I welcome Matt Maruca back to this podcast for a wild conversation about a variety of interesting and off-beat topics, such as how to optimize your existence regardless of what latitude you live at, timing your meals according to Ayurvedic medicine and your circadian rhythm, and the many benefits of meditation.
If you heard Matt’s first appearance on this show back in 2020, then you already know that he is one of the world’s foremost experts on circadian rhythm and blue light exposure, as well as the founder of the fabulous blue-light blocking eyewear company Ra Optics—all at the tender age of 22!
The show begins with a discussion centered around astronomy, as we talk about the differences that come from living in various places around the world and how our specific environmental location affects us. Matt offers a ton of great practical lifestyle and diet tips, and you’ll also hear about his new diet, “The Light Diet,” and finally, his current, very admirable and inspiring goal of, “oscillating on a higher energy field” in order to let go of fear and insecurity.
As you’ll hear during this episode, Matt is both interesting and interested—he is deeply curious about the world around him, the impact our choices have on our health, and is also a truly open-minded and free-thinking individual who brings a ton of expertise and inquisitiveness to this conversation. I hope you enjoy this episode with Matt—click here to connect with him on Instagram, and here to check out his company, Ra Optics!
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B.Rad Podcast
Brad (00:01:45):
It’s Matt Maruka people, now where are you?
Matt (00:01:47):
I’m in Norway, actually.
Brad (00:01:50):
Norway. Awesome.
Matt (00:01:51):
Crazy. Crazy. Short days up here. It’s like sun comes up at nine and sets at three. It’s like really, really something. What city? Uh, it’s called Molde. M O L D E. It’s up on the northwest coast and friends of mine live here just through serendipity. Yeah.
Brad (00:02:12):
And my friend’s obsessed with Trondheim. Is that near Trondheim?
Matt (00:02:16):
Very close. Yeah. Well it’s actually like a three hour drive because of the fjords you know, all the curves mountains. But if you had like a road, probably like a straight highway, it’d probably be 30 minute or an hour drive.
Brad (00:02:27):
Yeah. Yeah.
Matt (00:02:28):
I’m actually gonna go there. A friend of mine goes to college there.
Brad (00:02:32):
All right. Yeah. He wants to move there. He’s getting tired of some USA stuff and he’s thinking about it. You think it’s an awesome country?
Matt (00:02:41):
Yeah. It’s a great country. I was shocked because thought that these, uh, these days like the short days, especially cuz I’m interested in light. Of course. Yeah. I thought the short days would just be killer for my health and for my, I mean for my energy, not really for my health, but honestly it’s really not true at all. They’re actually totally fine. You know, because like the cool thing is that everywhere on Earth gets the same amount of light throughout the year by hours, not necessarily by strength, but basically that means that what you, what we’re not getting here in the, in the winter, we’re getting in the summer. And so and it’s just, it’s just distributed in a different way. Like whereas on the equator, you know, they have 12 hours of day and night all year, but here it’s, it’s like very short days in the winter, but then really long days in the summer, now the sun doesn’t go as high. So you don’t get as much UV, but it’s much longer duration. So if you spend more time outside. You can still have robust health as I understand it. So, uh,
Brad (00:03:45):
I, I think we better have the show rolling now because that’s super interesting. And I think about it a lot, not having many much experience except for being like in the sweet spot you know in the thirties and the 30 parallel, we know 45’s halfway between the equator and the, and the north pole. And I love driving through Salem, Oregon on interstate five, cuz there’s a sign that says you are halfway between the equator and the north pole. And I’m like, that is awesome for Salem, Oregon, man. It’s so cool. Know
Matt (00:04:13):
That’s I do the same thing, but uh, so my, some of my cousins live in Salmon, Idaho, which is also on the exact same just north of the 45th parallel. And so whenever we drive out of town going south towards Idaho Falls, we, it, it says you’re crossing the 45th parallel halfway between the equator and the north pole. I’m like that’s dope. Yeah. It’s super cool. Just to give perspective, I’m at the 62nd parallel
Brad (00:04:38):
Far up here. Yeah, above 60, another fun anecdote from evolutionary anthropology research. The human can’t survive above 60. Can’t make enough vitamin D. And so when people first immigrated there, the only reason they survive is because of the heavy intake of omega 3s from and vitamin D from the fish, the, uh, you know, the Scandinavian diet. So that’s pretty wild because I guess above 60, you probably can’t even tan in the middle of summer. I don’t know.
Matt (00:05:15):
It’s very low. That’s the thing. So I I’d have to look into the numbers, but like I was saying before in the summer, you actually get a lot of light. It’s just that, because I was doing a post about this yesterday and I was actually brushing up on the science myself, cuz I really wanted to understand it, but it it’s getting much clearer for me, but because yesterday was the winter solstice and I thought that was really interesting. But whenever you look at the winter solstice, it doesn’t just say day, it says a specific time. And so I was thinking, well, if it’s specific time when the solstice happens, then that means that it should, it isn’t just, it isn’t just a specific second. It must be an, it must be an instant that the solstice occurs. And I wanted to understand what does that mean?
Matt (00:05:59):
Um, be, you know, because obviously this is kind of my, my area of interest and not kind of, it definitely is. And so basically, uh, as I understood, you know, the winter solstice, because the Earth has a tilt, uh, in its, in its axis, the solstice is the time when, because of this tilt, the part of the Earth that is the Northern hemisphere as we call it is furthest from the sun because like it relative to the tilt, it it’s interesting because there’s the, the Earth’s I started, I, I was reading about terms yesterday that I never heard before, but there’s the Earth’s, I guess they call it the, I’m not sure even which axis it is. There’s the orbital axis, which, which is the axis, which is parallel to the li or perpendicular to the line upon which we orbit around the sun, which is, is the orbital line.
Matt (00:06:55):
But then there’s the Earth’s here. Let me get this here. Then there’s the rotational axis. That’s the term. So the orbital axis, imagine this is the Earth’s orbit. So the line upon which the Earth goes around the sun and the flat plane, um, and then the orbital axis is a line that goes perpendicular directly to that orbital axis and makes 90 degree angle. What I didn’t understand for fully, which is really cool, the Earth isn’t orbiting like this, it isn’t orbiting on its orbital axis. It’s orbiting the sun on its orbital axis, I should say. So it is orbiting the sun like that, but it’s not rotating on that axis. The Earth is rotating on this axis, which is 23 and a half approximately degrees removed from the orbital axis. Does that make sense? Uh,
Brad (00:07:41):
Yeah, if you’re watching on YouTube, it’s more helpful because you can see Matt’s gestures. But if you think about, think about the Earth on two different axes, you can follow along a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Matt (00:07:51):
Well, so the best way, actually, I thought of a really great analogy to explain this has anyone. So you’re familiar with the Smooth Criminal dance and music video, Michael Jackson, you Jackson hip
Brad (00:08:01):
Youse a Smooth Criminal.
Matt (00:08:04):
Yeah, exactly.
Brad (00:08:06):
We were, we were arguing if Alien Ant Farm was the original producer you know, creator of that song, or were they doing a, a take on Michael Jackson or was Michael Jackson doing a take on Alien An Farm? Now listeners have to go hit both of those version cuz they’re both awesome.
Matt (00:08:21):
Yeah, that’d be great. Exactly. People should. I, I’ve never listened to the Alien Ant Farm, so I actually am gonna listen to that. That’ll be very interesting. So did that come out before? Is that why there’s a question or is it
Brad (00:08:31):
Just it’s it’s floating out there? I don’t know the answer. I just, um, want to give a little credit cuz that’s a pretty, pretty rock and roll version. Great song.
Brad (00:08:38):
Good to know. Thank you. I’ll
Brad (00:08:41):
When we get in with you, man, it’s always fun. It’s interesting. You’re a free thinker and I love this, uh, the starting point because I did wonder, you know, um, when you’re up in those extreme latitudes, obviously humans have adapted and evolved to, to colonize the entire globe. And so, you know, what are the adaptations necessary? What are the, the major drawbacks you hear about seasonal effective disorder? You sound like you’re, uh, coping with it here in, uh, very near the summer solstice in Norway. So the shortest day, uh, shortest day of the whole year. Oh, so now that makes sense. When you say that specific time, which is the very second that the Earth is furthest away from the sun and then as it rotates, it’s inching, you know, toward March 21st, uh, when the light is the same everywhere on the globe, right? Yeah.
