The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #251 - Roudy Nassif

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Melanie Avalon:
Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation that I am about to have. So it is about a topic that I have been talking about and implementing things in my life for four years and years and years. I feel like it's about one of the like the gateway products into the world of biohacking. So I've been talking for so long about the importance of regulating and addressing our light exposure. So I talk a lot about red light on the show and I talk a lot about blue light. And as you guys know, I've been a fan of blue light blocking glasses for years and years. And honestly, honestly, looking back at the very, very beginning of my biohacking journey before biohacking was even a quote, a thing, I was wearing blue light blocking glasses when like nobody was wearing them. So I'm really fascinated by the topic. I've met a lot of brands along the way met a lot of really incredible people. And more recently, I met Rudy Nassif. Did you reach out to me? I'm trying to remember how we connected.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, I can't quite remember. It was last year I heard about you from some friends and I reached out asking whether you'd like to meet and connect so that we can talk about ways we can share value and educate your audience.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay. Yeah. I'm trying to remember how it actually started, but we did meet. We did connect and I was looking over his company and when I actually talked to Rudy, I was friends. I was blown away with his knowledge and insight when it comes to our light exposure, things I had no idea about. I realized I had a very not informed perspective on blue light and blue light blocking glasses and so much more beyond that. And we were just talking right before we started recording about all the potential things that we could touch on today. And there is so much. So I'm really excited to see where this conversation goes. Rudy, like I said, has created a fantastic company, Viva Rays. They make an array of products, which I'm sure we will talk about. But first of all, Rudy, thank you so much for being here.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Melanie Avalon:
To start things off, would you like to tell listeners a little bit about your personal story? I know you and I, one of the things that we personally bonded over on our last call was what it's like being an entrepreneur and creating products and that whole world. I just love talking to fellow entrepreneurs. But what was your story leading to the formation of your company and what made you personally so interested in the role that light has in our lives?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, absolutely. When I'm around my friends who are also entrepreneurs, my story of how I started VivaRays is usually extremely different than every other entrepreneur because for most of them, they were really interested in starting a business. They were looking for that brilliant idea for that gimmick that they could jump on. Whereas for me, I had zero intention to start a business. My whole thing came up from deep pain and struggling. I was born as a kid in Lebanon in the Middle East. And ever since I was like four years old, I remember struggling from intense headaches, agitation and inability to focus. And from that very early age, I was very intuitive. And all I wanted is to break free and be outside in the sun. I loved being outside in nature. To me, that was the most conducive environment for learning where I could observe mother nature. I could look at the colors. I could listen to the sounds and be inspired by the beauty. And my teachers did not like this. It was very unusual to them. And they forced me back into the classroom, which felt like a prison cell to me. And they labeled me with ADHD. So throughout the years, it was extremely torturing to my soul to be forced and to be in this environment where I looked at the kid that cannot focus. So troublemaking became my only escape from that prison. And believe it or not, Melanie, I was asked to leave seven different schools. And then first, I was like a very, very scared. I mean, it's like, that was my only way to be asked to leave the classroom. And that was my only desire is to be outside. So it was years of struggle, to be honest. And fast forward a few years, I landed myself in engineering school. And my parents were so proud of me, but I was not because I was completely disconnected from my soul. And at that time, I was living like a night owl, up and wired all night and completely useless and drained during the day. I was feeling like I've been chewed up and spat out by life, always tired, never up for much. And I was very unmotivated in my professional and my social life. And I was constantly dragging myself through the day as if I'm wearing something extremely heavy on my back. And we're talking I'm 20 years old. I'm not supposed to be exhausted. After graduating, I started working in Africa as an engineer. And within two years, I hit rock bottom. I became almost like a drunk junkie. I lived only to party. I was very low on dopamine. And I was so miserable. Literally, I was asked to leave my job. I was fired from my job as an engineer. And that shocked me because I remember waking up the second morning feeling like trash. I felt like a car has run over me. And I was literally in my bed laying down, staring up at the ceiling for hours, literally paralyzed with sadness and fatigue. And the truth is that in that moment, I literally could not bring myself to get up from bed. Or even find a compelling reason to do so. Like imagine yourself being in this situation where you're literally not able to find a reason to leave your bed, so miserable. Now, a few evenings after that, I stumbled upon a quote from Albert Einstein, which actually he played the fundamental role in my transformation. Probably today we're gonna talk about a few things that literally create breakthrough moments in my life and because of the work of Albert Einstein. But with this one, I looked at this quote and it said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And oh my God, it felt like it spoke right into my soul it struck me like a bolt of lightning. And it was a moment of truth to me because I looked at myself, I'm like, oh my God, what have I been doing? And I decided that I no longer care about maintaining my career, maintaining that image or living up to the expectations of others, of being that successful engineer that I need to be. And I decided that nothing has mattered. My health is first and I could no longer continue the way I continue. So I left my career. And I made the decision to start traveling into the unknown. I wanted to travel to different countries. And I had one intention in mind is to learn about health and wellness so that I can improve my well -being. Now, during my travels, I start learning from different health gurus and doctor. And within a matter of a few months, I started to feel extremely overwhelmed because every one of them somehow told me something different that was contradicting what the other person was telling me. So it was, I don't know Melanie about you, if you've ever had this, but for me, it was like this scene of like, eat this, don't eat that, take this vitamin, no, try this vitamin. And it was all too much and extremely confusing. I tried every diet that I can think of, literally every diet. And I was buying so many expensive supplements, but I was getting worse and worse. I remember being in this very, you know, like lost state thinking to myself, why does it need to be extremely complicated? I mean, there must be an easier way. Then one evening, Melanie, I was completely lost in the vast sea of the internet, jumping from one YouTube video to another. It was 1 a .m. in the morning. And it's so ironic because I found this video by a doctor called Jack Cruz. He's a neurosurgeon from the U .S. And the video was titled, artificial light is killing us. And I'm like blasted with all this artificial light on my face. And my mind was very foggy and tired and everything he said literally flew over my head. But then I woke up the second morning and there was one line that stood out. It was flashing into my consciousness the whole day. And it said, you can't get healthy in the same light environment that made you sick.

Melanie Avalon:
Wow.

Roudy Nassif:
Right? So it's like, I'm going to repeat the sentence one more time, you can't get healthy in the same light environment that made you sick. And I was like, whoa, like, like, the light environment is like all the light that we're exposed to all the time while being indoors, like LED bulbs, in our homes, screens, phones, televisions. And I'm having this conversation with my friend who's a backpacker. I'm like, oh, man, like, I've tried so many things to improve my health, like food supplements and so on. And I'm not, I'm not finding any long lasting benefits. So I shared with him about this video. And I said, like, I'm really interested to take this Dr. Cruz words to heart and to try to live in an environment that is not bombarding me with all this artificial light. So he said, I think I have a great idea for you. He recommended a website called wolfing. Have you heard of wolfing Melanie? No, how do you spell that? It's W O O F I N G.

Melanie Avalon:
Woofing. No, I haven't.

