Meredith Oke [0:00 - 3:18]: Welcome to the Quantum Biology Collective podcast where we break down the practical strategies of this emerging science, starting with healthy light habits and going wherever the quantum superhighway takes us. This is your host, executive and life coach, Meredith Oak with a quick announcement. If you're a practitioner, that means you work with clients or patients in any capacity in the health and wellness space. Please take note. The Applied Quantum biology certification closes November 30th. The doors are closing and they will not be open again until spring 2024 at the earliest. If you're at all drawn to this material, you do not want to miss this opportunity. We go deep into the science with clinically experienced teachers as well as a community of people who are all doing the same thing. It is incredible. Go to applied quantumbiology.com to register. The link is in the show notes. Don't miss it. Well, most of us have only recently wrapped our minds around the concept of toxic light. Our guest for this episode has been working on this subject for over 30 years. Ken Seder has been innovating healthy light products since the 1980s when he was mentored by a pioneer in the field of full spectrum light technology, author and filmmaker John Ott. So in episode number 47 of the podcast, we covered circadian friendly light bulbs, which are light bulbs that you can plug in or screw into your lamps so that you can see in the evening without wrecking your circadian rhythms and use instead of bright white LED light bulbs. So those are light bulbs like to see by. So in this episode we're going to take things a step further and we're going to look at a light product that is meant for therapeutic use, such as for the treatment of seasonal affective disorder. So this is a light that you would use in addition to other kinds of light bulbs. It is a special therapy light and not just a general lighting light bulb. It's really cool because Ken has been studying the biological benefits of full spectrum lighting for decades and he and his brother have developed this product. It's part of a foundation that they set up in 2012 called the Science of Light and it's a nonprofit that's aimed towards educating people about the silent epidemic of what they call mal illumination. Ken is also not, he's not just experienced from his work. Ken is also someone who has lived. He is a living example of what it looks like to be in your mid to late 70s and have had a very optimized light environment and sunlight practices in your life for many decades. So he shares about that as well. He's a lovely person, and this was a wonderful conversation. Enjoy. Ken Seder, welcome to the Quantum Biology Collective podcast. It's really nice to have you back. Well, we've had you in the Quantum Biology Collective for a book talk, so it's nice to have you here on the podcast.

Ken Ceder [3:19 - 3:22]: Thanks, Mel. Happy to be here.

Meredith Oke [3:23 - 3:50]: So you are, you've had a long career as an engineer developing a lot of different products. You have worked in, specifically in the lighting industry to develop healthy light for many decades. And as part of that, you founded a nonprofit called the Science of Light, where you try to spread the word about the concept of mal illumination. So tell us what mal illumination is.

Ken Ceder [3:50 - 5:36]: Sure. Thank you. Mal illumination is a term that was coined by the late Dr. John Ott, and he referenced it very simple with a quote that mal illumination is to light as malnutrition is to food. And in the simple sense, what mal illumination is suggesting is that, first and foremost, light is in fact a nutrient the same as food or basically similar to food. I think we would more call it a photonutrient being light. And the fact remains that that photonutrient is essential, just like the foods that you ingest for nutrition. And what happens is that, unfortunately, when I was a kid, it was very difficult to make us to come in from play. We were outdoors and didn't want to come indoors. Now I see with my grandkids, you can't get them to go outdoors to play. They're playing their video games. So things have sort of changed a bit. The point is, when you do not get natural sunshine that, you know, we used to get up until from the caveman, up until the last hundred years or so, we were outdoors farmers, hunters and gatherers, and basically we were collecting that sunlight energy all day long in most cases. What's happened now, being indoors, we're not getting that sunlight from nature. And not only that, we're not getting it. We're not just starving for the light. It's being exacerbated by being indoors under artificial light. It's in most cases, not at all similar to sunshine, in addition to a whole host of other radiations. So it's a combination, Meredith, of not getting good quality natural light, in conjunction with most cases being indoors, even indoors, auto, you know, while driving, and basically being radiated by lousy light, that is limited spectrum versus the term that John also quoted, full spectrum light.

Meredith Oke [5:37 - 6:09]: Okay. And just to get into John Ott for a minute, because he's such an interesting character, he came to this, in my understanding, not necessarily as, as a scientist or a researcher, but as a cinematographer. And he was filming plants and flowers and he started to notice how differently the, the blooming and the thriving of the plants was depending on the light that was on them. And he was like, hey, wait a minute, what's going on? Is that. Tell us about that.

Ken Ceder [6:09 - 7:16]: I can expound that to be a bit, a bit more specific. What really was the, the point of wow for John, at least, as he told me, he definitely was an observer, as you've said, he was pretty much, if not the father of time lapse photography. The speeding up of sequences that probably many people have seen and may not have known. It was the work of John Otto with Walt Disney. A lot of the Walt Disney, you know, sequences especially of flowers and plants blooming, as you've mentioned. The fact is he was doing the, he was growing the pumpkin for Cinderella for Walt Disney. And my limited knowledge of horticulture and memory was that the pumpkin plant, to grow it from seed as it grows, I guess it has both male and female flowers somewhere along the process of its growth. Well, John was living in Chicago at the time and he was indoors, I don't know the season, but he was doing his work indoors. And he was again with his time lapse cameras watching this pumpkin seed road. For some reason he was only getting male or female. He was not getting both is the bottom line.

Meredith Oke [7:16 - 7:17]: Okay.

Ken Ceder [7:17 - 8:19]: And he was a bit frustrated and he went to Disney and suggested that they use a tomato instead. Because he said the tomato be wonderful. But the point was Disney wanted a pumpkin. Anyways, in the midst of their conversations and John going back to try it again, lo and behold, a fluorescent tube in his studio went out. He went to the hardware, change the fluorescent bulb and basically started the project again. Whatever he was getting initially, let's just say it was male. Now when he changed the bulb, he was getting only female. He was in a state of shock, couldn't imagine what had happened. Then he realized changing the light altered the fact of a male versus a female flower. That was the beginning. That was his aha moment of recognizing light and biology, especially with his plants. That was the beginning, I think, of his primary research that took him from just being, you know, a photographer and time lapse and all the wonderful things that he was. But it really took him into the world of photobiology.

