Welcome to part 3 of 3 in this series about the effects of light on the body.
Part 3:
(co-written with @xtianiswriting)
In the previous pieces we saw just how sick our children are becoming. The elephant in the room has become too overweight, stupid, crazy, lazy, and weak to ignore.
Though it’s challenging to make definite causative claims for specific instances of disease due to the scope and ‘slow burn’ nature of their effects, I posit our novel tech and light related habits are at the core of the illnesses we’ve begun to see crop up—coincidentally with the inception and proliferation of artificial light.
This is due to light’s major role in entraining the circadian rhythm, which governs our daily background functions, and in controlling cellular health and energy production amongst other important biological interactions we’re meant to receive everyday by being outside.
The problem is right under our noses, or rather right in front of them, or above us, or in our pockets, or in our walls, or—you get the point, it’s everywhere. From living indoors 90+% of the time on blue LED lit screens, bathing in non-native EMF 24/7, and blasting our eyes with artificial light at night, we are not only depriving ourselves of the inputs and light nutrients we need to function properly, but are simultaneously shortening our life/healthspans.
What good is a long life if we’re sick and can’t live out our will, especially if we’re only being propped up by drugs with laundry lists of side effects, all interacting together in our bloodstream in unknown ways like a game of pharmaceutical russian roulette?
We’ll have to address our harmful technology at a large scale at some point while returning to some degree to life as we knew it for so long in our evolutionary past. Because no amount of biohacking can make up for a ruined relationship with light, solutions like widespread healthy indoor lighting and the Daylight Computer must be implemented to mitigate damage while we figure out ways to prioritize nature.
The change will start with individuals, so consider yourself early and do your duty to spread the word on these topics, but the real red pill comes when you realize how fast tech is degenerating the population generation after generation on a genetic basis…though likely not through the genome you have in mind. In this final piece in our series on the impacts of light for health, we’ll look into how this occurs and why what Dr. Kruse said about cognitive devolution and iPad kids being victims of child abuse is not hyperbole—though I wish it was.
Heteroplasmy Rate: The Luck of the Draw
One theory regarding mitochondria is the endosymbiotic theory: mitochondria were separate lifeforms: aerobic bacteria that combined forces with a larger organism in a symbiotic relationship where the bacteria provided energy to the host in exchange for protection. This duo was so successful it evolved into you and I and everything else we generally consider as life today. As a relic of this, mitochondria still carry their own DNA called Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) which, unlike nuclear DNA, is solely passed down by the mother.
mtDNA encodes for proteins responsible for energy production within the mitochondria, but is far more susceptible to mutations due to its unprotected structure and proximity to harmful byproducts of the energy production process called free radicals—unstable molecules that steal electrons to stabilize themselves. This causes damage to the cell and can mutate mtDNA, resulting in the coding of faulty proteins and less energy produced.
mtDNA mutations are a significant driver of aging and typically occur at a slow, gradual pace. Excessive mutation beyond the normal rate resulting in decreased energy production wouldn’t be an issue unless free radicals weren’t being properly neutralized by antioxidants such as melatonin, which is created by mitochondria in response to infrared light.
An area of ongoing study that seems to offer a genetic mechanism to our recently rising rates of disease in younger populations—all of which seem to have mitochondrial dysfunction in common, even cancer—is heteroplasmy rate, the percentage of mutant to normal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) within a cell. When the heteroplasmy rate rises, cellular energy production decreases and when this % of functional to dysfunctional mitochondria crosses a certain threshold determined by the energy requirements of the cell, disease and dysfunction ensue.
This is serious because mutant mitochondrial DNA is heritable; even though the mtDNA that a child will inherit is present in their mothers’ egg cells when she is born, it can be mutated throughout her life but it’s not as simple as “I worked at an airport or military base next to antennas with a laptop directly over my ovaries for 20 years, so my child will 100% have autism or an autoimmune disease or some other new, ‘idiopathic’ disease.”
This is because there is a bottleneck effect during egg cell formation where the amount of mtDNA is reduced, meaning depending on which mitochondria are randomly selected during this process, the mtDNA passed down could be more or less mutant and result in different degrees of congenital disease or susceptibility to disease at younger ages. While this is random, not linear, we are seeing it play out on a macro level generation after generation since we’ve been driven inside and closer to environmental toxins of all kinds that can affect the mtDNA of the egg cells (blue light and nnEMF included).
What will happen when Gen Z and younger, who may have already been born with more mutated mitochondria and have been exposed to these toxins practically since the womb, begin to have children? The future generations may be set up for shorter lives spent in waiting rooms, pharmacy lines, and hospital beds. Society can’t function when 1 in 36 kids are on the spectrum (up from 1 in 10,000 in 1970). Knowing this, we can’t play russian roulette but we also can’t stop having kids—therefore it is our duty to our children and the future of civilization to prioritize mitochondrial health.
