Sunshine Therapy: Natural Relief for Anxiety, Depression, and Addictions

Can reconnecting with natural sunlight truly unlock better mental health? Could spending more time outdoors help combat anxiety, depression, and even addiction? In this episode of "me&my health up," host Anthony Hartcher explores the vital role of sunlight in human evolution, physiology, and emotional wellbeing.

Discover how modern indoor lifestyles may contribute to poor health and why full-spectrum sunlight—with UV, infrared, and visible light—offers benefits artificial lighting can't match. Learn how sunlight regulates cortisol, melatonin, and sleep patterns while supporting cardiovascular health and weight management. Plus, gain actionable tips to integrate sunlight into your day for improved energy, mood, and overall wellness.

Tune in to unlock the transformative power of the sun!


About me&my health up & Anthony Hartcher     
me&my health up seeks to enhance and enlighten the well-being of others. Host Anthony Hartcher is the CEO of me&my wellness which provides holistic health solutions using food as medicine, combined with a holistic, balanced, lifestyle approach. Anthony holds three bachelor's degrees in Complementary Medicine; Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine; and Chemical Engineering.

Podcast Disclaimer
Any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. [Connected Wellness Pty Ltd] operating under the brand of “me&my health up”..click here for more

Chapters

• 0:00 Sunshine Therapy and Its Benefits for Mental Health
• 5:10 The Impact of Narrowband Light on Mental Health
• 7:39 The Role of Sunlight in Balancing Neurotransmitters
• 12:01 The Effects of Indoor Environment on Mental Health
• 17:28 Benefits of Morning Light Exposure
• 19:45 The Role of UV Light in Mental Health
• 25:40 The Benefits of Infrared Light Exposure
• 31:03 The Importance of Regular Light Exposure
• 31:25 The Impact of Sunlight on Appetite and Energy
• 32:53 Conclusion and Recommendations