Meredith Oke [8:20 - 8:48]: So interesting. So he's growing this pumpkin plant. He needs it to bloom the way it would bloom in nature in order to film it properly. He's only getting the male parts correct. And Then he is only getting the female parts. And he's like, what changed? And the only thing that he could think of that changed was the light bulb. Okay, and so the light bulb, was it a different light bulb then? I guess.

Ken Ceder [8:48 - 9:18]: I'm sorry, of course. And yes, without really remembering the detail, the point was, as an example, you could have cool white. So there was a variety of options with fluorescence that one could get softer or brighter or whiter or whatever the case. I don't know what the change that he made, but the fact was that the tube was qualitatively different than the one that he had replaced. So two different tubes of two different spectrums elicited two different biological responses from the plant.

Meredith Oke [9:19 - 9:29]: Fascinating. And neither of them were the response that you would get had the plant been outside under the sun where it would have bloomed with both part with all the flowers necessary.

Ken Ceder [9:29 - 10:30]: That was correct and that is absolutely correct. And that led him, by the way, just to take it an inch further. That led him to a meeting with. Trying to think of the name of the company also, I think in Chicago then was Duro Test was a lighting company. And John met with Luke Thorrington, who was, I think the then president of a company that's long since gone. But make a long story short, and he got them to make what was the first full spectrum tube because he recognized that he needed sunlight quality to grow versus the fluorescence that were common. And that was a tube called the Vitalite. In its day, it was actually a patented product. For about 17 years, 15 or 18 years, Vitalite was a very popular fluorescent full spectrum in my day when I started with John. But the point is, all of the lighting companies at the time said, oh, that's poo poo. That's, that's baloney. That's junk. GE and Phillips, ironically, wouldn't you know, when the patent ran, everybody made full spectrum light. So the fact.

Meredith Oke [10:30 - 10:37]: So where is it? What, what's the. Like, where are those full spectrum light bulbs? Like, why aren't they easy to buy?

Ken Ceder [10:38 - 14:52]: Well, well, currently they're. They are now in the marketplace. There are, I think it's fair to say I'm sort of away from it, you know, of sorts, fluorescent. But the fact is, I believe that all of the major lighting companies that make fluorescent lighting using fluorescent, for example, they do make full spectrum lights. They may label them as daylight or natural light. They may have different labels. The criteria is a measurement of the Kelvin temperature and cri, the color rendering. However, the fact remains they are out there in the marketplace, if you look for a fluorescent tube that has a CRI of 90 or above on a scale of 100 being sunlight and a Kelvin temperature of being 5000 or above, excuse me, with 5650 being the ideal that John Ott promoted, being noonday sunlight, 5650 Kelvin. The point is those two, if you have both of those 5000 or above and a CRI of 90 or above, John ought referred to those as full spectrum light, artificial lights. The, the downside, if I might take it even a little bit further, when John was using those vitalites which he was promoting for the company for many years, he was again, I don't know whether there was work for Disney, but whoever he was doing some work with, he was noticing that he had some large banks of fluorescent tubes, you know, multiple tubes stacked basically in a large fixture. And he was growing some seedlings, some, some potted little plants that he was filming. And he noticed that the plants in the center versus the plants that were extended along the length of these eight foot tubes. The closer they got to the ends of the tubes, the plants were having stunted growth. So that really got his attention. The center of the plant, excuse me, the center of the tube, the plant was growing beautiful and flourishing the way one would hope and expect. And yet they get closer to the cathode ends, the ends of the tube, and they were having stunted growth, not only stunted growth. He was starting to discover that the plants were getting cancerous growth. So that really got John, you know, got his attention, lo and behold. He then did more work and he discovered that the fluorescent tube, as many may know, is technically a cathode ray tube. And what that means is from one end of the tube, the other it sort of shoots a gun like a beam. It shoots from one end to the other and it excites a gas and the gas turns ultraviolet to make the phosphors that are on the inside of the tube glow and gives you light. Anyways, what he did was he tested by putting a lead shield on the cathode ends and started his video work again. When the lead shield was there, the plants grew naturally. When he took the lead shield away from the cathode, stunted cancerous growth, which suggested, like you go to the dentist, you know, they put it like a lead shield on you. Well, the lead, the lead protects you from X ray radiation. So John was able to demonstrate that the ends of fluorescent tubes then and now are putting out low level X ray radiation that is unquestionably cancerous. He brought this attention, he brought this information to the attention of the lighting manufacturers and they all pooh, poohed him and said this guy's crazy. Because if they agreed with him, it would have been an indictment of cancer. Excuse me, an indictment of the hazard of their tubes that had been out in the marketplace forever and are still in the marketplace. But the point remains. The cathode ends of fluorescent tubes are putting out low level X ray radiation. And I take it even one step further with a government, US government somewhat confirming to a degree. The US Navy did research, Meredith, on sailors on board ships with the sun, you know, hitting the ocean. And one would think that the potential for skin cancer for sailors being on board ship would be pretty high based on the so called science. They compared it with sailors that were administrative workers on shore indoors under guess what, fluorescent lighting. Who do you think had more skin cancer?

Meredith Oke [14:53 - 14:58]: Well, I just did a podcast on sunlight, so I'm going to go with the indoor workers.

Ken Ceder [14:59 - 15:04]: I mean that's pretty amazing. Indoor office workers again, and so had.

Meredith Oke [15:04 - 15:15]: Higher rates of skin cancer than the Navy workers who were out on the open water under this direct sunlight and the sun reflecting off the water, that's.

Ken Ceder [15:15 - 15:35]: The bottom line, the intensity of being on the ocean for long periods of time and sunlight and having less so called skin cancer that you would assume reflections in sunlight and ocean and all that goes with it. And yet the indoor office worker was the one who had the higher issue of skin cancer.

