Disruptions in circadian clock function are associated with various health issues, so coordinate the cells and systems of the body by ensuring light arrives at the eyes at appropriate times and is absent at other times.
View bright light, ideally sunlight, within 30 minutes to an hour of waking (sooner if possible) for 5 to 10 minutes every morning to coordinate your body’s cells and systems and set your master circadian clock. This practice is foundational for mental and physical health and high performance.
Absolutely dim the lights in the evening and late hours, especially between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., because melatonin (the sleep transition hormone) is powerfully inhibited by light, and retinal cells become highly sensitive to light at night.
When feeling stressed, perform a physiological sigh: two inhales through the nose (a big one, then a tiny second squeeze) followed by a long, complete exhale through the mouth. This immediately reduces stress and anxiety by reinflating lung alveoli and offloading carbon dioxide.
When taking control of mental and physical health, prioritize actions and behaviors first, as they have a profound impact, are measurable, and allow for communication about tools, whereas thoughts and feelings are harder to control directly.
Cultivate nervous system flexibility, the ability to easily move between states of alertness and focus, and relaxation and calm, rather than getting stuck in one position. This ’tightness of the hinge’ allows for effective transitions throughout the day.
Dilate your gaze to see more of the space around you without moving your head or eyes (panoramic vision) to release a brain-brainstem connection involved in alertness, creating a relaxing, decelerating effect on your nervous system. This is useful for managing arguments, public speaking fear, or face-to-face communication.
Walking, biking, or jogging forward (self-generated motion) where the visual world slips by, directly and powerfully inhibits the threat reflex in brain areas like the amygdala, providing anxiety relief. This does not work on a treadmill if you are staring at a screen.
Periodically view things at a distance, beyond screens or walls, ideally a horizon, to prevent headaches and eye strain from constant close-up focus, and to improve mood and metabolic function via the habenula.
Take even short 10-second pauses during high attentional activities (learning, conversations) to allow the brain to store information faster, decompress, and return with a heightened level of focus, preventing focus depletion throughout the day.
If struggling to focus, place a small crosshatch on a piece of paper at computer distance, and force your vision to converge on it, holding it with minimal blinking for about 60 seconds. This adjusts your visual and mental aperture, helping to rule out distractions.
Perform a daily visual training practice: close eyes and focus on internal state while breathing 3 times; open eyes, focus on hand (arm’s length) and breathe 3 times; look in distance and breathe 3 times; go into panoramic vision and breathe 3 times; then return to internal landscape or focused work. This trains the system to adjust to shifts and improves transitions between activities.
The nervous system constantly changes in response to experience; be intentional about forcing specific, beneficial changes through practices like light viewing and movement, otherwise, it may atrophy or change for the worse due to passive living.
Engage in hard, ongoing psychological work (e.g., therapy, journaling) to make the unconscious conscious, understand personal tendencies (pleaser, rebel), and intervene in one’s own thinking to avoid repeating unhelpful dynamics.
When encountering aggressive or concerning comments/behaviors, filter them through the reality that many people struggle with mental challenges, which can provide relief and foster understanding rather than getting triggered.
Do a little bit of journaling each day, even if handwriting is poor or sentences are incomplete, to place anxieties and stresses onto paper, which can help to expunge them.
In challenging times, remember that you have control over your nervous system and response system, and reinforce yourself from the inside out using simple, zero-cost tools and practices to build resilience and achieve a more optimal stance to deal with challenges.
When viewing morning sunlight, do not wear sunglasses as they filter out specific wavelengths of light necessary for setting the circadian clock. Corrective lenses (contacts/glasses) are fine as they focus light to the retina.
Never look directly at any light, artificial or sunlight, that is so bright it’s painful to look at, as your blink reflex exists for a reason to protect your eyes.
Even if there’s cloud cover, getting outside for morning light is still important and far better than relying on artificial sources, as natural light carries higher intensities needed to set the circadian clock.
If you wake up before the sun comes out, turn on as many bright artificial lights as you can, then go outside once the sun is out to get natural light.
Do not view morning light through a window or car windshield because the filtration of light wavelengths will make the clock-setting mechanism take about 50 times longer.
