Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD
I speak with world leaders on circadian & quantum biology, metabolic medicine & regenerative farming in search of the most effective ways of optimising health and reversing chronic disease.
Regenerative Health with Max Gulhane, MD
80. Circadian Rhythms for Children & Families
Jess Brosnan is a naturopath specializing in circadian biology and its application to children's health. We discuss the critical role of circadian rhythms in children and practical strategies the overcoming the modern toxic artificial light environment.
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction to Circadian Health
00:01:28 The Importance of Circadian Rhythms for Children
00:05:09 Societal Disruptions to Circadian Rhythms
00:10:40 The Impact of Technology on Child Development
00:15:11 Understanding Virtual Autism
00:20:53 The Role of Natural Light in Child Health
00:26:43 Implementing Healthy Circadian Routines
00:32:50 Nutrition and Meal Timing for Better Sleep
00:39:49 The Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Children
00:42:23 The Dangers of Artificial Melatonin
00:49:41 Sunscreen and Sunglasses: A Different Perspective
00:55:06 Final Thoughts and Resources
Follow Jess
Instagram @circadian.kids - https://www.instagram.com/circadian.kids?igsh=enE2MTRzcXViYTlm&utm_source=qr
Rhythm Reset for Kids Program - https://jessica-louise.mykajabi.com/rhythmresetforkids
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Website: https://drmaxgulhane.com/
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DISCLAIMER: The content in this podcast is purely for informational purposes and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast or YouTube channel. Do not make medication changes without first consulting your treating clinician.
#circadianrhythms ,#circadianrhythm #virtualautism #sun #sunlight #melatonin #nutrition #parentingtips #wellness
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On the Regenerative Health Podcast. Today I am interviewing Jess Brosnan. Now. She is a naturopath and a specialist in implementing circadian biology and its practical lifestyle behaviors and modifications as it relates to children and to women, pregnant women, babies and families. So, jess, thank you very much for speaking with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me me. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on. I'm really excited about chatting, all about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I see children in my clinical practice and you obviously see children every day in your group and online coaching and think that this is an area of health and I use the term health to really mean the whole kind of public health and the health of the world that is so underappreciated and so just simply misunderstood that it's almost remarkable and therefore the opportunity is so great to help people and improve so many conditions, is so great to help people and improve so many conditions. So maybe explain to us how you explain the idea of circadian rhythms to your clients and why are circadian rhythms so important for kids and families?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, wow. So I just like develop this big passion to really like shift the health paradigm for our kids right, so we can like have these happy, healthy, thriving, connected kids. And so I have fallen into teaching mothers basically how to sync their child's circadian rhythm to help them set up this foundation of, you know, optimal sleep, great energy, thriving hormones, and then that leads into the longevity, like their long-term health, and this really includes, you know, honoring the light and dark cycles from sunrise to sunset. So let's have a look, I mean in regards to why circadian rhythms are important for our kids. I think you know our children's circadian rhythms and their mitochondria, which is, you know, the energy powerhouses of their cells, really plays this like significant role in our child's health. So everything from sleep to brain development to hormone production, everything from sleep to brain development to hormone production, so much more. So if we think about sleep which I generally see a lot of mothers coming to me about their kids' sleep so if their child has a healthy, functioning circadian rhythm and mitochondria, then it allows them to have this regulated sleep pattern. You know, the child is able to fall asleep without their brains being so wired but their body's been so tired. It ensures, you know, healthy amounts of melatonin, which is their sleep hormone.
Speaker 2:What else it helps to have that deep, quality sleep and you know this is really important for our children Like this is when their bodies are able to repair and heal when it's nighttime.
Speaker 2:Also, you know, helps to regulate a child's nervous system, which is, you know, so important to have good mental and emotional health. And then you know things like their hormone. You know their hormones, the correct balance and release of hormones at the right time of the day, and this is important for all ages, but particularly for kids who are going through puberty. And then other things you know, like a strong, healthy immune system, a healthy digestion and metabolism, which is really good for you know, good gut health. And then, I think, finally, like to sum it up having a good, healthy rhythm and good habits. You know that is really going to lead them in the right direction to adulthood, and this includes having healthy rhythms to start their morning and then for kids to actually wind down like this is going to support the healthy functioning of you know-being in their body right and through into adulthood. It's basically setting the foundations for these kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really love that framing. I think it is fundamentally setting a foundation for a healthy lifestyle into their childhood, adolescence and adulthood. We are, are and I use the term we are kind of very broadly a modern society is has found a lot of ways to disrupt humans and therefore children's circadian rhythm. Explain, from your point of view, what society has done wrong to basically put a spanner in the works of this critically important bodily function.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, we live in this tech-driven world that is literally saturated in artificial light, like we are quite literally bathing ourselves and our children in artificial light 24-7, you know, with these big bright lights that are causing this internal circadian storm inside our children that we can't even see.
Speaker 2:And you know, I'm not surprised by the conversations that I hear now where kids are up all night long playing video games and they can't get to sleep without an iPad, going to bed with an iPad and then needing to wake up during the night to get back on their iPad.
