Understanding Brain Stress: Light, Time Changes, and Your Health
Why Green Matters
Ever wondered why elevators often display pictures of green landscapes? Green light wavelengths have a calming effect on our brains, particularly through the pineal gland. As fall arrives, the gradual change in leaf colors helps our brains transition smoothly. However, sudden disruptions—like daylight saving time changes—can cause significant stress.
How Your Brain Responds to Stress
Our brains are hardwired for survival, a trait inherited from ancestors who lived alongside dangerous predators 10,000 years ago. Any stress, including sudden changes in our light schedule, triggers these ancient survival mechanisms.
Your Internal Clock
Daylight creates a synchronized clock between your brain and body, establishing your wake-sleep cycle. The adrenal glands (located atop each kidney) produce cortisol, a hormone that helps you wake up and get going. When time changes by an hour, it disrupts these memorized, hormone-driven patterns. This explains why shift work and sleep loss are so taxing on your body.
The Three Core Brain Functions
1. Body Functions - Automatic processes like breathing and digestion
2. Survival Mode - Our primitive programming for fight-or-flight responses
3. Higher Learning - Reasoning, memory, and complex thought
Evolution of the Brain
Our ancestors coexisted with saber-toothed tigers and dire wolves. Survival required constant vigilance, leaving little energy for higher learning. About 10,000 years ago, these large predators died off, allowing safer living conditions. This enabled development of the frontal cortex—the brain region responsible for reasoning, learning, and memory.
Today, sudden stressors (like a car horn or siren) still trigger blood flow to shift from the frontal cortex to the primitive brain areas, temporarily reducing our capacity for higher thinking.
Time Changes and Your Immune System
The sudden one-hour time shift activates survival mode, stressing your immune system and weakening your defenses. While virus levels remain consistent year-round, increased illness in fall and winter results from combined stressors: cold weather, reduced sunlight, and abrupt time changes.
What You Can Do
Daily Supplements
- Vitamin D - Boosts immunity and mood, especially important as sunlight decreases (helps with Seasonal Affective Disorder)
- Omega-3 oils - Essential for brain health and mood elevation
- Get regular testing (every 6-12 months) to ensure optimal levels, as absorption varies by individual
Evening Routine
- Take a 20-minute bath with ½ cup each of Epsom salts and baking soda
- Stretch your legs and back before bed
- Write down goals related to family and friends (keeps your brain forward-thinking rather than stuck in survival mode)
- Limit caffeine after 12:00 PM
Morning Routine
- List three things you’re grateful for upon waking (stimulates the frontal cortex and trains your brain toward positive thinking)
- Pray or meditate (enhances calm and positive thinking through frontal brain activation)
Diet
- Eliminate artificial flavorings and colorings (these are brain stimulants)
The Goal
Feed your brain properly while training it to respond thoughtfully rather than reactively to stress. These practices help maintain blood flow to your frontal cortex, keeping you in a state of higher-level thinking rather than primitive survival mode.