E260: Decrease Demand On The Brain And PMS / ADHD Symptoms Through Your Eyes & Intentional Light Exposure

Have you ever noticed how certain lighting instantly makes you feel edgy - like your eyes get tired, your head feels busy, and your patience disappears faster than usual?

This episode wasn’t part of the original plan for the Safety Series, but it felt important enough to add.

Because in this one, I’m talking about something we rarely connect to hormones, or PMS: the way your eyes take in light all day long. You might be surprised to learn how that small light bulb in your bedroom can actually keep your brain working overtime. The screens we stare at, even just to relax, and the constant visual input our brains are trying to process, can quietly pile on stress without us ever connecting the dots.

Over time, that extra demand can show up as irritability, low energy, and even ADHD-like symptoms, especially later in your cycle.

A few things I talk through in this episode:

• Why your eyes can keep your nervous system switched on even when you’re resting
• How certain types of light quietly make PMS and overwhelm feel worse
• Simple, affordable changes that can help your brain wind down at night

This conversation is practical, gentle, and very doable. No perfection needed. And no expensive bio hacks either.

Listen in, take what feels doable, and remember: even small changes in what your eyes take in can make a meaningful difference over time.

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Disclaimer: Nothing in this podcast is to be taken as medical advice, please take informed accountability and speak to your provider before making changes to your health routine.

This podcast is for women and moms to learn how to balance hormones naturally in motherhood, to have pain-free periods, increased fertility, to decrease PMS mood swings, and to increase energy without restrictive diet plans. You'll learn how to balance blood sugar, increase progesterone naturally, understand the root cause of estrogen dominance, irregular periods, PCOS, insulin resistance, hormonal acne, post birth-control syndrome, and conceive naturally. We use a pro-metabolic, whole food, root cause approach to functional women's health and focus on truly holistic health and mind-body connection.

If you listen to any of the following shows, we're sure you'll like ours too!
Pursuit of Wellness with Mari Llewellyn, Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark, Found My Fitness with Rhonda Patrick, Just Ingredients Podcast, Wellness Mama, The Dr Josh Axe Show, Are You Menstrual Podcast, The Model Health Show, Grounded Wellness By Primally Pure, Be Well By Kelly Leveque, The Freely Rooted Podcast with Kori Meloy, Simple Farmhouse Life with Lisa Bass

Chapters

• 2:01 Why your eyes can keep your nervous system switched on even when you’re resting
• 11:31 How certain types of light quietly make PMS and overwhelm feel worse
• 16:17 Simple, affordable changes that can help your brain wind down at night

Transcript

[00:00:00] We're back with more of the safety series today, and I am giving you some really practical tips of how you can actually increase safety in your body through your eyes, what your eyes are, seeing, how your brain is responding to it, and how you can shift those safety signals if they're not there, if they're more like stress signals

so that you can start to feel a little better, a little safer in your body.

 this episode was actually not in the original plan for the safety series, which means the safety series is getting longer as we go. And I have been getting some really great feedback. I have been loving it myself, needing these reminders I just want to dive in today with my topic, which is the eyes and how we can create safety in our bodies, in our homes, through our eyes.

This really came from the idea for me. I was thinking about the, , Bible verse that talks about the eyes being, what I remembered was the. Like entryway to the body. And when [00:01:00] I went back to look at the actual wording, it says in Matthew 6 22 through 23, the eyes are the windows to the soul. And so I was thinking about this and I was thinking, what better way to create safety?

In our souls, if the eyes of the window to the soul, then creating safety through our eyes and through what we're seeing. I have a few kind of different directions that I'm gonna go with this today. I am gonna talk about screens, of course, because those are something that we're looking at a lot of the time.

 I'm gonna talk about light and I'm also going to talk about really just like what we're focused on, because all of these things. Really make a huge impact in how our bodies are functioning because what we're looking at is what we're thinking about and what we're thinking about is what creates. Results in our life, essentially.