Transcript

Anthony Hartcher: 0:07

Welcome back to another insightful and exciting episode of me&my health up. I'm your host, Anthony Hartcher, a clinical nutritionist and lifestyle medicine specialist. Today's episode is on sunshine therapy and in particular for mental health and those that are struggling with anxiety, depression or addictions. So I'm specifically focused on those three areas, anxiety, depression and addictions, and how you can benefit from using sunshine therapy. So let's get under the way with what sunshine is really doing and supporting us in terms of our human evolution, as well as our physiology. So obviously, without light, there's no life. So light is critical to life. And the disconnect today is that we live in an environment where we're so disconnected from light and therefore disconnected in a way from living a optimised life. So we really want to get that reconnection back with nature, reconnection back with the sun, because the sun has such an, it's probably the most, well, certainly the most important aspect to our health and wellbeing because without it, we don't exist. And so in terms of what the sun is providing is well beyond what we see in terms of visible light. So obviously there's visible light spectrum, which we see in terms of colours. And that's the colour of the rainbow is the colours of which we see the world and determine our reality through the visible light spectrum. But it goes beyond the visible light spectrum and it's actually the areas beyond the visible light spectrum that provide significant health benefits to us as well as the visible. So we certainly want to make sure we get full sunlight exposure in order to get the full spectrum. And so the sun, in terms of what it's emitting, is wavelengths from the non-visible, which is really short wavelengths, as well as extreme long wavelengths. And then there's a narrow band of which we can see see light, or it's actually the visible spectrum. And so what I'm going to share today is how full spectrum sunlight really supports your mental health and the importance of embracing full spectrum sunlight. And that's including UV light. Yes, UV light's been very much demonised, but it's essential for mental health. And the thing about sunshine and getting natural light is that it always comes fully packaged. It comes as full spectrum and it complements one another. So each aspect of the light spectrum is supportive of one another and helps provide a real balance to our physiology as opposed to very narrow band light. So you'll probably read a lot about photobiomodulation and low-level light, the laser therapy and things like that. So those are very, I guess, very specific wavelengths for a particular health outcome. What I'm talking today is, I guess, the broader benefits for mental health and how the full spectrum is supportive of your mental health ultimately. And when we get specific wavelengths and get that therapy for that particular ailment, yes, that's supportive of that ailment, but we're missing the much bigger, broader health benefits by not getting full spectrum sunlight. So it's really better to get full spectrum sunlight as opposed to looking for those red light panels or that specific infrared sauna. So yes, we're getting some health benefits there, but we're missing, I guess, the broader benefits to our health by being in full spectrum sunlight. And full spectrum sunlight comes at no cost. There's no capital investments other than spending more time outdoors. So ultimately, at the end of this episode, you're going to be looking for ways to spend more time outdoors and minimising your time indoors. Because when I mention narrow band light, that's what you're experiencing indoors. So our glass filters out UV light and it filters out a large portion of infrared light and that's UV, infrared light, a part of the non-visible spectrum that are really important to our health and wellbeing. And so by being inside, we are just getting exposed to the lights that we're under, which are most likely LED lights, which are very narrow band spectrum lighting, which is very much blue light predominant. And so when our photoreceptors are outside experiencing full spectrum sunlight, it's, yes, there's blue light there, but blue lights in the presence of infrared light of red and others and other visible spectrum parts of the of the light exposure as well as the UV light. And so our photoreceptors are seeing more than just blue light, and so just blue light is not really supportive of our physiology because it's going to have a specific response on our physiology. And blue light alone, for example, when we're inside is driving like middle of the day responses in the body without any supportive function of the other spectrum parts of the light, which are also complementing the blue light. And so what will happen is that you'll experiencing elevated cortisol when you're getting blue light. Now that's fine in the middle of the day when you want to be active but if you're under blue light, LED lights in the evening, that high cortisol is suppressing melatonin and that's going to delay the onset of you feeling sleepy, you'll end up staying up later. And the thing is when