Speaker 2:These conversations used to shock me a couple of years ago when I heard them, but now they have become so normal that nothing really shocks me anymore. And I just I think that you know the four I would say the four which I've kind of like pulled all together and what I've listened to the mothers that are coming to my page and what I've understood is that the four biggest contributors to our children's ill health and these ailments that they're experiencing is lack of sunlight, this addiction to technology, because technology is incredibly addictive, especially for young developing brains and then disconnection to nature, because our kids are getting less than an hour on average of time outdoors these days and then excessive saturation and exposure to blue light at night. I feel that these are the foundations that are really causing these kids to have all sorts of different health ailments and the ill health of our children today, and the thing is they are all preventable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I really think that the behaviors or the environment that the child is in is reflecting the adult's environment and it reflects the environment that adults are kind of cultivating for their kids. Just like the kid's going to eat, if the parents put Coca-Cola in the bottle, the kid's going to drink Coca-Cola. If the parents are blaring a massive widescreen TV and having everyone's got an iPad or a device at 8 pm at night, then the kids are going to really do the same. So I think it's just another unintentional way that parents are actually unknowingly sabotaging their children's health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, 100%, and we're all just doing the best that we can do with the tools that we have and this knowledge, this wisdom of circadian rhythms. I call it a remembering because our biology is never going to change Like this is the way that our biology works, and that's in partnership with the sun. Right, so that's never, ever going to change, but we have forgotten along the way how our biology works in partnership with nature and with the sun, and when we honor that, that is when we thrive in our health and well-being. And the more that we disconnect from that, the more that we are seeing these crazy health elements in our children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I definitely want to get into the exact kind of different diseases or different. I definitely want to get into the exact kind of different diseases or different conditions developmental disorders that are probably both causally linked to circadian disruption, artificial light at night, sunlight and vitamin D deficiency, but also greatly exacerbated because they lie on the causal pathway. So they're both going to be a cause and an exacerbation. I want to make a quick reference to an earlier podcast when I interviewed Dr Jack Cruz, who a lot of people who are going down this light and circadian rhythm rabbit hole will know about, and if you haven't heard of his work, then go back and listen to my earlier podcast with him and some of his other podcasts on on youtube. But, uh, he made the amusing but and maybe slightly hyperbolic, but I I don't actually think it's. It's hyperbolic. Uh, when you understand the circadian biology.
Speaker 1:He said giving your kid, giving a kid an ipad like the digital babysitter at night, is, you know, is the equivalent of, of kicking the you know, you know what out of night is the equivalent of kicking the you-know-what out of them in the middle of Sydney airport, and it's a characteristic delivery by Dr Cruz, but that kind of speaks to the impact of really disrupting this finely tuned hormonal balance that is so dependent on light-dark signals and I've talked about it at length which is, you know, we need both. We need the bright sunlight during the day which you mentioned, as kids are being sunlight deficient, but we also need absence of light at night, and that I mean they've got to be very, very close in terms of, you know, ways that people are kind of unintentionally doing things wrong because, as you've said, this tech addiction is leading us, um, to spend all day inside and to to light up the night in the way that it hasn't previously been yeah, 100.
Speaker 2:and it's so addictive even for adults right, like even adults struggle to contain themselves with not waking up first thing and checking and scrolling their phone. You know, like that is how addictive it is for us, so it almost should be illegal for children to have these devices so readily available to them. I mean, there's not many kids, like little kids, these days that don't own an iPad. You know like it is just so common and unfortunately, like that once you have an iPad, and especially if there are no boundaries around that iPad, that child can become heavily addicted to this screen. And it's like trying to take that screen away from a child is like almost like a drug addict trying to take something off them. You know, like that is how serious it is, and especially kids from zero to six, who are developing their brains. You know there's so much wiring and neurotransmitters firing at that age and when we have this screen in our face it's actually causing way more havoc than we may ever know. It's causing all sorts of crazy behavioral issues.
Speaker 2:I've seen it in my own kids and I remember I've seen it in my own kids, you know, and like I remember about five years ago when I was in the thick of motherhood and I was using screens as a way as a babysitter.
Speaker 2:You know like I was so stretched thin because I was sleep deprived. My kids weren't sleeping and I was. I tell this story and it just it like blows my mind that I used to do this, but I was feeling so stretched with motherhood at the time that once the kids finally went to bed, I would grab out an ice cream or chocolate bar and I would sit on the couch and watch three crazy amounts of episodes on Netflix until you know 12, one o'clock in the morning, and what I would do is I'd get two bananas and the remote control and I would put it on the coffee table, already programmed to ABC Kids. And the kids were in a habitual, you know, habit of just going straight to the TV in the morning because they were waking up at five o'clock and I did not want to wake up at five o'clock, and so I was in this vicious cycle. And this is the thing. A lot of parents, especially mothers, are in this vicious cycle and they don't know a way out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is profoundly harmful and you know before we. I really want you to expand on that and maybe you can talk about this interesting post you did recently about virtual autism. But I'll make the point quickly that why is this so harmful? And I think the iPad use is not only are we blasting the babies developing eyes and retina with this high energy visible light which is actually next to UV, so these are high-energy photons and they cause oxidative stress and they cause death of you know oxidative stress and death of these you know retinal ganglion cells.
Speaker 1:So not only are we impacting the actual potential, causing vision issues and that like leads to myopia and other conditions, but we're also obviously disrupting the circadian rhythm and these iPads are emitting radiofrequency radiation immediately, like leads to myopia and other conditions, but we're also obviously disrupting the circadian rhythm and these iPads are emitting radio frequency radiation immediately, like I see a consult room last week that the infant was holding the iPad you know on its lap. So it is irradiating its undeveloped breast tissue, its gonads, its ovaries directly and anyone who's looking into the non-native EMF side of health knows that this inverse square law is like we need to get these devices as far away from the body to reduce essentially irradiation as much as possible. So, yeah, just to quickly make that point, that this is why we should avoid giving our kids these devices, but please talk to us about the effects that you've seen and this idea of, yeah, perhaps virtual autism.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know that's a really good point you make about the non-native EMFs. It's actually a really big interest point I've had for many, many years, before I even was introduced to circadian rhythms by Dr Jack Cruz, of course, but, like I would say, for about the last 15 years we turn the Wi-Fi off at nighttime and we've been doing that for an incredibly long time, and then we actually our entire house is now cabled so we don't have to use Wi-Fi at all. We've just, you know, come a long way. Yeah, that's a big, actually a big elephant in the room and I go quite deep into that, into my rhythm reset for kids, because it's not talked about enough, right, like it's.
