I always hated the winter months and the long darkness; and I'm on the 42nd parallel, not even close to where the Nordics are! One winter about ten years ago, though....I decided I was going to change my own mind. I bought a pair of snow shoes, and forced myself to go out trekking, especially at night. It gradually did change my mind, resulting eventually in such a preference for cold that I spent five winters in my camper sleeping with the door open to let the cold air in. And an appreciation for everything that winter brings; especially the long darkness where I can be so much more creatively productive for long stretches, not being distracted by wanting to be outside walking around barefoot in Nature! I make it a point to get outside and absorb sunlight early, early in the day.....for at least twenty minutes. This is (imo) the best way to reset the circadian clock; an often unrealized but essential mechanism of health. Real, natural light is very powerful, and you certainly CAN banish depression and all the blahs that come along with winter by flipping your lens and taking action in the physical world by changing your habits.
[1] About a year ago I watched a documentary on Norway. The narrator mentioned that children were taught in schools that "There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing."
[2] I imagine most modern car headlights are LED-based, rich in blue light. I recall the driver training of younger days. We were told never to look directly into the headlight of an approaching vehicle, otherwise we will get dazed and cause an accident. Of course, the caution included not taking eyes off the road (but not "see" the headlight). It seems the same caution now holds for the new car headlights, to minimize the danger from the blue spectrum.
Good advice. I am finding it hard to get enough sunlight into my eyes in the mornings in the uk, and feeling the effects on my symptoms. What are your thoughts on using SAD lamps - mainly LED based these days?
HI Gary - great question. As you know, light is an extremely complex topic, but can be distilled simply in the following way: infrared/ red is the baseline wavelength that sets our foundation, and is always present in our atmosphere, thus I believe the safest when used spectrally (rather than individual wavelengths). This is why I like near infrared, as it resembles sunlight.
To your question about the SAD lamps, I'm not a fan for the following reasons:
The lux (brightness) emitted by these devices can exceed 10,000 lux, which is extremely powerful, especially in the AM, as our eyes are more used to seeing 400 lux at sunrise.
LEDs also emit light off of a flat, not curved or spherical surface, which overtime assaults our eyes as light is propelled in a bullet-shape, as a beam, vs a wave.
Does this help clarify?
Have you looked into infrared sauna and/or lighting?
hey, i really appreciate your positive take on living happily and healthily at higher latitudes in the winter. A refreshing change from the perspective that one is doomed unless living between 20 degrees latitude north and south of the equator (:
Absolutely Yantra! Thank you. We were also heartened by the ruddy attitude of the Nordics...proves there really is light at the end of the tunnel, we just need to hide from the oncoming train every now and then, and embrace getting lost in that tunnel every now and then (e.g. go to bed early (:)
In college I would become annoyed when my roommates would opt for the lights in our room versus the natural light from outside. Our rooms had large windows too. I guess I was always drawn toward natural light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65UJuFFZE7Y
Thanks for the pro-tip. Kerrygold is one of the two brands I buy because it seemed just as good as the labeled grass-fed stuff. Now I know.
Another tactic I use to beat winter blues (via keeping my vitamin D levels up in winter) is charging up mushrooms like Shiitake with sunshine prior to eating them to increase their Vitamin D content.
Tests have shown that one of the most effective ways to increase their vitamin D content (without any specialized equipment) is to place shiitake (fresh or dried works) with gills up and expose to sunlight for two days, six hours per day. (though if you use fresh ones that are not still growing on their substrate they may become a bit desiccated by the end of the second day).
The vitamin D levels in 100 grams of shiitake mushrooms increases from an approximate baseline of 100 IU/100 grams (from mushrooms grown indoors) to nearly 46,000 IU/100 grams after 12 hours of sun exposure.
So even just 6 hours of natural sun exposure (gills up) would be approx. 23,000 IU/100 grams (which is plenty).
100 grams of mushrooms is like a big handful. Something you could fry up and add on a sandwich, enhance a soup or make a stir-fry. I also like to fry up sunlight enriched homegrown shiitake mushrooms in a teriyaki sauce and then dry them to make amazingly delicious and addictive ‘mushrooms chips’ (or ‘mushroom jerky’ depending on what moisture level you dry them too).