Let's start with the concept that the eyes are the windows to the soul. And without even getting really into the science of lighting or anything like that, I would [00:02:00] love for you to take a little moment to consider and think about some of the things that you are looking at on a daily basis. Because when we are looking at something consistently, it makes an impact on our brain.

Some of the things that I was thinking about when I was just kind of considering this for myself and thinking about stress and thinking, what kind of things that I would be looking at would be causing more stress versus less stress. I was thinking about entertainment. So we're gonna start with social media.

This is not all about social media or screens, I promise, but it's a little bit about that because I know I've talked about that quite a bit in the past too. But when we think about screens, social media, what you're putting before your eyes there, is it causing you more stress or less stress? Is it really filling your spirit?

Is it something wholesome? I'm not asking this as a rhetorical question that , I assume the answer is no. Sometimes social media can be so uplifting, so wholesome. I have learned so many good things [00:03:00] on Instagram, I promise. and. There's also a lot of things that I've seen on Instagram that haven't been super helpful for me, like.

Ads that I'm buy, things that I probably didn't need to buy and makes money a little more of a stressor than it needs to be, or just , feels like a waste. Right? also just the whole comparison trap that we fall into with Instagram. Everyone's posting more of their highlight reel. I think it's gotten a little better in some instances, but, You know, if we're feeling down in our own lives and we're seeing someone else's highlight reel or someone else's like perfectly curated feed, or even they're like quote unquote, , this is me being real. Sometimes it still looks better than what you can see in your own life and in your own emotions because you're really in it for you, right?

And so it's easy to see someone else's quote unquote messy even and be like, well, that doesn't look as messy as it is over here, right? Because. We are constantly comparing our real life to someone else's [00:04:00] highlight or what they want to share. And no matter how real someone is or is truly trying to be on social media, you're not gonna see there's a lot that you're not gonna see.

And so just remembering that that can be a stressor for sure. And then I also, honestly, when I started thinking about the eyes being the window to the soul, something that I am. so careful about in my own life and my own spirit is just like what I put in front of my eyes as far as entertainment.

I am really picky about anything that's scary or violent or creepy or anything like remotely close to that. If, if it would scare your 4-year-old, I'm probably not into it . That makes a huge difference in the peace in my spirit and the peace in my home is what I am watching or not watching. And the same thing for my kids.

If it's something scary, if it's something that is not wholesome, is it something that is going to cause feelings of guilt or shame later? It's not worth it for me and. It's something that we can be so, so [00:05:00] easily desensitized to, and I think so many people are, but it's something that I just wanted to mention.

So it may be for one of you and it may be something just to check in your spirit for that. Truly like one person. But it was something that I just wanted to mention because we are. Called to be looking at things that are good and to be thinking about things that are good and wholesome and pure and upright.

And if there's any virtue or any praise in it. And some of the things that we have in front of our eyes, there's not there's no virtue. There's no praise. Even if it's, maybe like quote unquote harmless, but it's just complete fluff and we're putting that in front of our eyes all the time.

It is harming us. . And that was kind of my first little section that I wanted to talk about is just assessing is what you're putting in front of your eyes good for your brain? Is it good for your spirit? Is it good for your mind? And if it's not, then this is just a time to question what you wanna do about that, right?

It's nothing to wallow in or feel guilty about. It's just a [00:06:00] question of if there's something that needs to make a change. And even if the things that you're putting in front of your eyes are just wasting your time. So guilty, like we're, I'm pretty sure all of us are guilty of this at some times, and it's something that constantly needs to be reassessed.

But even if it's just wasting your time and then you're stressed because you're not taking care of yourself the way you want to. So for example, bedtime. Scrolling on your phone when you really, really should be stretching or winding down or hanging out with your husband, or any of the things that could be filling your cup and helping you feel cared for.

And feel supported and feel ready for your next day, but instead you get sidetracked by scrolling or Netflix or something that's just like wasting your time and not filling your cup, then that's something you're putting in front of your eyes that is causing more stress too. So. A reminder for all of us on that and hopefully just a, , there's something clear that you wanna take away from that because when we're able [00:07:00] to be more intentional with our devices and with what we're putting in front of our eyes, it makes a huge difference in our long term.