Roudy Nassif:
super cool website where you could find all these different farmers in different countries across the world who are doing very interesting projects like permaculture, biodynamic farming, and oftentimes they live in rural areas. And wolfing allows you to apply so that you can go live with them. You give them a hand, you volunteer, you help them with whatever they're working on, and in exchange for your help, you could stay at their farm and you could eat from the produce that they produce.

Melanie Avalon:
Oh wow, that's cool.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, super, super interesting. I got super excited when I heard about it. And I remember I was in Ontario in Canada, and I found this farm in northern Quebec, about nine hour drive from where I was. And I applied and I got accepted. So I took that drive. And I went on this wonderful Odyssey. And, you know, I arrived to this beautiful rural farm with rolling hills, like all blown out with verdant green. And I was blown away by the beauty. And for six weeks over there, I was sleeping in my tent, being exposed only to natural sunlight during the day, and fire and candlelight during the evening, because those guys up north did not have electric lighting at night. Now here's the magic. Within a matter of three days only, literally three days, I felt a transformation that I hadn't felt in 25 years. And my intense headaches and ice strain completely disappeared. I haven't been told that I am an ADHD kid that can't focus for the first time ever in my life. I'm standing next to this farmer and he taps on my back and he's like, Rudy, wow. Like he was praising me on the level of focus I was showing on the field. I was like, whoa, that's the first time ever in my life I hear someone praising me on the level of my focus. And having convincing, I've been, I've convinced myself that I'm an overnight hour, that I cannot function well early in the morning, that my creativity peaks at night. And my whole paradigm was challenged there because literally I start sleeping shortly after the sunset to then wake up at dawn with no alarm, feeling fresh, rested, energized, and literally exhilarated with a sense of joy that I've never felt in my life. So I was feeling on top of my word and my motivation scaling new heights. And what I realized looking back at my story is that during this trip, my whole old paradigm and the way I viewed myself as an ADHD kid and as an night owl completely got deconstructed. And for the first time, I was able to reconstruct a new paradigm where I saw myself as the energetic, the alive, the focused, the motivated being that I am. So the most fascinating thing about all of this is that I did not worry about my health and wellbeing. I wasn't thinking about what should I be taking, what should I be eating, what should I be doing? All of this magically disappeared from my consciousness while being there. Now, even more puzzling that after those six weeks ended, I drove back to the city. And within a matter of a few weeks, I literally fell back into my old terrible routine of staying up late, scrolling on social media, being exposed to a lot of artificial light, and waking up the second morning feeling exhausted, depressed, and unmotivated. So that was astonishing to me. And I'm like, how could I ever come back to this state? So that led me to this long odyssey of going back and forth between experiences on the farm and then back to the city. And then I stopped observing all the differences that I was feeling on the farm. And the first thing I noticed is that all of those farmers up north, they had a quality of light in their eyes that I've never seen in the community of folks who were doing all kind of complicated stuff to take care of their wellbeing. So I asked myself a very important question. I'm like, what's the difference? And I started observing that all of those farmers, they woke up naturally before the sunrise. They spent a lot of their time outdoors and natural lighting. They were grounded to the earth, either via their feeds or through their hands working in the earth. They ate rhythmically at the same time every day. And they ate food that was grown under the sun they live under. They fasted at night when the sun is down. And their only source of light after the sunset was fire and candle lights. So I was like, wow, OK, there must be something about light there. And then I started remembering the podcast from Dr. Jack Cruz. And being the curious all that I am, I was so eager to comprehend this phenomenal transformation. And this led me to a seven -year journey so far of studying quantum biophysics and circadian biology. And the one first phenomenal moment I remember having at the beginning of my journey is stumbling again upon the work of Albert Einstein with the fantastic equation E equal MC squared, which I'm so familiar with as an engineer. But I've never looked at it from the lens of health and wellness. And it's actually very simple. E in the equation is light. M is matter. So just like all this stuff around us, our bodies, the Earth, and C is speed or velocity. Now, this may sound like it's coming out of a fiction movie or something. But here's what it actually means. Light and matter are exactly the same thing. And when light slows down, it turns into matter. It turns into stuff. E equal MC squared. So light is the most powerful force that shapes and molds every aspect of our life. And it's the nucleus of life itself. And we are, in fact, light beings. And there's a reason why the ascended masters talk about enlightenment. And the awesome fact is that when light hit our eyes, we have a substance in our eyes called the vitreous EDI, which is composed of water, collagen, and acid. And this substance's sole purpose is to slow light down so that we can use that light energy to manufacture so many different hormones and brain chemicals that will determine the way we think, the way we feel, and the way we act. So light creates reality. And when I realized this, I literally asked myself, oh, my God, what type of light is hitting my eyes? And what kind of reality is being shaped by this light? If you come back to my story, throughout the 24 years of struggling, I was stuck in that self -image of the ADHD kid, the depressed guy, the guy that is in night owl, that has very little energy. And I was low on dopamine. That's why I was doing all these drugs and partying and being addicted to food and to so many destructive behaviors. And the truth is that my light environment was making me sick because it was depleting my neurotransmitters. It was not giving the proper signal for my brain to produce the resources that I need so that I could think new thoughts, so that I could feel elevated feelings, and so that I can act from a place of purpose. So to recap there a little bit, the type of light that gets into our eyes decide how good our sleep is, what mood we're in, how much energy we have, how well we can focus, and how much we can get done. It's literally changing how we see ourselves and the world around us. And the challenge is that when we live in cities, we get very little sunlight during the day, and we are bombarded by junk artificial lights coming from our phones, from our computers, from all the LED lights down the streets and the malls and the airports and our homes. And those lights have not been engineered with our health and wellbeing in mind. No one cares. These lights mess with our bodies and they make us feel terrible. And as an engineer, when I first started looking at the spectral curve of light and the way it's being engineered, I was literally terrified. I was like, how can it be? And the truth is that very few people today actually understand how forces of physics like light, water, and magnetism are the fundamental bosses or forces that instruct our neurochemistry on what to do. Most people in the health and wellness field are so zoomed in on the biochemistry of the cell, looking at, oh, serotonin is going down, dopamine is going up, and all of these different details, but we're completely disregarding the truth that it's the physics of life that is actually instructing the biology of the cell.

Melanie Avalon:
You were talking about how we get stuck in this, you know, mindset of trying to heal ourselves and like have to take the right supplement and have to do the right diet and all the things. And that was definitely me for so long. What I didn't like about it was it felt like it was very fear -based and I loved personally having a shift to a feeling of agency and where everything that I could do was just no pun intended, like enlightening and enhancing my life, not because I actually like had to do it or that it was this, you know, solution that I had to find. It was a really powerful paradigm shift for me personally. But going back to all the light stuff, so how's your focus now?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, my focus right now is phenomenal. Of course, if you put me in an environment that is not conducive to focus and to creativity and that is destructive, that is subconsciously sipping away my energy, I will find myself again feeling some anxiousness, not being able to concentrate, jumping from one thing to another, losing my attention. However, I have learned throughout the years on how to align myself with the optimal environment, which is the environment that we find in Mother Nature. Nature is very balanced and is very symmetrical and the problem with a lot of the environments that we find ourselves in is that those environments are absolutely asymmetrical and they're unbalanced, whether it's via the sound that reaches our ears or the light that hits our eyes, all of which are extremely unbalanced and they don't have the rhythm of symmetry that we find in nature that creates coherence and alignment within how ourselves communicate.

