers and I wear them every night. Anyway. Uh, even though, including the lights in my house, the lights in my house, actually Damon change color throughout the entire house, uh, as the evening sets in. But how far do those, um, solutions on our more sophisticated devices? You know, our computer or our iPhone? Do those, do the job fairly well? Not well at all?

Andy Mant: They do it well. Um, but they, but there's also a, and I always do this in, in everything. There's always a but's and a caveat and a context to apply. So yes, your flux, um, or your night shift mode on your, um, uh, iphone is great.

Um, it will take out a lot of the blue light. Um, I've seen people set it to no blue light, which is a bit silly cause you need some blue light during the day. Um, but what it doesn't help with is the light that's also in your office or in your fridge or coming through, um, you know, perhaps the window off the dark and that kind of thing.

So you've got to bear in mind that causes a lot of people say that, say, don't need your glasses got flux. And it's like, well, it's not as simple as that. That's not the only source of blue light, anything that's got artificial light in it in the majority of cases, um, in, you know, your homes or your, um, you know, workplaces will have blue light in it.

Um, so the issue, the butts with, um, flux is, is twofold. So the first one is that, as I said, um, recently the, I guess the sun can't be mimic mimicked at all. Okay. There's a lot of invisible light in the sun. There's UV and there's, there's infrared light. So if you're thinking right, I can just have the colors of my laptop change throughout the day and I don't need to go outside then, you know, the person would be, you know, very much mistake. And this is why I always recommend, regardless of whether you wear blue light glasses or not, during the day, you need regular some breaks because the sun spectrum both physical and invisible changes throughout the day.

Um, and nothing artificial can mimic those changes. And it's those changes in specific sort of shifts in blues and greens and in UV and infrared lights, etcetera. And the reds that actually send specific messages to stop secreting or to continue creating or to commence accreting specific neurotransmitters and hormones. Artificial light can't do that. Okay. So that's the problem with flux. And one thing that flux doesn't understand is that a lot of people don't understand is that if I said to you, I guess if I said to you, Jonathan, when would be the most blue light from the sun during the day, what would you say?

Jonathan Levi: High noon?

Andy Mant: Yeah, so everyone would say that. Um, but it's actually, um, and I've got spectrum. I've actually got a spectrometer now, um, that I've tested this. Um, one of my, um, one of my friends is also into the light has also tested this in, in the US with his spectrometer, the highest point of blue light during the day is at Sunset. So

Jonathan Levi: At sunset?

Andy Mant: Yeah. So about, so it drops down for about an hour before sunset, the blue light will start dropping and then about 20 minutes before it completely disappears, the blue spikes to the highest point that it's been during the day and I'll send you the blog. When I write it in a few weeks, I've got the data on, on my, um, spectrometer.

Um, and then it rapidly drops to nothing. Um, and it's, my theory is it's, it's crazy. The crescendo effect is that spike massive spike of blue that sending a message to the brain that, right, this is the highest point of blue during the day. That means that nighttime is coming, the sun is disappearing. And then when the reds come, that's when the melatonin starts to be produced or you get the serotonin and tryptophan mix in, in the gut.

So yeah, it's, it's a very big thing where a lot of people think, yeah, blue light highest in the middle of the day. It's actually not. It's actually from about two hours after sunrise. About an hour before sunset, it doesn't actually change a great deal. Um, you know, maybe a percent or two here and there, which is those sort of changes in, um, light that send specific messages to the brain.

But it's actually about 20 minutes before the sun drops over the horizon that you'll see the biggest spike in blue. So I'll share that blog with you. I know it's so interesting.

Jonathan Levi: Cause I, you know, I've been told on one of the first episodes I did on the show that one of the most important things you can do actually for your circadian rhythm is exposed yourself to the spectrum of light in the first hour after Dawn.

Um, that there's, there's a very special color of light in that first hour after Dawn, um, that, that essentially wakes you up and gets the body, you know, moving. I hadn't heard about the importance of the specific light in the last hour before sunset.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. And you start hearing more about it. Um, once, uh, I guess once my blog is published and people start reading that, but in the, I guess in the bio-hacking circles, we've been talking about this for, for, for a while as a theory.

Um, and it was just good to finally get out and test it with a spectrometer. Um, so my spectrum into the house. Time's on it as well. So we did it at, um, 10-minute intervals for, for an hour. Um, and it was just so interesting to see where, like, this is, is this going to work? Cause it was just dropping and dropping after the, um, like hour before 50 minutes, 40 minutes, 30 minutes.

