Light Up Your Life
I watched the sun rise on 90 consecutive days as an experiment to see what changed about me. The experience was enlightening.
I had never greeted the rising sun on numerous consecutive mornings. Over the years, I had witnessed only sporadic sunrises—and sunsets. Like many in our fast-paced, technology-saturated society, I spent (too) many hours indoors each day staring at a computer screen.
That changed in mid-2020 when I committed to seeing the sun come up on 90 straight days. I’d then stay in place and gaze at the newly emerged orb for about 30 minutes, often longer. The purpose of this non-scientific experiment, or “challenge,” as I called it, was to see if I would notice any benefit to my health, such as a better sleep cycle or a feeling of greater vitality. The result? I certainly did, as I describe below.
Dr. Jack Kruse, a board-certified neurosurgeon by trade and self-described “optimal health educator,” inspired me to embark on this three-month odyssey. “I think the single-most-important thing, no matter where you live, is seeing the sun rise,” he said in a May 2020 podcast interview when laying out his top recommendation. “If you do this every day of your life, you will have the greatest impact on your health,” he said. Our species evolved with the sun and we still need that connection to thrive, he says. Sadly, modern technology and our indoor lifestyles have divorced us from that bond, says Kruse. “Anytime we are disconnected from nature, even just being inside, it’s a problem, a huge problem,” he said in an August 2019 online discussion. It’s no surprise then that Kruse says he’s adamant about seeing every sunrise.
Takeaways
1. Exposure to sunlight, especially at sunrise, is vital to our health.
2. Sunlight supports our bodies’ energy production, hormone release, sleep cycle, etc.
3. Minimize contact with blue-dominant artificial light since it disrupts body functions.
I came across Kruse some years ago and immediately found him intriguing; however, it was during the challenge that I began to follow him more closely. I think he has a compelling message: After enduring years of obesity and compromised health due to his demanding career as a brain surgeon—with many late night/early morning surgeries under intense artificial light—he says he restored his vitality via a protocol centered on sunlight, cold-temperature exposure, and resetting his body’s innate ability to control appetite. In the process, he shed 133 pounds within a year, he says. I respect Kruse for his extensive knowledge and find him informative, inspiring, and often provocative. I like that he does not mince words or suffer fools. He can back up any claim he makes with a detailed scientific explanation. Kruse is active on social media and also posts content online in the forums at his website and at his paid-members-only Patreon page. Everything in this article is from his public comments as well as podcast interviews, presentations and talks posted online, and Instagram posts and livestreams.
“I think the single-most-important thing, no matter where you live, is seeing the sun rise.”
Sun-First Approach
Kruse distinguishes himself in the health arena via the emphasis he places on light, both in terms of embracing sunlight and in minimizing exposure to artificial light, which is so prevalent in our modern world and which he believes is far-more-harmful than most of us realize. “People do not understand light as they need to understand it,” he said in an October 2016 podcast interview. “They think that sunlight and the light that we use [are] equivalent. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. Two years later in another podcast interview, he said: ”The light that you live under needs to be sunlight. … Today, most modern humans live under blue light, and blue light is horribly toxic for our biology.”
Kruse unambiguously asserts that morning sunlight is far more impactful than a wholesome diet and/or a dedicated exercise regime for our long-term health. “Sunlight is nature’s vaccine,” he told participants at a health summit in July 2019 in Krutyń, Poland. “If you see the sunrise every single day the rest of your life, you will solve probably 70 percent to 80 percent of your problems,” he said in the August 2019 online discussion. If you watch the sun set each evening, you will benefit even more, he says. If you want to go all in, then take in more morning sunshine before 10:00 a.m., get a bit of mid-day sunshine, too, and then soak up as much additional sunlight in the late afternoon as you can, he says.
