Welcome back to The Synergetic Health Newsletter! 

December 26th, 2024. Happy Holidays from Chiang Mai, Thailand! I started hearing Christmas music the first week in September in Manila and it has continued unabated until today, sweet relief! While Christmas is not celebrated like it is in the States, for some reason Christmas music is EVERYWHERE here in SE Asia— doesn’t matter the country or place. Mall, restaurant, taxi, you name it— Mariah Carey has been nippin’ at my heels for months.

Today I will outline how you can best approach your day as it pertains to your light exposure. After that I write about Dr. Harvey Bigelson, who wrote a book that I tore through in a day— “Holographic Blood”, and his unique findings about health and disease.

☀️ How To Structure an Optimal “Light Diet”

I have been banging on about the importance of a circadian friendly lifestyle, getting outside during the day, and cultivating dark nights for years— and I will continue to do so! Today I’d like to introduce a few concepts with visual aids that you can use to make it all easier to implement into your daily life.

“Bright Days and Dark Nights” Is the modus operandi.

This first picture, taken from the Circadian app, gives the basic light profile for the day.

This second picture specifically tells you about the UV part of the spectrum for the day.

Here’s how you would leverage this information to get the most health benefits from light (of which there are many!):

Early Day

• Before sunrise, you should ideally not be exposed to ANY artificial light sources (screens, LED’s, fluorescent lights, etc). You can wear blue light blocking glasses before sunrise and/or use red lights in your home/office. It’s crucial to not look at your bright phone first thing in the AM!

• At sunrise it is an excellent time to get outside, preferably to actually watch the sunrise, but also it’s fine just to let the early morning light enter your eyes. Bonus points if you combine this with grounding and/or light movement.

• UVA rise happens shortly after sunrise (about 50 minutes where I currently am) and is arguably an even more important time to be outside. If you were only able to get outside one time it would ideally be this— go outside 10 minutes before UVA rise and stay out there for 10-20 minutes after UVA rise (20-30 minutes in total). Pair this with whatever you need to to make it a habit (light exercise, walking, morning calls, walking your kid to the bus/school, etc)

Midday

• Knowing solar noon is a good practice to know when the strongest UV will be in your location. Solar noon is also commonly thought to be an ideal time to meditate, in case you want to try that out.

• Many believe that eating your largest meal around solar noon is preferable— and further that it is ideal to eat it outside. Eating as many meals as possible outside is good practice generally.

• I’ve debunked the overblown dangers of UV exposure countless times in this newsletter but just to reiterate— it is advisable to expose as much skin as possible to UV light for a long enough period to absorb a good amount of Vitamin D— as your specific skin can tolerate.* Even 5-10 minutes can go a long way. Darker skin types would require more time, paler types less.

  *Geographical differences apply of course. People living in the Northeast need to build up their solar callus in the spring and stock up on daytime sunlight in the summer months. In the winter it is advised just to do your best with getting outside on sunny days and showing some skin if tolerable.

• In the next picture is a screenshot from the Dminder app, which you can use to track the UV in your location and also estimate how much Vitamin D you are absorbing from the sun. If you decide to try using it you will quickly learn that you are not getting as much Vitamin D as you should be getting!

• If you are unable to be outside during the day, you can consider using a Vitamin D lamp, taking more frequent vacations to sunny destinations, or supplementing (less advisable IMO).

• While working and living indoors, it’s excellent practice to have doors and windows open to let the natural light in. It is recommended that you don’t work next to closed windows as your body will be getting a skewed light exposure that is problematic.

• In general, being outside as much as you are capable between sunrise and sunset is best practice.

• If working extensively at a computer all day, consider yellow tinted glasses (like you would find from RA Optics or TrueDark) that take out some of the more harmful blue light wavelengths from the screens.

Late Day

• Sunset is another excellent time to be outside, to benefit from the red light that is present and also the pleasant psychological effect that viewing the sunset seems to have.