Speaker 2:Like you said, there's so many different aspects for a child of having a screen in front of their face. You know it's causing a suppression of melatonin and dopamine as well, and you know the eyes and the skin cannot differentiate between natural sunlight and artificial light. So if our kids are going to bed with an iPad or you know they're exposed to these artificial we've got artificial suns on the roof, big, bright lights. Their brains are getting confused and that's why they become wide, they get this second wind and their bodies and brains believe that it's daytime again, and so, you know, everything fires back up, whereas everything is meant to be winding down. And that's why we use, you know, circadian friendly lighting, you know, red lights and lights that don't have flicker in them, lights that don't have this artificial blue light. You know, these are the signals, the flicker and the blue light that's sending to the brain that it's daytime. It's daytime, wake up, wake up. And then we're wondering why our kids are struggling to wind down and to fall asleep. Like I remember, my kids used to take up to two hours to go to bed. This is from the moment that they're in bed to actually falling asleep. And now, applying all of the principles of circadian rhythms, like, I kid you not, my kids are asleep in one to two minutes or less when the light goes out. And I'm not talking about the big bright lights on the roof, because we don't use those anymore. I'm talking about, you know, like a block, a blue block book lamp. Right, that's either red or, really, you know, dark orange. And so that promotes sleep and that helps the brain and the body to wind down and know that it's time for sleep and that helps the production and release of melatonin as well.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, there's this term called virtual autism and, not to get confused with the diagnosed autism spectrum disorder, asd, which is more of a genetic cause, virtual autism is a term that was formulated in 2018. And it was under observation with young children I think it was under three and these children showed autistic-like symptoms due to excessive screen time. So it was done with kids who were looking at screens for more than four hours and you know these kids, rather than engaging with the world around them and touch and movement and interacting and play, they were spending a lot of time excessive time in front of screens and so this is messing with their development. You know it was hindering their way and ability to talk and to think and interact with the world around them. And, yeah, I was totally mind blown when I heard this term virtual autism.
Speaker 2:But generally for kids, what they can see is kids under three who are having excessive screen time of more than four hours, and that does sound like a lot, but if your TV is on or the iPad is readily available for them at any time, four hours, you know, really isn't that much, but that is what it is causing. Certain brain chemicals like melanopsin, dopamine, GABA, like all your neurotransmitters, in a you know deficiency and pathway. That is not good for our children's development. It's causing behavioral changes, low cognitive function, delayed speech and I tell you what delayed speech is a huge issue for a lot of young kids and so, yeah, is there a direct link to screens? It's definitely becoming a more common conversation and a conversation that needs to be had more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's remarkable and I think, to use an ancestral lens, if you imagine a child growing up prior to the development of electricity, which was in the late 1800s, the child would be in around a family unit, maybe playing outside the grass, while men are cutting up an animal or preparing and making a net or something.
Speaker 1:The kid might be climbing over mom and dad, it's grounded, it's outside, it's experiencing artificial sorry, completely natural light, and when the sun goes down maybe there's a bit of firelight, but the kid's going to be out like a light, out like your children are when they're implementing these types of behaviors.
Speaker 1:I mean, what we're doing today is such a radical departure from that routine and I think we do need to just join the dots from a health point of view, and commonly it's not uncommon that in general practice we'll see a child who is having behavioral issues, whether that is a formal diagnosis of ASD, autism spectrum disorder, and perhaps even or often ADHD at the same time, and they've seen the pediatrician and they just get put on melatonin, they get put on supplemental melatonin and you can bet your bottom dollar that that child is using tech, is using screens and has an iPad, is free reign of an iPad and this is where you know the sympathy and the empathy comes in is because if that child has already behaved really difficult, you know you can understand why the parent might provide that for them, but they're just obviously not understanding that this could be completely exacerbating the underlying problem.
Speaker 2:It's a complete coping mechanism for parents. You know I've been there and you know I just don't have like I don't hold any judgment, I think, because I've been there and I remember, like I still feel it in my body, how it felt for me in that struggle and being so stretched as a parent because I was so sleep deprived. And I remember just, you know it would get to three, four o'clock and I just have this, like you know, pit in my stomach thinking about I've got to go through this again tonight. You know, like the kids coming in and out constantly, like not going to sleep, and I just remember like that you know vicious cycle of getting angry at them, feeling very unregulated, and I just wanted my time by myself. Unfortunately it wasn't a healthy way. I was spending my me time until one o'clock in the morning and but I didn't know at the time and so when, and this is why it's so important to share and spread this message right, like I was just a mother. You know, yes, I was a naturopath, but I was actually specializing in women's health and fertility, not in children's health at all. And then, you know, I was hit rock bottom and I hit complete rock bottom. I ended up, you know, feeling very stretched, sleep deprived, but actually hurt my knee and I had to go under emergency surgery and I ended up being in a full leg brace for six knee and I had to go under emergency surgery and I ended up being in a full leg brace for six weeks. And I remember saying to my husband, about two weeks after it happened, I just said I can't do this anymore, like something has to change. And we ended up I said I just I want to travel Australia. And he was like what, okay? And we just made it happen because he knew how bad of a place that I was in with my mental health and my physical health was declining. So we made it happen and six weeks later we were on the road and what I saw which I didn't link at the time, but the kids started sleeping better because they were spending 80% of their time outdoors. We were in a caravan, we didn't take any tech, we traveled the entire of Australia with no tech for the kids whatsoever. And so, yeah, I didn't make the connection, but they started sleeping better, they were more regulated, they were happier. I started sleeping better. And then it was funny because about four weeks into the trip I actually fell pregnant with our third baby. And then it was just after that.