A selection of beautiful sunrises during my 90-day challenge. Photos by Michael Sirak
Catching the early morning sun primes the body’s master internal clock: our so-called Circadian mechanism, says Kruse. “That’s actually how your brain [knows] that the day has started, and your brain needs to accurately tell time to run all of the other processes in the body correctly,” he said in a video posted to his Instagram page in October 2020. Among those activities are cueing the synthesis of chemicals and hormones that control body functions like appetite (e.g., leptin), mood (beta-endorphin, dopamine), immune response (Vitamin D), sexual health and function (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), and sleep cycle (melatonin), he says. “[For] almost every single major hormone in your body, the action is between sunrise and 10:00 a.m.,” said Kruse in the May 2020 podcast interview. “Light is the on- and off-switch,” he said. For example, the body produces melatonin in the early morning, but does not release it until darkness sets in, says Kruse. Sunlight is also essential for the efficient production of energy in our bodies, and it regulates the body’s mood, digestion, elimination, and regeneration, he says. It even bolsters oral health, lowers blood pressure, reduces inflammation, and prevents osteoporosis, he says.
Kruse does not say a nutritious diet, supplements, and regular exercise aren’t important factors in our health. In fact, he's a big advocate of eating seafood, such as oysters, rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which he says is essential for our eyes to process light. But food and physical activity are farther down his list of priorities, and he displays disdain for those in the health and medical fields who have a myopic focus on them as if they can replace sunlight and a connection to nature. “Is diet important? In some cases, yes. Are supplements useful? Totally, in the right context and with an eventual exit strategy,” he said in an Instagram post on Oct. 14, 2020. However, he continued, “You must fix the light environment you live under first.” Similarly, “if you think … doing exercise in a blue-lit gym [is] going to bring you to the promised land, you definitely need to improve your ability to think,” he said in his characteristically no-nonsense tone in the May 2020 podcast interview.
“The older you get, you need more sun, not less.”
Kruse acknowledges that his approach deviates from the mainstream health industry and may be off-putting to some due to how it challenges our ingrained thinking. “It’s not what everybody else tells you, which is usually you have to eat less and exercise more, so it kind of freaks people out when they hear [it],” he said in the October 2020 Instagram video. Nonetheless, the scientific literature backs up his assertions, he says. For example, meta-analyses of research into the causes of mortality have consistently shown that “the sun keeps you alive longer and healthier,” he said in the August 2019 online discussion. Most people don’t know this, he says, and many shy away from sunlight out of the misguided fear that it is harmful or “toxic” in some way. “That is absolute, utter nonsense,” he said in the interview posted to Instagram in October 2020. “If it was [toxic], every wild animal and all these beautiful trees around us would have rip-roaring disease, and it turns out we are the only animal on this planet that has chronic disease epidemics,” he said. Accordingly, if doctors don’t tell us out of the gate that we should spend time outside getting fresh air and a reasonable amount of sun, then we have no business listening to them, he said in an interview posted at his YouTube channel in late October 2020.
Quantum Leap
Kruse’s wellness philosophy centers on what he calls “quantum biology,” which rests on three pillars: 1) Light: Having a sunlight-rich life and avoiding or minimizing exposure to artificial light. 2) Water: Consuming non-fluoridated “light hydrogen” water that is free of, or does not contain large amounts of, deuterium (“heavy hydrogen”), which impedes the body’s ability to make energy efficiently. 3) Magnetism: Avoiding or minimizing contact with non-native electro-magnetic frequency (EMF) radiation, such as cellphone and computer emissions, and maintaining a connection to nature, such as walking barefoot on the beach so that we are grounded to the planet and its negative electrical charge. “That allows you to absorb more sunlight,” said Kruse in a July 2018 podcast interview. Among its pitfalls, non-native EMF energy—including artificial blue light—dehydrates our cells, he says.
Kruse’s definition of wellness also revolves around the health of the body’s mitochondria, which are specialized components of our cells that produce a substance called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that the cells use for energy. Think of mitochondria (note: the singular form is “mitochondrion”) as the cell’s powerplants. We have the largest concentration of mitochondria in our brains, followed by our hearts, he says. Kruse sees mitochondria as the unsung heroes of our bodies. “It turns out what goes on in the mitochondria is far more important than what goes in the nuclear genome,” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. Like cell nuclei, mitochondria have their own genome: mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA). The more efficiently our mitochondria function, the healthier and more vibrant we are, says Kruse. Morning sunlight exposure is critical for this, he says. When our mitochondria break down or do not function well, we become vulnerable to the chronic maladies rampant in Western society, such as diabetes, heart disease, even cancer, he says. “It turns out the level of energy that is produced within the mitochondria completely links to the diseases that you either have or you are going to get,” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. The explosion of these chronic diseases in our society traces back to the inventions of the light bulb and alternating-current electricity in the late 1800s, he says.