Matt (00:09:31):
So the part that I, uh, wasn’t understanding is is exactly why it’s like, what does that moment mean? That moment? That cuz the, the interesting thing is there’s two separate axes, which the Earth is orbiting on. There’s the, like I said, orbital axis. So the reason I bring up Smooth Criminal is because, you know, when, when
Brad (00:09:50):
Michael Jackson cut you off there, sorry. Yeah,
Matt (00:09:53):
No, it’s totally good. So, you know, when Michael Jackson does this, uh, lean, he leans forward and they get their shoes clipped on some hooks on the ground. So he can lean forward like a ridiculous amount. So imagine that Michael Jackson, his body from top of the head to bottom of the feet is the Earth’s when he’s leaning. That is the Earth’s rotational axis on which it orbits. So imagine if, if Michael Jackson was just suspended in that state of leaning of, of this tilt, um, and basically then there was a, a circular, uh, some kind of body radiating body in the middle representing the sun. And he was spinning on that axis at which he’s tilted. So he’s not spin upright, standing up straight. He’s actually spinning at this, at this tilted angle. So that, that tilt that difference. And so one line, which is the orbital axis, the line that’s perpendicular to the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
Matt (00:10:51):
That would be a line going straight from the ground, straight up to the sky, but then the rotational axis because Michael Jackson is tilted leaning. That would be the access from the bottom of his feet to the top of the head, which is not the same as the one going from the ground straight to the sky because he is tilted. So that tilt in the Earth’s rotational axis relative to the orbital axis is the reason why certain parts of the globe are getting more exposure to the sun during different points of the Earth journey around the sun. So in other words, if you think of it like this and the, the picture I actually posted on Instagram, I’ll show you here. It, it describes this really well, basically the Earth it’s simply just if the Earth was tilted like this and imagine that the upper part of my arm is the Northern hemisphere and the lower part is the Southern hemisphere and people who’s listening to this on podcast.
Matt (00:11:42):
You should watch this video. Basically. This is when the, the sun is here. This is when it’s summer for the Northern hemisphere. And then when the Earth goes the other way, this is when it’s summer for the Southern hemisphere. It is really simple. So the winter solstice, the max of the winter solstice is just when we’re on this side of the sun, such that because of the tilt, the Northern hemisphere is ever so slightly further on a daily basis. But what’s really interesting because these are two different axes. The rotational and the orbital axes, the Earth is definitively the furthest from the sun. In fact, around January 3rd, it changes every year. But so the point is the Earth’s orbit. Isn’t perfectly round around the sun. It’s they call it elliptical, which means there’s a time of year when the Earth, as a whole is furthest from the sun.
Matt (00:12:34):
So the seasons aren’t determined by the Earth’s overall position from the sun. It’s determined just by the tilt angle. So the angle away from which the sun, the Earth, the different parts of the Earth are from the sun. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Brad (00:12:50):
Did you say it was 23 degrees was the tilt ?
Matt (00:12:51):
It’s 23.5 degrees, which is why the, the Tropic of Cancer.
Brad (00:12:58):
I was gonna ask that have those degrees. Yeah. What the heck? Okay.
Matt (00:13:01):
So, because, because of that tilt, those are the tropics are the places which, in which in the Earth, the, the sun, and you probably already know this, but the sun goes directly overhead at least once per year, within those two latitudes because of the tilt, anywhere you go further away from those latitudes, the sun doesn’t, uh, doesn’t ever go directly. Or now the interesting thing is what if the Earth didn’t have a tilt?
Matt (00:13:26):
Well, there would be no seasonal variations. The north pole and south pole would constantly have, uh, let’s see, they would have the same light situation as if it was the equinoxes, meaning they would both have exactly 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. And so would everywhere else on Earth the entire year, but there would be no seasonal variation. Yeah, there would no be no seasonal variations. It would be like constant Equinox. It’s just that the strength of the sun would always be the same every everywhere. So the north wouldn’t get more in the winter, unless it would just always be 12 and 12. And then the, uh, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn would always be having the sun, like in the same position as well. And the sun would only ever be directly overhead constantly on the equator.
Matt (00:14:16):
So, whereas because of this tilt in one, on one position, the, when the, when the Earth is, as I was showing with the Northern hemisphere reclined, relative to the tilt and the Southern hemisphere more exposed, then that’s when it’s directly overhead like yesterday, the sun was directly overhead at that time, at that moment on, well, basically throughout the whole day on the Tropic of Cancer, pardon, Capricorn down south. But then when the sun, the Earth’s over here and it’s leaning in, so to speak from the Northern hemisphere, that’s when the sun’s directly overhead on the June solstice in what we call the summer solstice.
Brad (00:14:54):
And that people is your lesson in the planetarium show by Matt. We are, we are rocking this thing. And up there in Norway, you’re visiting, you’re not a permanent, uh, resident there, but, um, how do people cope and what are some, you know, protocols they can use to mitigate the potential health consequences of living quite far from the equator. And then I should ask a follow up question. Like if you are near the equator, um, are there any health considerations there?
Matt (00:15:27):
Yes. So, um, you know, it’s interesting. I just wanted to look up one thing, which is actually actually the time when the Earth is furthest from the sun. So Monday, July 5th is the day that the Earth is absolutely the furthest from the sun, but this is probably about a year ago. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, this was last year, but it’s probably about the same. So that’s, what’s interesting is that we can be, we can be, um, furthest from the sun in the middle of our summer. Like by distance, the Earth is the furthest from the sun, but because of our tilt, because of the tilt and we’re leaning in, it’s still summer for us. But so of course, this got me thinking, how could you be, when is the Earth closest to the sun? And because it’s the furthest in July, it’s, it’s closest, approximately in January is what I was getting at.
Matt (00:16:21):
So I was, I was backwards. It isn’t furthest in January, it’s closest in January. So I was thinking on January, let’s say, it’s the third I I’d have, I don’t wanna pull up the exact date right now, but if the Earth is closest to the sun by distance overall as a whole, not by tilt, because the, the access isn’t perfect circle around the sun, it’s a little bit closer and a little bit further at some point, but by a magnitude of millions of miles, hundreds of millions of miles, it’s ridiculous. So I was thinking, where is the sun directly overhead? Like, where is the sun strongest on the day? We’re closest to the Earth. And where is the highest elevation on that point of Earth so that you could be in the place where the you’re absolutely the closest to the sun on that day of Earth?
Matt (00:17:05):
So I was thinking, because that day in January, it’s in the Southern hemisphere is summer. It would have to be in the Southern hemisphere. It isn’t Antarctica. It would probably be somewhere close to the Tropic of Capricorn because that’s when the sun is directly overhead on the, on the solstice. But it’s a little bit past the solstice, which means the sun is a little bit more directly overhead north of the Tropic of Capricorn. So probably somewhere in the Andes mountains, because there’s nowhere else that I I’m aware of at that latitude that has mountains. Uh, the rest of the world is mostly ocean down at that latitude. There is some Africa which is mostly flat, uh, then maybe Kilamanjaro, but probably not, cuz that’s much further north. And then the rest is like the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, maybe, but that’s mostly flat too.
Matt (00:17:54):
So you’d have to be somewhere in the Andes mountains. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Incas actually have some kind of monument in this exact spot, like where the sun is the strongest and where the closest to the sun. I’m guaranteed. I’m gonna find that spot during my, of life, like down to the, down to the inch on the Earth,
Brad (00:18:12):
He’s on a quest, he’s gonna lead a guided tour. You can sign up now wouldn’t that.
Matt (00:18:17):
Exactly people can sign up now, 20 grand. Now I’m just kidding. yeah. The, uh, the excursions. So you had a really good question that’s really, really worth and helpful to get into. Um, and this also started with us talking well, partially talking about how people couldn’t survive at 60 latitude and above because of vitamin D uh, deficiency. So because of this tilt, what I found really interesting and, and I’ve observed this.
Matt (00:18:42):
And so it made me think, of course, like what, how in the world I was visiting actually a host family. I lived with on a foreign change program years ago, I was visiting them cuz they moved from Bosnia, which is where I lived, which is a relatively poor country in Europe, um, to, to for a better life, basically in Norway prospects of a better life. But you know, you have to look at way the costs and the benefits. They moved up to the 77th latitude in Northern Norway. Can you imagine that’s that’s like that’s literally 13 degrees, 12 degrees, 11 degrees north of 66, which is the Arctic circle. So they’re well with inside of the Arctic circle and in the winter they have basically no sun, I mean, hour of light, two hours of light. And in the summer they have constant light.
Matt (00:19:30):
Like I was there and the sun didn’t set until 11:30 and it rose at 1:30 in the morning. So super extreme. So I’m like, is this really a better life? I’m not sure cuz of how extreme the environment is. And it was a really cool experience just for perspective too. Like I coming to here to Norway, I flew from Zurich, Switzerland, which is about a two and a half hour flight to Olso and about a 30 minute flight up to Molde., But to get from Molde or Oslo up to where they were, which is north of a town called Tromso or Alta, which are two really northernly towns Tromso has the Northern most university in the world just for perspective. But that was another two and a half hours. So like Switzerland to, to Norway and then Norway to Northern Norway. It’s like ridiculously far north.
Matt (00:20:17):
And I was like, how in the world is the sun setting at 11:30 and rising at, you know, and how is it constantly at the north pole a little further north? How is it just constantly up all day? And I understood because of this Earth’s tilt during the time when the Northern hemisphere is more exposed. The sun is, or the Earth is spinning, not straight like this, but it’s spinning like this, at an angle.