Viewing light early in the day ensures your vital cortisol pulse arrives early, providing energy and focus for 10-14 hours. A late-shifted cortisol peak, caused by not viewing morning light, is associated with chronic depression, worse mood, evening anxiety, and sleep trouble.
The duration for morning light viewing varies; on a very bright day (e.g., snow field), 1-2 minutes may suffice, but on overcast days, you might need 30 minutes or more.
If you miss a day of morning light viewing, no big deal, but try to get twice as much time outside the next day, as the clock mechanism is a ‘slow integrator’ counting light energy over time.
As a low-cost alternative to expensive SAD lamps, use a blue ring light (like those used by YouTubers) at your breakfast table or while working in the morning to get the system going.
Avoid wearing blue blockers in the morning and throughout the day, as blue wavelengths are crucial for setting the circadian clock and short-circuiting this signal will impair wakefulness and clock setting.
Morning light viewing sets a 16-hour countdown to melatonin release, which is responsible for transitioning into sleep, thereby helping to establish a better transition and quality of sleep later that night.
To synergize with morning light viewing, try to do your exercise outside without sunglasses, maximizing light exposure.
In the evening, ideally have lights low in your physical environment, such as table lamps or lights near the floor, as the cells transmitting light information to the hypothalamus reside in the lower half of the retina and view the upper visual field. Firelight and moonlight are fine.
If you occasionally turn on bright lights in the middle of the night, don’t freak out, as these are slow integrating systems; consistent exposure to screens or bright lights late at night is what significantly disrupts your system.
Treat light exposure like nutrition or exercise, aiming to get it right or mostly right about 80% of the time, and don’t panic if you violate these tools every once in a while.
Children and adults should spend two hours a day outside, even doing homework on a computer, to greatly reduce the incidence of myopia and improve mood and metabolic function through different light-to-eye mechanisms.
When walking outside, avoid looking at your phone to maximize the benefits of self-generated optic flow and panoramic vision for anxiety relief and overall health.
Engaging in panoramic vision not only relaxes but also makes you more alert, aware, and responsive, improving reaction times and situational awareness, as the responsible neurons transmit information faster.
Be mindful of constant context switching on phones and social media, as rapidly darting visual attention between new contexts can lead to clinically legitimate ADHD-like symptoms.
Understand that short-term mental and physical stress causes adrenaline release, which signals the immune system to activate killer cells and anti-inflammatory cytokines, making it beneficial for resisting infection and healing wounds.
Take deliberate cold showers (e.g., three minutes every two or three days) to cause adrenaline release, which has been shown to improve resistance to bacterial, viral, and fungal infections.
Engage in cyclic hyperventilation (a breathing practice not detailed here, but mentioned as causing adrenaline release) to improve resistance to infections.
Learn to control adrenaline release and its timing by increasing it when beneficial, coming off the accelerator, and slamming on the brake to shut it down, using practices like vision and respiration.
When thoughts are racing or mind is not where you want it to be, look to your body and use physical practices (like the physiological sigh) to recalibrate your state of mind, gaining a new, calmer vantage point to analyze mental challenges.
Use Yoga Nidra, a free 30-minute non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) script, during wakefulness or if waking up at night, to get better at falling asleep and improve sleep quality.
Utilize a free self-hypnosis app like Reveri.com (for Apple and Android) to improve sleep, manage anxiety, and enhance focus.
For trouble falling and staying asleep, consider taking magnesium threonate or bisglycinate, as many people benefit from it, and it’s non-addictive (though 5% may experience gastric discomfort).
Take 50 milligrams of apigenin (chamomile extract) to help fall and stay asleep, as it can be very beneficial for many people.
Consider taking 1 to 3 grams of EPA essential fatty acids daily, as studies show it can stand up against SSRIs for antidepressant effects without the side effect profile, and can lower required dosages of such drugs.
Consume one to four servings of fermented foods per day to improve gut health and reduce inflammation, based on scientific evidence.
When experimenting with supplements, introduce them one at a time to determine what works and what doesn’t, and always consult your physician to ensure they are safe for you.