Mitochondria, as presented here, are components of our cells that produce most of the body’s energy. Exposure to full-spectrum sunlight is vital to their performance, says Dr. Jack Kruse. Illustration courtesy of 123rf.com
The mainstream modern Western health industry, also known as “allopathic medicine,” centers around combating disease by treating symptoms with drugs or surgery. While it is “great” at dealing with acute diseases, it is “horrendous” in combating chronic diseases, said Kruse in the May 2020 podcast interview. This includes overlooking the role of mitochondria, he says. For example, the US National Institutes of Health spend some 98 percent of their budget studying the nuclear genome and only about one percent researching mitochondrial dynamics, he says. Yet less than five percent of chronic disease traces back to the nuclear genome, says Kruse. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a doctor to realize that a body that has no energy is called a cadaver. A body that has a lot of energy is called healthy. So, guess what we should be focusing in on: the genome that makes all the energy,” he said during the interview posted to Instagram in October 2020.
Sun-Powered Engine
Our mitochondria should function like the well-tuned engine of a Ferrari sports car, says Kruse. The condition of the “engine” is more important than the “fuel,” or food we eat, he says. “I can put shit gas in a Ferrari whose engine is perfectly tuned, and I can still go 225 miles an hour,” he said in a May 2019 podcast interview. “Will the same thing be true if the Ferrari has never been tuned up and I put the best gas in the world in it? Turns out it is not true,” he said then. Thus, “it’s the engines that matter,” he said in the August 2019 online discussion. “When those engines break, it doesn’t matter what kind of food you eat,” he said.
Interestingly, the more connected we are to the sun, the more energy we derive from sunlight and the less energy we require from food, says Kruse. “That’s decidedly a different message than most food gurus and exercise gurus [deliver],” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. “They tell you … it’s all about calories in, calories out. Jack Kruse rejects that nonsense,” he said then. About one-third of the ATP that mitochondria produce comes from the food we eat; the remainder results from the interactions in our bodies between light, water, and magnetism, he said in an interview posted on Instagram in July 2020.
We also think better when the mitochondria in our brains function optimally, says Kruse. This includes not only intelligence, but also intuition, he says. “Most people think that people are born with an innate intuition. I don’t believe that at all,” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. Instead, intuition manifests when we learn how to “optimize the colony of mitochondria” in our brains, he said then. As Kruse healed his Circadian biology and improved the efficiency of his mitochondria, he says his curiosity grew, his insight improved, along with his forethought, cognition, and post-cognition. Even his emotions changed, he says. “The better your mitochondria work, the more your passion is going to meet your purpose,” he said in a September 2019 podcast interview.
Kruse’s personal transformation led him to his current work running the Kruse Longevity Center in Destin, Florida, an area on the Gulf of Mexico in the state’s panhandle. The center’s motto is: “We begin where allopathic medicine and functional medicine end.” Kruse sees his role as helping others to thrive in a world where most of us spend our lives predominantly indoors under artificial light and saturated with the non-native EMF radiation from cellphones, computers, wireless Internet routers, etc. “We have become addicted to our modern life and many times [those devices] have brought us the diseases that we have,” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. His goal is to re-connect us with nature, in particular the sun, so that we may heal. “Wellness is actually the slowest form of death that you can create,” he said in the same discussion. He doesn’t take credit for making new discoveries in the fields of light and mitochondrial biology. Rather, he says he innovated by tying existing information and research together and making a coherent case. Kruse says he considers Dr. Douglas C. Wallace at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, to be the world authority on mitochondrial biology.
“A body that has a lot of energy is called healthy.”
We inherit our mitochondrial DNA solely from our mothers, unlike the nuclear genome which we acquire from both parents. Kruse says not all of us have the same type of mitochondrial DNA. When our species originated in East Africa, human mitochondria produced only energy, he says. Over time, as the species expanded, different types of mitochondrial DNA emerged in those humans that migrated to places farther away from the equator. Their mitochondria “decoupled,” meaning they produced not only energy, but also began releasing heat to warm those bodies in the colder latitudes, says Kruse. The different types of mitochondrial DNA are categorized in “haplogroups.”