Brad (00:20:39):
23 degree angle.
Matt (00:20:41):
Yeah, exactly. In this point, this Northern pole and the Arctic circle, but specifically the top point, no matter how the, if the sun is here, no matter how the Earth spins this north pole, isn’t it, isn’t leaving the sun. It’s always in the re in the rays of the light for six months straight the perpetual day. And so the cool thing is how does the sun never leave?
Matt (00:21:04):
How does it never on specifically only me on the point of the north pole, how does it never have darkness for six months straight? But basically because of that tilt angle, the sun is literally just circling around in the sky because like, and, and I saw this when I was at the 77 latitude. The sun, it rises. It goes all the way around the sky and then it dips back down above the horizon. But then the winter it’s the opposite. It’s constantly below the horizon and it just dips up for a set like for a few minutes or an hour, like it’s crazy. But so in Molde where I am much further south than this super Northern places like the Arctic circle, but still relatively far north to the rest of the world and 95% of human population, the sun still in the summer, it’s amazing.
Matt (00:21:50):
It isn’t just like what most people who live at normal attitudes, conceive where the sun comes up on one side and it sets on the other side, it comes up like if you were standing facing south, it comes up to if you’re facing south, it comes up to my back, left above my back left shoulder, which is north east. And it rises behind. And it comes up in front of you and circles around in front of you and then goes and sets behind you behind your back right shoulder or your, your right shoulder, which would be Northwest. So it like circles around the sun. And this is because of the tilt. It’s like, you’re getting a really interesting exposure to the sun that doesn’t happen on in the equator. It doesn’t happen within the tropics. It happens to a more and more degree. The further north you go, like if you’re in Idaho or Montana or Oregon, it does take a much longer path around the sky.
Matt (00:22:40):
And so for that reason, the days are longer, but the sun never goes high in the sky. It’s so the amount of hours of exposure are equal everywhere on Earth, they’re just distributed differently, but that the intensity is not equal because of that. But to get to the question of vitamin D deficiency, I think it’s interesting. And I think maybe part of why people are able to survive up here is because in the summer, even though the sun doesn’t go as high, it still reaches an angle that is high enough to make vitamiyn D. But the thing is, it’s ver it’s at that angle for many hours. Like, so I wouldn’t be surprised if, because of how many hours it is up at that angle, even though it’s, it’s a lower overall UV index. It’s, it’s a longer period of time that it’s at that UV index.
Matt (00:23:28):
So say it’s not at a UV index of like 10 or 14, like when you’re in the tropics or the equator, or just anywhere in America during the summer 10 or 14 is like, you know, pretty far north you’ll still get about UV nine or 10 or eight at the least, even in Maine, you’ll still get up to like seven or eight or maybe even, maybe even nine UV NX up in mold. Probably you’re not gonna get past like five or six, no matter what, but if it stays there for many more hours, then maybe you could make that vitamin D but the prerequisite would be that the Vikings or the people living here would have to be outside in the summer, which, which they totally were. Cuz there was no such thing as indoor living. Which is why I think it could have worked and obviously the vitamin D in the diet from the fish.
Matt (00:24:10):
But so to answer the question, as far as things people could do to cope, I kind of just answered some of it. Like people definitely need to be outside when there’s tons of sun, because we can make the vitamin D and store it in our fat. People should probably eat seafood based diet. If they’re living up at these latitudes, you know, lots of people have issues with all sorts of chemicals in the ocean and plastics and this and that, but I’m not fully convinced that that’s, that that outweighs the risks of not eating healthy, omega three for a human brain. I’m not fully convinced by that yet. And I don’t know if I will be, but so those are two big things. Other things people can do is use red light therapy, uh, or light therapy in general, but red light therapy is a big one and we’re actually releasing red light therapy panels, red light therapy devices, probably within the next few weeks.
Matt (00:25:00):
It’s just been kind of an ongoing process for like, uh, we’re gonna launch them for a pre-order so people can get those. And that’s something where you can bring back key wavelengths of sunlight, specifically the red and near Infrared wavelengths. To be honest though, those are for people who wanna have something that’s easy, it’s a panel. It gives you the most targeted therapeutic medicinal wavelengths. The other best kind of red light therapy, which is really focused on near infrared light is creating a fire, like use a fire and a fireplace or using a sauna or a banya or something like this, where you can actually have like a heat experience. But in the Finnish people who were also super far north, they created saunas to get, they just knew that if they burned a lot of wood and sat in a really enclosed space and got really hot, it really helped them to kind of through the winter.
Matt (00:25:48):
And so I think that was a thing people can benefit from and do. And, and those are the main things for people in this latitude. One other thing for me that I’m doing every single day, like here, it’s a, non-negotiable like sometimes when I’m in Costa Rica or wherever, I might not go for a long walk or do some kind of training every day. Some days I literally might just relax work and I, you know, the day might just go by and it’s the evening and it’s like, I didn’t go for a walk today. Okay. No big deal here. It’s like, non-negotiable, I must go for a walk for at least an hour or two every day. Because when there’s only this many hours of light.
Brad (00:26:21):
that’s right. And you’re motivated. I love it. Yeah.
Matt (00:26:23):
Yeah. It’s great. I’m like, I’m not gonna take my shirt off necessarily in this temperature. Although maybe if feeling really warm while I’m hiking, I might, but it’s like, I need to get out for a walk because I know I’ll go crazy if I don’t like, cuz there’s no light, you know? So, um, and that is one thing. There’s studies showing that people with seasonal effective disorder had a hundred percent cure just from an hour walk every day in the morning outside. Even if it was a cloudy gray sky, it was like 32 out of 33 participants had significant improvements in their conditions, in the study, which is documented in the book it’s called The Healing Sun. And basically, yeah, there’s, it’s a really, really interesting idea, but many people who have seasonal affective disorder, they don’t go outside. They’re like inside, you know? So it’s like, you, you you’d really want to go outside first before you claim that you’re totally depressed and not getting enough sun. Um, so that’s because there’s still light coming through the clouds.
Brad (00:27:18):
It’s, it’s almost like the the latitude would be very far down on our list of concerns about being healthy in modern life. And there’s so much vitamin D deficiency even at, you know, in the tropics cause people are indoors all the time or on the continent of America and the high population centers of the planet in Europe. But because people aren’t getting any sun exposure, even when it’s out there, uh, ready to bask your skin in, in golden brown. So, um, and now I’m thinking like in these, in these beautiful pristine countries up high where there’s not a lot of population, there’s not population 10, there’s not congestion pollution, all those things. Maybe those guys are a bit ahead of the game, even though it’s kind of a bummer to have those long winters. Uh, but a, I do have talked to people from Northern Canada parts and they say that their summers are just incredibly festive where they’re outdoors all the time, getting in all that great recreation because they know they’re facing a badass winter coming up. So they have this built in motivation. It’s really cool.
Matt (00:28:23):
It’s actually, for me, like again, when I came up to Norway, I was like, no way, could I live in Norway. Like the light diet, no chance, you know, but then I really being here, I really thought about it. And what you just said about this inbuilt motivation, it’s both visible on my daily routine, like in the winter, I’m sure gonna get out for a walk no matter what, because of how short the days are, but in the summer, like it’s, it’s hard to describe to someone who’s only familiar with even any duration of American summer. Even if you go up to like, I, like I said, my cousins up in Idaho, we visited them up in, in July and June in Idaho. And those days are pretty long. I mean, you’re looking at like 16 hour days, 16 hour days, eight hour nights at the longest.
Matt (00:29:08):
Um, and basically anywhere I believe let’s see on the Sol, actually, this was also included on the June solstice on the places, the Tropic of Cap. No, no. So the Tropic of Cancer was 13 and a half hours of daylight. So basically the Tropic of Cancer being directly over this graph is way off this image. It’s so funny now that I’m looking at this image, I shouldn’t have posted this. I don’t know if you could see this, but the equator in this picture is actually where the Tropic of Cancer is and the Tropic of Cancer is over like North Carolina, way off. But anyway,.
Brad (00:29:44):
Point well taken anyway.
Matt (00:29:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get the idea. It’s just funny how, uh, Northern hemispheric, our view of the world is. Um, but anyway, so what I’m getting at is, is according to these numbers, which I believe are accurate, it’s about 13 and a half, 14 hours of daylight on the Tropic of Cancer, which actually crosses through Cuba and the Yucitan Peninsula of Mexico. So the further north you go the longer the days are. So it, it does get up to close to 15, 16 hours of daylight. Anyway, up in Norway. I think it’s probably more like, uh, if it’s 13 on the Tropic of Cancer, 13 and a half, it’s probably 14, 15, maybe 16. Yeah. When you get up to Idaho and stuff, when you get up to Norway, it’s like 20 hours of daylight, like it’s obviously can also affect people’s sleep if they don’t have a really like, a really strong routine because light affects circadian rhythms, but also meal timing and activity.