It was like the blue was dropping quite considerably. And then all of a sudden, at 20 minutes before it went down, it just shot up. It was just the most bizarre thing ever. But the result we wanted to see, honestly, cause we've been hypothesizing that that would, that would happen and cause a decrescendo effect.

So, you know, the fact that going back to that guests, what we're talking about with flux, the fact that it goes and it, and this is what flux do it, it starts high blue in the morning and then drops throughout the day is not the same as, as mimicking the sun because it's, it's simply not mimicking the sun.

And another thing that's, that's an issue with your laptop. It's something called flicker. So about 20 years ago, um, give or take, I guess, um, lighting was, was via what they used to call incandescent light sources. So, um, those light sources were quite high in red ambers yellows and, and quite low in blue light.

Um, so that was never real, a real big deal, but these light bulbs were really inefficient energy-wise. You'd have to replace them every couple of weeks. Um, you know, people were sick of buying bulbs, so, um, and they used a lot of electricity as well. So in order to save the consumer money, they created something called led lighting.

Um, and progressively over time they've got more and more blue in them, but that's a different conversation. Um, and to make these bulbs more energy efficient, They put in, um, not a continuous stream of, um, of the energy. So they changed, I guess, I'm, I'm no expert on, on, on this, um, sort of side of things like how you put together a light bulb, but they changed how the current was put into the, to the actual bulb, which caused it to flicker at a very, very high rate. Okay. So you can't see it with the visible eye. Um, but if you get your smartphone and stick it on slow mode and record your artificial lighting, you will be, you'll probably vomit because it's just the most revolting thing you'll ever see. It's like going to one of those raves back in the day where they have the strobe lights on it's like that.

Um, and that really messes up your nervous system over time as well. Um, and there's, there's studies out there that will point to that. Um, there's no clinical trials in humans on it, but in animals, it causes, you know, severe sort of seizures over time, neurological issues. So, you know, for me, I. I like to avoid the flicker.

Um, so there's a better bit of software that combines flicker with blue light reducing, um, in your laptop. And that's something called Iris. So that was all created by a guy that I know quite well, Daniel Georgia. Um, and he's located in Bulgaria. He's a software engineer, um, and he's actually created it for the iPhone and for the, um, uh, uh, Samsung as well.

Um, and his isn't free, it costs like 10 bucks for a lifetime thing, so it's worth doing, um, but it will, it will take out flicker. So I've tested it. And so has, um, Brian Hoyer, um, in the US um, who's, um, a building biologist. So he has some really serious kit where he can test the EMF and flicker. Um, and he's tested Iris' as well, as far as I'm aware and it's come back with, um, yeah, basically no flicker.

It's eradicated that as well. So you might want to have a little look into, to Iris. Um, flux does a job don't get me wrong, but I prefer Iris myself because there's no flicker.

Jonathan Levi: Interesting. And how does that affect your battery life?

Andy Mant: Yeah, it does. It does affect it a little bit. Um, no it doesn't like to drain it quickly.

Um, I mean, as we know, the iPhone battery will drain fairly quickly anyway, but, um, yeah, it, it doesn't seem to have too much of a, um, an effect on it as well. But, um, one thing that, one other hack that I blogged about recently, Is, um, there's a way after dark to turn your iPhone screen completely red, um, which is obviously the optimal color for after dark.

Um, so you go to like color hues accessibility, and you, you basically change your, um, uh, change your color palette, but then you can create a shortcut where you triple-tap the home button on your iPhone, and it will change it from a sort of blue to red because night shift mode is great on your phone during the day.

But again, I've spectrum tested night shift mode and it lets in a lot of blue light. Um, so it's fine during the day cause it's reducing blue light, but it's probably wrongly called night shift mode because I simply wouldn't just have night shift on my phone after dark because it's still a mix quite a lot of blue in the 420 to 440-nanometer range, which is a fairly problematic lower-end range of the blue, um, excites that the body is a little bit more than the higher end of the blue. So, um, there's a few hacks there, and again, people can come to my blog and see that, um, I sent out to the mailing list recently, and yeah, it got quite a few, um, few thousand views on that. And hopefully, it's helped a few thousand people, you know, really protect their, their skin as well as their, um, their eyes.