Melanie Avalon:
That kind of relates to the question I was going to ask which was because you were talking about what literally happens and that was the most granularly I've heard it explained which I just love is you know this idea of the light entering our eyes and entering into that matrix of I think you said like collagen and water and something else but basically when that when that happens it sounds like there's two different broad categories where that can go wrong so one would be the timing of it so like being exposed to light in general at a time when we're not normally exposed to it historically and like in the way nature has it happening and then I'm guessing the other one would be the actual type of light itself so the content of the light. So I was wondering if we could dive a little bit deeper into both of those so on the content of the light side because I think you know we hear things like blue light red light light but so these actual wavelengths what's going on there what's the spectrum of what is a possibility there and when people say blue light is that being too general like are there different types of blue light what's happening with the type of light.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, absolutely. That's an amazing question. Sunlight is a full spectrum source of light, which ranges from high frequency UV. We have UVA, UVB, and then we have purple light, and then comes blue light, green light, yellow light, orange, red, and then infrared, right? And that is the full spectrum of sunlight. Every frequency of light is purposeful and works with every other frequency in a synergistic way to activate different enzymes, different hormones, different neurotransmitter in a very purposeful way. And the problem happens in our society when we start dissecting things. And when we speak about blue light, for instance, blue light is bad. Blue light is not necessarily bad. Blue light is actually a very powerful color that we get in sunlight, and it activates our brain more than any other colors. It activates our thyroid hormone, increases our metabolism, allow us to feel awake, alert, energized, and ready for the day. And blue light, the full spectrum blue light ranges between 400 to 500 nanometers, which is composed of blue purple, blue, and then blue turquoise. Now, the truth is that throughout evolution, we have never been exposed to any form of blue light without the presence of other frequencies of colors, like orange, red light, and infrared light. Never ever in nature we get exposed to blue light in isolation. In fact, there has been a lot of studies showing that blue light in isolation creates a lot of inflammation. Now, why is that? Because blue light in nature is very stimulating, just like exercise is, and it increases reactive oxygen species and oxidative stress. Now, those are the mess that the cell produces when it makes energy. Now, when oxidative stress is produced in a moderate way and in an imbalanced way, it triggers the production of antioxidants and enhances the immune function and protects the body from disease. This is why exercise is good, right? It's stimulating, it creates the oxidative stress, but in a balanced way. However, what happens if we exercise all day long without resting? We will end up causing ourselves more harm than good. We become inflamed. And similarly, chronic exposure to blue light will increase those reactive oxygen species abnormally. And those reactive free radicals are similar to the oily fume coming off a hot pan when you're making a big meal in the kitchen, right? If you're making a big meal in the kitchen, you have all kinds of mess happening. But to cope with the mess, you turn on the exhaust, you wash the dishes afterwards. There's a phase afterward that needs to clean and reorganize things. Otherwise, you cannot use that kitchen. Now, similarly, our cells are meant to detoxify at night when we sleep. And the main signal to detoxify the reactive oxygen species is actually the absence of blue and green light, which means darkness when the sun sets. And when we lose the ability to detoxify those reactive oxygen species, the oxidative stress becomes very high and it starts damaging the body's cells, protein, and DNA. It causes inflammation in the mitochondria. It increases inflammation in the eye and the brain. It contributes to aging and to neuro -generative diseases. And literally, this explains the immense contracts I was experiencing when I go back from the farm to the city. On the farm, I was exposed to healthy blue light that was balanced with the other frequencies of colors, like orange, red, and infrared, which are regenerative colors, right? So think of blue light and the full spectrum of the blue as a degenerative color. It increases oxidative stress for a reason. But in sunlight, it's always balanced with its polar opposite, which are the frequencies of colors that are regenerative. And the degenerative, regenerative dynamic is balanced, whereas the problem happens when we are exposed to blue light from LED lights and screens. Here's where you need to make the differentiation because that blue light from an LED bulb is not even a full spectrum blue light. If you take a measurement of an LED bulb, you will notice that the blue light from that bulb starts in emission in blue light at 430 nanometer. It spikes at 455 and it goes down. And it's this 455 nanometer narrow spike in blue light that is not balanced with other frequencies of colors that creates massive amount of inflammation and makes people feel, you know, during the day, oftentimes our clients report feeling headaches, agitation, inability to focus, they feel like their energy is being drained. And then when we recommend them to wear our daytime glasses, which are not blue blockers, by the way, our daytime glasses are considered to be blue harmonizers because unlike other companies who are blocking 100 percent of the blue light at 455 nanometer, we don't do this because we think that this is a reductionist approach that is eliminating a very essential color during the day. And in the process of trying to eliminate that narrow spike of blue light at 455 nanometer, you also end up wiping out all of the blue turquoise at 480 nanometer. And while this may seem technical, all you need to know is that blue turquoise is a frequency of color that activates a protein in the eye called melanopsin. It's a photosensitive protein in our eye that tells our brain if it's day and night. And when it detects that blue turquoise, it tells the brain it's daytime so that the brain can increase our energy level and allow us to feel awake, alert and energized. And the problem is that with most blue light blocking glasses companies right now selling those blue blockers, which are, you know, yellow tinted during the day, they are wiping out all this blue turquoise. And essentially what happened is you could start feeling an alleviation of eye strain and headaches, but after a few days, you will also probably start feeling unexplainable drops of energy. And that is exactly because melanopsin is not getting the blue turquoise that it needs to tell the brain that it's daytime. Now on the other side of all of this, the essential message here is that when we try to outsmart nature's way, we often make massive mistakes that have massive consequences because by trying to isolate this color and that color and saying, oh, this, I don't know, 60 nanometer frequency in red is extremely beneficial because it does this and that. The problem is that nature doesn't operate in isolation and every frequency works synergistically with another frequency and oftentimes with its polar opposite to create balanced rhythmic interchange. So when light slows down, we spoke about this substance in the eye called the vigorous CDI. And when light hits our eyes and it slows down, it actually creates matter, right? Our bodies uses this miracle of nature to create all the neurotransmitters that control the way we think we feel and we act. So let's talk specifically what happened is most people wear sunglasses outside, which is tragic because sunglasses block 100% of UVA and UVB. And we actually need that UVA frequency in order to produce a master molecule called proprio melanocortin or POMC, which is derived of 242 amino acids that can become so many different peptides and they play fundamental roles in our biology. So POMC can become ACTH, which is a hormone that is produced in our pituitary gland and acts on the adrenal gland to produce cortisol during the day in a healthy way that allows us to feel alert, focused, energized and ready for the day. See people who are missing the signal are the same people who cannot function during the day thinking, oh my God, I'm not a morning person. I need my coffee, et cetera, et cetera. I think from my experience working with so many people, what most people actually need is not their cup of coffee. They need to get that UVA light into their eyes without wearing sunglasses, without being behind windows. Also POMC becomes alpha -MCH and beta -MCH and gamma -MCH. Now, alpha -MCH stimulates melanocytes in the skin to produce melanin, so it allows us to tan, it increases our libido, and it protects us from burning. And here's the catch, Melanie, if you are wearing sunglasses outside, your brain will not know that there's UV in the environment, and alpha -MCH will not be stimulated. Your body will not make melanin, and you are more likely to burn. And that's the crazy thing about the sunglasses and the sunscreen industry, is that they work hand in hand. When you wear sunglasses, you actually need sunscreen. And another fact about alpha -MCH, alpha -MCH actually regulates our appetite. It literally decreases your desire to eat. And you probably have experienced this on a full day on the beach where you don't feel hungry. And that's because your body is actually relying on light energy, right? Most people know that melanin is the compound that allows us to tan. But the truth is that melanin is much more than this. It's highly concentrated in our eyes and in our brains, and the whole area in the brain that is called dark matter is actually composed of melanin. And melanin is the darkest substance in this universe. It's like a black -body radiator. And what this means is that melanin is capable of absorbing all frequencies of light. It's an absorber of light. And when someone around me is struggling with their health, the first tip I give them is literally build up your melanin because melanin is what is going to allow you to absorb more light, assimilate and store this light so that you can make use of this light energy so that your cells can use that light energy for healing and for energy. And I also tell people, when you want to build your melanin, the single most important step to do is to block artificial light after the sunset because it's this time that allow you to reset, to clean off any inflammation that may have happened from overexposure to sunlight. And this is when people go, oh my God, I'm so sensitive to sunlight. I cannot handle being in the sun. But the truth is that most people are bombarded by a lot of artificial light after the sunset, which sabotages their melatonin, the highest antioxidant in nature, and it increases their cortisol, the stressful mode, abnormally increasing inflammation at a time when their body is supposed to be cleaning itself, rejuvenating and repairing. And what happens when you miss on that time again and again because all this artificial light is entering your eyes after the sunset, you become highly inflamed and then you become highly sensitive to sunlight the second morning.