Speaker 2:That is when I say accidentally, because I clicked onto a podcast that literally changed the whole trajectory of my life. There was a podcast that I was looking for and I opened up my podcast app and there was this podcast that said light, water and magnetism. But it didn't. It didn't like get me. I was like that doesn't sound very interesting. But in brackets it said explicit language and I was like that sounds interesting, I'm gonna listen to that. And it was by neurosurgeon Dr Dr Jack Cruz, and I started listening and within two minutes my mind was blown. I didn't learn any of this in naturopathic college, nothing at all and I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2:And from that moment forward, that was when I watched my very first intentional sunrise and I say intentional because I've watched plenty of sunrises, you know, in my early twenties, after coming out the nightclub, but never actually, you know, got up intentionally to watch the sunrise, and that was nearly five years ago and I've just been completely hooked. And so my children's lives transformed, mine transformed. And then, three years of actually living this way, I started to get more and more people asking me about what are you doing? Like, how are your kids so healthy? You know all these questions and I got to a point, was like I can't not share this. You know, like I feel like it's my sacred duty now to actually share this because I know how much it can help these struggling mothers with these young children who, you know, aren't in thriving health like they should be in their childhood right, who aren't in thriving health like they should be in their childhood right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think the kind of social zeitgeist is more appreciation of the role of foods, of holistic food, whole food, sourcing, of nutrient-dense animal foods. I think there's certain accounts in social media and Instagram that are really promoting those ideas more widely, but there is a hole for information and for education about light environment, about circadian rhythms for kids and, as you and I both know that this is such a kind of missing piece, can you speak to what you've noticed, speak to your routine that you follow with your family and what you teach your clients? And, yeah, again, just expand on the improvements that you see with the circadian lifestyle behaviors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's so many. I just get the most incredible messages. Like every day over my Instagram there's another message from a mother saying you know, just thank you so much, just these, simple. And this is the thing. It is really simple. It doesn't have to be hard, it's not complicated. I don't make it complicated. I don't talk about all the biology. I keep it really simple because that is what mothers need. You know, they don't need an extra thing or they don't need, like you know, give me a 20 page handout. I just want the simplicity of it, and so I tell them a lot of stories about my family.
Speaker 2:What we do I think that's what people love is like I share from a real life aspect. You know, like what we do on a daily basis and so, yeah, like we wake up naturally with the sun. You know, like the first thing that my kid says I want to go outside. My three-year-old is like the epitome of what I would call a circadian kid. He is. He was the one I was 16 weeks pregnant with when I listened to that podcast, and so I watched, from 16 weeks pregnant, every single sunrise and I was out in the daylight sunshine for four to six hours a day, bare feet on the earth. You know the earth. All my eating rhythms were in sync with the sunrise to sunset, blocked blue light at night. And this kid was born the minute the sun came up. I kid you not, he is a sunrise baby and he has just been a dream and third child and all quite close together. Most mothers are quite stretched in that time when you've got three little children. And I absolutely thrived, and still am, with three kids and that's because I honor, you know, the light dark cycles with our whole family. We all do it together. And now I want to talk into this because it's not always easy to make these changes. It's definitely easier with little kids. I will tell you that Once they get a bit older. You know, to try and change habits is a bit harder. Partners, husbands yes, a little bit trickier, but you know it's just these micro changes. You know it's these small little changes.
Speaker 2:Get the kids out first thing in the morning, you know, like it's the first thing that we do. We always say you know sunlight before artificial light. So we get up in the morning and if the sun's not up because in the winter it's not always up when the kids wake up, we have the red lights. If you're on the video, you can see behind me I've got a red strip in the kitchen. It's a blue, blocking red strip. So there's no flicker, there's no artificial light and it allows the kids to wake up more naturally and not this heightened state of you know. You wake up and the bright lights are on and their internal circadian rhythms are just like gone haywire the moment they've woken up and that heightens their nervous system. And so when they walk outside, you know that beautiful infrared light, that morning sunlight is just so potent for our children, their brains and their bodies and that you know production of that first production of their melatonin. And you know, I didn't know this, I didn't understand that when I was putting my kids in front of the TV before the sun was even up, I had no idea that was affecting their hormone production and affecting their sleep, nighttime Like. No one ever told me that, and that is why I love to get this message out.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, the kids go out and the first thing they do is ground their feet, they jump on. We have this huge, funky monkey bar at the front which is like two big monkey bars. It's a big flying fox. We've made the front yard very enticing for the kids to go out, right, because kids are not going to go outside if there's nothing to do or play. We have a tree that they can climb in. We've got grass that they can play footy and cricket, like. We make it very entertaining for them.