Cause, you know, we can talk about it later as well if, if the time allows, but you know, the skin has its own circadian rhythm, which is just basically been, been released as well, which can be stimulated at 480 nanometers blue lights, um, because of the melanopsin receptors that are there. So, um, yeah, it's a lot of, a lot of new studies coming out on how light is really, you know, wreaking havoc on our systems, but also, you know, the fact that it doesn't always come back to, and it shouldn't always come back to artificial light. Like, you know, we, we know how bad it is. We know how to mitigate against it, just getting that message out, but, you know, eat what is equally as important as well as being outside in that sun and making sure your eyes and skin and getting the correct frequencies of light, get those sunglasses off, getting don't be wearing sun cream.

You know, I'm not saying go out and sunbathe all day. Um, you know, without sunscreen, that would be naive of you. That's what we wouldn't have done, you know, seek the shade and the high UV parts of the day, build up your melanin in the morning when UV isn't present for the first hour of the day. Um, you know, it's, it's just vitally important that people have appropriate natural sun exposure and also appropriate artificial sun exposure because those led lights that are in our artificial, you know, um, devices, you know, in, in our artificial lighting and in our houses are in essence, many alien suns that are just, you know, we, we haven't evolved under, in wreaking havoc on our health and ultimately longevity.

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All right, let's get back to the episode.

Yeah, I was going to say, I'm, I'm actually seeing a natural path for a couple of different things right now. And he has given me a prescription of spending 30 to 60 minutes a day in the sun granted it's winter now so that's doable, but it's gotten me thinking, and I've talked with Rob Wolf about this in the past that like in our quest to not get sunburned, because you know, there is real danger, but we slather on sunscreen the very few times that we do go outside.

So we're getting all this blue light in our eyes, and yet we're not getting enough vitamin D we're not getting enough sunlight. Uh, and we need to be out in the sun. At least part of the day. A few minutes.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's interesting. You mentioned Rob Wolf he's the whole family, where blue blocks as well as, you know, he's so evidence-based, he only wears the best.

So, um, you know, it's, it's great to see. Um, so see, he had mentioned as well and him talking about the sun and, you know, it's, it's so important to be, to be out in the sunlight. You said, we, you know, we want that sort of UVB light mixing with your cholesterol and basically synthesizing vitamin D and you see it here in Australia, we got 300 day sunshine a year yet we're the most vitamin D country in the world.

And it's just like, are you kidding? Um, but we also have, one of the highest melanoma rates in, um, in the world as well. Um, and it's all about context when it comes to sun exposure, exposure. Um, and the way that I sort of read about it in the literature from a circadian standpoint is that it's very circadian um, In, in nature, how we should sort of approach the sun. So I'll give you an example of how someone shouldn't approach the sun. They have a disrupted circadian rhythm, so they're not waking up at sunrise. They miss the morning part of the sun, which is low UV. So they are devoid of something called melanin, which isn't an absorber of UV.

So it causes your skin to go darker. If someone lives in on the equator, they will have very, very dark skin. If someone lives in, um, Alaska or, um, you know, Iceland, they have very pale skin, so very low melanin. Um, and then they go straight out in the sun, probably between 11 and three they're either put suncream on or they don't.

And they will immediately burn because they're not, um, they're not utilizing correctly. Um, sun exposure. They will go into the house before sunset and switch on artificial lights that artificial light will tell the skin's clock system that it's still day and it doesn't need to repair any of that UV damage.

And then, you know, they wake up in 20 years with melanoma or something else nasty on their skin. If they keep doing them. Yeah, absolutely. So, um, someone that gets correct sun exposure will have a properly functioning, circadian rhythm. So circadian rhythm basically means, um, about 24 and its Latin circuit and theme. Um, and it basically means that all of our cells in our body run on, um, a 24 hour system in line with the spin of the earth. Um, and this is, um, you know, there's unequivocal evidence out there that actually states that this is, this is true. Um, it's been tested in this, in all living mammals and you have a stimulus that, um, basically start the clock ticking. Um, there's a lot of other stimuli to circadian rhythms, like meal timing, exercise, timing, and temperature and environment. But you know, as, as this is more of a chat about light, I talk about it from a light perspective. So the first in the trainer of our circadian rhythm is the light we see when we get up in the mornings, um, like from your phone or artificial sources, your body's going gonna think it's day straight away and that's not good, but someone with a correctly functioning Caden rhythm will get up in the first light. They will see will be the sunrise and the frequencies of light that are contained in that sunrise start a cascade of hormones and neurotransmitters going that we alluded to earlier in the conversation, um, that allow the correct hormone secretions for out the rest of the day and keep our clock, um, system, our master clock system and the peripheral oscillators or functioning correctly, like an orchestra.