Melanie Avalon:
A question about all of these effects that are created from the light and you kind of touched on it with that really interesting thing about when we wear sunglasses how it affects our body's production of melanin. So is it just our eyes that are creating these orders to the body from light or does light on our skin tell our body anything?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, both light on our skin and through our eyes have different effects. From my understanding, particularly, the production of propylomeronic proteins happen via exposure through sunlight via the way of the eyes. There are other effects like vitamin D production that happen due to exposure to UVB light and due to the frequency of light striking the skin, breaking down cholesterol underneath the skin and leading to the production of vitamin D. So I would say that both are extremely important and essential because I spoke also about melanin, about building your melanin as one of the most important steps in health and wellness that is absolutely overlooked. And obviously, building your melanin require both exposure to sunlight via the eyes and via the skin simultaneously.

Melanie Avalon:
That makes sense. And what about the direction of the light? Because presumably, like with the glasses you have, for example, and a lot of the different glasses on the market, and now I'm never going to use the word blue light blocking glasses, I'm never going to think about it the same way again. But presumably, like light still comes in, like they're not goggles, you know, they don't, they're not flesh with your skin and doing a complete covering. So is it just the light coming in at a certain direction that is having these effects?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So I want you to visualize this. If you have a surface in front of you and you have a light source and then you're shining light on that surface in front of you at a 90 degree angle, so from the front, the light will be concentrated into a very small surface. And that is what makes that light absolutely intense. And it's piercing, right? Now, the moment you start moving your hands and going at an angle so that you're arriving to a place where the light source is parallel to that surface, the surface of light landing on that surface extends, it becomes much bigger and that decreases the intensity of light arriving at that surface. So what all of this means, if you hold a phone in front of your eyes and the light from the phone is landing straight into your retinas, this will cause the greatest amount of light to arrive at the level of your eye. Now, take that same phone and rotate it at a 90 degree angle so it's coming from the side. The light from that phone is actually parallel right now to your retina and the intensity of light that is arriving at the retina is close to zero. So it has, like from a physics perspective, it has no effect whatsoever because right now it's being stretched into a very big surface versus being condensed and laser focused into the retina when it's coming from the front.

Melanie Avalon:
Okay, so even though because I'm thinking of like sunlight. Yes. And so it's coming down. So it's like it's hitting us at a presumably I'm just trying to I'm trying to make an analogy between like the sun versus like holding a phone.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, it's hard because basically the light from the sun is scattered in the atmosphere in every direction, whereas the light from the phone or from an LED bulb is more locational and it's moving in a directional way.

Melanie Avalon:
Maybe if you tell listeners before I start asking more specific questions, with all of that in mind, like everything that you just expressed, which again is just so, all the puns, so eye -opening, how did you decide to create glasses to address the different needs based on the time of day and to do it in the most natural way possible?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. So when I was on the farm and then I would come back to the city and I started learning about light and health, I learned some great techniques on how I could maximize my light exposure during the day and harness the power of sunlight. However, I felt very stuck every time I came back to the city because I start noticing that no matter how much I was optimizing my healthy light exposure during the day, I was being thrown away by artificial light at night. There was no escape from that light and it was throwing me off rhythm. So I remember asking myself a very important question. I sat down and I asked, I mean, is there a way so that I could still have the freedom to come to the city while maintaining alignment with myself and with the rhythm of nature? And this question led me to discover about blue blocking glasses. So I was very excited when I first discovered that these things exist. And I remember my first purchase, I bought clear lenses from my optometrist office. I remember paying something like $300 for them and I was super excited. Finally, I have a tool in my hand that will allow me to mitigate the effect of artificial light. Now, sadly, of course, after a few days of wearing those glasses, I realized that there is something wrong because I did not experience any of the benefits that they claimed to give me. And actually a few days after, I started to laugh at myself because I'm an engineer and I understand the physics of light very well. And if you've ever played with colors as a kid, you'll know that in order to be able to like the opposite of the color blue on the color wheel is orange. And if you mix blue and orange together, they will eliminate each other. So orange will eliminate blue. And so there was no way that clear lenses would actually eliminate blue light like they were pretending. So what happened is I bought a spectral color mirror and I was testing, a spectral color mirror is a tool that allow you to test the light that is present in any given environment. And when I tested the clear lenses, I was laughing a lot because technically they blocked blue light up to 420 nanometer, which is not emitted by LED bulbs and screens. LED bulbs and screens, as I mentioned, they start their emission at 430 and they peak at 455 nanometer. So obviously the unwanted light was passing through. It's literally as if you want to something to help you imagine it. It's as if you're trying to rinse your quinoa in a pasta strainer that the quinoa will end up passing through the holes because you're using the wrong filter. So basically that was my lesson after paying $300, learning that clear blue light blocking glasses are a marketing gimmick. And because of my curiosity, I took my spectral color mirror and I started visiting different optometrists in Canada. And I realized that none of them have ever tested their blue light blocking glasses. They just had a strong belief that this is a good product that will protect people's eyes, but they had no idea what kind of light it's actually filtering. And all of them were in all when I was actually showing them the results on my spectral color mirror.