Speaker 2:Because, you know, I think the thing is with parents and toys houses are so overstimulated, like with toys and gadgets, that kids actually don't want to go outside. You know they're happy inside because there's so many things going on. The things that I did early on was like get rid of the toy room, get rid of the toy room, and when we buy things for them for their birthdays, it's all to do with outdoor play. That, like that, is one of the keys to get the kids outside more. And I tell you what we live in one of the hottest places in Australia and so there's no excuse that the kids it's too hot outside.
Speaker 2:Our kids are still outside. They adapt as well and, yes, it does get very hot and very sweaty, but the kids are used to being outside right, they're used to climbing trees and they want to be outside. That is like a natural. A kid's life force, right Like, we are all connected, we are all nature, but kids, they are more, less conditioned, they're more connected to nature than adults are, and so that is literally their life force, that is their energy force, and so they need to be outside more. So, yeah, we have breakfast outside and then we um the kids go to go to a school just a street away from us. So we always walk or ride to school, get their bodies active, and then as soon as they get home, it's like they have a little rhythm.
Speaker 2:You know I'm all about rhythms. I think it's really important to have predictability of what's going on in their lives and as they get their shoes off, you know uniforms, off lunch boxes, on bench and they're straight outside either jumping in the pool or they're on the funky monkey bar, but it's always outside and they have about four hours of sunlight until the sun goes down, and then it's dinner. Dinner is always done before sunset, always because that allows a kid's digestion to really you know their metabolism, to really like wind down properly. You know a kid going to bed with full stomach like is really going to struggle to have good quality sleep, and let her know. You know, so many kids these days are eating dinner under artificial light, which we know is affecting the way that they're actually metabolizing their food as well. So this is like, yeah, the basics of our rhythm is getting the kids outside as much as possible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. That's a very, very good routine. And to summarize quickly, that'll be get your kids outdoors seeing sunlight, before any kind of screens. Maximize the amount of time that they're spending outdoors in natural light, eating the meals outdoors, obviously, seeing sunrise and sunset if you can, and, yeah, eating and finishing those last meals well before sleep. I like to tell people at least three to four hours, and some people who have difficulty sleeping find that pairing that sleeping time back to 3 pm, 2 pm, going all the way back to before noon, can even make real improvements in sleep quality. And just to really emphasize the point is that that morning light contains it does contain a little bit of blue. It contains enough blue to give us a bit of cortisol spike to start the day natural blue, but it's always paired with red and infrared and that is in stark contrast to the artificial blue that the kid is going to get if they flick on Looney Tunes, cartoon Network I don't know what kids watch these days, but what is confusing is causing circadian rhythm disruption and we know from the literature it's just growing longer and longer and longer in terms of the number of conditions that are associated with circadian rhythm disruption.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned mistimed meals. In adults, that's a risk factor for developing insulin resistance, depositing visceral fat because, fundamentally, the gut clocks are uncoupled they're desynchronized from the master clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus. I want to make the point that this is not unfounded in its scientific evidence. This is well, well documented throughout the literature. This was the 2017 Nobel Prize was for mechanisms related to the molecular clock operation, so this is not something that can be dismissed, but the innovation that you're doing, jess, is translating this message for normal people who don't have a scientific background, who don't have a biomedical research background, who don't understand the clock genes and don't need to how to benefit their health. So that's really amazing stuff. Do you mind sharing again just some stories of some of the clients that you've seen, and maybe perhaps ones that have had pre-existing behavioral issues, whether that's ADHD or ASD, autism?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh, there's so many amazing ones, but there's always one that really sticks out for me, and this was at the beginning of the year, beautiful mother who came into my rhythm reset for kids, and she's got two boys and the eldest boy, who was nine. He is on the autistic spectrum and he, for many, many years, had to regulate himself with a screen when he first woke up, so he had an iPad next to his bed. He'd wake up, he'd go to the screen First thing, he'd be on it for about half an hour, up to an hour, and then he'd come out and greet the family, and that's also how he went to bed as well, and the mother was just like. This is just how he regulates himself and I don't know another way. However, it's causing all of these. You know anger and outbursts, and you know he's becoming recluse and you know he's not coming out and speaking or playing with his younger brother, and so we just implemented and tweaked a few little things to their rhythm, and this is a thing like this is really easy, it doesn't have to be hard, and all we got him to do was his mother to invite him outside in the morning.
Speaker 2:So he woke up and she went in there first thing and said hey, I've got something to show you. Do you want to come out and have a look? And they went outside bare feet on the ground. The sun was just coming up. They were literally out there for less than two minutes, right. And he came back inside and his dad said I don't have any milk, I need to go to the shops. And this young boy said I'll go to the shops. It was literally just across the road. He'd never done it before, he'd never, ever, put his hand up to do anything. And the mom and dad looked at each other and were just like, okay, all right, let's do it. Sure. And so he went across to the shops, he got the milk and he also got himself a juice. And the mom was like, oh my goodness, his younger brother is going to, you know, completely lose it because he doesn't have his other brother Juice. And he came back in and his younger brother was like oh my God, I am so proud of you. You just went to the shops all by yourself. And he had the biggest smile on his face and he forgot about the screen. He didn't go to the screen, and then he sat down and had breakfast with the family and she said this is the first time that he has done it in years and he had an amazing day. And then she has just got an incredible transformation ever since.
Speaker 2:That was day one, and then she came through the four-week program with me and by the end of it she was a completely different person because she was spending more time outside as well. This is the thing, like adults aren't spending enough time outside and we actually need to get out there with the kids too. So she bought the kids a little tent I think they live in the UK Bought them a little tent and they would just play for hours and hours in and out the tent, you know, in the backyard kicking the ball now getting out puzzles outside, whereas they never really. The kids, the two boys, didn't really interact with each other. Before, you know, they didn't really play together, and now that's all they do. And so I just like that.