Meredith Oke [15:36 - 15:41]: Gosh, there's so much that we've got backward, huh?

Ken Ceder [15:41 - 16:32]: Oh man, I tell you, and like I said the very sad part, not only are a lot of people under these fluorescent lights that are not at least full spectrum, you know, basically a better light spectrum, a better quality of light, but they're being silently radiated with X ray radiation. I mean, my goodness, it's like a double whammy. And even the so called full spectrum fluorescent, it's kind of like a Trojan horse as much as it's by far better unquestionably than a so called limited spectrum, hands down, much better visual acuity, elevated mood. But while you're getting this so called good quality light silently, you're getting that X ray radiation. And like I say, it's like a Trojan horse, you're getting something good while somebody's out there trying to kill you. And so it's the fact of fluorescence, it just, it's not the way to go if you can help it.

Meredith Oke [16:32 - 17:07]: Right? And then let's talk about LEDs. For a minute. Because that's what, what most people have in their homes. And that's why when you were saying, like John Ott pioneered the full spectrum bulb and all the companies went on board, I was kind of like, really? Because every house I ever go in, including my own, except for the lamps where I've changed the light bulbs. But you know, like all of the light bulbs that are usually in homes and offices seem to be a bright white LED that, that does not have any warm temperature color to it at all.

Ken Ceder [17:07 - 17:14]: Yeah, you, you can get them warmer to a degree. To a degree. However, you're absolutely right.

Meredith Oke [17:14 - 17:19]: The default seems to be the white one. So yeah, the LEDs you can buy different colors.

Ken Ceder [17:19 - 17:19]: You're right.

Meredith Oke [17:19 - 17:23]: But just generally speaking, I mostly see them as white.

Ken Ceder [17:24 - 21:28]: Absolutely correct. I agree with that. And the reason for that, or do I dare say the led, first and foremost you touched on, they're energy efficient, they're very long life. So from the pocketbook perspective, they're a great move in the right direction. Lower energy, longer life couldn't be better. However, without being too technical, and by the way, I'm not an engineer, I think you had mentioned engineer. I have an interest, but I'm certainly not a certified engineer. However, when you make an LED to a degree, the light output is a little bit similar to a fluorescent in the sense that there's a phosphor that's within the little bulb, if you would, and you have an electrical charge and a spike of color. In this case, usually it's 450 nanometers of blue light is what's involved with the glowing of an led. Therefore, that's where you're getting this big spike of blue, which we can touch on a little bit as well. However, it goes up against a yellow phosphor, which gives us that bright, that white that you're mentioning. And the fact is that you're getting this quite bright white light of sorts in a variety of specific wavelengths that one could potentially call full spectrum light. I mean, you definitely can have a full spectrum light in an LED version, but the common ones are not. They're a very low grade. I believe it's a yellow phosphor with a blue emitter, which is basically making that whiteness that you've said. The downside of these wonderful long life energy efficient is that they're what I would call unbalanced light. Even the ones that claim to be basically full spectrum, which is a particular LED that we have that we use that somebody makes for Us. The fact is they are unbalanced in the sense, Meredith, that they have none of the near infrared light. And I'm sure you're very familiar with some of the research, I think up to date, maybe 5,000 peer reviewed papers regarding near infrared in that health benefits, the beauty benefits, the pain management benefits. The fact is, to be truly full spectrum, it's not just the visible. There's invisible wavelengths. On one end you have invisible ultraviolet that jaun out was pro uv, and on the other side you have the infrared. So you have visible and invisible to make true full spectrum, which again, there's very few people making true full spectrum these days, even though the label is used from a marketing perspective. But to go back to it, when you don't have the near infrared in conjunction with those LEDs, even the ones that are very bright, not as good as they could be, that unbalanced light leaves you in a position where you have a lot of blue going into the eye. And it's been well demonstrated in research that too much of this blue light not only interrupts your melatonin and sleep, but over the long haul of use, it has the ability to do. I dare say, I don't want to say it will cause. It will contribute. That was the word. It will contribute to macular degeneration. And ironically, the near infrared counters that blue, as one can almost imagine, opposite ends of the spectrum. And the near infrared ironically benefits the cells in the eye. It regenerates them. So when you're missing the near infrared, you're not only not balancing it and not neutralizing it, but you're causing a problem that can be overcome by adding the near infrared to an led. And you would have a much better led, a much more expensive one, one that the manufacturers are not necessarily interested in. We're interested in. That's what we do. But the point still remains. That's basically the issue with led. They're unbalanced light, they don't have the near infrared. They are simply not a true quality representation of nature. But they are a great value for energy efficiency and long life. And that's what has been promoted in taking place of some of the, of the fluorescence, that they're more energy efficient.

Meredith Oke [21:29 - 21:50]: Okay, okay, so just rounding out our look at the most commonly used light bulbs. So you talked about fluorescent bulbs. Now we just went over LED bulbs. Are there any other type of bulbs that are commonly used in homes, offices, retail spaces that we haven't touched on?

Ken Ceder [21:51 - 22:49]: Well, the, the incandescent, which has now been outlawed in the States, I think last month, or whatever it may be, which is sort of, I mean, it should have been left at least if you want them, you can buy them. It shouldn't be illegal to buy a light bulb. The incandescent was a, was not identical to sunlight as far as the spectrum. However, it covered the spectrum by far better. The reason for the incandescent going out, as anybody can know, if you put your hand near an incandescent bulb, you'll feel the heat. That heat is, is the far infrared light. And by fact, what's occurring, instead of giving you light, it was giving you heat. Thus they were inefficient. So incandescents were a good choice for visual acuity. We're a very good choice as far as health compared to fluorescence. We're a very good choice compared to the LED for health as well. The fact is, unfortunately, they're simply not available or at least limited availability since they've outlawed them at least here in the United States.