Um, you know, you've got these, all these little cell clocks in every school, an organ in the body, then you've got this master clock is like the conductor and if one of those clocks is yeah, junior, you're going to have an issue. If your pancreas clock is out of tune, you're going to have an issue with, um, processing.

Um, insulin carbohydrates for instance, we've seen studies that show that blue light and independently increase blood glucose levels, um, independent of what food people are eating, but anyway, I'll deviate off course there. So someone gets up in the morning and are watching that sunrise. They're also in a very low UV and devoid you the, um, light environment, which is the optimal time to start producing more and more melanin.

So if you're out watching a sunrise for between 10 minutes and an hour each morning, and, um, you're sat outside, you know, maybe doing it with just, you know, your bikini on or your, um, you know, your board shorts or whatever, or your underwear you're then taking in a lot of this, um, infrared light, the reds, the, the other spectrum of colors that are present, which is then building up so much melanin in your skin, which is preparing you for the UV light that comes later in the day. So if you miss that morning sunrise and go straight out in the sun, you've got ultimately none, none of nature, sunscreen present in your body. So the UV is going to burn you quicker. Um, the more melanin you have, the less, the longer you can spend in the sun and the less likely you are to burn from overexposure to UV light.

So if you're watching that sunrise, you can be out longer. You don't have to wear sunscreen myself and my wife, haven't worn sunscreen for maybe five years now and we haven't burned at all. Um, and we're literally some days we were in the Maldives a couple of years ago. Um, and we were out from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM every single day without sunscreen in the full sun and didn't burn, we'd like, you know, very dark in terms of the time. Um, but we didn't burn and, and he saw people lying next to us, literally pink on day one. And then turning, you know, um, sorry, why on day one, turning pink eye, you know, day two and the rest of that trip.

Um, but what we also do is we watch the sunset as well, and you get some very, very important frequencies of light during the sunset. So you're getting a lot of red after that big blue spike. So the colors sort of almost the sun has dipped over the horizon. You get about 20, 30 minutes of all these deep reds and infrared light frequencies, which I mentioned earlier.

Um, it's been now put into red light therapy devices, which actually heal and restore. So, you know, if I've been out in the sun all day and expose myself to a lot of UV, which is fantastic for my health in terms of producing vitamin D. If I've had a lot of it probably going to of course, an inflammation and skin damage.

So exposing myself to that setting sun will expose my skin to the near-infrared, the far infrared and the, um, deep, visible red lights that restore balance to, um, uh, or store any of the damage that's been caused by, you know, that you've, that UV light that I've had during the day. So I'm making sure I'm protecting myself and using nature to protect myself.

And then I also make sure in the evening that my lights in my house are red. Um, you know, sounds like you've got some color-changing light bulbs, which is great. I physically only have red light in my house like I would work outside and I only have red though into my house. Um, it's sort of goes a little bit deeper for me.

I, I, the ones that change color, I'm not too enthused with because of the Bluetooth and the wifi aspect of it. But again, that's unlike related. So I physically have, um, incandescent red lights and also we've just created a non flicker led light, which will be at one of its kind. Um, no one else's has managed that as far as I'm aware as yet.

So it's great. We've got this zero flicker led red light coming. Um, and the reason I don't want any blue light in my house after dark, um, and you know, the TV really doesn't go on too much after dark for us, but it it's okay if people want to do that. If they're taking appropriate measures and maybe covering their skin, but I want my skin to be able to heal.

I don't want it, my skin to sense blue lights or not heal I, you know, it's the study that came out six weeks ago, showed that the skin has its own circadian rhythm, independent of all the other circadian rhythms. So whether you're wearing blue blocks sleep plus glasses after dark, if your skin is exposed to blue light, then it's not going to go into repair mode.

So people blame UV for causing skin cancer and it's, for me, it's, you know, looking at the evidence that's out there and trying to connect the dots. It's the same as saying heart attacks are caused by cholesterol. Cholesterol is doing its job and it's inflammation that's, you know, is causing the damage.

Um, and the same is true with light. It's the UV. Yes, it's coming in and it's doing good, brilliant things and create and vitamin D. But yeah, it will cause some skin damage, but again, nature's brilliant, and the absence of blue and green light after dark was how our ancestors then recovered from any of that UV damage.