Depending on our mitochondrial haplogroup, the place on the planet we currently call home may not be the best location for us to thrive health-wise since we cannot yield the greatest benefit from the sunlight there, says Kruse. For example, a person with Irish ancestry living in Buffalo, New York, may not be able to overcome health challenges there due to the lack of sunlight intensity year-round, he says. Therefore, that person should seriously consider relocating to a place closer to the equator, he says. Kruse says he moved his family years ago from Nashville to the New Orleans area for that very reason. (His wellness center in Destin lies a little north of New Orleans in terms of latitude, but not by much.) Kruse recommends we ascertain our mitochondrial haplogroup. He says we can find it out via websites like ancestry.com. When I checked, that required an extra fee on top of the ancestry.com basic membership.
The Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, looks due east and has its limbs touching the ground. We should follow its example when we watch the sun rise by looking east and having our arms and legs connected to the earth (e.g., barefoot on the beach, hand on a tree), says Dr. Jack Kruse. Photo courtesy of 123rf.com
Make Like The Sphinx
I live in an urban area but am fortunate to be near nice vantage points for seeing the sun come up. For the 90-day challenge, I liked arriving at my chosen spot minutes prior to the sun emerging. Kruse tells people to “become The Sphinx” for gazing. That means looking to the east, just like the Great Sphinx of Giza, Egypt, preferably with our arms and legs grounded to the planet. We should also have as much skin as possible exposed since we have light receptors in our skin, too, and not just in our eyes, says Kruse. I normally wore a tank top and shorts. I could not go barefoot in my normal gazing spot, nor could I take off my shirt, given my urban location. I would have liked to do both. But I was able to ground myself by touching wooden fence posts and benches.
Sunlight contains not only waves of visible light (that span the colors violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red), but also ultraviolet (UV) energy and infrared (IR) radiation which lie outside of the visible light spectrum. (We sense infrared waves as heat; think of being in a sauna or in front of a fire: that’s IR energy.) The visible light lies sandwiched between the UV and IR spectrums. It’s not just the visible light that is beneficial to us; exposure to the IR (e.g., IR-A, IR-B) and UV (e.g., UV-A, UV-B) frequencies is essential to our health, too, says Kruse. “It turns out all the key signaling in your eye works on the frequencies we can’t see, and it’s done that way by design,” he said during a July 2017 presentation in Vermont. For example, we need UV light to produce melatonin, he says. We require infrared and ultraviolet light to regenerate photoreceptors in our eyes, and we require UV-B light to synthesize Vitamin D, he says.
Similarly, exposure to IR and UV frequencies is necessary for two processes critical for healthy mitochondria, says Kruse. The first, apoptosis, is the body’s way of killing off cells that are programmed to have a limited lifespan or are damaged. The second, autophagy, involves the body recycling materials from those cells into new, functioning ones. UV light is necessary for apoptosis, while IR light enables autophagy, he says. “It turns out that a.m. sunlight is vitally linked to the efficiency of both of those [processes],” said Kruse in the May 2020 podcast interview.
Red light frequencies (visible and IR), especially IR-A (also known as the near-infrared spectrum), comprise the largest component of sunlight and can penetrate deepest into the body, says Kruse. IR-A energy can reach between 10 centimeters and 30 cm (3.9 inches to 11.8 inches) inside, he says. IR-A energy is also important for mitochondrial function, says Kruse.
“Everybody thinks the sun is equivalent at all hours of the day. It turns out, it’s not.”
About one-sixth of sunlight is blue light, says Kruse. “Blue light is stimulatory, normally,” he said in the October 2016 podcast interview previously referenced. “In morning sunlight, blue light is actually what wakes us up. It is also what stimulates our pituitary gland to release hormones,” he said then. It’s also necessary for us to synthesize Vitamin A, he says.
Only a small amount of the sun’s UV light reaches us through the atmosphere, and it shows up a bit after the sun first rises, says Kruse. However, the UV light works in a non-linear fashion, meaning “a small stimulus leads to a massive amplification,” he said during his July 2017 Vermont presentation. The latitude and altitude at which we live affect the strength of the sun’s UV energy, says Kruse. There is always UV light present in the equatorial zones almost from sun-up to sundown and it is mostly constant during the year, as there is not a lot of seasonal shift in those areas, says Kruse. As we move away from those latitudes (in the direction of the Earth’s poles), that changes, he says. Similarly, those of us at higher altitudes enjoy better UV light exposure, he says.
