Healthy Living | By Tony Spratt, Body Coach
I have been studying nutrition, exercise, and longevity for over 30 years, and in March of this year, I came across the best longevity advice you will ever hear.
It’s simple, easy, and absolutely free. In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded for work done on Circadian Biology. Researchers determined that with exquisite precision, our SCN (Suprachiasmatic Nucleus)—essentially an optical clock in our eyes—adapts our physiology for different phases of the day and night. This clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature, and metabolism.
The current state of our country’s health is hard to believe:
- 75% of Americans are overweight or obese.
- 40% of children are overweight or obese.
- 52% of American adults have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.
- 30% of teens have pre-diabetes.
- 40% of adolescents have a mental health diagnosis or behavioral disorder.
- Early-onset cancers have increased 79% in recent years, with 2 million cases predicted by 2025.
- Autoimmune diseases are rising 4% to 12% annually.
- 25% of women are on antidepressants.
- Early-onset dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have tripled since 2012.
These numbers are crippling our healthcare system, but this is our current reality.
Everyone knows that what we eat can dramatically affect our quality of life. You might have heard that 80% of chronic diseases are mitochondrial based. Mitochondria are found in every human cell except red blood cells. They are the "power plants" that produce energy for the human body. There are 3,000 of these power plants per brain cell, making them critical for preventing neurological diseases.
Our society has dramatically shifted from living 95% outdoors to spending 95% of our time indoors over the past 100 years. I believe this shift has significantly impacted our collective health. In my generation, we were outdoor kids, but since about 1990, that has changed rapidly—and as you can see from the numbers above, the decline has accelerated in the last 30 years. Could this be the actual root cause of the chronic disease epidemic?
What caused this dramatic shift? Technology and screens have driven everyone indoors! Don’t get me wrong, food is definitely a big problem in America. But when I discovered that the most important antioxidant in humans is melatonin—and that 95% of it is produced from exposure to morning light—I could hardly believe it. Who would have thought that a hormone associated with sleep and darkness is made from photons absorbed through our eyes and skin in the morning?
We’ve all heard of Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), a type of depression that usually occurs in fall and winter. Symptoms include decreased energy, changes in sleep patterns, physical pain, thoughts of death or suicide, brain fog, feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness, and increased appetite for sweets and carbohydrates. Everyone agrees this is a real condition, yet we still avoid sunlight and stay indoors 95% of the time.
I will continue this series next month, starting with the current state of mental health in this country and how we can begin healing—starting tomorrow and continuing for the rest of our lives—by “NEVER MISSING ANOTHER SUNRISE.” This is why it’s the best longevity advice you will ever hear.
The Body Coach | Main Street Windermere | 321.297.7974 | bodycoachtraining.com