Meredith Oke [22:50 - 23:31]: Yeah, which is insane because there's such a nice choice for, especially for lamps in the evening once the sun is going down. And you just want like a nice warm, a warmer environment, a warmer light environment and. Yeah, so. Well, that's okay, that's a whole other topic. But I think you can buy them if you say they're for decoration, but I don't know, that was the last time they were outlawed. You could do that. I haven't actually checked during this version of the, of the light bulb prohibition. Okay, so fluorescent LED incandescent, what else? Any other.

Ken Ceder [23:31 - 25:01]: There's a halogen light bulb that's quite white, could be perceived to a great degree of a very bright white, somewhat akin to full spectrum. The downside of halogen, if you've ever seen a halogen fixture, you'll see that in most cases at least, the so called new or modern, they have a very heavy piece of glass usually in front of the bulb. And the reason for that is just to filter the light that's coming out. Because unfortunately halogens, at least again, based on what John had, you know, given me information to believe. Halogen lights put out ultraviolet C, which is also cancerous. But when you put that big thick piece of glass, I can only assume the reason for that is to filter that ultraviolet circumstance, which is invisible. And the fact is that halogen is a good light for many purposes. But you want to make sure that you have the proper shielding in front. And I believe without really knowing the detail, because I've never really dealt with them. Other than secondhand information from John that I believe that a thick piece of. I think it's just standard glass. Will filter the uvc. Because window glass, as you may know, will not filter uva. It will filter uvb. And I do believe it naturally filters uvc. Anybody that said they had a rug in front of the window. Will notice over time how the rug is bleached out. That's UV A. That's. That's coming through the glass. But UVB and UVC will be filtered by normal glass.

Meredith Oke [25:01 - 25:17]: Okay. And that's also why being indoors isn't as healthy as being outdoors. Even if we don't have any of these toxic light bulbs on. Because we're not getting the full benefit of the sun through the window unless the window is open.

Ken Ceder [25:17 - 26:24]: Correct. The other thing just a little bit with respect to uv. The UVC is definitely cancerous. Does not come to earth naturally. The UVB does. However, the uva, for whatever it's worth. I don't know the exact proportion, but UVA is about 90. About 9 to 1, I guess, to UVB. And ironically, even though UVB is directly related to vitamin D. We have definitely. When we made art lights many years ago. We were using, based on John's recipe. What they called black light, or uva. And ironically, the uva, for some of the people that used our lights. They were definitely registering higher percentage of vitamin D. So that line between uva and uvb. Depending on who you speak to. Is a variable of sorts. But the main thing I really want to say is that the UVA definitely is about 9 to 1. And you're correct. You do not get the full value of sunlight without stepping outdoors. Even if you have a visor or even an umbrella. Just getting outdoors in nature, nothing. Nothing will compete. Nothing.

Meredith Oke [26:24 - 26:25]: Nothing compares.

Ken Ceder [26:25 - 26:26]: No.

Meredith Oke [26:26 - 26:36]: Right. Okay. And yes. I mean, we were. We were speaking about that a little bit before we started. And I asked how you were and. Well, just tell me what. What you were saying.

Ken Ceder [26:37 - 28:43]: You know, I'm 77 years young. I like to tell people. And as much as I'm very fortunate to have good health. I really attribute a great amount of that good health to the fact that most every morning, even in lousy weather, even in cloudy weather, As a general rule, I step right outdoors. There's a beautiful patch of grass and trees. I live almost in an arboretum. It's amazing. My good fortune. Where I live in Arizona, sunny Arizona. And I step out onto wet grass. Because the sprinklers lay out that water. First thing in the morning I'm out there barefoot, I look toward the sun, I drop my eyes, I don't close them, but sort of like, you know, half masked and look toward the morning sun. And I, I swear that 10, 15 minutes, or depending on my time, I believe that is the cornerstone of my good health. I'm not saying it because, I mean, I'm involved with healthy light. I'm telling you that from the, from, from the heart, do I dare say that the morning sunlight. I cannot think of anything. Meredith, as I've already mentioned to you earlier, I do not know of anything that's more important. You know, admittedly, fresh air, clean water, but all that, even air and water, according to all the religious and philosophical books, let there be light. First there was light, then there was oxygen and water. So I say again, I don't think there's anything that any of your viewers could possibly do, no matter if they were in great health or unfortunately, if they're in poor health, if they want to find the simplest, least expensive trick, step out in the morning sun, preferably take a 10 or 15 minute walk, would you? Maybe double. And if you can't get, at least step over by the window, preferably open the window and give yourself a little sun bath at least for 10, 15 minutes. I assure anybody, if they're patient, because nature sometimes works kind of slow, but if they're patient, they will absolutely see a benefit. I don't care how healthy you are or how ill. Get some morning in particular sunlight to set your circadian rhythm and basically give yourself a boost of energy, you know, to start your day.

Meredith Oke [28:43 - 29:14]: Every day, that is such important advice. And I think it's like the most, like the, you know, we repeat it a lot. But to hear it from somebody who's been practicing it for decades and had the good fortune to, to learn about it, you know, decades ago and now to see where you are and how you're feeling. I mean, you're just a true example of how that practice is really foundational to health. Like, you're very robust.

Ken Ceder [29:15 - 30:38]: Thank you. And I appreciate it. I mean, I do have, I admit I have a light diet. I've been a meditator for many, many years. I see that diet of what I take into my body as well as my mind, you know, but the combination of that, for me, meditation and a light diet, healthy diet along with it, sunlight again. 77. No aches, no pains. I'm not on any medications. I probably have more energy than, well, I don't know if I got More than my grandkids. But the point is, I feel very fortunate, as they say, very blessed. But I think, in all honesty, I don't think it was a mistake. I think I contributed by the behavior. And I really, truly, truly, truly put sunlight first and foremost. I believe that's the cornerstone of my good health. It regulates, you know, light entering the eyes. I'm sure, you know, Meredith, light regulates everything. It, you know, your time clock is set by that light regulating. Excuse me, your bio, your circadian rhythms. And you have basically little time clocks for all intent burps in almost every cell of your body. If you're out of rhythm and you can relate to what jet lag is, well, most of us are, most, many people rephrase that are wandering around unwittingly on some form of jet lag and don't have a clue. It's because they're out of rhythm with nature. It's so easy to fix it. Get the morning sun, it's free. Get out and get the sunlight.

