The early morning light | Daybreak Note #210 | Sept. 6, 2021
Walking outdoors when you first wake up — even for 2 minutes — sets your body chemicals in motion for a more naturally alert day and a good sleep, says neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman
Good morning, dear,
The sky was so soft this morning. Baby blue above, fading into that magical pale yellow of dawn at the edge of the horizon. The light filtered through leaves, enveloping the trees and lawns and sidewalks in a glow.
I had risen early to walk, something I had meant to do ever since I listened to Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, on The Tim Ferriss Show podcast.
He explained a whole slew of things about our bodies that were new to me — like how the very back of our eyes is actually part of our brain, the only part outside of the cranial vault. How when we are relaxed, our eyes dilate and give us a panoramic view; when we are stressed, our eyes contract and give us a narrowed “soda straw view.” We lose perspective, literally.
What was doubly fascinating is that the effect works both ways: If you look at a panoramic view, say, out at the ocean or an overlook on a hike, and look wide, you will also trigger a cascade of effects in your body that cause you to feel more relaxed. And if your vision is narrowed (to me, this means staring in my computer screen for hours, focused on a row of words or emails), you trigger a more alert, on-guard position. I interpreted that as extra incentive to get up frequently during work days and switch my view, even if it’s just looking around the room, and also take one-on-one work calls, when possible, on a walk.
“The vision and our visual system is perhaps the strongest lever by which we can shift our state of mind and body,” said Dr. Huberman.
What had me up walking at 6:30 a.m. was a different way to use this lever: Dr. Huberman’s advice on viewing sunlight early. As he said on the podcast,
“The simple behavior that I do believe everybody should adopt, including many blind people, we’ve talked about why that is, is to view, ideally, sunlight for 2 to 10 minutes every morning upon waking. So when you get up in the morning, you really want to get bright light into your eyes because it does two things. First of all, it triggers the timed release of cortisol, a healthy level of cortisol into your system, which acts as a wake-up signal and will promote wakefulness and the ability to focus throughout the day. It also starts a timer for the onset of melatonin, this sleepiness hormone, or the hormone of darkness, as they say. Melatonin is inhibited by light. So by viewing light first thing in the day, you set in motion these two timers — one for wakefulness that starts immediately and one for sleepiness that starts later.”
This timed release of cortisol happens once a day, so by making sure the pulse happens early, you are letting your body know how to time its energy. The other thing that is triggered is a release of dopamine, which contributes to mood elevation, or happiness.
But what if the sky is overcast?
“Even if there’s cloud cover,” Dr. Huberman said, “there’s a lot more light energy, a lot more photons coming through cloud cover then you’re going to get off your phone or a computer. And early in the day, 2 to 10 minutes outside without sunglasses is going to be really beneficial for a huge range of biological functions and brain state.”
I was convinced. Rather than curl up in bed with my laptop for another 30 minutes, I pulled on sweatpants and went for a walk. And I forget, sometimes, how magical morning can be. The quiet. The stillness. The clean breeze. How fresh and new and alive the world feels, like it has just spun around in a nightly bath.
Dr. Huberman has his own podcast, Huberman Lab, which is digs into the science around universal topics like sleep, addiction, depression, work. The shorter episode with Tim Ferriss is a terrific, mind-shifting introduction.
May your early mornings ahead be filled with sunlight.
With love,
Brianne