we have elevated cortisol, we also that is then needing insulin to work with cortisol in order to move the glucose that's been taken out of stores into the bloodstream and into the areas of the body that need the glucose. And so what will happen is ultimately you will then want food, so, because you'll experience these surges of blood sugars and then drops of blood sugars and ultimately that will drive the need for you looking for food in order to pick up your energy. So we don't really want that. And, and ultimately that blue light is providing vasoconstriction, which is increasing blood pressure. So again, we don't want that isolated because when we're outside, we're getting blue light but we're also getting UVA light, which is balancing the vasoconstriction with vasodilation. And so you get this harmonious blend when we're outside as opposed to inside and only getting narrow band light. So when we have elevated cortisol in our system under LED lights, what that is doing to us is, yes, it drives that physiological stress response which when we're stressed, we generally have a dampening of the other neurotransmitters that make us feel at ease or content or happy or uplifted because you can imagine when the body's under a stress response and elevated cortisol, it's resorting to the physiology of us being under like a or being invaded by a tiger or a threat to our lives, right? And so that's how the body's responding when there's elevated cortisol. And so you can imagine when you see a tiger, you you don't have that smile on your face. Yes, you might be very focused to getting away from the tiger but, again, you're downregulating serotonin. And, again, dopamine's going to be hijacked under blue light as well. So, yes, there will be an element that it helps dopamine but then ultimately dopamine will drop and that drop in dopamine will also drop your motivation, drop your energies, and you'll get up and go. And, in essence, when you lose that, you then look for something to pick up yourself, which is things like sugar. And these are the things that can make us quite addictive to other things that are going to help pick up dopamine because it's depleted, because we're getting these non-native narrow band EMFs into our photoreceptors, such as the blue light, the very narrow spectrum. And what is happening is we're not getting that well-balanced exposure to light which, again, will complement, will provide some complementation in the body and be more supportive of a balanced system. So when we have depleted dopamine because we're getting excessive non-native blue light exposure, such as from computer screens, our TV screen, such as from our phones, for example, all this exposure is hijacking our dopamine pathway, dopaminergic pathways, and creating a real disconnect and imbalance ultimately. So what it will do is we will constantly seek more of that device in order to pick us up, but ultimately it's in the end going to deplete our dopaminergic pathway. So and then we're going to be looking for something beyond the device to help lift our dopamine. And so when our dopamine drops below our base level, then we're looking for something to really take us above and to give us, I guess, some drive forward or some feeling good about ourselves. And it's that very much that reward pathway. So we're looking for that reward beyond the devices that we're using such as, you know, scrolling through TikTok or Instagram Reels, and then we go to get the sugar. We're looking for something else. And so this can then create addictions, like addictions to external things in order to help restore balance from within. And these external things that I'm talking about, such as when we're in excessive time indoors, are things that are going to ultimately provide a lift but then also a crash and then we drop below our base level again and then we're looking for something else. And so we're constantly going to the cupboard, getting sugary things, you know, because that helps lift blood sugars and that blood sugar lift is, you know, helps lift dopamine and that dopamine is then going to seek more of that. And ultimately we'll get through a packet of biscuits, we'll feel good after straight afterwards, but then there'll come the crash. And then we're looking for the next thing, which is a block of chocolate or something like that. So it's going to drive these addictive behaviours around these external things that aren't really providing great service to you. So the other thing about being indoors and getting, having this stress response because of the narrow band light, which, you know, keeps cortisol high and doesn't allow it to be well regulated, that's ultimately that stress response. We're going to have more anxiety associated with that stress response. So we're going to be more unsure, more uncertain and focused on things out of our control and allow that to cascade and spiral well beyond because we'll continue to focus on the negativity because we won't have the balancing neurotransmitters to counteract that spiral in terms of negative thinking. And then that results in elevated anxiety. And then we're looking for things to lower our anxiousness and to lower this racing mind and to