Meredith Oke [30:39 - 31:20]: It's true. And I think it's almost a little bit hard to accept sometimes because people feel like, well, if it's so easy, so simple, it shouldn't it be more complicated? And sometimes at least that foundational piece is, is just not. It's, it's. Yeah, if we put our bodies in the environment they're meant to be in, they are able to thrive so much better. And it's interesting too about your meditation practice, because I think there's probably a connection there as well. Right. Between having a healthy natural light enter your body and having an enlightened mind.

Ken Ceder [31:20 - 33:09]: Yeah, I think there's huge truth to it. Again, I don't have, you know, any kind of spiritual authority to speak about enlightenment. At best, I can chat about biological enlightenment. However, I can honestly say my good fortune again, having had a couple of these so called epiphanies to literally, truly see light within my, within my head, if you would, within my consciousness. I mean, the fact is, I believe that sunshine is an externally expression of that inner light. You know, for that matter, the whole universe. I, is my, you know, my belief. But the fact is, I think that giving, you know, tending to your mind, I hear so many people, you know, speak about their mind being out of control. And in all these very sad cases, from depression to just noisy chat, I can't sleep. I don't know how I got lucky. But I did stumble into meditation again many, many years ago. For me, right there with that morning sunlight, there's no doubt that that's my triumvirate, if you would. Is that meditation and light healthy, preferably organic, when given the choice. Light healthy diet, those three things, they're all about consuming. It's what you're consuming mentally, you know, I limit the thoughts that I allow in there, and I kick out as many as I can in my meditation to, you know, sort of purify my mind. Just like I try to have a purified body to a degree, it's kind of a dir world out there and at the same time to try to have the best light I can as much as possible. But those three things, I'm very, very confident. And again, I feel, if not an authority, I feel, at least from experience, that for me, no aches, no pains, no medications, I. I look around, I see a lot of very unhappy people that are looking pretty old at 77, I'm saying I'm feeling pretty damn good.

Meredith Oke [33:11 - 33:44]: Yeah. So let's then talk about some of the detrimental health effects of having a toxic light environment. And then, you know, the, the products that you've been working on for so many years to try and remedy that for those of us who, who do need to be inside for prolonged periods of time, which is, you know, most people. So, yeah, especially mood and psychological disorders, as well as all of the chronic health conditions. Tell us about that.

Ken Ceder [33:44 - 38:15]: Sure. Well, first and foremost, I mean, light is visible radiation. And so what it's doing for you or what it's giving you is energy. I mean, it's what we call it in the world of photobiology. Light, when it enters the eye, it converts to what we call photo current. I mean, very obviously it's electrical energy. Your brain and your nervous system are electric in the simple sense. They run on light. Photo current. If you were standing naked in the noon day sun, 98% of the sunlight's energy, its voltage, its benefit, enters the eye, which is the smallest organ. 98% of that light energy enters through your eye, goes directly to your brain, and regulates everything from circadian rhythm to mood to sleep to appetite. 2%, just 2% enters your body through your skin, the largest organ of your body. Well, can you imagine if only 2% hits the skin and makes vitamin D, amongst other things. Probably every one of your viewers has got the idea that vitamin D might be important. Can you imagine if 2% makes vitamin D more important? What does that say? The potential of just mathematically to have 98% go into your eye and go directly to your brain, that regulates your circadian rhythm, that regulates everything. So the bottom line of what you're getting is energy, lack of better and you're getting in rhythm or getting in sync with nature. If you don't get that energy, what we certainly all know the word fatigue. If you don't get that light properly at the right time of the day, there's too many people, there's billions being spent on sleeping, I'll say medications, I'm not really sure, even herbs, vitamins and people are still not sleeping. The fact remains when you get that morning light, ironically it triggers the release of melatonin 12 to 14 hours later in the day. So the morning light is just that much more important. Even if you limit your light throughout the day for whatever reason, don't miss the morning light. That morning light is not going to just wake you up. It's actually quite quietly preparing to put you to sleep 12 to 14 hours later. So the bottom line, first and foremost, it's energy. If you're lacking that energy and if you're out of rhythm, I don't think I really need to tell too many listeners what that might look like. Starting with just think of jet lag. How do you feel when you get jet lag? Well, if you take a moderate or reduce the extreme of a full on jet lag and just imagine moving around through life in a semi jet lag, that's the problem with not getting specifically that morning light and preferably good quality light throughout the day. So it's, it's really energizing, basically regulating, excuse me, regulating circadian rhythm. And the final kicker, light, Light and metabolism go hand in hand. Metabolism is 100, not 99, 100% dependent on light metabolism, the fire that keeps you going, the fire of your biology is metabolism. It is 100%, 100% based on or dependent on light. So light in the morning, it ignites your metabolism. So I mean those three or four things that, that is enough for anybody to recognize. Again, I keep saying it's free, it's right there in front of your face. It comes up every single morning from the beginningless beginning. That sunshine shows up even on a cloudy day, it's worth to get outdoors. So that's the real bottom line of what that will do. Is that energizing, regulating effect, elevating your mood. We know about seasonal depression. I'm sure many folks heard about that after these last 30 or 40 years thanks to Dr. Norman Rosenthal. Seasonal depression, they associate basically with the lack of light. Between 83 and 87% of the users that use these light boxes get relief from their depression. What could be better? Light to reduce your depression. My goodness. Light in the morning reduces your desire for certain junk food. It makes your waistband get smaller by using light in the morning. So anybody who's into dieting and wondering why they can't seem to lose and they're doing this and try light, it'll be mind blowing how it will benefit your weight loss.