Not only health, but happiness too. And when we're intentional with our time, then we have that time that we actually want to spend on the things that matter to us. And man, that's hard as a mom. I find that it's really hard. And at the end of the day, there's a lot of days that I just wanna complain and I want to be like everybody else got what they wanted today, but not me.

And then a lot of times I can look back at my day and say, well. I did get distracted quite a bit with things that probably weren't as important as taking care of myself, and so how am I gonna change that tomorrow and some days? I do a great job tomorrow and some days I don't, but it's something that I find to be really helpful to assess.

Okay. Next little section here about our eyes is I do wanna talk about lighting. Okay, so blue light screens. Guys, we know these are bad for us. We know they're bad for us [00:08:00] before bed. I'm really not even gonna get into the science of that. I think if you're here listening to this podcast, you're probably already aware.

I do think that blue light blocking glasses are a great option. I also think that they're an excuse a lot of times, and so. My personal, sometimes the way that my, , conviction show up is really not all that helpful to myself. But my personal conviction is that if I'm using blue light glasses to do something that I shouldn't be doing at night, like being on my phone or being on my computer or something like that, then.

It's just not helpful. And so I shouldn't even use the blue light glasses, so I don't even have a good pair of blue light glasses right now. But as I record this podcast at night, because that's where life took me this week. Usually I do this during the day, but tonight I'm not. But I don't have blue light glasses because my, my moral compass says I shouldn't need them.

So if you have convictions like that for yourself that are just kind of a little bit [00:09:00] dumb. In my context, in my example, then this would be maybe something to just check into like, Hey, you know what, Leisha, you should actually have some blue light glasses. I do have a pair. I just don't think it's actually a good pair.

But long story short, blue light at night, we know better. But if you're not really doing something about it, like maybe you are just wearing the blue blockers and being on your phone, honestly, it's probably better than what I'm doing at this point. but. Maybe you're not doing either one. Maybe you're not doing the blue blockers.

Maybe you're also on your phone late. , Have made a habit of that. I notice that, especially in my luteal phase, this is the hardest habit to break. I find myself like, ideally my perfect plan is that I keep my phone in the kitchen, plug it in, in the kitchen, say at least 30 minutes before bed, hopefully an hour before bed, and then I just don't go back to it.

But I find myself in luteal phase, especially like bringing the phone in with me. Maybe I bring my headphones in with me, maybe I'm going to just listen to a podcast while I fall asleep. I find myself doing this and [00:10:00] it is so unhelpful for my sleep, to be honest, because. I must be like in a kind of a heightened state when I'm going to bed at that point.

And, if I'm gonna bring my phone with me, it's not going to help me sleep better. It's just not. And so when I notice those type of habits in myself, it's just time to make a shift and time to change that again. And so while I may not be scrolling or on YouTube before bed, a vast majority of the time, I may still be creating these little habits that are not ideal by just bringing my phone with me.

And then of course, I'm gonna be looking at it a little bit, even if it's just like a shorter amount. And then also it's just so available right away in the morning. But if it's in the other room. I have a little bit of a buffer and I don't need to use it as a clock. I don't need to use it as an alarm.

I have other resources for those things. So if I'm able to keep it out of my room, that is ideal. Okay, , like I said, I wasn't even really gonna go into blue light, but what I wanna talk about. More than that is actually our lighting in our homes, LED lighting and how that can [00:11:00] be harmful.

And we moved into a new house a year ago. I honestly probably, we had LED lights in our other house. I didn't even know, I didn't pay attention to that at that point. But it was very obvious that these are LED lights in our new house because they're super bright and super bright essentially. And, most lighting has shifted to LED lights at this point.

So. Most likely that is what you have in your house, whether you know it or not, or whether it's super bright or not. But I did a little research today on LED lighting because I wanted to be able to tell you a little bit more about why it actually is not great for your stress and your nervous system and your brain.