• Ideally you do not eat too late after sunset.

• After sunset is when you want to begin to transition to “dark nights”. This is where you want to simulate firelight conditions and reduce exposure to artificial light sources. Obviously no one is going to go full dark mode at 4:30pm in the USA, but as the night gets deeper it’s time to consider the following…

• At least 1 hour prior and up to 3 hours prior consider wearing blue light blocking glasses, turning your screens red or not using them at all, and switching from bright overhead lights to red lights, candles, or similar. Just do the best you can.

• If working at a computer or phone late into the night, your body would really appreciate you wearing blue light glasses and dimming your screen using a program like f.lux or Iris.

• Using an app like Circadian, you can also get a suggested wake and bedtime based on your specific location, as seen in this picture:

Based on this, the app is suggesting an ideal wake time about 10 minutes before sunrise and a bedtime a bit over 8 hours backwards from there. Seems reasonable to me.

Also provided in that Circadian app are ideal times for eating/fasting, exercising, and performing cognitive tasks. They will slightly differ based on your location and time of year.

I think this does a decent job giving you a blueprint, hopefully without overwhelming you too much. If it is too much but you want to learn more, feel free to reach out and I’m happy to help.

Is this really important? YES. It’s more important than diet and exercise.

TLDR: Bright Days, Dark Nights!

🩸 Harvey Bigelsen's "Holographic Blood"

Dr. Harvey Bigelsen (1940-2015) transformed his understanding of medicine after serving as a military surgeon in Vietnam and years of conventional practice. Through his study of live blood analysis and holistic healing approaches, he developed a novel perspective on health and disease, documented in his work "Holographic Blood."

A New Understanding of Health and Disease

Bigelsen's work presents a fundamental reframing of disease: it emerges from within as our body attempts to maintain balance.

"We are as much the air, soil and water as we are skin, bones and blood," Bigelsen writes. His research demonstrates that every change in our body influences the whole system. We exist as part of our environment, not separate from it.

Disease as Adaptation

"All disease begins with an acute response," Bigelsen explains. Disease progresses from bacterial to viral to fungal states when natural healing processes are interrupted. "Symptoms represent change and always have a context. Why was the person susceptible at this particular time? How might their life experiences have contributed to the nature of the disease?"

The Central Role of Emotions

Bigelsen mapped the emotion-disease relationship. "Emotions and disease are not just related; they are interdependent," he writes. "The mind creates disease; it does not imagine it."

His research reveals the close relationship between emotions and physical health. Through extensive study of live blood analysis, Bigelsen observed that emotional patterns create distinct physical changes in blood composition and cell behavior. "Behind the physical damage portrayed in the blood under the microscope is a thought pattern," he notes.

The emotional impact on health operates through several mechanisms:

1. Energy Flow and Structure: "Emotion affects energy flow," Bigelsen explains. "When function changes, structure follows suit. Emotions are energy and therefore cause structural change." He observed that emotions kept inside as thoughts become potential energy, creating physical tension in the body's structure.

2. Impact on Vital Systems: "Anxiety affects the sympathetic nervous system and contracts energy flow through the body; pleasure expands the flow and acts upon the parasympathetic nervous system." This understanding shows how emotional states directly influence our body's basic functions.

3. Disease Development: "All disease begins with emotional patterns," Bigelsen states. The progression follows a clear sequence:

• "Negative emotions contract systems, creating disharmonious vibration"

• "The terrain is now conducive to a particular disease"

• "Change the underlying emotional pattern and the disease progress changes, because the terrain changes"

Disease patterns emerge from how people express or suppress emotions. "Trouble results only when an emotion is suppressed or repressed, or the person does not have healthy coping skills," Bigelsen notes. He identifies three primary problematic patterns:

• "Lack of balance between healthy and harmful emotional expression"

• "Inability to resolve an emotional conflict"

• "Relying on an emotion to define the self"

The Lens of Live Blood Analysis

Bigelsen's most unique contribution came through his study of live blood under dark-field microscopy. Unlike conventional blood analysis that examines dead blood samples, Bigelsen observed blood in its dynamic, living state. "Viewing blood in its dynamic state opens our eyes to a fantastic body of knowledge: Size and density of individual cells, debris in the process of being flushed from the system, plasma viscosity, cell behavior and patterns, vitality, disease evolution and probable course."