And the skin went into its repair mode after dark, but with having all this sun exposure during the day inappropriately as well, because we're not doing it from a circadian standpoint because people don't know about it going home and bathing under blue light, then they're going to bed and then you've got street lights coming through that curtains.

You've got car headlights coming through neighbors' headlights. So the skin in the last 20 years has never been in a full repair mode. And this, in my, my opinion, um, there's no evidence that tells me 100% that this is what's happening. Otherwise, it would be out in the media, but it's just me conducing, uh, con concluding what I'm reading from the literature that the skin literally cannot repair itself.

So the UV damage that's being caused during the day, um, is not able to be repaired if it was able to be repaired by appropriate light management, we wouldn't be in this situation of rising melanoma rates and skin cancer rates throughout the developed world.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, absolutely. Now, one thing I did want to ask you, Andy was also about the angle of light.

I know I'm jumping back quite a bit, uh, from, from kind of like the, the blue-blocking, but I understand that angle of light is an important thing as well.

Andy Mant: Yeah. It's um, B mango when you're looking at, I guess, um, specific therapy devices is, is definitely something that people need to consider, um, in terms of angle of lights, um, from a, I guess, a blue light perspective is that when you look at, um, I guess, light receptors, so you have something in your retina called, um, IPRGC cell. So, um, so like, um, retinal ganglion cells that are sensitive to, um, to light, when you actually look at where they're located in your retina, they're actually very deep inside the retina okay?

And they can only be stimulated by light that basically penetrates the, um, the eye from directly on. So a lot of people say, well, you know, you need completely wraparound, um, you know, blue light glasses, because the angle of light, come through all these different angles and, you know, impact your circadian rhythms and that's actually not true. Um, light that comes in from different angles rather than straight on, you know, 190 degrees straight into your eye is actually not a problem given the location of these IPR GC cells. Um, and there's also no way that the light in a good quality pair of blue light glasses can rebound off the inside of your glasses and then into the eye as well.

Having said that, like I said, I'd like to caveat everything. There are a few people that there's also, there's two sorts of threes, lots of people when it comes to light there's people that are ultra-sensitive to blue light. So people will have things like migraine headaches, um, quite frequently though, they'll suffer from anxiety and depression, um, seasonal affective disorder, are all, um, elements that are not, I'm not saying that cool by blue light, I'm saying blue light causes them to become very, they're very sensitive to blue light because maybe of these, these situations that they find themselves in and these albums that they have.

So that would probably be a good caveat for someone to have a fully wraparound pair of blue light glasses. We do have a pair that fully wraps around for that instance because a lot of people that come to us are, uh, very sick and very sensitive to blue light. Then you've got the people that are probably 99% of the, um, maybe 95% of the population, which, you know, peripheral light is not going to be an issue, angle of light is not going to be an issue for them. Um, unless it comes straight in through the eyes. So a lot of people can get away with, um, not having to worry about peripheral light, you know, the majority of the population. Then you've actually got a small portion of Scandinavians, um, that actually have no ill effects to exposure to blue light, and about when it is, they're almost immune to it. Um, they can literally not wear blue light glasses and sleep for eight hours solid with four hours REM and deep sleep. Like it's just, these people may be sick cause I want to be like that. Um, and, and have the perfect sleep.

So yeah, that, that there are always in any kind of health and fitness and alternative, I guess, health, um, practices, whether it be nutrition, exercise, um, light EMF, there's always going to be outliers. Um, but what we need to remember is 95% of the people listening to this podcast will not be affected by the angle of light coming through, um, the sides of their glasses.

Um, as long as they are protecting themselves from that front-on, um, 180 degrees light penetration.

Jonathan Levi: Very very cool. Now, Andy, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you around other sleep hacks, any supplements you use, any devices you use to track sleep? I mean, someone who's thought so much about sleep as you have. I'm sure you've got some good stuff.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and I know, um, Chuck has a quite well who's, um, one of the, um, board directors over at, um, aura. Um, so he was generous enough to give me an aura ring, um, a couple of years ago, which is an excellent sleep tracker. I would always refrain from using a sleep tracker that ran off a, um, non-native EMF source, like wifi or Bluetooth consistently.

Um, because those frequencies of light are really gonna mess up the physiological system. Again, that's, you know, we won't go into EMS now, but with you know, things like wifi and Bluetooth again, has been shown to mess around with blood sugar levels and, um, you know, cell function. So the good thing about aura is it runs off light.