slow down the mind. And that can result in going towards alcohol, for example, to calm the mind, to put some dampener to the mind and suppress that neurological activity that's out of control, that's been very much just driven from being stuck inside under narrow band lights. And so we can go towards these addictive behaviours simply because we have this imbalance within us because of the narrow band light exposure that we're getting from LED lights and not getting full spectrum sunlight, which as I said, complements one another. And so that is then resulting in terms of those behaviours around eating excessive sugar, drinking alcohol, and ultimately that then results in other health undesirable outcomes such as if we drink alcohol in the evening, it affects our sleep and our ability to get deep restorative sleep. And so that night we don't have a good night's sleep, we wake up more moody, more emotional, more irritable, more frustrated and then that day doesn't go really well and then we look for more of these vices to keep us to get us through the day such as more sugar, more caffeine and ultimately this is creating more and more unbalance, disbalance. And it's simply because we're not getting full spectrum sunlight. And the thing is when we don't feel great about ourselves, we won't want to go outside. So our natural response is I don't want to showcase a poor version of me, so therefore I'm not going to go outside and socialise. I'm not going to go to events. I'm going to stay inside until I feel better. But the problem with that is the more time spent inside is the more time that you're going to feel down and not so great about yourself because you're not getting full sunlight exposure. And so I just wanted to cover this aspect of spending excessive time indoors and how it's setting you up, you know, poor mental health outcomes. It's setting you up for anxiety. It's setting you up for ultimately depression because you don't feel good about yourself. You're constantly anxious and thinking about the worst side of you and the worst side of life. And that results in more depressive thoughts. Again, you don't feel great and therefore you don't want to go out and socialise because you don't feel great and you don't want to show a not so great version of you and hence you're not connecting with others, you're becoming more withdrawn, you're spending more time inside, you're not getting outside to really help change that mental health dynamic. And so let me now get into the benefits of being outside and spending more time outside. So it really starts with getting full light exposure regularly throughout the day because different wavelengths will be stronger at different parts of the day and our body needs the different exposures at different types of day in order to maintain our infradian systems, which are our internal systems, with the outside system, with the night-day cycle, the circadian. So we want to stay in sync with that. We want our body internally getting the cues externally to do the right things at the right time of the day. For example, we want our cortisol to be up during the day, but down at night. The only way to manage that is by spending regular times out, outdoors throughout the day because you're getting the external cues to your body to make sure it's doing, it's managing cortisol. And so you've got the energy during the day, but at night that energy is deteriorating to allow you to then get a deep restorative night's sleep. So as cortisol comes down and upon seeing darkness, our nighttime hormones such as melatonin will start to be secreted and that will aid the body to get a deep restorative night's sleep. But whilst cortisol is elevated in the evening because you've got a lot of lighting, you know, poor lighting environment, you've got lots of non-native devices on such as, you know, working on your laptop, you're watching the TV, you're under LED lights. When that is happening, then cortisol is elevated and the melatonin is suppressed. And again, it's going to cause dysregulation. So what we want to do is make sure we're getting outside regularly throughout the day, being consistent with that. So it starts with morning light. So the benefit of morning light is that we're getting the red and infrared spectrum. And what the red and infrared spectrum does is turn on our engines. It starts revving our engines, which is the mitochondria. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. And we want those engines revving at the start of the day, right? So those engines get turned on and then cortisol, you know, starts to increase more. So we want cortisol to be rising in the morning and that is turned on through the process of seeing red and infrared light and that's sunrise. So we really want to get out and see sunrise if we can, make an effort to see that sunrise because that will turn your engines on, it will get cortisol rising and this will get you feeling that you've got the energy to tackle tasks, to do difficult things. And so it will really kickstart your day by seeing that red and infrared light. Whilst we turn on our mitochondria, we're also starting to turn on other systems and and produce proteins and hormones that are