Speaker 2:That testimony in itself is what drove me to keep going, you know, because initially I was like what am I, you know?
Speaker 2:Am I really sharing anything useful? Like, yeah, it helped my family, but it can really. Can it really help any other family? And that testimony was just like right. I need testimony was just like right. I need to keep doing this. I need to keep sharing this. This is like this is my motivator and, honestly, there has been so many amazing stories since I have a whole folder on my desktop of just like up to nearly 100 testimonies from you know I only started sharing this, uh, not even 18 months ago, and really only more interactive in the last probably nine, ten months. It's like this is the thing. It's just the simple changes to a child's rhythm getting them out for that morning light, getting them away from screens more, getting them outside for a minimum of two hours of sunshine a day, blocking blue light at night, eating within the sunrise and sunset and these simple changes can literally just build the foundations to a healthy and happy childhood and leading right into adulthood too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing, the effect of two minutes of unprotected morning sunlight in the eye. I think it illustrates very, very well and the power of simply just giving the nervous system, your brain, which in the eyes, which is an extension of the brain these light signals and this, what we call the most important zeitgeist, which is the timekeeper. I want to make a couple of comments about autism really quickly. You mentioned earlier in terms of its susceptibility. Potentially there's a genetic component, but compared to its historical incidence we're at, I believe the US statistics, 1 in 36 currently have a diagnosis and historically it was completely unknown. That really does hint to a more epigenetic or environmental cause and it's an extremely controversial topic in some regards. But again, pointing to the work of Dr Cruz, it favors this idea of artificial light and blue light affecting neuronal migration and that is essentially causing what is known as an atavistic kind of regression, almost in terms of human behavior.
Speaker 1:And for anyone interested, I really encourage you to read his blog post on autism, which he actually wrote for Nicole Shanahan, who is the vice president nominee, with RFK Jr on their US political ticket. But there's other very intelligent people talking about autism and Stephanie Seneff and her work with glyphosate and industrial herbicide contamination is one of them, and the other ones which I think there's increasing evidence for could be again deuterium and potentially polyunsaturated fatty acids like linoleic acid from seed oil, and then anyone who's followed RFK will know his perspective in terms of the causes, but that's not a topic that we're going to discuss. So I mean, the crux of the matter is that we can improve these symptoms and potentially delay or prevent them by just getting the light signals right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, yes, yes, it really can be that simple is managing a child's light environment at night, including the light that they're exposed to, but also the screens. Like, even if we just focused on that one area light environment for our children like we could see our kids go leap and bounce just from focusing on that one area. And then, when we bring in the morning, infrared light and then more sunlight, that is how our biology is meant to work, right. We were not meant to live indoors, we are meant to live outdoors. That is how our biology works, in partnership with the sun and nature.
Speaker 1:And so the more that we live in these concrete bunkers, the sicker that we are becoming, unfortunately, yeah, and again, we don't need a PhD to realize that, but sometimes we need to have this explained in a simple way, like you're doing. Can you speak to sunglasses and sunscreen, and I imagine that those are two topics that maybe moms are concerned about, that maybe mums are concerned about. How do you talk and discuss that topic? How do you explain about those two topics to people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we live in the Pilbara, western Australia, and we literally live in the hottest part of Australia, right, and we don't use sunscreen.
Speaker 2:And so people are like we don't use sunscreen. Occasionally we use a little bit of just zinc oxide when we go out in the boat, which is usually just for underneath the eyes and on the nose, but otherwise we do not use sunscreen. But what I do use, as a mother, is I use my intuition, right, like I think this is a big part of what we have completely disconnected from is our own intuition. You know the own sensations on our skin, like we know you can. Actually you know when you first start. You know this whole circadian life is. You can. There's amazing apps that you can use to check the UV and all of that. But if we just come back to sensations on our skin, what is our skin type as well? You know we all have the same skin type in our family. But I tell you what, when I was a teenager and in my 20s, I would walk outside and get burnt, and that was because I wore sunglasses from about 12 years of age, and that moment that I listened to that podcast, I took those sunnies off and I have never worn them since, and that was nearly five years ago. But when I did because we live in the hottest part of Australia, my eyes, my eyesight I didn't realize how bad it was, you know, from wearing sunglasses for so long. And so I had to do it gradually. I had to expose my eyes first to that morning infrared light and I had to, like I would still keep my sunglasses on my head everywhere I would go, because it was just habitual, you know, I would literally walk in the door, put them on my head before I walked out. The sunglasses went on Right, and so I took the sunnies off and but I was, I was getting burnt quite badly in my teenage years, in my twenties. But I was also not exposing my skin or my eyes to that morning light, right, which helps to build our solar callus and that is important to not get burnt. And you know, I just like think about my 20s. I worked in construction. I worked 12 hour days, six days a week. I never I didn't see the sun for six days. And then on a Sunday I would go to the beach and I would get burnt within the first 20 minutes of being there. Now I do not get burnt at all. My kids don't get burnt at all.
Speaker 2:You know we expose our solar panels, our skin and our eyes as much as possible to that first morning light every single morning, and that helps to build our solar callus. And you know that is the foundation of, you know, having it's obviously looks good having a healthy tan, but that is what's going to stop us from burning our skin too. And so you know, talk about sunglasses. Like the amount of kids you see these days with sunnies on. You know it's just like, it's a fashion statement. You know, once you get into that preteens, but also young kids and babies you know the amount of like little kids I see with sunglasses and I think it's just a. You know everyone's doing it. Oh, we live here. This is, you know, what you have to do. You have to wear lots of sunscreen, you have to wear sunglasses to protect your skin and your eyes, but it's actually opposite to that. That is opposite to what we should be doing.