Meredith Oke [38:16 - 38:41]: Yeah, it's really incredible that, I mean, the weight loss industry is so prolific and gives out so much information. And, you know, having, having a fast metabolism is, you know, an obsessive pursuit for a lot of us, a lot of people, and yet it's, They've never, up until very recently, that light isn't even part of that conversation.

Ken Ceder [38:41 - 40:01]: I agree. And not only is it not part of the conversation, I've already mentioned your metabolism is 1,100% dependent on light. So no matter what vitamin you take it, I'm not knocking this. Wonderfully good herbs and vitamins and all kinds of, I'm sure, excellent things that will help that metabolism. But metabolism itself, for lack of a better, is light. You know, in theory. You know, I like to give you one little analogy that as a youngster I worked in my father's automotive shop. And so I like to compare the human body, excuse me, to the. Like an engine of a car, a combustion engine. In the, in the combustion engine, you have fuel, gasoline, basically. And in a human, of course, you have your nutrition primarily through the mouth, but also as mentioned, through the eye. In addition, you have, with that fuel, of course, you have a carburetor that brings in oxygen. Humans, of course, you have a lung. In the automobile, to have combustion, you have a spark plug. In order for that engine to fire, you have to get spark. In the human, the spark is light. So that is a fact. Like I say, to make that comparison, you are a combustion engine. You do burn that fuel. And in order for it to burn that metabolism, you need that spark of light.

Meredith Oke [40:04 - 40:14]: That's a great analogy. I haven't heard that one. That's really good. Yeah, so without, it's like you're not able to turn on the ignition without light.

Ken Ceder [40:15 - 41:06]: And so the fuel is just sitting there, in a sense. And therefore people wonder, why am I gaining weight when I'm on this diet? If they would bring some light again, 15 minutes, a half an hour of morning light, it will change their diet. It will. Also when you, you know, when you're satisfied with being more in sync with nature, some of your, you'll curb some of your natural reaching for those potato chips. I know it sounds funny, but I swear, you really lose the urge for some of these. Not because they didn't taste good. It's just that for some reason, you don't have the interest anymore. Again, when you come more into balance, so many little things happen if you're not paying attention. You may be, you know, not aware of it, but if you take your pulse on occasion, take a look and see how you are today, and look how you are a month from now, there's room for lots of change.

Meredith Oke [41:07 - 41:53]: Yeah, it's. No, it's amazing. I mean, I've heard. Yeah, I've heard so many stories from people of. Of the morning light just transforming their lives. Okay, so you have, you know, in your recent history, then, dedicated yourself to creating a light that while we, you know, nothing man made, is the sun for people who are inside for prolonged periods of time during the day, You've created a light based on all of your history and work and decades of working with John Ott and developing full spectrum. You've created a light that is meant to enhance our health and be as close to the sun as possible.

Ken Ceder [41:53 - 41:54]: Correct.

Meredith Oke [41:55 - 41:57]: So tell us a little bit about that.

Ken Ceder [41:58 - 41:58]: Sure.

Meredith Oke [41:58 - 41:59]: About what this product is.

Ken Ceder [41:59 - 46:38]: Sure. Well, first of all, because we've mentioned it before, it's LED light emitting diode. That's number one. The difference with our light emitting diode that you see is white light. We bring in a trace amount of ultraviolet, a minute amount that couldn't hurt you if you wanted to be hurt by it, but there's enough to give you that little biological bounce, if you would. We give you a full spectrum that is truly the truest full spectrum of all of the LEDs that I've not so much study but compared the one that we use. We do not make this ourselves. We're not in the business of making these chips. But the one that we use, we believe is the number one best in the marketplace. Without getting into the technology too much of it, it uses three different phosphors of red, green, and blue. It basically does not use a blue pump that has got that harshness of blue light that people are concerned about. We use a violet pump. All these things are simply saying that we've got the best led, we believe, for the visible part of the spectrum and a trace amount of ultraviolet. We mentioned earlier that what was lacking in most lights is the infrared light. Lights are out of balance and we need to have balanced light. We have added to our LED not to the LED itself, we've added additional LEDs to our light bulb and to our little light panel, we have added five different wavelengths of near infrared light. We have five different wavelengths so that we can create a very broad band similar to a degree of nature. Instead of a single focused band, we half of our light output in our light bulb and half of the light output in our little light panel is in the near infrared. So using the panel as an example, we have 40 LEDs in our little light panel. 20 of them are the visible and the trace amount of UV and 20 are near infrared. So 50% of our light is the near infrared range. Quite purposefully the same in the light bulb. We have, I think it's 18 little chips in our light bulb, nine of which are the visible spectrum, basically the white light, and nine other near infrared. So what we've accomplished is by putting that in, we have the closest to full spectrum in nature, meaning the invisible. The balance that does not exist with any so called competition. We didn't do it to go out there to be competitive. We, we're a nonprofit, we went out there to make it because it didn't exist and we wanted to make the best light. As we learned about near infrared when we were working with John, John did not bring it to our attention, nor did he seem to know, nor did we, that the near was very relevant. His light, the art light was a giant step in the right direction. But we stood on John's shoulders, so to speak, and added Denier, and we think that we've got the very best full spectrum. And in order to try to, I'd say merits, to kind of distinguish us a little bit from a marketing perspective, we refer to our light instead of just calling it full spectrum light. And you know, being compared to others, we see our light as nutritional light technology. It absolutely gives you nutrition because it is a nutrient. The near infrared, of course, as I'm sure you know, is essential for ATP on a cellular level for your energy if you're consuming food. I ironically, three quarters of the energy that your body gets from the nutrition comes from near infrared light and red light, not from your food. So the importance of the near being added to the best full spectrum with a trace of uv, that's what we're about. As I say we call it nutritional light technology. We go by our brand name of Soul Shine as in science of light shine or soul as in Spanish for sunlight. We got kind of lucky with the naming, but we really believe it's as good as it gets. And for that matter, like I say, we, we put it out there after 10 years of being non profit, just raising awareness. We only made the product recently as we discovered. We being myself and my brother, as we discovered the importance of the near and the fact that it was lacking as we learned and therefore like I say, realizing it was not in the marketplace and that we really do have a passion as I think hopefully your viewers will get a clue of my passion for light. The fact is it's something that really will benefit those that cannot get out in the morning or shut in or simply. It's just, you know, whatever their reason, may be mostly inconvenient, but the fact is that the beauty of it is that you can consistently all year round, no matter what the weather, flip on this light. Give yourself a half an hour of our light. It will change your life.