Um, and it runs off infrared lights. Um, so that was a, you know, a no-brainer for me to wear that. Um, and it ran every to sleep. Yeah, it's so good. And the good thing is you can turn the Bluetooth off on it. And then once a day you can take the ring off and then just do a quick, you know, 30 seconds sync via Bluetooth onto your smartphone to look at it.

So it doesn't have to be continually on, you know, things like apple watches. I would steer well away from it because they utilize a Juul system of wifi, Bluetooth, but also they use green light, um, to penetrate the skin and the rest. So as we know, green is not good, um, after dark. So if you're wearing an Apple watch, um, number one, my advice would be Fred and the Ben, but to obviously people do like them because they do provide a good, uh, good, um, way to track things, you know, just make sure you're not wearing it after dark because, um, The green light will penetrate you in a very sensitive area where you're doing a lot of arteries and things.

And, um, you know, also the melanopsin receptors that I mentioned earlier sensitive to that type of light. So it will send messages to your skin and to your central clock that, yeah, it's daytime. So definitely ditch that other sleep hacks I use. Um, again, these are all sort of individual. You've got to kind of play around with them. Cause I played around with a lot of things. They didn't work. Like I, I speak to Chris master John a fair bit and he mentioned glycine to me before bed. Um, and I started taking glycine and it did nothing for me at all.

Jonathan Levi: Interesting.

Andy Mant: Um, whereas for him it's incredible for him. Um, you know, Chris has an interesting one as well because a glass of wine or a beer before bed gives him a lot more REM and deep sleep than not having alcohol before bed.

So, you know, there's so many different things you've almost got to play around. So I've sort of mentioned a few that's worked for me and a few others that haven't, um, magnesium, um, didn't work for me. Works wonders for my wife, she'll take magnesium supplementation before bed and she's out like a light and she's swears by it.

So, you know, these are things just go play around with, see how it works. This is why an aura ring is so important because you'll wear that's and you'll be able to track it. Um, you know, try a week or two of magnesium. If there's no change in it, put it away. It's not working. Um, or maybe assess what else you're doing in your life that might be impairing the absorption of that magnesium, or, you know, are you doing something that's counteracting that effect of magnesium.

You know, are you, you know, exercising at 9:00 PM at night and then trying to go to sleep at 10 o'clock at night, you know, the alarm bells would start ringing, then that's an issue. Um, and that's another thing I stopped doing. I started working out in the morning because I wanted to entrain my um, skeletal muscle clock at the same time as my master clock.

So I'd watch the sunrise, then I would work out. So I don't work out under artificial lights after sunset, because that's going to really screw up your sleep. That's another good hack, big one that worked for me. Um, two big ones that worked for me. Number one lavender diffusing in my bedroom hour before sleep.

Yep. So that increases something called GABA, um, which helps you get into a really good deep sleep worked on this for me, absolutely wonders. Um, and also having my, the temperature of my bedroom, um, between, and you might have to translate this, um, because I, um, deal in, in degrees centigrade. Um, so between 16 and 18 degrees centigrade, which is very cool, I find that works well for me.

A lot of people have a views things and swear by something called chili pad. Um, Again, that's a part that sort of can adapt to the temperature that you need in your bed. Um, my main concern is it would rinse my wallet because of the energy that it would use. Um, so I just have a cool room. I just keep my Eva, um, I just get all the windows open, get all natural air coming through.

Um, so we get a lot of like Perth, believe it or not for little interesting facts, um, for you is the second windiest city in the world behind Chicago. So, um, we get a lot of nice wind about 4:00 PM in the afternoon, all the way through to maybe about sort of seven, eight o'clock at night, it's called the Fremantle doctor, cause it's so hot here and it's dessert. You've got this lovely, cool wind that just comes in every day at four o'clock and it's just blessed. So open all the windows in our house and just let that come in. Another big thing as well is that light can impact you whilst you sleep. Um, even if your eyes are closed, um, evidence of this as has been shown in the literature.

So there's two hats. You can do here, either have a hundred percent blackout curtains, um, that will protect you from the light outside, but maybe not so much inside. I we've actually created a hundred percent light-blocking sleep mask where you can fully open your eyes within the sleep mask. Um, so I typically wear that's called remedy works really well.