Speaker 2:And when I took my sunnies off and I started exposing my skin and my eyes to that morning light, everything changed for me. My hormones started to. You know, I actually had a great menstrual cycle from there on in. I, you know, didn't get burnt. I could be out in the sun for, like, I can be out in the sun for six hours and not get burnt. But use your intuition. You know, like when you know it's a high uv, like it's 15 plus in the summer here of a uv, and so I always let the kids pretty much be out at the beach almost naked for probably the first 20 minutes and then I'll put a hat on them, then they'll put their fishing shirts on. We always take a big shade to the beach. You know it's like being sun responsible, I think, is what's really important and using your intuition. But yeah, the first thing is getting out in that morning light, that beautiful infrared light. That is what's going to prime and prep your skin and your body to prevent you from getting burnt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great advice.
Speaker 1:And if anyone wants to dive into the actual physiology of this, I've addressed it in previous podcasts, but essentially there's a neuroendocrine loop that orchestrates pigmentation and the immediate pigment response, and it links the ocular sensation of different light wavelengths to the cutaneous sensation through the non-visual photoreceptor system, amongst other mechanisms, that allows the skin to pigment appropriately based on the ambient ultraviolet conditions.
Speaker 1:So we're really hamstringing that process when we're using sunglasses and sunscreens too, and because we live in Australia and we do have amongst the highest incidence of skin cancers in the world, because we mismatched, amongst other reasons, compared to the native population. So we just need to be smart, and the smartest way to do that is using shade and recognizing that you've got a mismatch of your skin type to the ambient conditions and do exactly as you're mentioning is simply just go inside or go into shade if you've had enough for your skin type. So I think that's a great way, I think, of helping people understand. And I started to think about the neurodevelopmental development of these children who are having no UV light, because not only are they having that artificial blue during the night and during inside time, but they're also being deprived of UV light, which their bodies need to make pro-opioid monocortin and if you again follow Dr Jack Cruz's work, that is the gene that essentially sculpted us as homo sapiens. So it's something that's a very important topic that I'm glad you're also discussing and talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like the foundation for setting up a healthy skating rhythm for our kids is sunlight. You can't, you know, do all these things but not get your kids out in the sunlight because that is, you know, for a minimum of two hours a day. That's what preps and primes their brains and bodies for all the you know, these beautiful pathways of melatonin and dopamine and all the neurotransmitters that are needed for a happy, healthy kid, for a kid that has really good quality sleep. You know, like these are just the foundations of children's health, like this is the simple foundations of a child's health, but it's not talked about enough.
Speaker 2:You know, like I started this five years ago and I remember searching on the net and Instagram and everywhere I was like someone's going to be talking about this, but no one was. And then it wasn't until three years later where I was like Jess, you know, people were saying you need to start sharing this and sharing this and and I was like no, I reckon that someone's sharing it already. And I researched and researched for like a week and I was like why is no one talking about this with for our kids? You know, it's become quite more well-known and popular with adults but not our kids. And I was like, oh okay, I'm going to have to start sharing this, you know, and it's been like the reception of it has been amazing, like people just like this feels like the missing link. You know, like this is the thing that I've been looking for, that I didn't even know I was looking for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, amazing. Maybe to finish off, you did an amazing post recently just talking about sleep and calculating the appropriate amount of sleep for infants, for toddlers, for children, for adolescents. Maybe just talk through that graphic that you posted and explain that just conceptually. I think that would be a benefit for people conceptually, I think that would be benefit for people.
Speaker 2:yeah, so, um, this was just like in reference, I think, from sleepfoundationorg, and you know, because kids just aren't getting enough sleep these days and that is the foundation of their health, like, if you're not getting enough sleep for any human, then you know we just don't have the opportunity to heal and to rest and to digest and you know that is the time when our body and growth, you know, like development, Prevent cancer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's so much happening and, yeah, when our kids are deprived of melatonin through blue light toxicity and excessive screens, like they're not getting the good quality sleep that they really need, and interestingly, there's not a whole lot of sleep specialists that are actually talking about this. So I think most of the mothers that come and see me and ask for help are kids, you know, around the age of like three to nine, and so that's kind of like, you know, pre-school, I would say. Probably most of them are around even three to six, like and to six, and kids that are around that age should be having around 10 to 13 hours of sleep. And some people will be like what? There's no way my kid would sleep 12 hours a night. My kids never used to sleep that long, you know, going back when I had two children, they would be lucky to get six hours of broken sleep a night, and that is actually really common for a lot of kids these days and so, but now my kids who are ages four, seven and nine all just had a birthday.
Speaker 2:They now sleep all actually pretty much the same, from the three year old to the nine year old. They're all sleeping at least 12 hours, I would say the three-year-old probably sleeps 13 hours, but the seven and nine-year-old are both sleeping 12 hours as well, and so their recommended sleep through the Sleep Foundation is around, yeah, the 10, 11 hour mark and they're sleeping. I would say, yeah, 11 to 12 hours a night. Solid sleep too, you know, like they're not waking up and know needing to. You know go to the toilet or they're not waking up, um, and like taking hours to go back to sleep is which what it used to be like in our household. They sleep solid, and the only thing that we change was their light environment and how much time they spent outside. If you look at it real simply like they are the two foundations, the two principles of circadian rhythms that had the most impact with our kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is remarkable that more people aren't talking about it and, as you mentioned, sleep consultants aren't talking about it and sleep physicians you know people adult patients get referred to a sleep physician for insomnia and they're actually not being told the most basic tenets of this circadian rhythm and the circadian biology that you and I have discussed and typically that ends up looking like, you know, in adults, when children it looks like a melatonin prescription and in adults it's either melatonin or you know something else, something heavier prescription, when you know the patient hasn't even to say this, because really it should be common knowledge and it should be first-line advice from all health practitioners.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know melatonin is like it is literally an epidemic.