A Pane-Less Process
The composition of sunlight changes from sunrise to sunset, says Kruse. “Everybody thinks the sun is equivalent at all hours of the day. It turns out, it’s not,” he said in a July 2018 podcast interview. It’s in the early morning—and also in the evening before sunset—that IR-A and UV-A frequencies are dominant, he says. That’s why those are the most important gazing times, he says. To get the full spectrum of sunlight, we need to be outside, not indoors, and there should be nothing between the sun and us when we gaze, he says. That includes a pane of glass. So, those of you wondering if you can get the same benefits of sunlight by looking out a window in your home or office or car, the answer is: no, you will not. “If you are seeing [the sun] behind glass, it’s not effective,” said Kruse in the August 2019 online discussion I mentioned earlier. Glass blocks out all the sun’s UV light and roughly half of its red light (visible and IR), while allowing blue light to pass through, he says. That’s not desirable as it leads to us becoming “blue-light toxic,” says Kruse. (More on blue-light toxicity later.) Over time, this condition “destroys” our levels of dopamine and melatonin, he says. It also harms the body’s ability to regenerate mitochondria via apoptosis and autophagy, he says.
Sunlight contains not only the spectrum of visible light, but also infrared and ultraviolet frequencies that are crucual to our health, says Dr. Jack Kruse. Image courtesy of 123rf.com
During the mornings of the challenge, I enjoyed witnessing the moment that the sun peaked out of the tree line. The sun is a beautiful, alluring gold color at this moment. It only takes a minute or so thereafter to start seeing rays emanating from it. I liked the feeling of the sun’s rays reaching my body and entering my eyes. It’s energizing. I found that I could see rainbows of light in my eyelashes when I would squint. Shortly thereafter, as the sun continued to elevate, it became a white orb, and the rays became more intense.
We should not look straight at the sun, but rather view it about 15 degrees off-axis, says Kruse. That viewing angle allows the sunlight to enter the eyes without it being so intense that it hurts—or does damage. I estimated that distance by fixating my eyes on a tree or building or tower, depending where I was. One time I used the compass app on my cellphone to see the exact distance. Turned out I was not far off. On some days, the sunlight was more intense, so I turned even farther away. I tended to rotate every five to 15 minutes from an off-axis point to the right of the sun to one to the sun’s left.
“The light that you live under needs to be sunlight.”
Kruse is against the use of sunglasses and sunscreen. That advice is “completely opposite of what the dermatologists or the ophthalmologists will tell you,” he noted in an interview posted on YouTube in October 2020. We would not place a tarp over an orange tree and still expect the tree to bear fruit, he says. Similarly, wearing sunglasses over our eyes or rubbing sunscreen on our bodies prevents us from absorbing the sunlight, he says. “Why do dermatologists get a pass and never answer the question: Why is it that people who have the lowest Vitamin D levels have the most skin cancer and the most melanoma?” he asked during the same interview. “Let’s face it, if you have a low Vitamin D level, it means you are not in the sun. But yet, those are the people who tend to get the cancers. That should stop you dead in your tracks,” he said.
Not Callous About the Callus
To be clear, Kruse is not at all advocating that we suddenly take our untanned, always-covered bodies out to sunbathe at solar noon in the middle of summer in Miami Beach. Instead, he speaks of developing a “solar callus.” That means slowly building up our body’s ability to absorb sunlight and not burn by gradually exposing ourselves to sunlight at times of the day when the sun is less intense, before venturing out when it is more extreme. I never wore sunscreen during the challenge, and I never burned or became red. Instead, I developed a nice subtle tan over time. I normally ate some chlorella tablets prior to heading out to gaze. I’ve heard this aids in sunlight absorption.
Kruse says he spends as many hours under the sun as he can. “Any free time I get, I want to be in nature” he said in a video posted on YouTube in August 2019. He frequently posts photos and videos of himself bare-chested in swim trunks on the beach in Destin. At times, he looks intensely beet red. My first inclination was to think this was excessive and could not be healthy. But Kruse asserts that he has primed his body over the years to absorb the different frequencies of sunlight efficiently without burning. (I have seen a few photos of him wearing a cap when out in the sun.) In addition to sunrise and sunset, Kruse says his favorite time to be on the beach is the mid-afternoon because the sunlight is rich in red-light frequencies then.