And this is a shift that you can make pretty easily. I have a couple of suggestions that are not the super expensive influencer bulbs that I have been seeing because I was like. What the heck? those are really expensive for label bulbs. Okay, so LED lighting, obviously very bright.

It includes a lot of blue light spectrum in the lighting for the most part, but one of the things that makes it hard on the eyes and the [00:12:00] nervous system, which actually can affect your vision and stress. And so like brain fog, fatigue, Headaches. Those kind of things are things that can come from too much exposure to LED lighting, especially if you're noticing later in the day after you're under these lights if you're feeling more tired, things like that.

It actually could be more related to your lighting than even some of the other things that you've been probably working on, like your diet and your sleep and things like that. So that lady lighting has this flicker that you can't see. Just with a naked eye, but your brain and your eyes do notice it, even if it's not conscious and it occurs at really high frequencies.

, My research said a hundred to 120 hertz, so it's not consciously perceived, but it is. Still perceived by your brain in central nervous system and can cause even difficulty concentrating and add stress to the adrenals. If you feel like you might have a DHD over the last couple of years when these LED lights have become our main lighting.

Maybe it's [00:13:00] not you girl. Maybe it's your lights in your house. I haven't had the lights that I'm gonna tell you about long enough to tell you for sure, but man, I can feel, I do feel a difference just in my brain, just being like, dang, this is so much more relaxing with the lighting that I have now instead of the LED.

Since the LED lights operate with what they call a pulse width modulation system, and they cause these minute fluctuations in brightness. Yes, I'm reading my notes because I wrote this down word for word. the eyes and the visual system are having to constantly adapt, which adds to the demand on the brain.

Girls, did you hear me say the lights in your house add to the demand on your brain? If that doesn't. Take a moment for pause for you as a mom who has nothing but demand on her brain all day long, this is important and I, like I said, I'm really seeing a difference already. So since we not only have high blue light in these LED lights, we have this flicker that can make [00:14:00] us more tired.

Brain fog, difficulty concentrating, adrenal stress, and the eyes having to adapt constantly causes more demand on your brain. This also, all of this in combination can suppress melatonin. So it's not just the bright light at night, but it's actually the spectrum of light., It can increase cortisol. Check, check, , those things are not great and we feel it.

It can dysregulate your circadian rhythm, so your rhythm that your body is supposed to be grounded with. The natural light outside where it knows when sunrise and sunset are, but we're stuck in the house a lot of the time. The LED lights, and this is, this goes for school, this goes for work. This is all the places with these lights.

the circadian rhythm is thrown off. It can affect glucose regulation. Okay? It can increase stress and even cause increased risk of breast and prostate cancer, as well as hormonal imbalances, because everything that I talk about is related to this, right? We have increased cortisol, we have less melatonin.

[00:15:00] We're not sleeping as well. Circadian rhythm is dysregulated glucose, blood sugar balance is dysregulated. This causes hormone imbalances. So is it at a high, high level, like if you remove the LED lights, everything in your life is fixed? You know what? Probably not. And if there's something like this that you can do that takes effort one time and then you just like.

Live. With the lighting being different and better, then I think it's totally worth it. so LED also can have, if you care about this, higher amounts of dirty electricity, which can affect sensitive individuals more so if you're someone who is a sensitive individual or your children are sensitive individuals.

This is worth a shift in my opinion. You can get flicker free LED lights, so that fixes the flicker problem. I think that's still not going to be as ideal as some of the other lighting options. you can get LED bulbs that are rated 20 700,000. Okay. Or lower. So that has less blue light. But I personally think that switching [00:16:00] away from LED bulbs completely, or as much as possible, would be the most helpful option.

There is a website that I will tell you about in a minute that is expensive. It looks great, but it's expensive. but we actually found just incandescent light bulbs at Lowe's. I found some that, I wanna say they were $3 each. That's my, what I remember off the top of my head. Okay, so it was still a little bit of an investment.