Melanie Avalon:
Is it possible there are clear blue light blocking glasses that block the blue light coming from electronic devices or are you pretty certain that's not possible?

Roudy Nassif:
No, it's absolutely not possible because clear lenses, they block blue -purple light. That's the range of blue light between 380 nanometer and 420 nanometer. And that's why they're actually clear. The moment they start to block anything above 420, they're going to start having a slight yellow hue. So any clear lenses in the market that is claiming to block blue light is actually a marketing gimmick. Oftentimes, owners of brands have no idea what they're claiming because they've never tested it. They've just heard from the manufacturer that that's the thing. That's the tool that will help block blue light. But it's against physics. It doesn't work specifically because of the specific toxic frequency that is emitted by LEDs, which is its spikes at 455 nanometer. And this is exactly why, for instance, our daytime lenses, they are engineered to reduce the sharpness of 455 nanometer. That's the only thing we're targeting, right? It reduces its sharpness and it spreads the reduction across the spectrum. So you will be getting more green, yellow, and orange light into your eyes, making it more balanced and more proportionate. And that's why we call our daytime lenses blue light harmonizers. Because again, you have also some other blue blocking glasses that are advertised for daytime use that are kind of dark yellow. And those will, again, they will block 100% of the blue at 455, but they will wipe out all of the blue turquoise at 480 nanometer, which will make you tired and low on energy at the wrong time of the day. And this is exactly why our daytime harmonizers, they deal with the 455 nanometer frequency while maximizing blue turquoise at 480 nanometer. So that you could eliminate eye strain, headaches, agitation, and maintain optimal energy level throughout the day. Now, basically, when we speak about the other lenses, it's common sense. It's very easy because if you think about it, the sun naturally changes its position in the sky throughout the day until it descends below the horizon at night, right? As the sun is rising, it's higher in the orange, red light, and infrared light because the short wavelength, high frequency light like UV and blue light gets filtered out by the atmosphere. And as the sun is rising from the horizon up towards the sky, the frequencies of blue and green light stop appearing more and more. And if you were to be outside during the day, your body will be exposed to different temperatures of light and different amounts of blue light, depending on the time of the day, which will regulate your natural rhythm and promote either wakefulness or sleepiness, right? Because as the sun is setting, it's slowly fading away. And the blue and green light is slowly disappearing until the sun sets and the light turns into darkness. And this is a very, very, very important signal for our nervous system and for our bodies, letting us know that the day is ending so that the body start preparing its inner pharmacology to prepare us for a restful night's sleep. And it's because of this exactly, we came up with the three in one lens technology system, which is designed to mitigate and alter and filter out artificial light in different ways, depending on the time of the day, so that we can create the alignment between our internal rhythm and the rhythm of nature. And if you think about it, the moment the sun sets throughout our evolution, our ancestors have only been exposed to fire and candlelight. And this is exactly why we came up with the specific amount of greens. It's very specific with the formula that we came up with so that we can reach the exact color temperature of the fire at 1 ,700 kelvins. That's so cool. Yeah, Melanie, I don't know, are you into camping? Do you go camping? Wow.

Melanie Avalon:
I really liked it growing up. I'm not so resilient in the outdoors right now, but I love the camping vibe. Right.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, so basically, like, you probably experienced like campfire, right? And by the beginning of the bonfire, you feel like instantly calm, you start winding down. Yet you have enough energy to dance, cook and socialize with friends. And this is the concept of the evening lenses because they're particularly engineered to mimic that same color temperature of the fire, which will help you to wind down and relax while still have enough energy to do your evening activities, dance, cook, socialize, especially when the sun sets very early during the winter and the fall. And this this literally differentiates us from so many other orange tinted glasses, because when I tested many of them, I saw some of them were like, they had like what I call light leakage, which means it will be leaking, leaking light at different frequencies of blue throughout the spectrum. So you'll have like 5% entering at 520 nanometers, 10% entering at 430 nanometers. And while they still look orange, you have all this light leakage happening, which is not ideal. Also, most of them do not reach a formula that let the lenses mimic the exact color temperature of the bonfire. you

Melanie Avalon:
This is so cool.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, I think one of the greatest things I like about it is that it's a three -in -one system where you have your base frame and you can interchange the clips seamlessly without needing to have so many different frames around. The evening one, you're meant to wear it after the sunset until one hour before bedtime. Then one hour before bedtime, you remove the evening lenses. You clip on your nighttime lenses, which is designed to filter out 100% of the blue and the green. It decreases the brightness by 20 times, which is a very important feature because bright light of any color negatively impacts our circadian clock and sleep. I like to refer to the nighttime lenses using the analogy of the fire again. It's like the end of the bonfire when the wood turns into ambercoil. By that time, we feel sleepy, cozy, and ready for bed. It's exactly because those lenses will tell your brain it's completely dark outside. It will maximize your melatonin production in a natural way, increases your growth hormone, allow the body to stop burning fat at night while we sleep. That's something pretty cool about light as well because what most people don't know is that the hormone leptin is actually very connected to light. Actually, artificial light makes people leptin resistant. If the listener doesn't know what leptin is, it's the hormone that is stored underneath fat tissues. It's released after every meal. It literally tells our body that we have enough energy and that we should stop eating. It's the satiety hormone. When the sun sets and becomes dark outside and when melatonin starts to rise, this sends a signal to leptin to travel up to the hypothalamus in the brain and it upregulates the thyroid hormone. This literally increases our metabolism and growth hormone production. We start burning fat at night while sleeping. Most people have lost this ability for two main reasons. Number one is because they are chronically exposed to blue light, which is causing them to become inflamed. The inflammation blocks the leptin signal to the brain and we become leptin resistant. When we become leptin resistant, it doesn't matter whether leptin is rising or not, the body is constantly in a state of hunger. You find yourself in front of the fridge munching on all these sugar and carbs at night, especially after watching the Netflix movie on the television and you don't know why. But it's a subconscious program that is an evolutionary program that is very hard to go against. The other reason is because when this light is entering our eyes at night, leptin will not travel up to the hypothalamus in the brain and we will lose the ability to burn fat at night. On the other side, ghrelin, the hunger hormone, goes up in response to blue light. All of which is the perfect recipe to eat more, gain weight, and burn fat less. Also, when we are leptin resistant, the brain actually decreases the body's energy levels because it thinks that we don't have enough energy. Basically, we have less desire to exercise. We become more lazy when we are leptin resistant.