Matt (00:30:36):
So if you have a really strong routine, like you go to the gym every, or you go to the gym or you work out at the same time day, you run at the same time every day, you eat at the same time every day, like you can overcome, you meditate at the same time every day. Like you can strengthen your own circadian rhythm to be sort of, uh, not overpowering, but you can maintain it even when the days are crazy, but it requires pretty strong discipline. Require a really strong routine and discipline, which is something I’m learning here. It’s teaching me discipline because with such short days and such low light, if I don’t have clear discipline of light and I’ve been feeling this I’ve been waking up much later than usual, cuz the light isn’t coming up till like 9:30, it doesn’t start to get light.
Brad (00:31:18):
So you’re getting plenty of sleep. Another positive for people living at 60 parallel.
Matt (00:31:22):
Yeah. You could, you could get a lot of sleep in the winter, which makes sense. We would’ve hibernated, but so you’d have to have discipline, but in the summer it’s like you’re saying about these people in Northern Canada, like the, the energy I’ve been here in, in uh, let’s see, I was here in July or August at one time and oh my gosh. In July it was ridiculous. Like the day just never ended at was like, it was like, you just had so much time to do everything. Obviously the hours of the day are the same, but it was like, the light was like, people were out like having fun at like 12 o’clock at night and the sun was still up. Like, it was just so cool. You know? And I thought like, it’s a really, like you said, it’s festive, it’s enjoyable. Like people get out there.
Matt (00:32:03):
That’s another thing is that Norwegian people, in fact, speaking of people in the Tropic of Cancer and equator who are vitamin D deficient, the people here as a whole, yes, there’s probably tons of vitamin D deficiency. But many who I’ve spoken to they said that when they were kids with their parents, it’s like a, non-negotiable like sun’s out, like get your ass out of the house. Like the sun’s out, you know, it’s like the sun, you know, we haven’t seen it in six months. And you know, they’re seriously, there could be periods like for sure where there’s no blue sky day for months. I mean up here this far north because of the temperature and the, and the Earth’s meteorology and all that stuff. Like the weather patterns, there’s just constant clouds at these Northern latitudes. There’s just kind of constant a lot of the time. So the only days they’ll really have blue skies are in the summer for the most part. And even then there’s tons of clouds because of the Gulf stream, like where I am, 62nd latitude is something like the same as Nome, Alaska, and maybe even further north and Nome is like, I think, well known as one of the absolute ends of the Earth as far as, um, you know, like it’s, it’s so far out there in Alaska and there’s a movie or something related to Nome
Brad (00:33:13):
Yeah. It’s the Iditarod finish line. So the thousand mile dog race from Anchorage to Nome. And I think the, the history is maybe they were delivering the mail out there to the, to the end `of civilization, there’s Barrow, Alaska, which is the very upper tip of Alaska. Someone I went to college with worked up there and was describing life up there. But I, I remember reading an article where the sunset on December 18th and rose on like February 2nd, it was below the, and for the entire winter, that’s pretty gnarly right there.
Matt (00:33:46):
Yep. Definitely. It’s really, I’m not a huge fan of that constant night thing. I think for sure, like animal life even becomes more and more sparsely populated up here. Like maybe there’s hibernating animals, but because it is so extreme that it, it really is, it is strange for the body. And but so looking at Nome, the latitude is 64. So not notably further north than where I am right now, actually. But the difference that I thought was really interesting is Nome is, I mean, we’re talking minus like freezing cold, you know, minus a lot. And the thing with Norway and, and generally Europe as well, like many people don’t know this, but if you look at Europe and America, like Europe is significantly further north than the continent of America and the United States of America. But the temperatures are very similar actually for the most of the, of throughout the continent and especially by regions, it’s actually a lot warmer than you would expect because you know, if you look for example, like Paris is somewhere on the same latitude as I believe the city of Quebec, Canada here, let’s just get this
Brad (00:34:52):
Up. Yeah. It’s way up there. Shocking. Very high
Matt (00:34:54):
It’s 53rd latitude. I believe for Paris. I’ve looked this up before, but here Paris latitude. No, it’s 48 degrees north. London’s the 53rd. Quebec latitude is 46. So Paris is further north in Quebec, City, Canada, which you would never, I would never have imagined because Quebec is so far up there and it’s freezing. Paris is nowhere near as cold as Quebec, but it’s because of the Gulf streams. So these, these like weather patterns that occur, there’s like eight cycles around the globe, but one of them is in the Atlantic ocean. I don’t know exactly how many there are, but that constant flow of warm air from the Gulf of Mexico moving up the Atlantic. And so people talk like the only reason Norway is inhabitable, where I am. Um, you know, I mean, of course it could be inhabitable if it were like Nome, but much more difficult. But here it’s very mild.
Matt (00:35:41):
It’s not even just inhabitable. It’s mild. It’s not minus, you know, in Celsius, it’s not minus 20 minus 30 minus 40. It’s like just around zero degrees freezing. Like it’s totally mild. And it’s because the Gulf stream, which means there’s also a lot of rain, which goes back to what I was saying about there’s a lot of cloudy days, even in the summer. So when people get sun, they go outside and that’s what I love here is like people, you know, it’s another shocking thing just to be totally like honest here as well. The people here are beautiful, like beautiful people. So more credence to your theory about like, maybe they’ve got things going well with the environment. Like the people are just gorgeous. The girls, the guys everyone’s just like, most people look great and healthy. And I was thinking that totally blows up the light diet theory about more sun by the equator. But it makes, it makes a lot of sense, like looking like what you said, first of all, they’re drinking this pure glacial water, like the cleanest water in the world practically.
Matt (00:36:36):
So that’s killer. Eating a pretty great diet for the most part. I mean, everyone has their own variations, but they’re getting out in the summer. They also have great community and great kind of cultural bondage. And so it, it’s actually a pretty cool life. Like I was in Switzerland, like I said before this, and Switzerland’s a place I could totally live, too. Like Zurich, Switzerland’s an amazing city. The country has mountains, the lakes, snow, snowboarding skiing, and then Switzerland’s so cool because you’re so, so central in Europe, you could take a train to Rome. You could take a train to Paris, to Germany, to Switzerland, or to, to Portugal, to France, like anywhere. And, and the days are obviously much more normal in the summer. In the winter. Like when I was there, it was, it was, uh, early December. And, you know, the sun would come up at 7, 7 30 and set around 4, 4 30 or five, which is like still short days, but much more normal than like nine until three.
Matt (00:37:29):
And anyway, the point is being here. My thought at the time was no way I could, I could live in Norway. I like Switzerland a lot. Being in Norway. I’m like, you know what? Like this is really like having this time to go really deep. Like I actually like darkness because it’s a great time to go deep and inward and reflect. And, uh, you would just have to really be willing to sort of embrace your own inner self, which is sort of my quest anyway. Now one disclaimer, I would make, if I lived in Norway, probably I would take off for somewhere in the tropics for like a few weeks, at least in the winter just to kind of get like a, a charge up dose, but maybe anyway. So that’s my, my take on the way and things people can do to mitigate it is get outside, go for a walk and all that stuff.
Brad (00:38:12):
I think a lot of people are really good at that. I have several friends in Portland and each of ’em are reporting in over the winter. The at, Hey, just got back from Cabo, just got back from Palm Springs. Uh, they know how to take care of themselves because of the, again, those, those natural motivators are so extreme. And I think a lot of us maybe take for granted the decent weather or the lack of weather variation. So we don’t appreciate, uh, golf as much as the people in Chicago who are practicing their swing in their basement for four months. And then finally the course can open with still a little snow on it in April, but they’re so happy to play a round of golf where, uh, you know, the folks in Arizona are grumbling about their score, cuz they’re throughout the winter and they had a bad round, uh, on January 17th, they shot a 89 when it was 72 degrees out. And it’s just a different mindset to have a greater
Matt (00:39:03):
Appreciation. It’s amazing. Yeah. I’m glad you bring that up because I totally feel that that was another reason why this year, when I came to Europe in September, I was thinking like, you know, what, if I could, if I could work things, uh, such that I could stay here for a pretty long period of time, I would be very happy to do so because I really thought it’d be really great to be able to go through and experience a winter. And so, you know, I, I just kind of decided I’m gonna try to stay and see if, because on one hand my mindset is like, well, I need to be in the sun. That’s better for my health. This is like kind of a light diet idea at the same time I thought, well, but really the light, diet’s more about reconnecting the nature and, and, you know, becoming adaptable in addition to taking advantage of some. But why not just take an experiment and try to be in Europe in the winter, see how it feels and like, to my own, you know, in a way surprise, but also not really surprise, cuz I’ve been learning about the power of mind over matter and doing a lot of meditation and stuff with people like Joe Dispenza. it really is so manageable.