going to help us get through the day. So on that red and infrared light, we're going to switch on our metabolism. So that's really important. So our thyroid becomes active. We want our thyroid to be active because it's the governor of metabolism. It helps us digest the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates and utilise them within our body. So we want that morning light in order to switch on our metabolism and utilise our food. And so that's really important as well. Also, the mitochondria will produce melatonin, which is our coolant system. So it provides support to the mitochondria during the day so that we don't overheat and we're balancing the oxidative stress that we experience through activity, through having a good amount of melatonin that's released from the mitochondria. The mitochondria also start releasing melanin. So, you know, upon seeing as about an hour after sunrise, we start to experience the UV coming in to play. So once the sun gets 10, 10 degrees beyond the horizontal, then that UV light, UVA, will kick in. And that's going to, UV is really, it's picked up by Neuropsin, which is a receptor. It's sensitive to light, obviously. It detects UV. And then that Neuropsin starts to produce the neurotransmitters that we need to get through the day. And so what we're going to start to produce are things like endorphins, and endorphins lift our spirits. It opens up our dopaminergic pathways and really gets the dopamine moving forward and and starting, and then you feel better for the more tasks you complete. Your dopamine's getting elevated naturally through exposure to UV light as well as your achieving task. And that further, you know, I guess provides that or, you know, initiates that loop of you achieving, accomplishing things, you know, producing more dopamine to achieve more. You start to feel better. Again, with morning light, we're going to boost serotonin. So serotonin is initiated, the production of serotonin is initiated with sunlight. Serotonin makes us feel good about ourselves. It's a mood stabiliser. It keeps us emotionally, or it really holds our EQ together, emotional intelligence together. Wer'e better in terms of we have better interactions when we have high serotonin, and that's initiated from morning sunlight as well. And so, yes, we're getting the endorphins produced through UV exposure. You know, mid-morning, this is when we're starting to get UV exposure, UVA in particular. UVB comes in later and is is most predominant at midday, UVB. And so as we're getting the UVA light, we're also creating nitric oxide. We initiate nitric oxide production, which is a vasodilator. So it helps regulate our blood pressure. So we're obviously going to, you know, provide a supporting to our, supporting function to our heart in terms of, you know, when we've got vasodilation, it allows the blood flow to get out to the peripherals and it, the heart's not working overtime against vasoconstriction because of excessive inside blue light exposure. So we want to get that blood out to the peripherals because the blood is taking out with it melanin, which is created through the mitochondria, through morning sunlight exposure. The melanin goes out to our skin and that provides us a level of protection against excessive UV damage. Now let's get into UV and the benefits of UV for your mental health. So I mentioned the getting the melanin out to our skin, which enables us, you know, the protective factor. And the other thing, melanin allows us to absorb full-spectrum sunlight and whilst minimising excessive amounts of UVB damage or UVA damage, so it helps moderate that. The UVB is really important for vitamin D synthesis. So it initiates vitamin D synthesis so that we have the, what we create is a, you know, the precursor to active vitamin D. So we create a vitamin D that's unactivated and get, it gets activated from our liver and our kidneys and that's the active form. But we need to produce the precursor to the active form and we do that through getting sun exposure, in particular UVB exposure. So we need the UVB in order to create the vitamin D. Now, there's strong associations with healthy levels of vitamin D and good mental health. So what the studies have shown is that those that are depressed, those that have neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's, are associated with low levels of vitamin D. So we want to get healthy levels of vitamin D in order to maintain good mental cognitive function. So it's really important that we get UVB exposure, but again, based on your skin type. So it's, it's getting that UVB exposure that's not excessive, and that's going to be based on your skin type. So obviously those that are fairer need less time in the UVB light in order to get, to make enough vitamin D for them. However, those that have darker skin need a lot more time in the UVB time, which is between 10 am and 2 pm, 12pm being the most dominant, you know, there's, the most amount of UVB light. Now, in saying that, in terms of midday sun, of this full spectrum that you're receiving through being outside, less than 10% is UV. So that's balanced and counteracted with other parts of the light. And you're going to get...

