How & When to Get Daily Sunlight to Boost Immunity | Dr. Roger Seheult & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | How much sunlight should we get each day

00:00:04.880 | in the shorter days of winter and in the fall?

00:00:08.200 | And when should this be done?

00:00:09.800 | In the Jeffrey study,

00:00:10.680 | it was clear that there was circadian regulation.

00:00:12.680 | As you mentioned, getting that sunlight, excuse me,

00:00:14.880 | getting that red light, infrared light into one's eyes

00:00:17.040 | early in the day was important.

00:00:18.840 | If I'm living a standard life of work and job

00:00:22.520 | and people are managing kids and all sorts of things,

00:00:25.000 | sometimes it's hard to get into the sunlight

00:00:26.720 | because you're just following a schedule.

00:00:28.640 | How much time each day do you recommend,

00:00:31.080 | independent of anything related to getting sunlight

00:00:33.920 | in one's eyes for circadian rhythm setting?

00:00:36.000 | So how much time, what time of day,

00:00:39.280 | and what frequency across the week?

00:00:41.480 | Excellent question, and you've hit on exactly the issue.

00:00:44.460 | Based on Glenn Jeffrey's studies,

00:00:48.240 | based on another study that was actually done in Brazil,

00:00:51.680 | it was actually an interventional study in COVID

00:00:54.560 | that showed that just 15 minutes a day for seven days

00:00:59.560 | was enough to actually get people with COVID

00:01:02.280 | out of the hospital faster.

00:01:03.520 | This was a randomized placebo-controlled,

00:01:06.120 | double-blinded, amazing study, 940 nanometers.

00:01:10.080 | So when I talked to Glenn Jeffrey about this,

00:01:12.640 | he says he sees it in humans, he sees it in bees,

00:01:17.040 | he sees it in insects, it's all the same.

00:01:19.000 | The mitochondria behave exactly the same.

00:01:20.920 | When you say 940 nanometers,

00:01:22.920 | you're talking about long wavelength,

00:01:23.960 | like coming from an artificial source?

00:01:25.440 | Correct. Okay.

00:01:26.320 | Yeah, that was 940, and it was actually very low.

00:01:28.560 | It was about 2.9 milliwatts per square centimeter.

00:01:32.480 | So lower energy.

00:01:33.520 | Most people are not going to own a far-red

00:01:37.520 | or an infrared light.

00:01:42.160 | So I just want to emphasize again for people,

00:01:45.200 | you can get that wavelength

00:01:46.920 | and all the other relevant wavelengths from the sun.

00:01:49.160 | Exactly.

00:01:50.000 | That's your red light therapy, folks.

00:01:51.320 | Exactly, and this is what I'm trying to say.

00:01:52.840 | It's like, this is not like some powerful laser

00:01:55.080 | that they were using.

00:01:56.080 | This is 2.9 milliwatts.

00:01:57.880 | I mean, sunlight,

00:01:59.160 | all sunlight is about 100 milliwatts per centimeter squared.

00:02:04.160 | By time it reaches-

00:02:05.880 | Through the atmosphere.

00:02:06.720 | Through the atmosphere.

00:02:07.560 | Yeah, so 130 when it hits the atmosphere.

00:02:09.640 | By the time it hits you, it's about 100.

00:02:11.680 | If you're looking at just infrared light,

00:02:13.680 | we're talking about 20 milliwatts per square centimeter.

00:02:17.440 | And so this was 2.9 at a very specific wavelength.

00:02:20.720 | So something that's completely doable, okay?

00:02:23.880 | And so what they did,

00:02:24.720 | it was 15 minutes a day for seven days.

00:02:27.480 | And what Glenn Jeffrey was telling me is that Roger,

00:02:31.240 | he says, "Roger, it doesn't matter if it's in insects,

00:02:34.720 | "if it's in bees, if it's in humans."

00:02:36.760 | Once you hit a certain point, 15, 20 minutes,

00:02:40.600 | diminishing marginal utility.

00:02:43.120 | The improvement after that point is so minimal

00:02:46.520 | that you only need about 15 to 20 minutes.

00:02:48.960 | That's why he was able to do his experiment

00:02:50.800 | in the eye for three minutes was all that was necessary.

00:02:53.560 | So is this 15 minutes outside

00:02:56.080 | in the first three hours of your conventional day,

00:02:59.960 | as I call it?

00:03:00.780 | 'Cause people will say,

00:03:01.620 | "Well, the sun comes up later this hour."

00:03:03.200 | Conventional day, meaning after the sun

00:03:05.440 | has crossed the horizon, he has risen.

00:03:07.240 | I don't think it matters.

00:03:08.400 | I don't really think it matters.

00:03:09.600 | I think what would matter

00:03:12.520 | is if there's a lot of ultraviolet light,

00:03:14.920 | which would be when the sun is high.

00:03:16.400 | And for people who are skin sensitive,

00:03:18.080 | that could be an issue.

00:03:18.920 | But if you're covering up, it doesn't matter.

00:03:20.840 | And here's the issue.

00:03:22.180 | The issue is that when you need it the most

00:03:25.000 | in the wintertime is when it's the hardest to get.

00:03:27.520 | So you really have to make a concerted effort.

00:03:31.120 | And for a lot of people,

00:03:32.200 | and this is what happens probably right after November

00:03:35.920 | and probably going through to mid-January

00:03:37.840 | is this is what happens.

00:03:39.000 | People get up in the morning, they go to their car,

00:03:41.760 | they get into their car, they drive to work,

00:03:43.640 | the sun's not up yet.

00:03:45.200 | They get to their work, the sun comes up,

00:03:47.000 | but they're inside.

00:03:48.320 | Then what happens is they get done with work.