We have, I counted 36 light bulbs in our house. This does not include can lights by the way. So we have 36, just regular light bulbs in fans and bathroom lights and a. just like lights in our house. so we still had to buy quite a few light bulbs, but when I got these just incandescent bulbs, they're not gonna have the flicker.

They do not have nearly as much blue light. , It's more of like an amber colored light, which I really love at night . So in our house we do have can lights in the ceiling and then we have. The regular lights too. So during the day we do still have the can lights on some of the time.

I [00:17:00] try not to have them on very much. , Thankfully we have big windows in our house. I love just natural light in the house in general anyway, but on more of a gloomy day or something, we will have sometimes the can lights on. And even just doing a little bit more research today, I'm gonna keep those off as much as I can.

, But the incandescent bulbs, especially in the evenings, it just feels like an exhale to be honest. When I can go in my kitchen, my bathroom, my bedroom, and the light's just not too bright, , it's just kind of more of that like warm, A little bit yellow light, and I feel like we can just sit at the table as a family and enjoy eating dinner, playing games, whatever we're doing, reading books on the couch and it's just more peaceful.

So that is the cheapest method that I know of to change out your light bulbs. The other website that I was going to tell you about. It is literally just called health lighting.com. Okay. So they really got ahead of the game on that website, but they have full spectrum bulbs and so these are supposed to be even better, and be a lot [00:18:00] more.

And just specifically like outdoor light, but they have all different ones that are different colors for different times of day and all of the things. With that being said, this is not what I have at my house because the cheapest ones are like $12 per bulb. So you know, $12 times 36 in my house.

And then knowing that I'm gonna have to be replacing those over time too, that just felt like too much to me. But for those of you who are like, I think I might want that in, , specific rooms or something like that. It may be something that I look into for maybe even just over our table where we're doing school, because I do find that,

especially like here in the winter where it's a little bit more gloomy right now, I might want something a little bit brighter. That's not LED in that space. Also, I like the, I like what I have at night. I'm thinking through this as I'm talking about it, but, . I just wanted to give you guys those options.

The health lighting clearly not an affiliate thing from me or anything like that because I had to stop recording and look up what that website was again. , , [00:19:00] I have not vetted those light bulbs or anything, but as I was doing some research today and I had come across this website a couple times before I was looking at it, and it does look like they have some good options that would be really.

Really good, healthy lighting, low, EMF, all those things. But like I said, we found some incandescent bulbs at Lowe's and , we've been really happy with those and they came in like a six pack, so I don't have a link or anything. But if you are looking online at Lowe's and find a six pack, it's probably those, they look kind of cool.

They have these little filaments in them. And then, I dunno. They do look kind of cool. Okay, so that's my little talk on light. I've been getting a lot of questions about red light as well, and I haven't done enough research on. Red light devices to really have one to recommend to you outside of I really do like the brand.

The, and I have been an affiliate for them in the past and I have a couple of their products and do really like them. , We have the pimp mat, which is a frequency mat that is. it has a lot of different [00:20:00] frequencies for healing and sleep and kind of like a grounding mat and things like that.

And it does have some red light on it, so that's what we have from them for red light, and I do like that, but I know they have a red light panel too. I really do trust the quality from them. But I had a friend asking me the other day , what about the red lights on Amazon for $40? And I think that there are so many experts out there who could tell you so much better than me about what type of red light to look for.

But here's my thing, even with that. When we are biohacking and outsourcing all of this so much of the time, I just think sometimes we're just missing the forest for the trees. So while I think red light can be super healing, I also just think we just need to be out in the sun as much as we can and we need to be getting that light.

We can wind down at night and be next to a fire. That is, I think honestly one of the most healing ways to use red light is just being able to sit and relax by a fire and just stare into the flames a little bit and let your eyes be unfocused. That is one of the best ways to be able to wind down for sleep.[00:21:00] 

We do not have a real fire. We have. Again, new house. We have a, , like the fakest kind of fireplace that you could have that's just light and I'm pretty sure it's probably LED light. But even that, in the background is pretty relaxing. But we have a little fire pit on the back porch, so the times that we will go out and do that, it is just, it's so nice.