Even on days that clouds obscured the sun, the morning sky often was stunning. Photos by Michael Sirak
Being as naked as possible when gazing takes on greater importance as we get older, says Kruse. The younger we are, the more efficient we are at making hormones like dopamine, melatonin, and Vitamin D, he says. “The older you get, you need more sun, not less,” he said in the May 2020 podcast interview. Kruse also advises that women having difficulty getting pregnant or concerned about getting breast cancer, need to get those body parts exposed to sunlight. The same applies to men experiencing low testosterone levels or worried about prostate cancer: get those associated body parts in the sun as best you can, he says.
Depending on the weather, I would gaze for at least 30 minutes, most frequently for about 45 minutes, and sometimes for a full hour. Sometimes, I stood for the entire time. Other times, I stood for the first half and then sat on a wooden bench—grounded, mind you—for the remainder of my gaze-time. On many days, I took a nice long walk after gazing. I am fortunate that I live close to residential areas with hills that make for a good workout. On about 10 of the mornings during the challenge, there was heavy cloud cover. It also rained on several of those days. Kruse says some 30 percent of the sunlight still reaches us on mornings when clouds obscure the sun, so it’s still worthwhile to gaze. I didn’t know this until I was about halfway into the challenge. Beforehand, I’d start my walk after only a few minutes of sky gazing. However, after hearing Kruse discuss cloudy days, I stayed and gazed for longer. I estimated the position of the sun in the sky on those days. Cloud patterns can be exquisitely beautiful, and I liked studying the sky.
Shining Light on My Experience
Over time, I began noticing several changes in me. For one, I felt stronger, not only my muscles, but also my skeleton. I stood more solidly upright and my chest stuck out proudly. I also started to feel more resilient and balanced in terms of my immunity and mood. (Kruse says sunlight exposure helps the body to make a natural opiate called beta-endorphin.) Also, my eyes felt stronger and less prone to fatigue. Perhaps most impactful, my sleep cycle stabilized, although that took the entire three months of the challenge to manifest. Since that has kicked in, I have been wonderfully consistent in going to bed at a nice time in the evening and arising early in the morning. Anxiety and stress still can knock my sleep schedule off a bit, but I am so much better off than I’ve been for many months. While I have no irrefutable proof that sunlight is the reason for these changes, I think it majorly contributed, at the very least.
“Anytime we are disconnected from nature, even just being inside, it’s a problem, a huge problem.”
My time gazing became the favorite part of my day. Since I was able to get far-enough away from street noise, I was able to enjoy serenity and take in the nature surrounding me as I admired the sun and sky. The birds singing around me were amazing and surprisingly loud. One bird I heard mimicked a car alarm with incredible realism. There is so much activity at tree-top level. I know nothing whatsoever about bird behavior, but on several occasions, I witnessed what looked like a young bird flying behind one of its parents and then tapping the parent on its tail with its beak several times before flying back to the nest while the parent bird pressed on seemingly in search of food for the nest. I never realized birds have this type of interaction in flight. I also enjoyed seeing squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits scurrying about at ground level as they foraged for food. I also made the time to take in the flowers.
During the challenge, I got weird looks from some passers-by as I gazed, but nothing overtly hostile. I think it was obvious what I was doing, so perhaps I gave them something to consider doing for themselves. One guy did say to me, “You’ve got the right idea there.” I understand those who may think there is no way they could make time in their hectic lives to gaze like me due to work and family responsibilities. But I say this to them: It’s definitely not a waste of time and I think they’d benefit much from (re-)connecting with nature. I enjoyed some of the most productive moments of my day and creativity often flowed. For example, in my head I planned what I wanted to accomplish for the day, prioritized longer term tasks, mulled farther reaching goals, and wrote passages for this article and others. I also used this serene time for prayer, spiritual reflection, and deep-breathing exercises. I walked away from gazing feeling alert and energized.