00:03:50.120 | The sun is already down.

00:03:51.520 | They come home from work.

00:03:52.360 | And so there literally is weeks on end that occur

00:03:56.200 | where they're not even getting 15 minutes of sunlight.

00:03:59.000 | And I think this is the reason why

00:04:01.520 | we have the influenza surge at this time.

00:04:04.680 | If you look to see, the EPA did a study

00:04:06.860 | and they looked at Americans.

00:04:08.080 | 93% of our time is spent inside.

00:04:10.660 | 86% inside a building, 6% to 7% inside of a vehicle.

00:04:15.680 | - And this is a relatively new thing.

00:04:17.540 | I mean, certainly when I was growing up,

00:04:20.120 | if I came home and had a snack after school,

00:04:22.320 | I was getting kicked out of the house to go outside.

00:04:25.080 | It was routine for parents to tell kids

00:04:29.540 | they had to go outside.

00:04:31.260 | And I think there's also, it's also the case,

00:04:35.720 | as you mentioned, that we're working later

00:04:39.800 | or at least on devices later into the evening,

00:04:42.920 | which means there's more exposure to short wavelength light

00:04:45.880 | from devices and artificial sources.

00:04:47.540 | - Absolutely, absolutely.

00:04:48.660 | So my recommendation,

00:04:50.200 | which is what the original question was,

00:04:52.060 | is take your lunch break outside.

00:04:54.540 | It's something as simple as getting outside,

00:04:56.900 | even if it's at lunchtime.

00:04:58.140 | Yes, the ultraviolet is probably the highest at that point.

00:05:01.340 | But if that's the only time

00:05:02.740 | that you're gonna get sunlight, take it.

00:05:05.020 | Now for some, you know, we can say this,

00:05:06.660 | I can say this, I live in Southern California.

00:05:08.440 | I'm blessed by 300 and some odd days of sunlight every year.

00:05:12.660 | What do you do when you're in Boston?

00:05:15.000 | What do you do if you're in New York?

00:05:16.260 | What do you do if you're in England and Sweden

00:05:18.020 | and these places where there isn't a lot of light?

00:05:21.100 | Well, there's a study that was done

00:05:22.180 | looking at infrared lamps, right?

00:05:25.700 | So you've gotta be careful there

00:05:27.260 | because if the infrared lamps are too high in amplitude,

00:05:32.260 | this result from infrared light in the body

00:05:35.220 | is something known as a biphasic response.

00:05:37.540 | And that's really important to understand.

00:05:39.640 | Don't come into this

00:05:40.980 | if you're gonna get a red light therapy

00:05:42.500 | and think that more is better

00:05:44.460 | because more may not be better.

00:05:46.580 | You actually could do detriment

00:05:48.300 | if you have the red light at too high of a level.

00:05:51.260 | So I would match it to what we're getting from the sun.

00:05:54.380 | As you said, the sunlight is your best infrared or red lamp.

00:05:58.460 | So there was a study that was done looking at well-being

00:06:01.580 | and they did a red light lamp, infrared light.

00:06:07.420 | So it was coupled with 850, I think was the nanometer.

00:06:09.820 | So that is definitely in the infrared spectrum.

00:06:12.540 | - Yeah, you can't see that.

00:06:13.540 | - You cannot see it.

00:06:14.380 | And they had it set up at a desk

00:06:15.820 | that some guy was sitting in front of

00:06:18.140 | for four hours a day for eight weeks.

00:06:20.700 | And they did the study and they did it in the summertime

00:06:24.020 | and they did it in the wintertime.

00:06:25.340 | And this is really telling.

00:06:27.060 | There was no effect on the subject

00:06:29.460 | when they looked at those that had it in the summertime.

00:06:32.260 | I would say probably because they were getting plenty

00:06:33.940 | of infrared light elsewhere.

00:06:35.940 | They only showed a statistically significant effect

00:06:39.380 | in the wintertime.

00:06:40.900 | And so if you look at influenza,

00:06:45.420 | I would even go beyond that.

00:06:46.900 | Look at a chart of the United States

00:06:49.660 | throughout the entire year

00:06:51.700 | and look at all of the natural causes of death,

00:06:55.380 | not just influenza and pneumonia.

00:06:56.980 | Look at cardiac disease.

00:06:58.340 | Look at kidney disease, Alzheimer's disease.

00:07:02.700 | All of those deaths go up all at the same time

00:07:06.460 | and they all go up about one to three weeks

00:07:09.140 | after the shortest day of the year.

00:07:10.500 | And they all come down and they all are at the nadir

00:07:13.580 | about one to three weeks after the longest day of the year.

00:07:16.820 | When you see that and you just start to just digest

00:07:20.460 | what you're seeing there,

00:07:22.060 | and then you start to understand

00:07:23.660 | that infrared light from the sun,

00:07:25.180 | which we have filtered out with LEDs and all this,

00:07:27.380 | we can get to that, all of that's gone,

00:07:29.620 | that we're spending 93% of our time indoors.

00:07:32.700 | Put that all together and the fact that infrared light

00:07:35.940 | helps the mitochondria and the fact that the mitochondria

00:07:38.380 | is at the sort of the core of all of these chronic diseases

00:07:41.100 | that we're battling.

00:07:42.100 | It really wakes you up and you start to realize

00:07:46.860 | that maybe the lowest hanging fruit

00:07:48.740 | that we can do right now today for literally no money

00:07:53.380 | is simply to just work on getting more sun exposure

00:07:56.300 | in the wintertime.

00:07:57.740 | (upbeat music)

00:08:00.340 | (rock music)

00:08:02.760 | (upbeat music)

How & When to Get Daily Sunlight to Boost Immunity | Dr. Roger Seheult & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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