127: Are You Missing This One Performance Nutrient? (Hint: It's FREE!)

Sunlight might be the missing link to your energy, focus, and performance as an entrepreneur, yet most of us spend our days trapped indoors under artificial light while ignoring the consequences to our health. Jeffrey Mort shares his personal journey of how chronic light deficiency contributed to his nervous system dysfunction and made him vulnerable to long COVID, and how prioritizing sunlight exposure became crucial to his recovery.

• Sunlight is a critical nutrient that regulates circadian rhythm and nervous system function
• Three common sunlight myths: always wearing sunglasses, always using sunblock, and believing artificial light is equivalent to natural light 
• The World Health Organization classified shift work as a carcinogen in 2012 due to disrupted light exposure
• Morning sunlight exposure without sunglasses helps set proper cortisol patterns and improves energy
• Testing vitamin D levels is essential - functional medicine recommends 50-80 ng/ml versus conventional medicine's 30 ng/ml standard
• Three actionable steps: get morning sunlight, test vitamin D levels, supplement wisely with D3 and K2 when needed

Schedule your free health consultation through the link in the show notes to get to the root cause of what's holding you back.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Sunlight Deficiency's Impact on Entrepreneurs
• 6:27 Busting Common Sunlight Myths
• 8:04 Shift Work and Long COVID Connection
• 11:25 Sunlight as an Essential Nutrient
• 12:10 Three Steps to Maximize Sunlight Benefits
• 15:56 Vitamin D Testing and Supplementation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:17

Entrepreneurs, listen up, because this might be the missing link to your energy, your focus and your performance. You're building your business, grinding long hours indoors, glued to screens, barely stepping outside, and yet you wonder why you feel exhausted, anxious or foggy, no matter how much coffee you drink. Well, here's the truth your nervous system is paying the price for your lack of sunlight. Are you struggling with burnout, you can't sleep, or you wake up feeling absolutely drained, constant brain fog or mood swings. You know, it's not just stress. This is a biological problem, and today I'm breaking down why sunlight is a nutrient your body needs to function at peak performance. The myths keeping you trapped indoors and how I personally suffered the consequences of ignoring this for decades. Stick with me, because by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to use sunlight as a tool to regulate your nervous system, sharpen your mind and fuel your success. Let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Hello, I'm Jeffrey Mort. If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're busy taking care of business, yet who's taking care of you? If you're ready to take your energy and performance to the next level in your life and your business, then this podcast is for you, because today you're going to start breaking boundaries of your mind, body and business with integrative health, and when you do that, your possibilities are limitless. I'm grateful you're here. Ah, yes, always grateful. Welcome back to Breaking Boundaries for Entrepreneurs. I'm your host and personal high-performance health coach, jeffrey Mort, and today we're diving into a game-changer for your health, your energy and your longevity. That's right, we're talking about sunlight today. This past weekend, most of us turned our clocks forward for daylight savings time, but is it really saving us? In last week's from the heart letter, we tackled that question and if you missed it, make sure to subscribe in the show notes so that you never miss another edition and you can always go back and read the previous editions as well.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Now let's get into it, because when it comes to sunlight and your nervous system, there's a lot of misinformation out there, and, as someone who spent 35 years in construction as a master electrician, waking up before sunrise, working in dimly lit buildings under artificial lights and barely seeing the sun in the wintertime, I've experienced firsthand what happens when you don't get enough natural light. In fact, this chronic light deficiency played a huge role in my nervous system becoming dysregulated and it made me incredibly vulnerable to post viral inflammatory syndrome, aka long covid. In 2021. I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a minute. Today, we're going to bust the biggest myths about sunlight, explain why shift work is now considered a carcinogen, or has been for a while, and give you real, actionable steps to start using sunlight as a nutrient yes, a nutrient to support your nervous system, boost energy and optimize your health. So, of course, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice, and I don't claim to diagnose or treat or cure disease of any kind. However, I can help you discover the root causes of why your health is not optimized.

Speaker 1: 5:09

So let's start by busting some common myths about the sun. Myth number one you should always wear sunglasses outdoors. Well, wearing sunglasses all the time blocks natural light from entering your eyes, which is critical for regulating your circadian rhythm. Your eyes have specialized receptors that tell your brain whether it's time to wake up, produce serotonin or wind down for sleep. Overuse of sunglasses can confuse your internal clock and disrupt your nervous system. Now myth number two sunblock is always necessary. Yes, sunburn is bad. Sunburn is bad, but blocking all sunlight prevents your body from making vitamin D, a hormone essential for immune health, for mood and for nervous system balance. Your skin also has receptors on it that absorb that sun, so safe sun exposure is key. And then myth number three artificial light is just as good. No, that's not true. Blue light from screens is not the same as natural light, and you know for that matter. Neither is I mean. You know you can buy a um a 10 000 lux lamp. That could be helpful in those darker months, those winter months, but it's still not the same. It can overstimulate your nervous system. The blue light that is suppress melatonin and contribute to poor sleep and burnout. So let's talk a minute about how shift work and lack of sunlight wrecks your nervous system. Did you know that shift work has been classified as a carcinogen, meaning potentially cancer-causing, since 2012 by the World Health Organization? People who work night shifts or spend most of their time indoors have a higher risk of cancer, metabolic disorders and nervous system dysfunction. Why? Because your body relies on natural light cues to regulate everything from hormones to immune function.

