What Artificial Light Is Doing To Our Health with VivaRays Co-Founder Roudy Nassif
Ever wonder if the light around you could be messing with your health?
In this week’s episode, I sit down with Roudy Nassif, co-founder of VivaRays, to uncover the hidden ways blue light might be impacting your sleep, mood, hormones, weight and energy.
Roudy’s personal story of overcoming health struggles linked to artificial light is a game-changer. Could light exposure be the missing piece in your health puzzle?
We’re diving into questions like:
- Why does morning sunlight matter so much for your body?
- Could your sunglasses be doing more harm than good?
- What’s the deal with blue light, and why does it affect your sleep?
Plus, Roudy shares simple, practical tips to transform how you manage light in your daily life—and they might just change how you feel.
You’re literally going to be blown away when you learn how something as basic as light impacts your health!
👉 Get your own pair of Viva Rays: https://vivarays.com/nataliejill and use code NATALIEJILL to save 10%
How Were VivaRays Founded?
In January 2017, Roudy was laying in bed with a heavy, drained body and a dark cloud hanging over his head. His partner was up and about getting ready for the day while he was barely able to open his eyes, hiding in his shame and depression. He had been feeling like garbage for many years – restless and agitated as a kid, being called ADHD at school, and later turned into a night owl feeling drained and very low energy through the days. He was distracted, exhausted, and lost. Eventually, he got fired from his job because he couldn’t focus and had no energy.
Determined to change his life, Roudy began taking on intense outdoor experiences just to catch intense moments of energy, only for them to later fall away. With his only goal being to feel and get better, he began taking supplements and herbs and adaptogens, but still found himself in the same cycle of complete exhaustion. This cycle leads many of us to think we need to do more, buy more, take more, etc.
During one of his late nights, he happened to stumble across an article by a neurosurgeon about how artificial lights are killing us. Trying to wrap his brain around it, he found one part that stuck with him: “you can’t get healthy in the same light environment that made you sick.” And that was his lightbulb moment – no pun intended.
He ended up going on an expedition where he lived in a tent for six weeks, living by natural sunlight and candle and fire light by night. Within just THREE days of arriving, his body reset and the night owl inside of him was falling asleep shortly after sunset, and waking up with the sun feeling rested and with a sense of joy he had never felt before. Everything he had known prior about his ADHD, his sleepless nights, his depression, and extreme exhaustion came crumbling down. He realized that it was his city environment that had been crippling him this whole time.
Thus began his deep investigation on how light impacts our biology. He found that light is information flowing into our system telling our bodies what time it is and which hormones to excrete at which time. This manifests as health and vitality when done right, and when done wrong, it becomes harmful.
From the lighting inside more modern homes, to the TVs, to our other on screen devices, we are inundated with artificial blue light (especially when it’s after sunset) that is deeply affecting our mood and our health.
The Impact of Light
Light is the most powerful force that shapes and molds every aspect of our biology. As an engineer by trade, Roudy is familiar with E=MC2. However, he had never considered that light as a physical force shapes life and our biology. Energy and matter are the same thing. When light changes form, it slows down and becomes us. We have a substance in our eye that when sunlight enters, it slows down for us to convert the light energy into electricity that programs all of our neurotransmitters and hormones in control of the way we think, feel, and act.
Light is information that creates our reality. In the same way we protect our minds from junk information, it’s important to protect our eyes from junk light; light can either elevate us or destroy us. Being exposed to artificial lights significantly (and negatively) impacts our ability to heal, repair, and rejuvenate at night.
How Does Light Affect Our Hormones?
In an ideal world, you would be waking up with the sunrise, going to sleep with the sunset, and would not be exposing yourself to artificial light in between or after hours. In doing so, you are messing with nature’s way to provide our system with the information we need to thrive and rest/wake naturally.