Um, also red light. So, um, sometimes in the night, um, I'll still get up and need to use the bathroom. Um, and if I do, I don't want to be fumbling around for my blue blockers. Um, I just want to be getting out, going to the door and get back to bed as quickly as I can.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Andy Mant: Um, so I have red light bulbs installed in the bathroom.

Um, so I, I, I'm not disrupting my sleep when I, when I get up. Um, and also another thing that didn't work for me, but works for a lot of other people is binaural beats. Um, so these are, um, specific sort of oscillations of sound that, um, go in specific hertz and don't ask me what the hurts are, cause I've completely forgotten.

But what they do is they mimic specific waves. So you've got like alpha, beta, Delta waves. Um, and in that order is how you go into a deep sleep. Delta waves or like a proper deep sleep. So by pulsing music, before you go to. Well, the sounds into your ears before you go to bed, maybe like 10, 20 minutes, um, your brainwaves it's, it's sad. Start to get into that deeper sleep quicker because they're starting to mimic the sounds of they're hearing these sounds and getting themselves into the observation. So binaural beats, you can just download it. They're all over. Um, yeah. Uh, Spotify as well. So you can just jump on there and try some out for free, but they're really soothing.

Like I felt so relaxed listening to them. It's almost like sort of Tibet and bowl, that type of, sort of sound, um, didn't really work for me. Um, it didn't have any negative effects, but it didn't really work for me, but a lot of my friends use it and swear by it that it just puts them out like a light. So, um, you know, and then there's some simple hacks as well, like you know, the blue light glasses are obviously great, but you know, the actual stimulation of scrolling for your phone is enough to keep the brain active. You want to be in wind down, like maybe read a book, maybe meditate, get the mind in a relaxed state. You don't want to wire and pump that mind up for bad.

Hence why I don't work out, um, before, before bed, um, or in the evenings, um, I'll do that in the mornings, um, and you know, power down those electronics, maybe an hour before bed and, and, you know, get your blue light glasses on, or, um, read on the red light if, if you can, um, get those hacks in. Um, so yeah, there's, there's, there's loads of different sort of ways to look at it.

And I always encourage people to experiment from the sales cause there is no one RX for, for everyone. There's a whole sort of toolbox of things you can do to improve your sleep. And, you know, As, as I've mentioned, maybe three or four work for me out of the 10 I've mentioned, and those three or four, you know, two of them don't work for my wife, but two other ones work, uh, that don't work for me.

So you just got to play around and you've really got to sort of test these things. And the same is true with everything, with nutrition, with exercise, you know, what, you know, the guru that is, you know, the, the, at the top of his game in bodybuilding or nutrition or carnival diet or a vegan diet that looks insanely amazing.

You know, they could be that 1% outlier that, you know, 99% of the people were never going to be able to get to. So you've just got to ensure that, you know, you're on your own journey, um, you know, light nutrition, exercise. It is all very, very important. It all comes as one, not one is better than the other, um, and just to experiment and, and, you know, take some of this information that I've given and, um, even if people don't still understand it cause we have literally only scratched the surface. We always encourage people to email us, um, just through the website. Um, so many people do from the podcast or come on just saying like, listen to your show. It was amazing. I didn't really know too much about it. However, this is my light situation. This is the conditions I have. What would you recommend I do? And every response is bespoke by myself or my wife, um, and the others in my team that have been trained by myself to answer these questions. Um, and we'll give a personal sort of, you know, couple of paragraph replies of these are the glasses you need, but here's a list of the free hacks that you should probably try, um, in order to improve your light hygiene and ultimately your health.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. Totally awesome. Now I know we're coming up on time here, Andy, where can people reach out and learn more? I know we're going to put links to all of the different products and stuff we've mentioned here, but where should people reach out if they do want to email you ask questions, stuff like that.

Andy Mant: Yeah, absolutely. So, so the website is the best. Just go to the contact page and fill out the form and write a question. We answer them daily. Um, so we'll get back to you and, um, if you want to learn more with, um, either asking questions or not, I run, um, a really, um, decent sized group on Facebook's about 6,000 of us in it called light and health. Um, I think it's the only one. So if you just type it into the Facebook search bar, you'll find it. It's someone with their hands out, looking at the sunrise, obviously. Um, and we have some of the leading experts in light in that group. Like, you know, people like people that I've mentioned, like bill lack of cost and Jack Cruz, we're all members of this group and you know, they jump in now and again to, to answer questions, but we've also got some very, very intelligent scientists in there that answer any of the questions. They know a whole hell of it, a lot more about light than I do. Um, and even I ask questions, am I in groups sometimes because of the level of people that are in there.