Meredith Oke [46:38 - 46:45]: Wow. And could you even if you are able to go out in the morning light, but then you go inside and work all day.

Ken Ceder [46:45 - 46:46]: Sure.

Meredith Oke [46:46 - 46:52]: Could you use that? Could you just keep that on like as your. As the light on your desk at work?

Ken Ceder [46:52 - 49:41]: By all means. We sell the bulb by itself with a little clip on. We sell the bulb in a floor light as a next level of convenience. Excuse me. And at the same time we have a little light panel that is often referred to as a light box. Folks that are familiar with sad. Yes, you would absolutely use. Our light would be the ideal environmental light without question indoors compared to any other. It's the only true full spectrum by our standard. So you would absolutely use either our floor light or a light bulb or your. Do I dare say general lighting where you know we're convenient. And most important, our little light panel. Not only do we recommend our light panel for therapy in the morning, much like the folks that use satellites, but our little light panel has a timer for 15 minutes and two different modes. When you start. Excuse me, when you start in the morning, you go to Mode 1, which is the full spectrum light. That includes all of the led, which would be the near infrared as well as the visible would go on. You would have that on the timer for 15 minutes. The protocol then calls for 15 minutes of mode two, which is just the near infrared, that band of five, near infrared. So the protocol is a half an hour and you're getting both the brightness and you're getting the near infrared. Then you're finishing it off with just the near infrared. The beauty of it is that you can then shift it if you're at a computer, especially just as I'm sitting, you Just can't see it. To the right of my computer is my little light panel with the, with mode two, the near infrared. By getting that near infrared while I'm at the computer, it's countering the blue that's coming from the computer. It's not stopping it because that's coming out, but it's countering it. So it's sort of balancing out the light simultaneously. The near infrared. The research has already demonstrated that the red and the near again benefits the cells for regeneration in the eye. So instead of me sitting here looking at you on a computer and my eyes slowly being eaten up by the compute here, I'm basically balancing the light countering the negative of that high energy visible blue light. I'm countering it and simultaneously I'm feeding my brain, especially my eye light that is benefiting and regenerating the cells while I'm sitting at the computer. So for somebody using a computer, if there's anything they should get our light for, sheesh, you got to get one of these if you're a computer operator. And again, that's, that's not meant to be a sales pitch. I'm speaking about your eye health. Check out our website, you know, soulshine.org there's a ton of information with all the research that will demonstrate. This is not my research. This is the research for people that really have been at this. I'm at best smart enough to see what others have done and put it together. But as far as the research, it's just too much to not pay attention to.

Meredith Oke [49:43 - 50:26]: Yes. No, I mean, we, yeah, we're definitely in that camp. It's like light is so foundational to health and we just have completely missed, missed the boat on it. And, you know, I think of it as like if we were just sort of eating piles of candy all day and just being like, oh, this tastes good. Who cares, right? It's like, no, we don't do that. We're mindful that, like, we would have a piece of candy as a treat, but we don't just eat it in an unlimited way. And yet when it comes to the junk food version of light, we have no sense of that at all. It's just, we just have it on all the time. We're soaking it into our skin and our eyes all the time. And very few of us have any realization of what that's doing to our health.

Ken Ceder [50:27 - 51:35]: And that, that is the sad part. We're basically, it's, we're unconscious of it. It's unwitting. We don't even know what's going on. You know, thank God for guys like John Ott and, and you're Jack Cruz, somebody that has been out there that's got the credibility and the time and grade to say, hey, wake up. You need quality light. Get outdoors. So it is, it's a sad state of affairs. That was what we're all about as a non profit, first and foremost, raising awareness. Mallumination may be a funny word. It's a serious problem and it's so affecting so many people and it's so easy to change by stepping outdoors, preferably even taking breaks from your computer. Get up and get away from the damn computer. Five minutes, walk over to a window, step outdoors. Five minutes, just give yourself a break. Each hour. The benefits are so remarkable. Again, I sound like a broken record. I almost apologize, but I won't apologize because it's so darn important that change of light, whether you're computing or whether you're a shut in or you're just indoors or whatever it is that you're doing, get that quality light in your life and change your life.

Meredith Oke [51:38 - 52:37]: Yeah, it does change your light bulbs, change your life. So, and I just want to just kind of make the point because like if you go into Amazon or you go into Google and you do sad lights, you look for a sad light box. Like there are like a bajillion options out on the market. So I just want to clarify because our audience is very discerning so they, they always check things. And you know, we had someone talk to us about a light bulb in our little group chat and someone was like, well, no, you know, they went and read the fine print and like that light bulb's not quite as good. So I just want to clarify that there's, there are a lot of options out there, but you really want to pay attention to who made the light bulb and whether they really paid attention to the details of it. And so we believe that, that the Soul Shine for therapeutic purposes is a very, very high quality and is, is much better than any of the sad light boxes out there.