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Anthony Hartcher: 26:26

50%, over 50% is the infrared, near-infrared and far-infrared and that is really helpful in terms of the infrared light is really supportive of mitochondrial function. So it really helps the production of energy. It helps with keeping our cardiovascular system, it really supports healthy cardiovascular system by allowing the, essentially, essentially, when we get infrared light and this infrared light is around 3100 nanometers, so it's, it's out of the visible spectrum and certainly in the the longer. And the great thing about infrared light, it can penetrate through clothing. So just being out in the park, what you'll find is the, the leaves and nature, they don't absorb the infrared spectrum, they reflect it. And so just being in the park, you can be under the shade and during the middle of the day, minimising your UVB exposure but maximising infrared. That infrared is really helping you generate more energy, support the energy systems as well as supporting your cardiovascular health because it allows the phase separation of water. Exclusion, it creates this exclusion zone for the endothelial layer, so it provides a protection for the endothelial layer and doesn't allow it to get damaged by toxins because essentially it's got that layer of protection through this exclusion zone that's formed when our body receives infrared light. That allows protection of the endothelial layer and I guess prevents the formation of atherosclerosis or the plaque buildup in our arterial system, our vascular system. And what else it does is help blood, the blood cells move freely without coagulating. So it increases the zeta potential of the red blood cell, which allows red blood cells to move freely without coagulating. And so getting that infrared light exposure is really helpful for getting that circulation. That circulation is really important in terms of mental health because we're getting good oxygen to the brain, we, we're getting adequate levels to support the mitochondrial function of the brain. And obviously, when we've got good mitochondrial function of the brain, we're going to have good mental health outcomes because it's when the mitochondria is struggling is when we start to see disease set in. So I just wanted to share that importance of getting the infrared light, which is always around 50% throughout the day because it's providing that support of mitochondrial function. Good mitochondrial function results in less or a healthier you and the less disease states, such as we know that mitochondrial decay or mitochondrial breakdown or dysfunction, which is associated with dementia, associated with neurodegenerative diseases. So if you want to keep your health and mental health really great, it's really important to get regular infrared sun exposure, which is there throughout the whole day. And you can get that through walking in green spaces in the shade and protecting yourself from excessive UV exposure. But you certainly want to be getting UV exposure, and that's going to be based on your skin type. So anywhere between 5 and 20 minutes of that midday sun. And again, what will block UV is sunglasses and clothing. And what we have photoreceptors in our retina, and we've also got them in our skin. And we want both getting coherent signals. So the same signal. So we don't want to be wearing sunglasses whilst our skin's getting exposed because they're getting incoherent signals and the body will not do the right thing at the right time. And so we certainly want to make sure we're getting coherent signals by not wearing sunglasses and not necessarily clothing fully up or having full clothing exposure, because we're not allowing the UV to connect with the skin and to allow that production of vitamin D because UV is blocked by clothing. UV is blocked by sunglasses, but we need some exposure in order to get the mental health benefits that I alluded to before because good mental health outcomes are associated with healthy levels of vitamin D. And if we want to manage anxiety and depression, we wanna be making sure we have healthy levels of vitamin D because there's strong correlations between depression and low vitamin D and poor health outcomes. So certainly we want that, we certainly want to spend more time outside because we increase our endorphins. That endorphins create this attractiveness towards the sun and and also it increases our dopamine, our serotonin and we feel connected mentally and upbeat when we get in the sun. And so this will create a natural addiction to wanting to be outside. The other thing about getting UVB exposure is that it creates alpha-MSH and alpha-MSH is associated with monitoring hunger. And so the more time we spend outside, the less hungry we are. So this will, by being outside, you won't be going to the lolly jar and trying to boost your neurotransmitters by sugar. You'll be getting it naturally boost from sunlight. So you'll get a much, much more, broader health benefit from being outside in natural sunlight versus inside and seeking the boost through other means such as sugar and chocolates and things that are not going to serve you well. So being outside is associated with appetite suppressing. We are also generating energy. We get energy from the sun and so we have less reliance on food. And so if you don't want to overeat, then being outdoors is really supportive. So I just wanted to wrap that up by sharing that there's health benefits beyond mental health benefits to the physiology, to our overall health and wellbeing. I mentioned the health benefits associated with the heart, health benefits associated with managing weight, as well as the mental health benefits. And I shared that in the context of being inside and outside. So I really hope you get a better understanding of the importance of spending more time outside. Five minutes every hour is what you want to be aiming for or 10 minutes every two hours, or 15 minutes every four hours of light exposure throughout the day. And that will keep you in a good mental health state and ultimately provide the optimal benefits of full sun spectrum exposure to your physiology. So you continue to health up by spending more time outdoors. And until next time, stay, stay, stay exposed to the sun and connected with the sun, and you will have less reliance on other addictions that don't serve you. Thank you.

Podcast Disclaimer: 34:30

This podcast and any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, healthcare or professional advice and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this podcast. Connected Wellness Pty Ltd operating under the brand "me &my health up" does not make any representations or give any warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. This podcast and any information, advice, opinions or statements within it are not to be used as a substitute for professional, medical, psychological, psychiatric or any other mental health care or health care in general. me&my health up recommends you seek the advice of a doctor or qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Inform your doctor of any changes that you make to your lifestyle and discuss these with your doctor. Do not disregard medical advice or delay visiting a medical professional because of something you hear in this podcast. This podcast has been carefully prepared on the basis of current information. Changes in circumstances after publication may affect the accuracy of this information. To the maximum extent permitted by the law, me&my health up disclaims any such representations or warranties to the completeness, accuracy, merchantability or fitness for purpose of this podcast and will not be liable for any expenses, losses, damages incurred, indirect or consequential damages or costs that may be incurred as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason. No part of this podcast can be reproduced, redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in a form without prior permission of me&my health up.