Speaker 2:It's like we're speaking about Australia, for example. You know these kids who are having serious sleep issues like you said, insomnia as well and they're prescribed melatonin supplements. But I remember Dr Jack Cruz saying one time that the human body right is meant to absorb all frequencies of sunlight throughout the day through the eyes and the skin, and so melatonin production starts in the morning when we expose our eyes and skin to that first morning light and it's made up of various different UV light frequencies. But artificially created melatonin does not contain these specific light signaling frequencies and it ends up in the gut and essentially no circadian rhythm control. So we don't know what effect this artificial melatonin is actually having on our kids long term or what effect it's having on their natural production of melatonin as well. You know like it doesn't contain what infrared light does contain, which naturally starts our production of melatonin. So there's a lot that we don't understand. But we do know that artificial melatonin can potentially cause and harm the way that our natural production of melatonin works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, it's an area that needs more research, that's for sure. I mean, traditionally it supposedly has a quite wide therapeutic index and well-tolerated. But whenever we're kind of, yeah, as you mentioned, introducing a hormone that our body is making, we really have to ask what is the downstream effect, and some have suggested that's retinal thinning. I haven't seen any hard data, but I'm open to the possibility that there's some quite serious negative effect. And look and again, not to labor the point, but that that kid also, who isn't sleeping during the day, maybe they during the night and get an adhd diagnosis and have to be on melatonin. That's also to medicate the alertness that they've experienced because they've been prescribed dexamphetamine for their ad.
Speaker 1:So the medication cycle of a stimulant and then a hypnotic agent is starting from a very, very young age, and I've even seen kids who are prescribed risperidone and antipsychotic medications for behavioral control and again, it's coming back to these fundamental inputs like light and processed food too, to some degree. So yeah, we can't overstate how important this is and I think maybe a parting message for the listeners is just give it a try. There's so little to lose by just getting your family out and following the advice that Jess has shared and see what happens. But the other point and you alluded to it is that this actually takes the adults to change. It takes mom and dad to actually lead the way, because the kids are going to follow what mom and dad are doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know my kids didn't listen to that podcast. You know they didn't change over the lights to blue blocking lights, like they didn't do any of that. It takes the responsibility of the parent to do that. And it can be hard to change habits, like it doesn't happen overnight. But if we just like use, if we take micro changes, like change one thing a week, you know like we can make it really easy for ourselves. It doesn't have to be overwhelming like oh my god, I gotta change my lights, I gotta do this and I gotta do that. Like like we've been living this life for nearly five years and we're still evolving. You know like there's still like things that we're adapting to, or like new lights that we're buying or whatever it might be changing over some lights, like there's still always something right. But it's like keep it really simple, like change one thing.
Speaker 2:And I think that is like that is the answer to this, because we have become so disconnected from our natural rhythms and from nature that it's not going to happen overnight to get back to a place that we were, and we don't want to be like where our ancestors once were, but we want to adopt some of those principles and the way that we used to live.
Speaker 2:We want to bring that into this, like tech, you know, driven world that we live in now, like we have to, because our biology is never going to change, right? It doesn't matter how much AI comes into this life that we live, our biology will never change. It will always work in partnership with the sun and we need the right type of light for our bodies to thrive. That is period right, like that is fact and like we can't ignore that. And I think that the more that we share this message, the more that people will be like literal light bulb moments like, of course, no, that makes so much sense. Like literal light bulb moments like, of course, you know, that makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, the design specification of Homo sapiens, and it's our reliance on solar energy. And the circadian cycle with its 3.4 billion year history, is not going to change no matter what brain-machine interface gets invented. So, yes, that's a very, very wise words and a great place to finish. Just tell us where people can connect with you. Say they've listened to this. They think, wow, maybe I could definitely make some change, but want some guidance. How can they get in touch with you and how can they work with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can jump over to my Instagram, which is just at circadiankids. That's pretty much where I hang out. I also have a community over on my free Facebook group, but you know, I have developed this program called the Rhythm Reset for Kids and I offer it twice a year and I just, you know it formed, it created itself. It was basically what the mothers needed, you know, like what they were struggling with their kids, and I basically what the mothers needed you know, like, what they were struggling with their kids and I basically brought the principles of circadian rhythms together and I just make it very simple and just explain it very simple.
Speaker 2:I go into a little bit of the biology, but not much, because we don't actually need to know all that, right, like, we just need to know that actually we need to get our kids outside more and off screens more and like block blue light at night. We can keep it really simple, and I keep it really simple, especially for mothers who have, you know, these heightened states of nervous systems and just don't have the energy or the capacity to be able to do one more thing, and so I just basically help to invite small micro changes each week for four weeks and that's in the Rhythm Reset for Kids. You can check out my bio in my Instagram page. There's information there when it comes up again.
Speaker 1:Amazing. We'll share that in the show notes. So, jess, thank you so much for sharing all this information with the listeners.
Speaker 2:Thank so much for having me. I so appreciate it.