Speaker 1: 7:18

As I mentioned, I felt this firsthand in my career as an electrician For decades. I woke up most days around 3.30 or 4 am so that I could get my workout in before I had to drive an hour. To work in the dark, worked long hours, usually indoors, under very dim temporary lights, and barely saw the sun. So not only was I not getting sun, but I was straining my eyes to see what I was doing in you know, my activities and the work that I was doing. And, if you know, in my career I was also a foreman and I was, you know if I wasn't actually in the building doing the work, I was in a job trailer under artificial lights, with zero windows as well, and barely saw the sun, especially from October through March, when daylight savings time was not in effect. I felt drained, I felt irritable, to say the least, and most often, not my best self. We'll just leave it at that. And but I ignored it. And so then, in 2022, I got hit with long COVID.

Speaker 1: 8:28

You know, post viral inflammatory syndrome is what they call long COVID and uh, I just I realized just how much my dysregulated nervous system and lack of sunlight played a role in my struggle. We'll say the word struggle is an understatement. I mean, there was a duration where I literally could not walk or talk, and it was. It was a very difficult time, like I remember asking myself is is this how I'm going to spend the rest of my life Because it just seemed like the days were getting well. The days were getting, you know, the days were going on but I wasn't progressing. I was actually getting worse and I just it was. It was. It was a really rough time.

Speaker 1: 9:13

Anyways, that's when I made light exposure a priority and I can tell you it changed everything. And there were days, you know, I said I couldn't walk or talk. Luckily this was going on, uh, springtime, summertime and fall, and so there were days where I would just take a blanket and and lay it down on the lawn and just bask in the the summer sun and just absorb that sunlight, and that made a huge difference. That, and getting my bare feet on the ground and grounding, drinking plenty of really fresh spring water as well, all of this made a difference. It wasn't just the sunlight, but it played a huge role, and just laying in that sun for 30, 40, 60 minutes would make me feel more energized so that I could go about my day.

Speaker 1: 10:03

So why is sunlight a nutrient that you need? Well, think of sunlight as important as hydration for your body. You wouldn't go days without water. You would die. So why go days without proper sunlight exposure.

Speaker 1: 10:17

Sunlight regulates your circadian rhythm. It improves your sleep and your nervous system balance. It also boosts serotonin and dopamine, which enhances mood and focus, and then it triggers vitamin D production, which is essential for immune health and longevity. But here's the problem Most people in the Northern Hemisphere are vitamin D3 deficient for more than half the year, and that's why testing your vitamin D levels is so important. So I want to give you some actionable steps.

Speaker 1: 10:50

Here in this podcast, we're going to talk about how to get the most out of sunlight. So three simple steps to maximize the benefits of sunlight and support your nervous system. Number one get morning sunlight regularly without sunglasses. If you want to wear them to look cool. Everybody owns a cool pair of sunglasses. That's fine. But get that morning sunlight without the sunglasses. If you can do 10 or 20 minutes of natural sunlight exposure within 30 minutes of waking up, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 11:25

If you're driving to work during that time, when the sun's actually up especially now that daylight savings time is implemented the sun rises at the same moment, but you know it rises a little bit later. So maybe now you're driving to work and the sun's just coming up. If you can see it through the window. Roll down that window, because your automobile window, the windows in your home, most likely have UV blocking glass or a component of film on it. So you know, roll that window down, get that sunlight exposure. This is called sun gazing, and of course you don't want to look directly at the sun, but looking in the direction of the sun.

Speaker 1: 12:04

This helps to set your circadian rhythm for the day. It's going to trigger waking cortisol and we can see this on functional lab testing. We can not only test your vitamin D3 levels but we can also test your cortisol levels to make sure that your waking cortisol and your lunchtime cortisol are in the proper ranges. So you want that cortisol elevated in the morning and then you want it lower at night. So getting that morning sunlight helps to set your circadian rhythm for the day.

Speaker 1: 12:35

Next, test your vitamin D3 levels At-home. Functional lab testing makes it really easy. I will link up the lab test in the show notes. Very inexpensive, you can do this right at home. It's a simple finger prick, a couple of drops of blood on a card. You mail that in. They rehydrate it and they're able to tell if your levels are optimal. Now you can do this with your conventional medicine doctor as well. But the problem is, conventional medicine often says that 30 is a normal number. 30 nanograms per milliliter is what we're measuring for the blood level here, but functional medicine recommends 50 to 80 nanograms per milliliter for real health benefits. So we want to see our clients somewhere in the 70 range, somewhere around 70, but definitely above 50.

Speaker 1: 13:27

And then you know you might be thinking well, jeff, don't I need vitamin K2 along with that D3? And you are correct. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you're likely needing vitamin D3 supplementation, you know, from September through June, and a good starting point is about 2,000 to 4,000 IUs international units per day alongside with vitamin K2 for proper absorption. However, you don't have to take an additional K2 product or a D3 with K2 if you're taking a daily activated multivitamin or our daily nutritional support powder, which already has the K2 in it. So you can save your money on that more expensive d3 with k2.

Speaker 1: 14:13

If you're already taking the multivitamin that you should be taking anyways, just make sure it's got vitamin k2 in it as well. So by now it's clear that you want to take the next step towards better health if you're struggling with health issues or you just want to optimize your energy and your longevity. You're already in good health and you want to take it to the next level. Don't wait for things to get worse or start going downhill. I offer you to schedule a free health consultation, completely complimentary the link's in the show notes and let's get to the root cause of what's holding you back. So until next time, stay healthy and keep breaking those boundaries. Bye-bye everybody.