Choose Natural Light
Unlike sunlight, artificial light is blue-dominant; it lacks sunlight’s same red-light frequencies that balance out the blue, says Kruse. The intensity of the artificial blue light is much greater than the natural blue present in sunlight, says Kruse. Our bodies’ Circadian mechanisms are not designed for that type of intense, around-the-clock blue-light exposure that we get nowadays from looking so frequently at our cell phones and computer screens and being indoors so much under what Kruse calls the “crap” light. “Blue light, in my opinion, is the number-one-worst non-native EMF that we have,” he said in the podcast interview in October 2016. This includes light bulbs: incandescent, fluorescent, and light-emitting diode (LED), he says. LEDs are the worst; they have no IR nor UV spectra, he says.
Touching a tree while sun gazing grounds us with the earth so that we may absorb more sunlight. Photo courtesy of 123rf.com
There are severe health ramifications from sustained exposure to artificial light, says Kruse. “We now live in a state of perpetual daylight,” he said in the Instagram post on Oct. 14, 2020. “This light exposure, late at night, ruins our internal timing mechanisms and the production of melatonin, which allows us to regenerate and repair in sleep,” he said. Further, the fake blue light “actually destroys” energy production in our mitochondria, he said in a video posted to Instagram on Oct. 20, 2020. During the day, this exposure is just as damaging, if not worse, he says.
Kruse says the continual exposure dehydrates us—as do other types of non-native EMF—but also can cause conditions such as diabetes, obesity, adrenal fatigue, myopia, degeneration of the macula in our eyes (that allow us to see fine detail), and potentially even blindness. Myopia and acute macular degeneration are increasing in society at an alarming rate, including among children and teens, he says. Further, if the eyes do not get enough IR-A and UV-A light from the sun, along with too much artificial blue light, then the photoreceptors in our eyes will atrophy, which will lead ultimately to sightlessness, he says. Interestingly, cataracts are the body’s way of protecting itself from continual exposure to the fake light by making the eye lenses hazy, he says.
Obesity is a disease that starts in the eye, says Kruse. “Blue light makes you fat,” he said during his July 2017 presentation in Vermont. While we need the sun’s blue light to produce Vitamin A, too much artificial blue light ends up lowering Vitamin A levels, and that deficiency contributes to obesity’s onset, he says. “Your hypothalamus cannot balance your hormones because Vitamin A in the brain is destroyed. Block the blue light. Otherwise, face the consequences,” read one of his presentation slides in Vermont on this topic. The hypothalamus is the part of that brain that controls our bodies’ autonomous functions, such as cuing our glands to release hormones.
“We now live in a state of perpetual daylight.”
Blue-light toxicity also is a driver in people becoming addicted to opiates, says Kruse. As an example, he cites the lives of rock-and-roll stars. There have been numerous accounts of famous rockers enduring years of excesses with drugs (and alcohol). Some of them eventually succumbed to a drug overdose (e.g., Jim Morrison of the Doors in 1971) or committed suicide (e.g., Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain in 1994). Kruse said what many of them have (had) in common is performing their gigs at night under intense artificial lights and being connected to, or near, electrified instruments that give off powerful non-native EMF radiation. Kruse says their bodies likely never made enough beta-endorphin, so they sought out an exogenous means of altering their moods.
Being blue-light toxic—and accordingly low on dopamine—also makes us prone to poor decisions, says Kruse. Dopamine is often called the “feel-good” hormone; it gives us feelings of pleasure or satisfaction after activities like sex or eating food we’ve craved. Research has shown that dopamine also boosts our motivation and focus. “Have you ever asked yourself why there are no windows in a casino?” asked Kruse in the May 2020 podcast interview. “Have you ever asked yourself why every one-armed-bandit [i.e., gambling machine] has blue light? … When you have a casino that puts people in artificial light, their dopamine levels go down and the casino makes more money,” he said. The casinos then add free alcohol and low-priced food to lower people’s dopamine levels even further to make it easier to separate them from their money, said Kruse then.
With all of this in mind, we should protect our eyes and skin once the sun goes down—and actually at any time of the day or night that we look at our cellphones, tablets, and computer screens, or are in the presence of artificial light indoors, says Kruse. He recommends that we wear blue-light-blocking glasses as one means of protection. We should look for ones that shield us from blue light frequencies with wavelengths between 400 nanometers (nm) and 465 nm, he says. At a minimum, they should shut out the blue light between 435 nm and 465 nm, he says. Plus, if we are out and about a city at night, that’s the time to don a long-sleeved shirt, long pants, a hat or cap, and the blue-light-blocking glasses, says Kruse. For example, we’d never want to visit Times Square in New York City at night without protecting ourselves.