Ken Ceder [52:38 - 54:52]: And let me qualify too. The sad light boxes that are out there, you can buy them from 20 bucks round figures to several hundreds. The point is, if they don't have near infrared light in particular, they are definitely Trojan horses. You will absolutely get the benefit of elevating your mood. Hopefully. You may get energized. Hopefully. But I can assure, just like a Trojan horse while you're getting the benefit, that's good. Simultaneously you are slowly Eating your eyeballs out of your head. The research is there. The lack of the red and the richness of near infrared light, it will be a deterioration on the retina and in the long haul presumably associated with macular degeneration. I don't say that out of fear, but unfortunately, hopefully fear will make people do their research. Check it out. If there's no near infrared, I would say don't buy it. Even if they're giving it away. The fact is, I appreciate, you know, money is an issue, whatever the case may be. If they have interest in a quality light like ours, number one, you can buy it. I think, I think on the website it offers four easy payments, although I caution we don't set that up. It's shopify and I think you got to pay every two weeks. I don't think it's once a month. So if anybody happens to choose that, be cautious of when your bill comes up. The fact remains that the benefit is so far reaching you don't want to hurt yourself while you're trying to do something good. It's just critical. Near infrared. Google it. Look at the research. Over 5,000 peer reviewed papers. It's just, they're just not wrong. It's. So yeah, go to our website, you'll see a few of my do. But the fact remains, if a light box, no matter what they're saying, and they'll say a lot of good things that have happened, if they don't follow the science of what it's doing to your eye, I would simply say caution. Go to our website. Google sad. Not Google. Look in the navigation for sad. We've got lots of information with a lot of credibility as to why quite frankly, our light is, do I just say the safest with respect to sitting in front of a light box 18 to 24 inches away for half an hour, an hour a day, I would encourage somebody please read the research.

Meredith Oke [54:54 - 56:50]: Yes. No, it's really important because you know, it's very hard to screw up going outside. That is just kind of foundational. And unless you go from zero to the noonday sun, you know, near the equator in August, you know, if you just go outside where you're used to living on a regular basis, you really can't screw that up. However. Yeah. When it comes to buying products manufactured by humans, there are, you know, you, we really do need to be careful because we are so exquisitely attuned to the light that it, it really is important to, to do the research on a product before you buy it. And I will say that we don't have many. You know, I'm very careful about my guests when it comes to products. I have a handful of people. We're going to do a little series on light bulbs. So, yes, this is. You can consider this an endorsement because as you could, as you've heard from Ken talking for the last 40 minutes, like he really, really knows what he's talking about. And I really love to, to speak to people, to these product creators and entrepreneurs where I can clearly see their passion for their, for the science and their passion to bring that science into the product and then they figure out how to market it later on. Right. It's not where some of these other products, it's the other way around. Right. They'll, they'll glance at a research paper, they'll come up with a marketing idea and then they'll be this, you know, the product is whatever. So I love finding, I lovingly call you all, let, you know, nerds. We're all nerds on this. To find people like that because it's, it's not very common. You know, there's just so much stuff out there that it's. I do really appreciate and want to support those of you who are doing it through, through the lens of the passion and the deep, deep research.

Ken Ceder [56:51 - 59:11]: You know, I'll make a closing comment too, only because, you know, our lights are not inexpensive, unfortunately, we're sorry for that. You know, unfortunately, we have to pay the bills, whatever the case may be. Here's something that may help people also justify for lack of better, especially, especially if you happen to take vitamins, which I think vitamins are the number one therapy worldwide. But vitamins can be reasonably expensive, not to mention if you're trying to take good nutrition, just ingesting, you know, healthy food. What a lot of people don't know that. I learned from one of your other guests and days gone by, Dr. Jacob Lieberman, although I heard it from John Art. But Dr. Jacob Lehman, who I find, to me he's the next John Art of sorts. He's just. I just love Jacob Lehman. I, I think he's really brought a message from light to consciousness, quite frankly. Anyways, Jacob, I got a great education from a paper that Jacob wrote about mal illumination and very simply is not only is light a nutrient, a photonutrient, but as we've already mentioned, metabolism, all that you ingest, especially your vitamins that may be expensive, your supplements as well as your food, if you do not have the full spectrum of light entering your brain or entering your body through the retina of your eye. You will not metabolize what you've ingested properly or fully. And I hate to sound rude, but a good part of that nutrition will go down the toilet bowl. So if nothing else, if you were to save only 10%, 10% of the value of the proper light, if you added the cost of that light and spread out over time, and if you spend hypothetically between your vitamins, your nutrition, the average person must spend 500 bucks a month for foods and vitamins, I'm guessing. But just imagine if you saved just 10% that was not wasted. That's $50 a month. How many months does it take before all of a sudden that light was free and then you use it. Our lights will probably last for most the rest of their life. So the fact is there's an economics that maybe stick a shock initially if you say, oh my God, you know, that's an expensive light bulb. Agreed. It's expensive because it's good, it's expensive because it works. And as I say, if you do the math, you'll see that in a sense, health wise, it more than pays for itself.

Meredith Oke [59:12 - 59:42]: Yes. Yeah, I mean, I think we, you know, we've all, we make, all make investments in our health and so, yeah, to invest in a really high quality light environment. Yeah, I agree. It's one of the basics. So, Ken, thanks so much for being here. Oh, and I will say you were kind enough to give a discount to our listeners. So I'll put that in the show notes. But if you enter QBC, is it QBC when you check out? You'll get 10% off.

Ken Ceder [59:42 - 59:44]: Thank you for that, Ken.

Meredith Oke [59:44 - 59:45]: Appreciate that.

Ken Ceder [59:45 - 59:46]: My pleasure.

Meredith Oke [59:48 - 59:53]: So Ken, any last parting words that you'd like to share with us on. On the science of light?

Ken Ceder [59:54 - 1:00:10]: No, I think I've said quite a bit about it. I've mentioned a lot about light. What I would say is, as I mentioned to you when we first said hello this morning, the brightness that's shining out of you, that's what I want to make reference to. I can only assume it's a happy, healthy life that includes light.

Meredith Oke [1:00:11 - 1:00:13]: Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Ken Ceder [1:00:14 - 1:00:16]: My pleasure, Meredith. Thank you very much.

Meredith Oke [1:00:18 - 1:00:44]: This has been the Quantum Biology Collective podcast. To find a practitioner who works from this point of view, visit our directory@quantumbiologycollective.org if you are a practitioner, definitely check out our applied Quantum Biology certification to consider as part of your continuing education plan. You can also just jump into our email community. We'd love to hear from you again. That's@quantumbiologycollective.org.