It's such , a good time of just . Being together as a family or just talking and it's so relaxing. I just see everybody kinda like settle in and sleep better because of it. So using something like that, , if you have access to just even just candles, just put a couple candles on in your room at night.

If you're not ready to change out the light bulbs or you don't need to have a fancy red light device yet, or you're like, I don't have any blue block glasses, either. Just turn off your phone and put on a couple of candles, that's accessible. We can all. do something like that versus feeling like you have to have some sort of fancy device or the super, expensive lighting or those kind of things.

But I do think that where we can mitigate stress through lighting and through what our eyes are [00:22:00] seeing, it can be really helpful too. So just kind of checking in with what's reasonable for you, what you wanna shift., If I was just gonna do one thing, I would just shift out or just change out the light bulbs in my bedroom.

Or even, get a couple of lamps with softer bulbs that we just turn those on at night If you don't wanna change out, the overhead lighting. So there's options that you can do that are not super expensive and that are not super fancy. Just to see how your body does with it and then move along from there.

And then I cannot end this episode on your eyes and light. Without mentioning that, one of the things that I think is the most impactful. And the most free is just getting real sunlight. As much as you can, and I've already said this, but what I mean specifically is getting outside first thing in the morning.

No glasses, no contacts, and just getting some light on your face, whether it's cloudy, rainy, sunny, whatever [00:23:00] it is. Just getting that signal of natural light at the time that you're waking up. If you're waking up super early before the light, get out there when you can. And same thing in the evening.

Even just having that habit and making the time to be outside at those times of day. Listen, when it's cold, I'm a huge weenie. I don't really like the cold, but I have been known to sit on my couch with the window all the way open with a blanket. people will ask me like, can I just do it through the window?

No, because our windows have UV protection and different things in it that are not gonna give us the full spectrum of light, but our screens don't. So if you're a weenie like me and you wanna sit inside with the blanket and get the light and you have a place, you're like, you have some good light coming in, do that.

that works too. But I will say when it's not super duper cold. Or even sometimes when it is, it can be invigorating to just go outside. If you can take a few minutes to take a walk, even better. If you can eat your meals outside, even better. It makes a huge difference for your glucose metabolism, for your insulin, for stress levels while you're eating.

It can make a [00:24:00] huge difference in digestion to be spending your time outside while you're eating. of course, in some seasons of the year, in some parts of the country or the world, this is easier and harder, right? But without having. All the context, just thinking like, what can I do that would be a little bit better than what I'm doing now?

So for example, for me today, that was getting out for like three minutes. First thing in the morning pretty soon. First thing within the first hour of when I woke up, and then a couple hours later I went out with my boys for a while. And then a few hours , or somewhere around like late afternoon, we were outside again for a while.

It wasn't quite sunset. But it was definitely better than nothing. And so just taking the time when you have it and if you haven't been intentional with sunrise and sunset, take your kids with you. Go outside, take them out with you. It'll make a difference for all of you. And even a few minutes, I think this concept of, we talked about, In a different episode of like better than nothing is so helpful. So it's like, okay, you know what? I [00:25:00] can't get outside for 10 minutes right now, but you know what would be better than nothing? One minute. Two minutes would be better than nothing. I don't watch the sunset every single night, but you know, it would be better than nothing doing it right now.

So coming away from a perfection mindset with this and just saying like, what could I do to be a little bit better? I'm gonna change out two light bulbs in my house and I'm gonna go outside in the morning when I wake up. That will make a difference. It really will, and it'll help reduce some of the stress in your body.

Which can help with your blood sugar, which can help with your mood, which can help with your hormones. And so it's like these little baby steps that can make such a huge difference. so yeah, I think that's pretty much what I've got for you for today. And we've got a few more episodes of this stress and safety series.

Send me a text, tell me what you've liked. Tell me if there's another topic that you want me to add to the end of this, and I'll see you next week.