Times Square in New York City at night with its overwhelming cacophony of bright, intense artificial lighting. This is the type of light from which we need to protect our eyes and skin, says Dr. Jack Kruse. Image courtesy of 123rf.com
I wear blue-light-blocking glasses in my residence, both day and night, and I don’t look at a computer or tablet screen without them. I use my blue-blockers on airplanes and trains and in airports and train stations, too. I have also installed blue-light-blocking screen protectors on my cellphone and tablets. So, while there are times that I do not have my blue-light-blocking glasses on when I use my cellphone outdoors, I do have the screen protector. On top of that, I use the “night-mode” settings at all times on my cellphone, computers, and tablets to the maximum degree, meaning I diminish the blue light as much as possible. If you were to look at the screens of my electronic devices, you’d find them to be extremely red in color. I also set the brightness levels as low as I can on those screens. I like them that way. In my residence, I’ve also taken additional steps like covering the blue indicator lights on my computer modem and coffee machine.
On an evening flight home after recent travel, the cellphone screen of the woman sitting to my right was so intensely blue and bright that it hurt my eyes, even though I had my blue-blockers on. That experience reminded me of my previous professional life when I’d have to work late into the night to meet deadlines. I remember numerous occasions how it was the intensity of the blue light emanating from my computer screen that kept me awake. I didn’t realize then how I was destroying my Circadian rhythm and damaging my health. In my case, that led to weight gain, lethargy, and, I think, a weakened immune system.
Sunny Horizons
I reached the 90th day of the challenge in late summer 2020, successfully completing it. What happened thereafter? I haven’t stopped. Spending time with morning sun has become part of my routine. I now normally gaze for 30 minutes. On some days, I have gone out later in the morning just to change things up a bit, and I’ve gazed in the early afternoon at times. With the winter months approaching, I am adjusting to the colder temperatures—I cannot expose as much skin to the sun as in the warmer months. I’ve found new gazing spots, too, including the baseball field in a local park.
At the field on a recent Saturday morning, a young woman led a fitness class in the outfield about 50 yards away from me. As I stood there looking at the sky, I could hear her shouting out encouragement and instructions to the small group of participants over the subtle backdrop of high-energy workout tunes coming from her music player. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw them mostly looking at the ground or off to the side, seldom upwards. I chuckled to myself, wondering who of us was actually doing more for their health. Based on Kruse’s teachings, I’d like to think I was.
“Wellness is actually the slowest form of death that you can create.”
My next sun-related goal is to incorporate watching sunsets. That will take time for me to integrate into my routine. I’ll probably get serious about that in spring 2021.
Kruse recounts how, as he began to heal himself years ago, he read Robin Sharma’s book “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” about an overweight, asshole-of-a-lawyer in Manhattan who had a heart attack in court one day. The lawyer then went on a healing journey that took him to the Himalayas. Kruse says one piece of information in the book profoundly struck him and stayed with him: The average human will live through some 25,000 sunrises and also sunsets. Kruse says he was 40 years old when he read the book and he had seen at best about 25 sunrises up to that point in his life. Before coming across Kruse, my tally was equally woeful.
Kruse helped me to reconnect with the sun—and with nature, more broadly—and that has markedly improved my life. I encourage you to be open to his illuminating message.
You can check Kruse out online at:
Website: https://jackkruse.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drjackkruse/
Instagram: drjackkruse
Parler: @kruseschedule
Twitter: @DrJackKruse
The Kruse Longevity Center also has its own website and Facebook page:
Website: https://kruseatdestin.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ofDestinFlorida/
March 2021 Update: In early February 2021, Quantum Health TV launched. It is an online network where licensed, practicing medical doctors, including Kruse, discuss circadian biology and quantum health in a manner meant for the layperson to understand easily. Also, in mid-March 2021, the Gaia media network posted a new episode of its Open Minds show featuring an interview with Kruse. The episode is titled "Sun: Full Spectrum Healing with Jack Kruse" (March 11, 2021, Season 18, Episode 10).