I like to grow oyster mushrooms in mason jars on my kitchen counter using (spent) coffee grounds as a substrate (food for the mycelium of the fungi to produce mushrooms from). It is free and easy to perpetuate after you get your first jar inoculated with either foraged or purchased oyster spawn. I cover the basic techniques to grow both of those mushroom species at home in my book (referenced in the Regenerative Agriculture Solutions Watch episode on the Corbett Report, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/nmDxGzxVEtk?si=YcBSPvrVT1T6UdcJ )
I always hated the winter months and the long darkness; and I'm on the 42nd parallel, not even close to where the Nordics are! One winter about ten years ago, though....I decided I was going to change my own mind. I bought a pair of snow shoes, and forced myself to go out trekking, especially at night. It gradually did change my mind, resulting eventually in such a preference for cold that I spent five winters in my camper sleeping with the door open to let the cold air in. And an appreciation for everything that winter brings; especially the long darkness where I can be so much more creatively productive for long stretches, not being distracted by wanting to be outside walking around barefoot in Nature! I make it a point to get outside and absorb sunlight early, early in the day.....for at least twenty minutes. This is (imo) the best way to reset the circadian clock; an often unrealized but essential mechanism of health. Real, natural light is very powerful, and you certainly CAN banish depression and all the blahs that come along with winter by flipping your lens and taking action in the physical world by changing your habits.
[1] About a year ago I watched a documentary on Norway. The narrator mentioned that children were taught in schools that "There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing."
[2] I imagine most modern car headlights are LED-based, rich in blue light. I recall the driver training of younger days. We were told never to look directly into the headlight of an approaching vehicle, otherwise we will get dazed and cause an accident. Of course, the caution included not taking eyes off the road (but not "see" the headlight). It seems the same caution now holds for the new car headlights, to minimize the danger from the blue spectrum.
Good advice. I am finding it hard to get enough sunlight into my eyes in the mornings in the uk, and feeling the effects on my symptoms. What are your thoughts on using SAD lamps - mainly LED based these days?
HI Gary - great question. As you know, light is an extremely complex topic, but can be distilled simply in the following way: infrared/ red is the baseline wavelength that sets our foundation, and is always present in our atmosphere, thus I believe the safest when used spectrally (rather than individual wavelengths). This is why I like near infrared, as it resembles sunlight.
To your question about the SAD lamps, I'm not a fan for the following reasons:
The lux (brightness) emitted by these devices can exceed 10,000 lux, which is extremely powerful, especially in the AM, as our eyes are more used to seeing 400 lux at sunrise.
LEDs also emit light off of a flat, not curved or spherical surface, which overtime assaults our eyes as light is propelled in a bullet-shape, as a beam, vs a wave.
Does this help clarify?
Have you looked into infrared sauna and/or lighting?
hey, i really appreciate your positive take on living happily and healthily at higher latitudes in the winter. A refreshing change from the perspective that one is doomed unless living between 20 degrees latitude north and south of the equator (:
Absolutely Yantra! Thank you. We were also heartened by the ruddy attitude of the Nordics...proves there really is light at the end of the tunnel, we just need to hide from the oncoming train every now and then, and embrace getting lost in that tunnel every now and then (e.g. go to bed early (:)
We look forward to the rest.
In college I would become annoyed when my roommates would opt for the lights in our room versus the natural light from outside. Our rooms had large windows too. I guess I was always drawn toward natural light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65UJuFFZE7Y
Thanks for the pro-tip. Kerrygold is one of the two brands I buy because it seemed just as good as the labeled grass-fed stuff. Now I know.
One you missed: Move to another area ( just don't bring your voting with you if you move to a red state)!
Great stuff !
Another tactic I use to beat winter blues (via keeping my vitamin D levels up in winter) is charging up mushrooms like Shiitake with sunshine prior to eating them to increase their Vitamin D content.
Tests have shown that one of the most effective ways to increase their vitamin D content (without any specialized equipment) is to place shiitake (fresh or dried works) with gills up and expose to sunlight for two days, six hours per day. (though if you use fresh ones that are not still growing on their substrate they may become a bit desiccated by the end of the second day).
The vitamin D levels in 100 grams of shiitake mushrooms increases from an approximate baseline of 100 IU/100 grams (from mushrooms grown indoors) to nearly 46,000 IU/100 grams after 12 hours of sun exposure.
So even just 6 hours of natural sun exposure (gills up) would be approx. 23,000 IU/100 grams (which is plenty).
100 grams of mushrooms is like a big handful. Something you could fry up and add on a sandwich, enhance a soup or make a stir-fry. I also like to fry up sunlight enriched homegrown shiitake mushrooms in a teriyaki sauce and then dry them to make amazingly delicious and addictive ‘mushrooms chips’ (or ‘mushroom jerky’ depending on what moisture level you dry them too).
For more info, read: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/making-allies-in-the-fungal-queendom
More recent research has also found that Oyster Mushrooms are twice as effective then Shiitake at turning UV light into Vitamin D (and they are even easier to grow). (for reference: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0040702 )
I like to grow oyster mushrooms in mason jars on my kitchen counter using (spent) coffee grounds as a substrate (food for the mycelium of the fungi to produce mushrooms from). It is free and easy to perpetuate after you get your first jar inoculated with either foraged or purchased oyster spawn. I cover the basic techniques to grow both of those mushroom species at home in my book (referenced in the Regenerative Agriculture Solutions Watch episode on the Corbett Report, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/nmDxGzxVEtk?si=YcBSPvrVT1T6UdcJ )