Melanie Avalon:
So I have a huge question here. So hearing all of that, hearing all of that, it sounds like it would make sense to be eating around the bonfire at night and then going to bed. Is that at all accurate? Because we're often told the opposite, that we're supposed to be eating, you know, during the day, the bright, during the bright light.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, I mean, the thing is we have so many different enzymes in the body that are activated by different frequencies of sunlight, so much so that they become 10 to 20 times more effective, allowing us to absorb nutrients and food. There's a biochemist back in the 1980s, I believe, he won a prize with his discovery about vitamin A, but also he made phenomenal discoveries showing how different frequencies of light activate different enzymes that are related to digestion of food and absorption of nutrients. So from that lens, it's very important that we eat our biggest meal during the day when the sun is up so that we have enough light hours during the day to activate all the enzymes that we need to absorb our food in a better way. Also, from a circadian perspective, when we have our first bite first thing in the morning, our pancreas is primed to release insulin, and our digestive tract is a lot more effective and powerful during that time of the day. Now, in the second part of the day, the pancreas and the digestive system becomes much less efficient. So if you were to eat a meal and that same meal first thing in the morning compared to two to three hours before bedtime, it's going to take your digestive system three or four times the amount of energy that would have taken it to digest and assimilate and absorb that food into our bloodstream. And from another lens also, every organ in our body has a time clock, and our organs are meant to detoxify, repair and rejuvenate at night when we are sleeping and when we are fasting. So the less food we have in our system at night, the better our body is capable to clean itself. And one more thing is that the body is either making fat or burning fat. So basically, if we eat a big meal at night, the body will not be able to burn fat because it's going to be making fat.

Melanie Avalon:
I can try listeners. No, this is because I'm a I'm like a late -night eater with a late circadian rhythm I do wonder just one comment. I do wonder with the studies Because I understand there's probably an inherent circadian rhythm to these organs, which is affecting their Effectiveness at any given time of the day. I also wonder if because a lot of the studies that look at eating timing are looking at People you know a meal like you said like a meal earlier versus a meal later in the day They're not usually in the context of fasting. So it's usually like You know this meal at breakfast versus dinner But it's pretty much just usually the people eating dinner also eat breakfast So my question is like that not as efficient ness that you are Referencing as far as like the pancreas being primed and you know the role of insulin and digestion Is it purely the time on the clock or is it because you've been eating earlier? And so this is like round two, you know as compared to like if you're in an intermittent fasting situation Where you start eating your first meal your breakfast in a way is like later. I wonder if that has a different Implication and that's a whole rabbit hole

Roudy Nassif:
Absolutely. I think it's an interesting question and I would assume that yes, it will have so the Longer the longer the hours that you have not engaged with food. So the longer fasting hours I would say the more effective your pancreas and your digestive tract is going to be regardless of the time of the day however, I Believe that if I was to engage in fasting, I would rather fast in the second part of the day Versus the first part of the day because from my perspective Sunlight is absolutely essential Allowing us to absorb and assimilate that food that we are eating in a more effective way. So Back to the farmers, right? The farmers eat rhythmically at similar times usually they have an early breakfast lunch and then a Smaller portion full for dinner and and and dinner for them is often happening around four or five So that's like before the sunset because if you think about it after the Sun sets if you were to be in nature Evolutionally, you're not going to eat because you don't have the fridge and all these the convenience of turning on Your artificial lights in the kitchen so that you can prepare a meal When I was engaging in farming experiences some of them were pretty rough experiences deep in the in the bush where where they were not like Necessarily farming but was like more an experience of like almost like hunting and gathering So we were surviving literally of nothing for a couple months. We were in a town Called a close to Tofino called ukulele on the west coast of Canada on the island of Vancouver and During that time over there, you know, we were camping in the bush so we had no access to artificial lights or to electricity or to any freezer or or refrigerator and so on and if I was to describe what it's like nature Instantly forces us to hunt and forage during the day and to have you know, our biggest meals when the Sun is up and then something perhaps small around the fire as the Sun is setting or after the sunset and then we would naturally Drift off to bed shortly a few hours after the Sun sets and and wake it up and wake up Super early and the thing is what happened is if we were to engage in eating big meals at night What happened is we wouldn't wake up at dawn with this, you know Vibrant energy to be able to go hunt and forage around 4 or 5 a .m I feel is much different when you sleep with a lot of food and your system versus fast during that period and wake up because when you fast and wake up Evolutionally your body produces all the necessary hormones like dopamine and bet on endorphin and adrenaline ACTH that will drive you to become a better hunter and better forager because you're in a state where you want to get that food for your survival

Melanie Avalon:
Wouldn't that state though, right in the morning, be fasted? Like that would be the conducive state to, you know, like cortisol and adrenaline and all of that. Like it seems like waking up and, and this, I didn't mean to turn this all into like an eating timing thing. I'm just really interested. I'm like haunted by this question because I, I feel like some people just seem to like naturally be breakfast eaters and like they're hungry in the morning, that's when they feel like eating. And then they, you know, they, they're like sleeping on empty stomach. And then some people, some people are like just quote normal. And then some people like for me, I will always be hungry at night. Doesn't matter if I eat earlier, I sleep better on a full stomach. I just would rather not eat during the day because then I'm just hungry all day.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, so the three experiments, I guess, would be experimenting with your light environment. So the question number one, like, are you exposed to a lot of artificial light at night? And if yes, then light is a drug that is inducing the hunger via leptin and ghrelin. So what I would do in that case, I would go on an experiment of completely respecting the light and dark cycle for the next three or seven days or so. And, and then observing whether you are actually still experiencing those the same level of hunger at night. And then what happens if you wake up, what happens to your rhythm and what time you're going to be waking up and then experimenting with like exercising early in the morning.

Melanie Avalon:
It's not going to happen. It's just so funny, it looks like not. Oh, my goodness. No, no, it's great. And I totally encourage this. I wish I could do it. I just I have tried so many times to change my circadian rhythm. And it doesn't matter what I do. I always go back to being a night person. Even if I have to wake up like super early, I will. I'll get awake again at night. And I'm really intense with, you know, using glasses and controlling the light exposure. It just feels very inherent. It's like who I am. I wish I wasn't this way. It's like the one thing I would change about myself.

Roudy Nassif:
So what time do you usually go to bed?

Melanie Avalon:
I can't even say it. It's so late. I mean, I'll go about like three or four a .m. Wow. Yeah.

Roudy Nassif:
Have you tried being in an environment where you actually don't have any kind of stimulation in any form of artificial light or technology around you? What happens if you're in nature for three days? I would be very curious to see how your body will respond to this and whether you'd be able to keep yourself up until that time, because I doubt.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I'd be really curious. I'm just thinking back to I have not done that experiment, so I can't. Well, I guess I did growing up, but because we didn't have cell phones back then when we go camping. But the closest, I don't know, I went through a period of time where I was doing background acting on all these different TV shows and movies. So I'd be getting up at all random times and it did not matter what time I got up. Didn't matter if it was like super early, didn't matter if it was late. Come nighttime, I was like awake. It doesn't matter how early I go to bed. I'm tired in the morning. I want to sleep in. So it's, yeah, it's so interesting. I actually heard on a recent podcast they were talking about this. I thought this was so validating to me. They were saying that people who are inherently morning people, they can get the same hours of sleep, but if they go to bed later and wake up later, but it's the same amount of sleep as going to bed earlier and waking up earlier, they're more tired. Then on the flip side with people like me, same amount of sleep, but if you're going to bed earlier and waking up earlier, we're more tired. So there seems to be something intrinsic, and I think that was Matt Walker talking about that, but it seems like there's something intrinsic in our programming of circadian rhythm about when to go to bed and when to wake up. That's different from light cues related to it.

