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August 18, 2023
If you often feel sluggish in the mornings, a contributing factor may be a lack of light.
The worst thing you could do for morning energy is to stay inside a dark house…and yet it’s one of the most common mistakes we make in our modern world.
Does any of this sound familiar?
We wake up, hit snooze 6 times, drag ourselves out of bed, groggily make some coffee, then sit on the couch and check our phones or read the paper.
Once it’s time to go to work, we put on sunglasses (if it’s a sunny morning) and start the commute. We might stop at Starbucks for another cup of coffee along the way.
Once we get to work, we go to our cubicle. Maybe if we’re lucky, we get to sit in front of a window for a glimpse of the outdoors. We work 8 hours in front of the computer and go home, where we watch TV, make dinner for our family, watch more TV, then go to bed.
This might not describe your day to a T - maybe you throw a workout into the mix, if you’re health-minded.
This daily routine is missing one very important thing - natural light from the sun.
Once you understand the role that light plays in our energy and focus, you’ll start to make time for it in your daily routine. Eventually, you’ll even start to crave it.
Avoiding natural light - especially in the morning - was one of the worst mistakes I made for my energy levels.
Like many people, the first thing I did when I started my health journey was change my diet. I got rid of most processed foods and focused on protein-heavy, nutrient-dense whole foods, and everything improved - my digestion, sleep, focus, and energy levels.
But then I plateaued. I was still so sluggish in the mornings, and I didn’t understand why. I was sleeping 8+ hours per night, but I’d still need a couple of cups of strong coffee to feel like I could start my day.
At that time, my husband and I were living in Taiwan, in an apartment on the 4th floor. We didn’t have a balcony or even many windows, so my entire morning was usually spent inside, in a relatively dark environment.
I only got any natural light later in the morning, when I would leave the house to go about my day. At that time though, I had no idea how powerful a cue natural light could be, so I never connected the dots to realize how much this was affecting my energy levels (if only I had access to this clip from Andrew Huberman - I would have made this connection much sooner!).
Everything changed when we moved to a traditional Chinese house.
After 3 years in our apartment, we moved to a traditional Chinese house, which is basically open-air. Here’s an image of the basic layout so you can get a mental image of our living situation:
As you can see, the center of the house is a courtyard that is open to the sky.
The rooms are positioned around the courtyard, but even the living room is open-air unless you close the huge wooden doors.
When drinking my morning coffee or eating dinner with my husband, this was my view:
And for good measure, here's a photo of my little girl posing, lost in thought, in our doorway (with our courtyard dining room in the background):
Once we moved here, my energy levels took a huge leap forward.
It wasn’t due to my diet or exercise habits - I had already changed those.
The #1 thing that changed was my natural light exposure and the percentage of my day spent outside.
Before, I was spending the bulk of my time - especially in the morning - inside a dark apartment. Now, I was spending almost all of my time outside, from the moment I left my bedroom in the morning.
We ate meals and drank morning coffee in the courtyard, we socialized in the courtyard, I worked from home in the courtyard or open-air living room, and we cooked in a small kitchen that was also open to the outdoors.
The only thing we did indoors was sleep, shower, and use the restroom!
I didn’t anticipate the impact this would make on my energy levels. Suddenly, for the first time in forever, I was waking up refreshed.
I was clear-headed and alert as soon as I woke up - even before my first cup of coffee.
And the primary thing that changed was getting more natural light.
Obviously, there are very few people who live in this type of house anymore. Our houses now resemble enclosed boxes...which also happen to be very comfortable.
But we can make changes to our daily routine to ensure that we’re getting as much natural light exposure as possible.
Here are some ideas:
Move at least a portion of your morning routine outside - take your coffee outside, take a morning walk around the block, read the paper or even check your phone outside.
Wean yourself off of wearing sunglasses on your morning commute (assuming you can do so safely).
If you work from home, do it near a window, or - better yet - on your patio or porch.
Eat at least one of your meals outside - bonus points if it’s a family meal!
One of the easiest things you can do to improve your overall health, hormones, sleep, and energy levels is to make a point of spending at least 5 minutes outside every morning.
And once you feel the difference, you’ll actually start to crave the light at the appropriate times of day…and you’ll crave darkness at appropriate times of day as well (that’s a newsletter for another time).
2-sentence summary:
Natural light is one of the most powerful signals you can send to your body to promote wakefulness, energy, and alertness. Get a minimum of 5 minutes of outdoor time most mornings for best results, and look for opportunities to move more of your daily routine outdoors.
Today’s action step:
Examine your current morning routine, and then select one activity you could easily do outside (i.e., drink your morning coffee on your porch, or move your workout outside).
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