How to Prioritize Mitochondrial Health
-being outside in natural light as much as possible
-maintaining a regular, circadian aligned sleep schedule
-regular intense exercise, preferably outside
-breathwork
-embracing the cold (cold plunge, swimming in natural bodies of water)
-eating locally sourced and nutrient dense organic foods (farmer’s market when possible)
-avoiding mitochondrial stressors like artificial light and nnEMF (check out my recommendations for how to avoid these in Part 2)
Essentially, we must live according to nature and by the elements like we used to as much as possible. How you do this while retaining your modernity and tech use is ultimately up to you. With that bombshell out of the way, we’ll now take a look at other unique ways children are vulnerable to tech damage.
The Unmyelinated Brain
Myelin is a fatty white substance that insulates nerve axons in many parts of the brain and nervous system to speed up communication and protect against interfering signals. The process of myelination occurs over time, developing later in parts of the brain like the prefrontal cortex which is responsible for the higher order functions of decision making, problem-solving, social interactions, and impulse control.
This uninsulated state leaves children’s neurons vulnerable to damage, potentially affecting these aspects of cognition and even language skills…sound familiar? We don’t fully myelinate until our mid to late 20s but nnEMF damages cells other than neurons, so no matter your age, nobody is really off the hook. We must keep our young children away from sources of radiation and tech in general if we want to give them the best chances of developing properly.
Thinner Skulls
Children can be up to more than 2x as vulnerable to nnEMF damage to the brain because their skulls are thinner. The combination of the unmyelinated state of the brain with the thinness of the skull is likely at the root of the negative mental health effects seen on children exposed to radio waves in the womb. This also applies to the penetration of bones to the bone marrow.
Closer Contact
The inverse square law states the closer to a source of radiation something is, the more intensely it is irradiated by it and vice versa. Because children are smaller with shorter limbs, they hold devices closer to their face; therefore their brains and eyes are more intensely exposed to blue light and nnEMF.
There’s not much that can be done about this besides getting away from the source and using tech as little as possible but again, both children and adults alike should definitely avoid laptops on their lap and phones in their pockets or to their ears.
Lens Development
The lenses in our eyes aren’t fully formed until around age 9 or 10 and before this they are biased to let in more blue light than matured lenses. Lenses change even into older age to filter out shorter wavelength light, meaning children are more vulnerable to blue light disrupting the circadian rhythm while adults need more and brighter light to set this rhythm.
Less Control
Children already have lower impulse control and a reduced ability to delay gratification as a result of their developing brains, so it’s easy to understand why they love the apps and games and videos that constantly give them dopamine hits. This dopamine is not only coming from the content, but also from the screen itself as blue light spikes dopamine, though destroying it in the long run by ruining the parts of the brain that produce it such as the habenular nucleus.
This is an underlying mechanism of many addictions, where the mind compels you to indulge in the easiest way it knows how to restore the chemical it craves—which is usually dopamine. This is how tech use feeds into itself; if left to their own devices, children will use their devices.
If we want to avoid a world with grown ups who choose to eat the marshmallow, we have to be strict with our kids. Definitely limit when and for how long they use devices and certainly don’t rely on the digital babysitter and turn them into an iPad kid.
Exposure Time
Considering the average young person spends hours upon hours a day on their phone, and that students and young people in general use tech all day at school, at work, and at home, there really isn’t too much time they are away from tech in any meaningful way.
The sheer amount of time they’re exposed is the real danger, considering the vulnerabilities and harms we’ve covered. More time spent living a modern, tech controlled life results in weaker mitochondria, lower dopamine, worse mental health, and more disease.
Final Thoughts
The normalization of tech use and indoor life does not excuse us from its effects. Technology is powerful, but with all power comes responsibility. We have the responsibility not only to be aware of the harms of the tech we use, but also to act accordingly to mitigate the damage while retaining the incredible use we get out of it.
Play around with how you can use the tips provided throughout this series, but the bottom line is we need to get ourselves and our kids outside in nature and away from the man-made environmental pollutants that are visibly and measurably harming us.
Considering the various biological vulnerabilities, reducing screen time indoors is key. Being outside in nature, away from nnEMF will do wonders for your and your childrens’ health and relationship, and hopefully reignite a love for nature that many young people lack or just never had the chance to cultivate. A weekend of camping has even been shown to reset the circadian rhythm. Apply this to yourself, your kids, and advise your loved ones—but also recognize the importance of everyone doing so societally. We can’t have iPad kids running the world.
I hope the information and advice given in these articles as well as the suggested products facilitate your journey to optimize your health and help you lead the healthy life you’re entitled to.
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Thank you for reading this 3-part series!
Let's make The Solarium the parallel ecosystem we can trust.
Elite Health is Clean Living,
-Jessica
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