Roudy Nassif:
The thing is, in that context, the difference that usually happens would be about an hour or so, but wouldn't be a dramatic difference of five, six hours shift.

Melanie Avalon:
That's a good question. I should see what they, that's actually a really good question. I w like, I wonder if it was a dramatic or if it was like an hour.

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, I've seen some of those studies. It's more like the difference would be anything between half an hour to an hour and a half or so. But also, one thing that I've been very, very curious about is because I've had several of my friends, entrepreneurs, who really struggled with this. And they're like, but Rudy, you don't understand. I'm like, I think I do because I've been there, but I'm also open to the fact that maybe I don't know and maybe I don't understand. But what happened time after time is that when they come visit me here in Mexico, and they're staying in my place for a week or so, what I notice that every time that happens, and it happens on a consistent basis with many of my friends who are so cold, like night outs and so on, that they have experienced a drastic shift in the rhythm. So much so that some of them who used to stay up late until 3, 4 a .m., after four or five days being here, they will be the ones really wanting to go to bed at 9 .30 or 10. I mean, for me, it's like 8 .30, right? So there's still some kind of difference because they wouldn't want to be in bed at 8 .30. I mean, I feel also they have a mental resistance to the idea because I have observed them while being here, kind of resisting the fact that their body actually wants them to go to bed, and they're kind of surprised about it. But yeah, I would be very interested many need to hear from you if you ever conduct an experiment like this and put yourself in an environment that has no stimulation, let's say, at night for a couple of days and see what happens.

Melanie Avalon:
I guess I'm wondering the extent to which it has an effect because I definitely feel like there are different chronotypes. And I guess I wonder it's like, like you were saying, the extreme of it, like maybe, maybe it's just that it's not that big of a difference, but the chronotype that like staying up later like me, because we like that we psychologically like push ourselves even farther that way. Where maybe like the actual circadian difference is not that different.

Roudy Nassif:
Yes. The truth is like, for most people today, most of us are jetlagged, right? For the regular person living in the modern world, their circadian clock is constantly shifting forward by one to three hours every single night due to the exposure to artificial light. So in a matter of few days, someone could be literally in Washington DC and their body is thinking that they are in China. The most tragic aspect about this is that the internal clock in the body continues to shift on a consistent basis. What happens is that we become perpetually jetlagged and it becomes almost normalized, right? So I would wonder how many people are, let's say, designed to go to bed as early as I go and they probably stretch it by hours because of their lifestyle and because it has become almost normalized in our society. Because most of my friends today, when they discover what time I go to bed and what time I wake up, they think like I'm a crazy man. They're like, oh my God, this is not normal. And then this is where I question, yeah, but what is actually normal? Because if we think about it, what became normal is somehow not very normal because our environments are not conducive to allowing us to find that natural rhythm. And I think the key word here is finding that natural rhythm. And I'm always curious about what would it be like for people if they were put in an environment that is conducive to allowing them to discover and find what it is like to them to find their own natural rhythm and to live by that rhythm. And that is the true challenge, I think, in today's world.

Melanie Avalon:
So the hours that you sleep is it in line with the rising and setting sun or is it earlier than that? I'm just curious.

Roudy Nassif:
To be honest, it constantly changes from season to season and based on my geographical location. So back when I was in Canada, during the winter, the sun used to set around 4 p .m. And I do remember that I used to go to bed around 7 and then wake up around 6 .30 or 7, so get like tremendous amount of sleep. And then during summertime, the sun was setting around 11 and rising around 4. And I was literally sleeping in alignment with the sunrise and sunset. So I wasn't getting the conventional 8 hours of sleep. And I was rocking and doing very well. But in a sense, I was sleeping more in the winter and sleeping less in summer. And if you observe all animals and plants in our surrounding, that is actually what happens. They behave very differently in winter versus summer. But somehow in our society, you know, we create constructs and we expect ourselves to follow those constructs on a consistent basis, regardless of the natural change of the environment and the surroundings around us. We completely disconnect and alienate ourselves from the cosmic rhythm of Mother Nature. And we abide by certain rules that the society have constructed for us that are completely misaligned with the natural law.

Melanie Avalon:
It's so fascinating. I think it originated, I could be wrong. I think Dave Astley was talking about this, that like the modern, like the modern hours that we live right now were basically based on train schedules, I think, like the advent of trains. That could be like a wrong fun fact. I have to fact check that. But that is so, so fascinating about, yeah, you sound, you sound really au naturel. You're like really adapting. So I recently traveled internationally to Europe and I only went for like two days and I came right back. I didn't really have barely any jet lag because I just, I'm so consistent with my eating pattern and my light exposure that I just like use the glasses. I ate the meal, I ate my one meal a day dinner at the normal time for each city that I was in. So here in Atlanta and then in London and then back in Atlanta, I really didn't have barely any jet lag at all. Like I immediately reset. It was amazing. Although it would look like jet lag to other people because I'm, because my hours are so crazy. But yeah, I thought it was really, really interesting. And I know we've so many things to talk about. I was wondering, could you talk just really briefly about, you said this as a teaser before we started talking that there's actually, speaking of sleep, two different types of melatonin.

Roudy Nassif:
Yes, absolutely. So we have endocrine melatonin which we produce in the eye in response to morning sunlight. So when UVA light strikes the eye it provides energy for the conversion of the amino acid tryptophan into serotonin and melatonin. And this melatonin is then stored in the pineal gland and the brain and it's released into into our bloodstream only in response to darkness, okay. And what happened is you could get that morning sunlight and that UVA and produce melatonin and have that melatonin in your pineal. However, the sad truth is that if you expose your eyes to artificial light at night from your LED lights in the kitchen in the bathroom or scrolling on your social media it's going to sabotage the melatonin. And melatonin is not only a sleep hormone it has powerful antioxidant properties it protects the central nervous system by scavenging free radicals. Now the second part type of melatonin it has nothing to do with sleep, okay. And exposure to sunlight particularly infrared and UV light have been shown to increase the production of locally produced melatonin in the cells. Now locally produced melatonin is different than endocrine melatonin that is produced by the pineal gland. This one gets produced during the day and it has nothing to do with sleep again. It's also a very powerful antioxidant and the cool thing about it is that it acts as a scavenger of free radicals on site in every cell, okay. So you get exposed to infrared light and as the natural effect of living, eating, breathing you have all these oxidative stress that is being released as metabolic byproducts. This melatonin particularly is designed to act as a scavenger for all these antioxidants for all these oxidative stress in the cell and it clears out inflammation locally in our mitochondria and in the cell supporting cellular defense mechanisms and improving cell to cell communication. So again this melatonin is secreted within every cell during the response to sunlight particularly UV and infrared and it doesn't make you sleepy though it has absolutely powerful effects of being an antioxidant.