Matt (00:40:06):
It’s so not, not that bad, you know, at all, if you, if you know what to do, like if you know that your meal timing has dialed in where you’re like, I I’m cutting off my eating every day, almost around 3:00 PM at the latest, like usually I eat just I’m finding here that the best thing for me is one big breakfast. Like literally just having breakfast around nine or 10:00 AM. Not long after the sun comes up and not eating anything else for the rest of the day. And if I do like a small snack, like a bowl of cream soup, warming hot soup or something like at two or three in the afternoon, just before the sun goes down and then no food for the rest of the day. Because like, first of all, the metabolism’s most active when the sun’s up and there’s very little sun here.
Matt (00:40:52):
Uh, and so like having three meals a day maybe makes sense when the days are long, but when the days this short to me, it’s, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And so anyway, I like to go to sleep. One of the things I’ve been learning from a, a friend of mine, who’s a very prominent Indian traditional medicine doctor in Russia, but he’s a close friend of mine. He’s been teaching me a lot of stuff, which interestingly, all of the light diet stuff, which we spoke about, I don’t know, even two years ago now, now, uh, approximately is stuff that points me to ancient Indian ayurveda. They knew all about circadian rhythms, like having your meal timing dialed in so many things. So it’s like, it’s almost like that was what I was looking for. And one of the biggest things is going to sleep with an empty cleared out stomach, like fully digested because then you, the moment you go to sleep, you’re resting.
Matt (00:41:43):
And the thing that amazed me about this friend of mine, he’s also practicing Yogi. So he kind of has the medical side of India and the spiritual side in his pocket. And he, he goes to sleep around eight on average in eight o’clock, which for many people is super early cuz they’re eating a huge dinner at that time or seven. But for him he’s, you know, ate his last meal at four or five. And it probably was a very light meal. If anything, a lot of the time he eats just one meal a day of like very little food at all because he’s like a Yogi he’s floating practically I with so much energy that he doesn’t really need that much food, but anyhow, so he goes to sleep around eight and he wakes up around three in the morning, every day, two or three in the morning.
Matt (00:42:22):
And he, but think about eight to six or eight to two, sorry or eight to three that’s six or seven hours, which if the body is really optimized people, there are people out there who will say, no, everyone needs eight hours of sleep. Total BS, complete BS.
Brad (00:42:36):
Wow.
Matt (00:42:36):
I’m sure of it because it’s like saying that like the health needs of a morbidly obese person are the same of a healthy person. Like nothing could be further from the truth. But someone who is ridiculously healthy and their cells are functioning at a high level and they’re, they’re charged up with light. They, they could, very well need four hours of sleep or less. Like I talked to Dr. Joe Dispenza, who’s become a kind of acquaintance and even friend. And he is a deep meditator and, and experienced like leader in this field. And he sometimes admits that he only gets three or four hours of sleep at night sometimes.
Matt (00:43:10):
And, and even when he’s at these events where he’s on the stage for literally 14 hours in the day, like from six in the morning, leading meditations till seven or eight in the evening, I mean he’s leading the day and he’s getting maybe three or four hours of sleep at these events. The point is both modern Western meditation and mindset experts and energy experts and ancient yogis knew that if you have this connection to what’s, they call super consciousness or God, or this high energy state through meditation and aligning your energy centers and letting that free universal energy, which is always here, which they call God, just letting it flow through you, by getting rid of all of our blockages and egos. And they call them some scars, which are heart blockages, which we all have, cuz we all attach to stuff to not let energy flow freely.
Matt (00:43:57):
I’m attaching to them constantly, but looking to free myself constantly now, as soon as I see these attachments come up. But anyway, we let that energy flow freely. Like these people who get into the state, their cells are so charged and healed that the yogis knew they, they could need only three or four hours of sleep or five. You know. Some of the most advanced yogis don’t sleep at all. They don’t need any sleep cuz they’re so supercharged. Now this is like, some people will say this is totally BS, but again, if you read The Autobiography of a Yogi, which you may have, or if anyone does, it’s a really cool book that documents some of the amazing things in India from these, they call them God conscious men like people who just became aware of these spiritual ideas. So anyway, what I’m getting at is that’s what fascinated me from ayurveda, this ancient Indian idea like that you could eat a super tight diet and not eat too much heavy food, especially later in the day.
Matt (00:44:49):
Like if I any heavy food like proteins, it’s now always before noon or one o’clock so that my body has tons of time to burn through it. If I eat anything in the afternoon or evening it’s light, it’s like super simple. Like, you know, I’m not carnivore, but um, cuz that’s a huge focus. I’m quite far away from that personally. But like some, some cooked vegetable bowls or some simple soup, if I’m gonna eat anything in the afternoon, if I was to eat, you know, a lot of meat or protein or something like that, it’s gonna be a fish. You know, it’s gonna be in lunch, which is around 11 to 12, o’clock in the ayurveda system anyway. So this some, some stuff that’s fascinating me recently.
Brad (00:45:30):
Yeah, the performance says of the yogis, the measure performances are, are pretty amazing. Um, a lot of people are familiar with Wim Hof who’s accessing some of those same energy states where he can sit packed ice for two hours or take novices and climb up Mount Kilmanjaro in record time without acclimating to the altitude, as everyone says is absolutely necessary just through doing breathing drills. There’s a great book by Scott Carney, you know, detailing not only how amazing Wim Hof’s stuff is that he does himself, but how he trains novices quickly. And I remember the yogis showing complete control over their heart rates. They could lower their heart rate to 32 and then bring it up to atrial fibrillation at 220 and then bring it back down to normal. And so they’re definitely accessing something of a different plane than we’re familiar with.
Brad (00:46:20):
And I’d love to participate in that cuz man, I feel like I need eight or nine hours of sleep every night and I’m very, you know, sensitive if I, if I I’m a little bit deficient and I’m wondering, is this just, you know, a, a woos mindset? Maybe I overexercise or try to cram too much in a day. Like a lot of people are just trying to go, go go or whatever it is, but it’s fascinating to sit back and think, wow, you know, oh, maybe meal timing and, and you know, allowing the body more time to transition into a graceful evening of sleep could, you know, minimize as your sleep needs or make you feel more refreshed when you wake up. Yeah,
Matt (00:46:57):
It’s super interesting. So the two biggest things that I feel have the impact and not coincidentally that my, my Yogi friend, his name’s Balarama I’ll refer to him as that going forward, but that he says, so this is a taken Hindu name. He’s originally Russian, but, um, this is his taken name in the spiritual tradition. But anyway, Balarama explains to me that the two of the biggest things are meditation and then the meal timing. So, and I feel that way. So basically like if I get my meal timing perfectly dialed in but I don’t have the meditation piece fully dialed in it still isn’t op optimal, but it’s, it’s much better than if I don’t have the meal timing dialed in. And so again, just to walk through the ayurveda meal timing and it, it, the meal contents differ for everyone depending on your constitution.
Matt (00:47:47):
And I’m not a expert in this discipline to disclaim, I’m just, you know, aware of it, but it, it fits with the light diet, what I have been studying for years now. So I can speak pretty intelligently about it and how, how the, the basis of, you know, science kind of underpin it. But so anyway the idea with I meal timing is breakfast should be between six and 8:00 AM. And many people aren’t even awake by then, but if you’re awake at three or four in the morning and doing meditation and doing, you know, your morning routine and doing whatever else you’re doing then, which for me is if I’m, if I am in my ideal routine and I am waking up around three or four in the morning, um, on this schedule, which I do not every day, but when I’m in my best routine, there have been periods where I have been.
Matt (00:48:31):
And I’m, I’m trying to build that into my schedule now, which has kind of been my, my, my obstacle to learn how to overcome with discipline. But anyway, if you are up at three or four, like I think all of, a lot of the most effective people in the world wake up around 4:00 AM like many people know, Jocko Willink, the very famous Navy seal. And you know, um, I’m not, uh, I don’t know him personally, but he, one of the things I’ve seen him talk about he’s 4:00 AM is like every day awake. You know? So a lot of these people who are super disciplined, they have this internal drive that gets them outta the bed that early. Joe Dispenza also gets up, you know, super early to do his meditation. Paul Check described to me how he gets up usually around three or 4:00 AM, because if he doesn’t, he said, there’s not enough hours in the day to do everything.
Matt (00:49:17):
And it sounds crazy. But, what I’m understanding from this stuff is, and they don’t necessarily even follow all this meal timing stuff. They’re actually just such motivated spiritual people. They may well eat their last meal at six or 7:00 PM and a heavy meal at that. They’re just, they have, have the mind over matter super dialed in. But for people who wanna just start, I think the meal timing’s the best way to move into this. And so the ayurveda breakfast would be between six and 8:00 AM something, on the lighter side, you know, I was doing a protocol. So I’ll just share what I was doing. I was, I was doing a very actually strict vegan protocol for three weeks, which is something I, I would never have thought I would ever do before, because I’ve been in the world of paleo primal, but I’m an open-minded person.