When you’re in artificial blue light (like the light from screens), you are increasing your cortisol and adrenaline levels in abnormal ways. Imagine yourself at 7pm at night. Naturally, if you were to watch the sunset and light candles, your body would start releasing the sleep hormone melatonin. Instead, you come home and sit in front of the TV with your lights on and scrolling on your phone. The moment we expose ourselves to that light, we stop producing melatonin and start producing cortisol and adrenaline (the stress hormones). These are two hormones that are NOT supposed to be in the body at night, as they can make us feel anxious, wired, stressed, and feel like we need to do something. And, when cortisol level spikes, you are raising your blood sugar without even eating food!
Light and Emotional Eating
Because of the way light can trigger the wrong hormones to start being produced and released into the body, you can be left lacking willpower and discipline in terms of emotional eating. Ever turn your show on and 30 minutes later find yourself wanting to snack on food? You are fighting against your biological evolution – as the screen light is entering your eyes, your cortisol levels are spiking, your blood sugar is spiking and then naturally, it falls, and you are left feeling an intense urge to eat. When cortisol is high in the body, insulin is being released, and the cortisol is blocking the insulin effect and leaves you insulin resistant.
Light and How it Impacts Our Moods
Dopamine is a miraculous molecule that gives us focus, motivation, satisfaction, attention, drive, etc. The artificial light you are consuming after sunset is destroying this very molecule. A very little amount of blue and green light entering our eyes after sunset activates a center in the brain known as the disappointment center. The morning after this is activated, people wake up with less dopamine in their system and are more likely to feel unsatisfied and unmotivated in the morning.
What About UV? Is It Harmful? Should I Wear Sunglasses?
The major problem with sunglasses is that they block the frequencies of the sunlight AND they block frequencies of invisible light. Many people think the light from the sun is harmful but how is it possible that sunlight, the most powerful nutrient that nourishes all light, can be dangerous? There are hundreds of studies done on the benefits of UV light on driving our biology. A lot of fear about UV light dates back to the 80s in a study on monkeys with fully dilated pupils and the inability to blink while being blasted with only UV light.
In reality and in true science: when we are exposed to natural sunlight, we are never exposed to UV without its polar opposite, infrared light. These two are symbiotic and come together in nature to balance each other out. It is foolish to think you need to avoid UV at all costs.
Responsible UV exposure has been shown to:
- Lower blood pressure dramatically
- Increase efficiency of the heart
- Increase calmness and reduces anxiety
- Increase weight loss
- Increase sex hormones by 120%
What Can We Do About Optimizing Our Exposure to Light?
- Get morning sunlight as it rises on the horizon
- Stop wearing sunglasses outside during the day
- Intentionally watch the sunset
- Get responsible UV seasonal exposure year round
- Wear VivaRays any time you’re exposed to artificial light indoors
How Do VivaRays Work?
Natural sunlight as we were intended to experience it has a full spectrum of blue light that is balanced with yellow, orange, and red wavelengths – providing the optimal balance for your health.
Modeled after the way nature intended, the way Viva Rays work are unique in that they don’t “block” the harmful 455nm blue light like many other “blue light blocking” glasses do. Rather, they HARMONIZE the harmful blue light by reducing the spike and balancing it with the OTHER beneficial colors.
In turn, this prevents you from headaches, eye strain, fatigue, and inflammation and instead provides a regulation in your mood, energy, and alertness.
The interchangeable lenses let you adjust for the natural cycle of the sun.
- The yellow VivaRays lenses should be worn indoors during the day when being exposed to artificial LED lights; these normalize the light spectrum
- The orange VivaRays lenses should be worn after sunset as you wind down; they eliminate ALL of the blue and most of the green lights without making you feel too tired.
- The red VivaRays lenses should be worn 30-60 minutes before you go to bed; these should make you feel sleepy and ready for bed.
This and so much more on the episode! Highly recommend listening in!
🕶️ Get your Viva Rays and start optimizing your light exposure at https://vivarays.com/nataliejill and use code NATALIEJILL to save 10% on your order!
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