What he discovered was remarkable - blood cells form distinct patterns called "symplasts" that mirror the body's overall condition. "Blood cells stack or stick together from waste accumulation, physical traumas like surgery, or emotional tightness," he writes. These patterns reveal specific information about a person's health status, emotional state, and even past traumas. "Viewing symplasts helps us to understand the terrain. We can find and confirm disrupted energy flows, injuries that haven't healed properly, and root conditions driven underground to reemerge as chronic disease."

Bigelsen found that blood acts as a holographic storyteller of the body's condition. "The blood mirrors the body," he states. "When the blood is free of pathogenic debris and symplasts, with round, well-separated red cells, the terrain is healthy." Through this holographic nature of blood, Bigelsen could observe not just current health conditions but also emotional patterns and potential future disease developments. "That we can communicate with ourselves, through these fantastic holographic images, is truly remarkable."

Practical Applications

1. Work With Natural Healing Processes

"The ideal treatment is one aimed at rebalancing the terrain so that homeostasis returns," Bigelsen writes. This means understanding symptoms as communication from the body rather than problems to eliminate.

2. Maintain Your "Terrain"

Bigelsen emphasizes terrain health through:

• Blood pH maintenance (ideally around 7.35)

• Proper elimination of toxins

• Deep, diaphragmatic breathing

• Structural alignment

"The terrain is everything," he states. "It is the field upon which the disease manifests; its condition tells us the nature of the disease, and thereby the conditions necessary to change the course of the disease."

3. Address Emotional Health

Bigelsen provides specific guidance for emotional well-being:

• Develop conscious emotional expression

• Resolve emotional conflicts

• Create positive emotional patterns

• Manage stress response

"What's important is how you live," he writes. "It's what we do with the emotion that matters."

Individual Approach

"Every single person needs a different healing approach," Bigelsen emphasizes. Health requires understanding your body's unique patterns and supporting its natural healing processes.

Bigelsen's research offers a new way of viewing health and disease. By creating conditions where disease cannot thrive, we can maintain optimal health more effectively than by fighting symptoms. His work suggests that by understanding the emotional components of disease and supporting our body's natural healing capabilities, we can prevent chronic conditions and maintain vibrant health.

My research into the connection between emotions/trauma/poor lifestyle and health outcomes led me to this great book— which only reaffirmed my position on the importance of stress reduction, holistic healing, emotional regulation, and having a healthy lifestyle.

There is much more that Bigelsen discusses in the book, so if you are interested in learning more I can definitely recommend reading it.

Some more specific thought-provoking gems:

• “In Root Canal Cover-up, George Meinig, D.D.S., a founding member of the American Association of Endodontists, suggested that up to one-third of chronic or degenerative disease in the United States is traceable directly or indirectly to stagnations in dental work.”

• “Osteopaths say that missing that first deep, natural breath causes most of the structural problems we experience.”

• “Strain patterns can stay with a person for decades. One injury’s pattern layers upon another until there is a latticework of strain patterns in the muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons and fascia. Strain patterns hold connective tissues under tension. Tension is a force; the tissues exert pressure on bones, insertion and origin points, and organs. Years after the original injury, tension can find its way out as chronic pain, depression or indefinable problems.”

• “We are not, ever, treating just a single aspect of a person, such as a leaf on a tree. We cannot, ever, ignore the entirety in which we are viewing a single disease or symptom.”

𝕏 Thread of the Week

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