Matt (00:49:57):
And I just like trying new things. And when my friends said, Hey, I guarantee you’re gonna see a result. I said, okay, let me just try it. And so during that time, the recommendation was to eat like a lighter breakfast, but filling. So it was like something like buck wheat or oats or some kind of porridge, you know, dates and, and they, they recommend an ayurveda, if you’re gonna eat something sweet, eat it in the morning. And this is for, this was specifically for my constitution. So people shouldn’t take this a constitution, meaning your body’s particular health makeup that they have their own system for evaluating. But so for me and it actually a lot of the things I ate, he it’s like, he knew it’s like, it really did have some sense because a lot of the things I was told to eat, I was like, wow.
Matt (00:50:36):
I actually remember that the days that I would eat those things, I would feel really good. Like I always loved oats growing up. I know in the paleo primal world, like eating oats or like, you know, grain, they’re not considered healthy, but something that was warm, like a porridge, it always like really made me feel like warm and good. So I was like, okay, sure. Like I’ll have porridge with some chopped nuts and dried fruit. So that was like a breakfast around six to 8:00 AM. The idea was if, if I slept in too late, because I had eaten dinner too late, I should skip breakfast and fast through breakfast to clear out that extra food from the day before and get my rhythm back on track. And then lunch would be between generally about 11 and 12. But if I skipped breakfast, I could have lunch around 10:30 like, so a half hour earlier, according to this, this is a very strict version of an ayurveda diet, but, but very accurate.
Matt (00:51:25):
So then I would, um, and just, just for people to have context on kind of the idea behind this meal timing, not that the foods have to be the same, but the, the time between 10:30 or 11 and 12 is when the sun is typically about the strongest. So, and I could feel when I would eat my lunch at that time, I could, I would actually have the whole rest of the day to digest and my body would be clear. Now, if I ate lunch at the right time, the and dinner would be around, uh, four or five o’clock. But if, if I so desired, if I was up early and not having a pretty long day and sleeping less, then you could have, according to this protocol, a snack around 2:00 PM. So three hours after lunch. But the key thing, some of the key principles is minimum three hours between every meal.
Matt (00:52:06):
So the stomach isn’t getting new food before, and the gut isn’t getting more food before. It’s kind of worked through what was first there. So these are some principles of ayurveda. And then another really interesting idea that I thought was really cool was meal. Like the time you take to eat. And of course the intention and the awareness, but if I just shoveled a meal down in five minutes, which I was known to do before, you know this.
Brad (00:52:31):
Back in Philly, eating those Philly cheese steaks.
Matt (00:52:34):
Yeah. Right. Slamming those for during recess. Yeah. I was never a cheese steak guy actually. But yeah, I could slam, you know, you take a plate of food in five minutes is a lot of time to finish a whole plate of food if you’re just going. And I wasn’t conscious of it. But when I started doing this protocol, and I learned that I could take my time and eat really slowly.
Matt (00:52:54):
And it was like, it’s like a meditation. It’s like forcing my, my animal self to relax. You know, this part of me that’s stressed and wants to shovel down the meal. The same part of me that wants to speak right now at a million miles an hour, it’s forcing it to, just, to, for me to step back into the seat of my awareness and him aware and realize there’s no rush and take my time. And if I ate lunch across what he recommended a period of 30 minutes, which seemed to me like eons when eating a meal. Oh my gosh, the amount of energy I would, I never, again experienced when I would do that. I never experienced like a post meal, energy crash, or any of that, like think after a meal, you should be buzzing with energy, with a bunch of, a lot of calories and stuff.
Matt (00:53:34):
If you eat the right foods. And, but when I ate slowly, I noticed that it just felt like I just, my energy slowly increased with the meal as it should. And it just stayed high. It didn’t crash. Like it was amazing. And so then that would be like, lunch would be like something more protein now on a vegan diet. There’s not a lot of protein, uh, options, but like it’d be beans or hummus or stuff like that. That, that, again, the carnivore world thinks is the absolute worst poison ever. But I actually felt pretty good doing this to be honest because it isn’t, it, it goes back to the light diet, which is kind of my thing, which is, is there’s a lot of evidence. And the, the researcher, I learned a lot of this from Dr. Jack Cruz would mention that food isn’t as big of a deal as people think it is when your meal timing is dialed in and your light exposure is dialed in.
Matt (00:54:18):
But anyway, then dinner, if I was going to eat dinner, it would be like, like a bowl of cream soup, like a vegetable cream soup, like pumpkin soup or some kind of like simple vegetable soup or boiled or cooked vegetables. And that way it’s like, it makes your body feel like you had some food, but really like, first of all, if you’re living on this light, through this meditation, you don’t need as much food, but anyway. It makes your body feel like you had enough food and it, and, and you’re, you’re good. And then you I’d go to sleep with a clean stomach. And I actually actually would wake up when I was doing this whole protocol, like correctly as my doctor friend was advising me. I would wake up around like three or four in the morning, like charged with energy. And then the coolest thing he always told me, like, if you do this correctly, you’ll see, you’re so productive in your business.
Matt (00:55:01):
Because the hours between, you know, you do a meditation for say an hour from three to four or four to five. But then if you work for three to four hours, like, or two to three hours at those morning hours, between five and eight or four and seven, like he said, you’ll, you’ll see such a huge benefit in your business. I’m sure of it. And he doesn’t even know necessarily about what I’m doing my work, but he knows about how the body works and the mind works. And I did this and it was ridiculous. Like not just a placebo, but the brain is this sharpest between the hours of six and 8:00 AM. You know, there’s people, you can Google this. That’s well known. And most people just aren’t awake at this time because our whole circadian rhythms off cuz of our meal timing and our light exposure.
Matt (00:55:37):
But that’s when we’re, we’re supposed to be up. And oh my gosh, like in, in those hours I could get so much done. It was ridiculous. Like it was, it was crazy. I could, I felt so clear, no distractions. And it was like, I could work two or three hours in the morning and feel like I didn’t have to do anything the rest of the day. Cause I got so much done. And I was in such a high vibrational motivated state that all the things that I’d been pushing off are like neglecting. I would just run right into them. Cause I’m like, now’s the time, you know? And I think that’s why so many people who get it better early have a great benefit. So on the one meal timing we touched on, on the other hand, I would mention, um, the meditation state, as far as you said, you know, feeling like you need to sleep eight or nine hours, one thing would be just keeping your biggest meal to lunch and breakfast.
Matt (00:56:22):
And basically I would say like everyone’s shifting big dinners to big lunch and, and then breakfast and like super light dinners, if any at all. And then like my dinner now, like I described as more like an afternoon snack, like my one meal is my bigger meal and then I have like an afternoon snack and that, that has been working fairly well for me. I’m kind, kind of experimenting here with the really unusual light conditions, but I’m always experimenting. But anyway, the meditation state. That for me is a really interesting idea. Now the, the, obviously the spiritual yogis and I’m reading a really cool book actually on my Kindle right now by Paramahansa Yogananda not the autobiography of the Yogi, but it’s called Man’s Eternal Quest. And uh, he’s, it’s been inspiring me a lot recently. It’s just a collection of his lectures.
Matt (00:57:09):
It was published after he died. But basically I understand that when, when people get into this like Wim Hof’s state, like you were describing, people get into this, they call it like a super consciousness or God awareness in a spiritual term, but you get into such a high. And everyone’s been there before, at least once I think like just a super high like energy state, you feel amazing. Like they argue in these traditions that that never has to go away. We choose to let go. We choose to trade it away because of some attachment to some higher person thing, outcome, situation, pain, you know, expectation entitlement. But that feeling doesn’t actually ever have to go away. So they say set your sights on the highest state you could be in and you can actually stay there if you want, but you’d have to be willing to trade everything that doesn’t align with that vibrational frequency.
Matt (00:58:03):
Even for, for example, for me, even if it would include trading away my business. If it turned out to be the case that at that vibrational state, my business was no longer a match. Now, the cool thing is that’s not true. My business is a blank slate. I would just have to trade away all the activities that don’t vibrate at that high level that don’t inspire me fully where the, like, where I would be willing because right now what I’ve done from, well, not now, but in the past, what I’ve done many times is I’d get into a high state, but I would, because of some thought of I should do this or I should do that, or I should do that. I would trade away this feeling of bliss and joy for a feeling of like, I don’t know if it’s, if it’s something I took from my father or from who knows what, but the feeling of, oh, I, I ought to do that or I should do that to be this, to these people.
Matt (00:58:47):
Or if I don’t do these activities, if I don’t do these things, then my business might fall apart rather than saying, you know what? I’m fearless. I’m an unlimited being. Who’s a physical manifestation of divinity, just like we all are. And in, in a, in a, in a sense, and you know, also not to mention from a scientific perspective, like our life is a blink of an eye in the universe. We have nothing to lose factually speaking except our existence. But even then that’s what is that, you know, it’s like, and really coming at the world from this place of like, I have nothing to lose. And so if I, if, if I only do the things I want to do, just for getting rid of the fear, that was the driver, cuz there’s always fear that there’s a fear. That’s like, well, if I stay in this high vibrational state and I only do the things I want and I don’t lower my frequency down into fear, maybe I’m gonna forget about something important, but it’s like, wait a minute. What if I just decided to stay in that high vibrational state surrender my fears. And if something happens that, that I am, would previously have been afraid of or triggered by just let that go and just surrender that I don’t want that person who’s afraid to be a part of me anymore. Even if it means I have to experience some discomfort in the process. Anyway, that’s my way.