So yeah, you know, it's a very friendly group and, you know, even if it's as simple as like, you know, you just want to get some people's opinions on red light bulbs or infrared therapy devices, or different types of blue light glasses. All these people will jump in and they're friendly, beautiful people that are just there to help.

Um, you know, it took about, it took about a year to get it to that stage because we had a zero-tolerance policy on anyone basically bickering or arguing. It was a place that is for, you know, really a scientific discussion, but also a place that new people are very welcomed that we post very simple things and, you know, people post very simple questions that, you know, we take you all take the time to answer and help people on that journey because everyone's a very different stage of that journey. And we realized that, um, Instagram's always fun as well to follow us on, um, we have a team that runs that side of, of things. Um, cause they're far more creative than I am typically when you've got a science brain you're not creative, so I leave that stuff to them.

Um, but you know, these, aren't just pretty pictures of pretty people. These are real, um, You know, customers that are, you know, obviously beautiful people, but you know, we're not posting pictures of models wearing glasses. These are our customers, these are their thoughts. These are why they're wearing them.

And we, we put a little bit of a, um, you know, a decent post, not like here's Jane wearing our glasses. We're putting, Jane's wearing our glasses. You know, she's suffered from stress and blue light was seen as being a cause since wearing these glasses, she's noticed, you know, low levels of feeling down less stress, et cetera, et cetera. So we put everything in there that sort of backs up some of these, um, you know, customers that are sending these, uh, amazing pictures in of themselves. Um, you know, we also have a, uh, a charity partnership with restoring vision. Um, and I'm going off-topic a little bit here, but, um, I think those three places are, uh, good to start contacting us.

Um, we have a partnership with restoring vision where for every pair of blue light glasses we sell, we donate a pair of reading glasses to restoring vision who then those reading glasses on people in the developing world, um, you know, was things like people that need glasses, um, in that developing sort of types of countries, um, typically need them just to provide an income, um, for that family, you know, they're working in factories or, um, you know, their eyes are deteriorating. So working under such shit like conditions and doing sort of really hard tasks. Um, and you know, those, those reading glasses are just fantastic for the mayor. They were unable to work. They could provide an income for their family. They can send the little kids to school. Um, and you know, there's, there's sort of stats out there that show that people that kind of have access to glasses can actually increase their income in these countries by about 30% within a year of actually having them because they're more productive, they're not working half-blind. So, you know, that's a mission that's dear to our hearts as well.

So, um, people that actually post, uh, a picture as well of wearing their glasses, we doubled our donation to two pairs of reading glasses. So.

Jonathan Levi: That's fantastic!

Andy Mant: Charities, yeah, exactly. It's something that we feel we need to do. We want more companies to follow suit and, you know, we want to give not only the gift of sight to people that can afford it for using our world-class technology and our lenses and our expertise for free when they message us. But we also want to give back to those that can't afford it because everyone should be entitled to, to good vision. Um, and you know, blue light is affecting their vision and they can't do anything about it. So we want to help them where we can as well. So yeah, that's a big sort of drive for us.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Now, Andy, last question I always ask before I let people go. If people take one message from this episode with them and carry it with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that one to be?

Andy Mant: I think that not to underestimate how important light is to your health, I think is very general and I think that people need to realize that this isn't just some fat, um, and it doesn't have out matters by the fact that there's a lot of companies out there that know nothing about the science and buy a load of glasses from China and sell them basically as, as glasses that are gonna improve your health when they don't.

I think that people need to wake up and understand in about 10 years time, this is going to be mainstream. Um, yeah, IF everywhere. Um, and by then it will be too late. And, you know, if you're fortunate enough to be listening to this amazing show that, um, that you have and all the amazing advice your, your guests give, um, don't brush over this one, you know, don't think it's woo.

It's all backed up by the academic literature and take light seriously because until you do it, you won't realize how, you know suboptimal your health actually was, even if you think you're doing it right with diet and exercise, once lights put in that equation, you will level up very quickly.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Andy Mant. Thank you for coming on the show. My friend, it's been a pleasure.

Andy Mant: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real honor. Thank you.

Closing: Thanks for tuning into the award-winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast. For more great skills and strategies or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit superhuman.blog while you're at it please take a moment to share this episode with a friend plus a review on iTunes. We'll see you next week.