Melanie Avalon:
So when we take supplemental melatonin, is it one of those forms or both of those forms?

Roudy Nassif:
Usually supplemental melatonin is in the form of the endocrine melatonin, which is the one that we release and identify bloodstream from the pineal gland.

Melanie Avalon:
Could we make a supplement melatonin that's, and I know this is kind of, this is like doing what we were talking about earlier where we're not working in nature and we're like siloing and trying to do our own version, but I'm just curious, like, could we make a supplement, a melatonin supplement that's that other form?

Roudy Nassif:
Well, I think everything is possible. I have no idea because I'm not an expert on biochemicals. What I do know is the phenomenon of producing melatonin in the eyes goes beyond melatonin itself. It's ingrained in a behavior that connects us to Mother Nature via exposure to light during the day and darkness at night. So I do believe that thinking that we could replace this thousand year evolutionary process of interacting with Mother Nature via exposure to sunlight and darkness with epil and expecting that we're going to get same results is absolutely unrealistic. And also I would be very careful with melatonin because it's a very unregulated industry. And oftentimes the natural dose that our body produce in melatonin is anything between 0 .1, 0 .3 microgram of melatonin. And most melatonin bills claim, so that's what they claim, 10 times the amount on the bottle. And there has been some research showing that because it's unregulated, some of the products had 10 times what they actually claimed. So that becomes 100 times what the body actually produces. And what can happen then is the absorption of that melatonin extends into the early morning hours and then we end up waking up with a lot of melatonin in our system, which will make us feel groggy, tired, and not having enough energy.

Melanie Avalon:
Yeah. I know the studies you're talking about, and it's really shocking. The range of what they found in different melatonin supplements was, I mean, it was really upsetting. But yeah. Okay. Well, this has been so amazing. I could talk to you about a million things for so long. I think listeners now understand why I was so excited when I met you, and you have completely changed my entire perspective. There it is again, but no puns intended, but my entire perspective on light and how to best optimize it. I did want to hear briefly because I was really impressed looking on your website at your different glasses. Oh, which by the way, so listeners, I have a pair with the different magnets, the three in one, and it's so, so cool. I love them. I love the shape that I got. I love how they look on my face. Actually, I posted a video recently. I'm going to post a video just specific to your brand so people can see them better, but I cannot recommend them enough. And I was really impressed with your sustainability mission and everything. As far as creating them, what's the sustainability piece to that?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, absolutely. So all of our frames are made from FSC certified wood. FSC certification makes sure that the wood is coming from sustainably harvested forestry. Also, we have some other type of frames that are made from 100% plant -bio based, 100% biodegradable materials. Also, the lab that we work with in Canada, NBC, they operate on solar and geothermal energy. So obviously, sustainability is something very important to us. As I mentioned, before I started Vivarese, I was on this long odyssey of almost being a farmer and living with indigenous people up north. And during that time, I had zero intention to start a business. And one of my main resistance to starting a business is back then perceiving that my practices as a business may be very destructive to the earth and to the ecosystem. I've had several conversations with my sister to make sure that we can find ways to source ethical and biodegradable and eco -friendly materials that I was convinced that I could start something because the least thing I wanted is to superficially solve a problem for people by helping them to block artificial light while creating massive amounts of waste and of pollution and producing materials that will never biodegrade and will be sitting heavily on the chest of the future generation.

Melanie Avalon:
I'm just so impressed by all of it and really cannot recommend VivaRays enough. And you're so kind. So we do have a coupon code for listeners. So if listeners go to MelanieAvalon .com slash VivaRays. So that's V -I -V -A -R -A -W -Y -S. You can use the coupon code MelanieAvalon and that will get you 10% off site wide. So thank you so much for that, Rudy. This was so amazing. I just love what you're doing. And like I mentioned before, we've had other calls and talked about so many other fun things that I'm just I'm really impressed with what you're doing and the quality and how you really are changing people's lives. And your whole vibe is just so incredible. So hopefully we can stay in touch and I'm really excited to see the future of everything that you're doing. And yeah, so thank you. Are there any other links to put out there for people to follow your work?

Roudy Nassif:
Yeah, thank you so much Melanie. It's always a deep pleasure to chat with you. I find that something about your energy is very special and conducive for deep conversations. Perhaps your voice and your curiosity, but I've always enjoyed chatting with you and our previous conversations and obviously today has been such a joy. So I look forward to meeting in person hopefully. And yes, one more thing is that for the listeners, we do make our glasses and prescription as well. And we came up with a very interesting technology called the 4 -in -1, which is focused to help people who wear prescription to be able to absorb the healthy frequency of sunlight while being outdoors because all of the prescription lenses made at the optometrist office, they are inherently designed to block 100% of UVA, UVB and blue purple light. And by now, hopefully you can understand why is that extremely detrimental. So we came up with lenses for prescription that allow 50 to 60% more UVA and UVB and allow all the blue purple light to pass through the lenses so that when you are outdoors, walking your dogs, hiking, driving your car, you could still subconsciously get that healthy light into your eyes without needing to think about it and without affecting your vision. And then you will have three lenses that you will clip on top of that base frame at different times of the day to mitigate the effects of artificial light day, evening and night time. So I recommend checking this out if you're someone who wear a prescription. And the one more thing is this is a very fascinating topic and perhaps it may be like a new topic to you. So if you go on our website, www .vivares .com, v -i -v -a -r -a -y -s .com, there's a tab where you can download a free ebook. It's called light, the key to mastering your sleep and energy. And it's literally the culmination of like seven years so far of studying circadian biology and quantum biophysics. But I wanted to make something very short, very sweet and super easy for anybody to understand without having any scientific backgrounds so that like a kid could read it and know exactly what they need to do to elevate their light environment to a whole new level and experience better sleep, more energy, more productivity, better mood instantly. So I highly recommend checking it out. I'll also leave a link with you Melanie so you could put it with the description of the show now and people could access it straight from there as well.

Melanie Avalon:
Yes, we will definitely put links to that in the show notes. The last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and it's short, I promise, but it's just because I realize more and more each day, how important mindset is. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Roudy Nassif:
It's very hard for me to pick one thing, but I'm grateful for life, for being alive, for breathing, for being surrounded by wonderful human beings, for living every day purposefully and waking up every morning knowing that there is one more person or one more kid or one more woman that I may be able to reach out to with my message and I may be able to positively influence, to elevate, to strengthen, to empower their minds and spirit in any way possible.

Melanie Avalon:
I love that so much. Well, thank you again, Rudy. This is so amazing. So last time for listeners, go to MelanieAvalon .com slash VivaRays. Use the coupon code MelanieAvalon to get 10% off site wide. And we will put links in the show notes as well to that awesome guy that Rudy was talking about. So, OK, well, thank you. This was so amazing. I know we've been looking forward to it for a long, long time. And I wish you a good evening because it's getting late for you. I can't wait to talk more in the future.

Roudy Nassif:
Awesome, thank you Melanie.

Melanie Avalon:
Thank you. Bye.