Brad (01:00:00):
I love it. Thank you to Dr. Bruce Lipton, Biology of Belief. This lines up perfectly with his cell biology and, and quantum physics where our cells are either in a protection state or a growth state, but they can’t be in both at the same time. So whenever we succumb to fear, we all of a sudden, uh, depart that beautifully state that you’re talking about, that we all aspire to. We can bring ourselves back down to life in two seconds flat. And we do it 17 times a day, but we don’t have to, we can let it go. It was, it was a I’m I’m fired up, man. Your description was was solid. Well, you know, we all have the potential, man.
Matt (01:00:38):
I am grateful for this. I’m I’m lucky because I’ve been reading, The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer, which if, if you have you read that one?
Brad (01:00:46):
No.
Matt (01:00:47):
It’s amazing. You really, I think you’d really appreciate it. I recommend anyone actually start with his book called The Surrender Experiment. It’s an amazing book, which was written after The Untethered Soul. But it gives you the context so that when you read The Untethered Soul, you have background and you say, holy crap, how did this guy write this masterpiece? When he was in the middle of some of the most unbelievably difficult experiences that I think a person could go through really. Um, he was being, he was, I won’t spoil the book, but it was really difficult stuff that would cause most people to lose their minds. I mean, go crazy and want to give up on life practically.
Matt (01:01:21):
But, um, he wrote this masterpiece because the whole time prior, he spent his whole life surrendering. He made this commitment that he would surrender anything that didn’t vibrate at that higher frequency. So it’d be like me saying, I’m gonna stay with my consciousness on God and this high frequency. And anytime I feel discomfort, whether it’s, it’s some emotion that comes up even during this podcast or during this day, um, he, it was like, it’s like taking a chance. It’s like, I’m gonna let that go on the chance that it’s worth letting go of that to maintain the state, no matter what the consequences are. And Joe Dispenza, this says a similar thing during his events. Cause I’ve been going to a lot of his week long events. He says, when you choose to become that new person who you’re creating in your mind, you choose to oscillate at that new frequency.
Matt (01:02:09):
Like, and you go back in your life as that new person, you’re good. He says, things are gonna slip away that you used to deal with. Like you’re not gonna be friends with the same people. You’re not gonna complain about the same things. And to me, it’s the same thing it’s saying like I’m choosing every day to be at that high state and letting stuff slip away. So to get back to the point about sleep and sleep needs and meditation, like I can a hundred percent see how in, even in my day yesterday, like I chose to fall from grace, if you will, on several of occasions and get myself into a really riled up, stressed out like adrenaline pumping state, whether while I was working or just something happening now, better and better from my past, but still I have a lot to overcome.
Matt (01:02:51):
And this just discipline and awareness and meditation and time. But it doesn’t have to take a lot of time if, if you just are willing to straight to the source and sit with yourself and meditate and observe those patterns, basically sitting with yourself like being like, Hey, listen, I’m good. But the ego, which is like the noisy roommate, Michael Singer describes in this Untethered Soul, it’s like, you have to be willing to basically finally listen to the noisy roommate, the ego, and like, like surrender and face all the things that’s been telling you that you’ve actually been I and many others and, and whoever had been listening to and building our life around and face, oh my gosh, I let this voice control me my entire life. Like I need to let this go. And I can see how the days that I do connect to God, as they say, or to this higher energy state. It’s like the best way to put it, Brad, is like, you know, if I connect to that state of love and joy and bliss in the morning and a meditation or at any point, really, but it’s, it’s easiest and best in the morning. I think I’ll go meditate after we do this podcast. Cuz for me, it’s just turned 5:00 AM. So I got up early.
Brad (01:03:58):
Oh my gosh. Thank you. What? Yeah, no I what an honor. I extended my Workday to 7:00 PM. How about that? Okay. We’re both. Yeah. We’re both stepping up for the cause for you. Listen, I hope you’re enjoying this incredible, stream of consciousness. Yeah.
Matt (01:04:14):
Yeah. I’m still, well, the good thing. One of the things that this my Yogi friend and I’ll go back to the meditation, but that my, uh, yoga doctor friend described to me was that he said, and this was a huge life changing idea. He said that usually for someone who isn’t a master or really well trained with their mind, like years of meditation, he says because of the nervous system becomes naturally fatigued throughout the day as does the heart and the whole body just naturally gets exhausted. Like you wouldn’t try to run a marathon after a day of consciousness and wakefulness, cuz your body would be tired just by virtue of the fact that it spent a whole day. You know, like human life can be measured in days. And like at the end of a day, it’s like the end of one unit of life.
Matt (01:04:57):
Like you don’t want to exert yourself too much at the end of the day. So one of the things he told me is that training in the afternoon or evening is a very bad idea from the Ayurveda perspective because of the body’s already worn down and it can be very stressful for the heart and cause a lot more inflammation in the body. But training in the morning is the absolute best time when you’re fresh off of sleep to get that, that hard stimulus on the body. And he trains like crazy. He’s a very strong guy. So, you know, he totally blew apart the idea for me that someone can’t be healthy and be vegan and it just showed me that it really isn’t all about the food, but that if you’re living a certain lifestyle, you’re connecting to energy, you’re living in healthy places. You’re getting sun, your mealtime’s perfect you’re training. You couldn’t theoretically eat anything even vegan diet as he’s proven to me with great lab tests and healthy, cuz I was super skeptical in the beginning. It took me three years to even consider that that what he’s doing could be sensible. But then I learned it’s based on thousands of years of, of backing. But anyway, so, so I, um, let’s see, where was I going with that?
Brad (01:06:01):
Well, I love that, uh, insight because I think we pull these things outta context often, uh, like Dean Ornish and his fabulous life’s work of getting people to you know, reverse heart disease. Codwell Esselton and TipEsselton, my good friend. Who’s a leader in the plant-based movement and they’re advocating for these big piles of green leafy green vegetables as, as the key to life. But then they also do 11 other awesome things as part of this plant-based movement and lifestyle and Dean Ornish’s medical patients go for a walk in the morning. They quit smoking, they measure everything. They eat sensibly. They have those, you know, beautiful meal times where they’re preparing and chopping the foods. And so, uh, they have all these incredible success factors and oh, by the way, they’re eating vegan and yeah, we’re um, we’re looking at the big picture here. Uh, and you know, that that’s a great way to put it that, you know, you could probably swap out, um, you know, a hardcore carnivore experiment of 60 days while you’re at the health retreat and doing all these wonderful things and doing the light diet stuff that you advocate and do pretty well there too.
Matt (01:07:10):
Yeah, I would agree with that. It’s it’s clear that people can thrive on a variety of diets. I recalled what I was, what I was thinking about in, in addition is this, uh, idea is that once the nervous system in the body is tired at the end of the day, it doesn’t make sense not only to train, but he actually told me that if, if it’s after three in the afternoon reserve any important decisions or judgements or any work that requires me to actually think and be intuitive other than just administrative work, like he says, do your deep work anything for my business in the morning hours? And it makes sense. Like, I think so many of the greatest creators would’ve been working early in the morning hours now today it’s kind of flipped. Like people are staying up late at night, but according to Ayurveda, that’s actually creating more low energy creation.
Matt (01:07:59):
Like musicians who stay up late at night. That’s the time of day when people are getting in car crashes, drinking alcohol, because the, the, the nervous system of an individual, but as well as the consciousness of everyone in their time zone is fatigued. That’s the end of the day. So they call that Thomas energy, the ignorance level of energy. It’s like there’s too much of that energy in the, in the biosphere of humans in the evening. So that’s why like yogis go to sleep early. Like they go to sleep early and wake up early, cuz then they can wake up in the, socvet (?) energy, which is the peaceful energy time and have this pure energy. So I started, whereas my mind would seem like in one day, like I had multiple different, you know, like almost like schizophrenia and I had all these different conflicting voices, but I started to notice without failure in the afternoon and the evening, my brain was significantly less sensible.
Matt (01:08:46):
It wanted to dwell on all of these crazy things. But when I would wake up in the morning, something that was like a massive issue at night was just not a problem like at all. And I just thought, wow, like what if everyone knew that? Like what if people just knew that unless you’re really masterful with your mind in a Yogi, which if you suffer, you’re not, but if you’re really happy all the time, then you probably are very few people like realized that. Another cool comparison, this guy, Michael Singer was making in this amazing book, The Untethered Soul I just heard yesterday was like, imagine we had a society where everyone was so sick, no one could get out of bed and all of life was lived by what could be done at the bedside he argues, and that’s what the yogis basically argue. That that’s how everyone is living.
