are you getting enough light?

Hi.

After the last email, I got some complaints. “Getting sunlight for that long in the morning is tough. I have other things to do.”

So let’s make it easy. Sunlight, or all light, is measured in lux. Lux doesn’t have to come from the sun. You can get it from artificial light. In fact, the screen you’re looking at right now has 1000-1500 lux.

You’ll notice that everywhere around you has lux. The indoor light above you has 1-3k lux. When there’s an open window, you can get 10k+ lux as well.

To get the right morning activation for circadian function, you need to get 100,000+ lux. This is not a rigid measurement. But for simplicity, let’s rely on it.

In terms of sitting in the sun, you don’t have to spend all that time outside. Let me show you. These are pics from indoors by Huberman.

To know how much lux you get to your house/place, download an app called Lightmeter(IOS, Android)

Note: When you download it, they’ll show a paywall. Do not pay. Press the X in the top right and it stays free. When it opens, point your camera to anywhere you want, and press the ‘light’ button.

Try to see what the light is like around you. If you naturally get 30k+ lux, you can really get by with just 2 minutes of exposure. That’s possible from you walking from your car to the office but looking up at the sky.

And if you still insist on spending all your mornings indoors, Andrew advises you to check out a SAD lamp or lightpad. They’re not perfect but they give good lux and you can use them when it’s too dark or if you wake up before the sun.

Here are some more lightmeter measurements so you can get the idea. (took them at random)

Clearly outside is better than inside. You could get geeky and start measuring everything around you like a true Huberman stan :)

Anyway, people at the office are wondering why I’m taking random pictures now so I need to go.

Go get your light! (even if it’s only 3 minutes of walking outside and then coming back in. it’s still very healthy)