Matt (01:09:27):
Not physically, but psychologically like our lives were in perpetual suffering as species, but it’s all, we’ve all accepted that it’s normal to be anxious and stressed. Mm. Rather than beaming with light and energy. And we need to start to like all like, you know, change our reference points that ha like we can live in that state of everlasting joy and just not be afraid. But of course, you know, if we want to get into conspiracies, which only reinforce the problem, but the, the system so to speak, it’s like, I don’t wanna blame the people at the top cuz everyone does that. And that’s totally, I think misdirected. But as a collective consciousness, we, the people who are responsible for what we create, we’ve accepted a, that a lower frequency is acceptable to us. And then it creates an illusion where it looks like the people at the top are, are responsible for like siphoning energy off of like the people at the heads of corporations and public companies and governments, it looks like they’re the ones responsible, but really it’s only possible because we’ve allowed ourselves to be stolen from. We have to give our conscious consent to that with the whole vaccine situation and the whole COVID situation.
Matt (01:10:35):
Everyone has given their consent for this. It’s not the Bill Gates and the Charles Schwab, the guy, who’s the head of the world economic forum that everyone’s blaming for all the issues. It’s really the fact that everyone’s giving the consent. The cool thing I love about Bitcoin is that the Bitcoin community is actually saying as a collective consciousness, we’re taking our power back about our money and we’re gonna put our money into something that many people view as risky. But because we believe in the principles, it’s based on that no one can tamper with this money. Like, you know, based effectively speaking, unless they were to take over, you know, they would use millions of computers to take over more than 50% of the network, which would be very impressive and very difficult. But it’s, it’s like one thing where literally the masses with Bitcoin outweigh the power of, of the governments. And, and I think currencies all going that digital direction. It already is all digital. We’re using credit cards. The difference is one is surveillance and control and the other is decentralized and freedom. Anyway, that’s a different conversation.
Brad (01:11:35):
What a great, what a great little aside we’re, we’re getting everything from you, man. This is awesome.
Matt (01:11:39):
Yeah. Well, so I wanted to mention about meditation because that was where I left off the tangent, getting into the stuff about not making big decisions in the afternoon, leaving important decisions for the morning, but back to the meditative state, I could see how on the days, when, um, on the days when I chose that I wanted to take the time, no matter how long it was gonna take, whether it’s 30 minutes, an hour, two hours, I’m gonna sit and meditate. And until I come to a place where I’m truly at peace in my heart, I’m truly calm. I’m truly not. I see all those voices, but I’m not attaching to them. I’m just happy. You know, and those people who are just happy, they’re just happy. They don’t care what happens outside. They’re just happy. You know, and those days, like I would, my, my activities all were totally different.
Matt (01:12:33):
Like I wouldn’t opt right into straight going into my email box. First thing in the day, for example, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but for me, that could often be associated with like fear and low energy. Like, oh, I need to go see what’s wrong rather than saying like, no, I’m stoked. Life is amazing. I’m gonna start by creating the thing that I’ve been wanting to create for months. But I had to get to that higher frequency in order for the frequency of that creative endeavor to match. And then I would go and spend two or three hours creating that thing that I was maybe wanting to do for months. And I was telling myself I wanted to do, but I wasn’t willing to overcome the fear that was associated with, you know, what if like basical question, like what if I actually stepped into my power?
Matt (01:13:17):
What if I stepped into wealth and abundance and my, my true gifts? Like what if all these other things that I like the idea and the, and the ego is like, what if things started to fall to the wayside? Things that like, I’m attached to like certain ideas of financial security or this or that. Like none of these ideas of financial security quote, unquote are even secure at all. It’s all just ideas. You know, it’s like, it’s like, I fear that I’m gonna lose something by stepping into that, uh, that higher frequency and staying there. But in fact, the only time I’m losing is by choosing to not step into that frequency. So it’s like a total mind, mind game like that by I think by lowering my frequency to fear and holding on that, I’m somehow protecting myself or keeping from something from losing something.
Matt (01:14:06):
But it’s like, I didn’t realize. And I’m still learning every day that it it’s that very act of trying to hold onto something that is when I’m losing the real magic, you know, and, and I’m not. And the cool, the crazy thing is, and I’ve done that long enough trying to hold onto something like financially or something like that, that I know that there’s zero fulfillment, there’s zero reward. In that fact, even trying to hold onto it makes it leave faster. You know, it’s like you stay in the, the wealth and, or I should say scarcity mindset and you, I spent money faster, or I wasted it away, like from a business perspective. Whereas being in that like abundance energy, it’s crazy. So it’s, it’s like this kind of, it, it actually all drove me back to like the Bible. Cause I had read the Bible years ago, the, the gospels, and it’s like, so many of the things that Jesus spoke about that were like, so paradoxical seeming all started to make sense in this context that I need to let go of everything
Matt (01:15:02):
I think I know to discover what we really are. So the, the whole point of this regarding the hours of sleep is I can totally see how, if someone in and feel how someone chooses to get in at high energy state, if I do that and I choose to not lower my frequency into this constant stress and fear all day. Like I just don’t need as much sleep. Cause I go to sleep instead of feeling like I’m exhausted. I’m so tired. Like when I lay down to bed, if I, if I go to sleep and I feel like I’m dead, like eight hours or nine hours of sleep, isn’t gonna fix that no matter what. I’ll still wake up, feeling fatigued and tired and like a big bear that needs like an hour or two just to really get up. But if I go to sleep like warm, smiley, like I did a great job today. I’m great. Like, I, I probably don’t even need that much sleep. You know, I wake up and I feel fresh. So it’s, it’s a different experience to the world. I never experience until trying the meditation stuff and this meal timing.
Brad (01:15:57):
All right, we got two strong takeaways there, people the meal timing. And I like the double meaning on meal timing, not only the time of your meal, but taking your time and enjoying that leisurely meal. Meal timing. Where all can we learn more and connect with you and give a little plug for that? The Light Diet course, I believe it’s out now where you can go through the steps and everything.
Matt (01:16:22):
Thank you. B.rad. So I, that course actually, I’ll just disclaim. It is a great summary of the light diet principles at this same time, it’s due for an update. So what I’ll probably do is go onto the website and just, you know, basically slash the price in half for anyone who wants to get that, because it’s still a huge value bomb for, for it’s $97. Now it’ll be like $47 at that point. So it’s a huge value bomb, and in a good way. And at the same time, I’m, as I discuss higher frequency work, I’m looking at how can I create a light diet course version 2.0. Maybe like a white paper. And I’m even thinking about putting together a book about the light diet principles, but I, I’m just kind of like, that’s another item, for example, where I gotta meditate and see what my soul is telling me to do, because it’s not something I can just force, you know, writing a book.
Matt (01:17:19):
It takes a conscious concerted effort over and over again, as, as you would know. And, and you know, many of the authors out here in the world have done. I don’t wanna write another book where it’s like a stress or like a burden to get it done. Like many people write a book like I’m stressed, I’m writing a book. I have all this work to do. Like, no, for me, it would have to be like the absolute radiation of pure abundance. Otherwise I don’t wanna write a book cuz then I’m just, I see it putting more noise of non truth into the world.
Brad (01:17:50):
I love It. So I, I love that mindset. Yeah. Yeah. It’s all forget the deadlines man. People ask me when when’s your deadline. I go deadlines. When the thing flows out of me, I’m not gonna be, you know, putting that type of energy into a book. It’s it’s a bad deal every time.
Matt (01:18:03):
Thank you for exactly. Yeah. That’s that’s what, I’m what I,
Brad (01:18:07):
No pressure, no pressure, Matt. Whenever the course is ready, it will be ready. And for the, for the meanwhile, that’s how I feel value bomb. Oh my gosh. It’s still that’s. What’s great about, you know, following in the path and making progress. And, and I, I like to pride myself as being free thinking as well and open-minded and so whatever work we’ve done today, we can follow along and then look forward to new stuff. It’s wonderful.
Matt (01:18:30):
Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. So people can find us on RaOptics.com. That’s R A optics.com. They can get, as we discussed on a previous podcast over almost two years ago now, but there’s the raw RaOptics screen and sleep lenses formerly called day and night lenses. So for blocking blue light, I’m wearing the sleep lenses now because even though it’s the morning for me, I’m blocking this artificial light. I have illuminating myself. But I have the sleep lenses on cuz the sun hasn’t come up yet. So I want my brain to know that it’s nighttime until the sun comes up.
Brad (01:19:03):
I love it. Fabulous lenses of the highest quality. I think we have a discount over at my website built in, so we we’ll hook you up. Go check out RA optics.com. Follow Matt Maruka keep up the great work, man. I’m glad to catch up to you wherever you are on the globe. And we’ll, we’ll check back in soon.
Matt (01:19:22):
Yeah. Likewise. Thank you so much, Brad.
Brad (01:19:25):
Thanks for listening ,everybody. Da da, thank for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast, Brad ventures.com with feedback, suggestions and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list to Brad kearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with apple podcasts or wherever else, you listen to the shows that would be super, incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a sound bite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember B.rad.
