A full spectrum (UV) light bulb (not to be confused with the ordinary incandescent bulb that is used by millions of people) brings nature’s healing UV sunlight indoors.
For many decades, the myth that Ultra violet (UV) rays bring only harm to our health remained a strong belief held by people everywhere in the world. Recent scientific studies, however, demanded a change in this perspective. The benefits of UV light have a wide variety of applications - including health, beauty and sterilization. Although the idea sounds rather surprising, a good amount of clinical research backs up the claim that sun rays do some essential good.
The importance of sunlight (natural UV)
On this planet we have to have the full spectrum of sunlight to live. This is how we evolved as a species. Sunlight is not just a bright light; it is part of the electromagnetic spectrum, best described as a rainbow. These 1,200 frequencies of light all act on some part of your body. They power the cells, regulate your biological clock and produce hormones in your body; they affect your metabolism; they give you the equivalent of vitamin C and vitamin D. When you’re not getting enough light, all these functions start diminishing, and cause depression of your immune system. We need these frequencies on an ongoing basis.
Your body needs 30 minutes of sunlight a day. Two hours a day is ideal. However, in 48 hours all the energy you receive from the sun is depleted. The best thing to do when you have long cloudy periods when the sun doesn’t come through is to use full spectrum light bulbs. A full spectrum light is the closest thing we have to real sunlight. Using a full spectrum light for about six hours a day is equivalent to 30 minutes of sunlight.
UV-B has the ability to break cellular structure and eventually mutate it. Because of that property, UV-B is used in many hospitals to sterilize tools and equipment. In humans, UV-B has been proven to help treat certain diseases like tuberculosis and psoriasis. In 1903, a Nobel Price was awarded to Niels Finsen for treating skin lesions caused by tuberculosis with UV light. In a study conducted recently, it was discovered that 80 percent of people suffering from psoriasis improved after being exposed to UV light.
During the winter months, your normal incandescent and fluorescent lighting causes hyperactivity, stress and eyestrain. Incandescent light puts out a yellow-orange frequency, and your body becomes overdosed with this. You crave carbohydrates, you sleep longer, your menstrual cycles change, you get irritable and depressed. As the amount of sun (UV) that we absorb is reduced, our immune system drops accordingly and we catch more colds and flu. Lack of ultraviolet (UV) during the winter is the single biggest reason for depression, colds and flu.
Ninety-eight per cent of sunlight enters through the eyes, and 2% through the skin. The 2% on the skin is important because that is the only way your body can develop vitamin D which is essential for calcium production to make strong bones and strong teeth.
The windows in your home or car will block 100 % of ultraviolet light. Roll the windows down if you can. There is plenty of documented proof that blocking the sun’s UV light is the root cause of seasonal depression. People with seasonal depression, are those who are in an office building all day, who take their car out of the garage of the building, never roll down the windows, turn their air-conditioning or heaters on, park in their garage at home, get out and go in the house. Where and when did they get their needed sun UV exposure that day? They didn’t.
If you are wearing glasses, sunglasses or contacts, 100% of ultraviolet light is being blocked. Ultraviolet does not come through glass or plastic, so if you are paying for any kind of UV protection in your lenses, it’s a waste of money. The artificial lenses that doctors insert after cataract operations will also block all the ultraviolet. Your eyes actually needs UV exposure from the sun to remain healthy. Cataract for as a result of lack of sun exposure. People who live their entire lives indoors, like the elderly and office workers, develop cataracts. And what is the first optometrist recommendation for seniors with cataracts? They advise them to always wear sunglasses which actually worsens their affliction. Seniors spend very little time outdoors, especially in the winter months, and by advising them to wear sunglasses when they do go out, they are robbing themselves of the very important sun UV rays.
How light travels in your body
Light enters your body primarily through your eyes and follows two pathways, each of which has a different effect: (i) The visual pathway, which enables you to see, is the upper pathway, which goes up to the cortex. If you’re blind, that pathway may be blocked, but the lower pathway continues to function. (ii) The lower pathway goes to the hypothalamus gland, an extremely important gland in the distribution of sunlight to the rest of your body.
The hypothalamus gland controls all the other glands. It also regulates your circadian rhythms, telling you whether it is day or night, June or December. The significance of this is that it instructs the pineal gland to produce the appropriate hormones. During the night, your pineal gland produces melatonin and you should get about eight hours of darkness. When you are in daylight, or sunlight, those same glands produce serotonin. In a normal day you usually receive eight hours of melatonin and 16 hours of serotonin. During the winter months you experience more darkness, so your body secretes more and more melatonin, throwing your body out of balance and creating those conditions mentioned above, especially the craving to sleep more. So giving a person who has seasonal depression melatonin will make it worse because their body is already producing too much melatonin. Don’t take melatonin during the winter unless you have a specific sleeping disorder. Full sun UV light will also regulate your melatonin and serotonin.
The hypothalamus has another important duty and that is converting light to chemical electrical pulses that follow the nervous system in the body, providing energy to every cell in your body. Your cells require nutrients from foods, and oxygen from the air, but what ignites energy in the cell is light. Sunlight is the spark plug, which provides the spark in cells to produce protein, and to replicate and repair. This is the mechanism of sunlight in the body. It regulates the body clock; it produces the hormones in your body and it produces the energy that goes to the cells, so it’s very important that good natural sunlight enters your eyes.
There are three types of ultraviolet: A, B and C. People can get a sunburn during overcast skies because although the cloud layer blocks the A and B, ultraviolet C still comes through, and the C is what does the burning. Ultraviolet A and B are essential to your body, and unfortunately, these are the ones which are blocked. The cloud layers will also block a great many of the sunlight frequencies. The entire intensity of sunlight is diminished, as you know, when there are overcast skies. The ozone layer blocks UVC, which is very caustic. The cornea of the eye also blocks UVC, and the lens and the retina of the eye block the other two ultraviolets. So we have our own regulatory system going on in our eye on normal amounts of UV. When we use sunglasses, we completely block off the two good ones.
Effects of artificial incandescent and fluorescent lighting
John Ott, who was a pioneer in analyzing the effects of artificial light on the human body was Walt Disney’s time-lapse photographer. That is how he discovered the effect of light on plants and people. He found that fluorescent lights which were heavily skewed to the blue side of the spectrum caused virtually all male offspring in test animals; whereas if the fluorescent lighting was skewed to the red side of the spectrum, it resulted in primarily all female offspring. He also showed that six major types of fluorescent lights being used at that time caused a significantly higher mutation rate in offspring (mutated genes and birth defects), and he was responsible for causing those six types of fluorescents to be banned from the country. If light has that effect on reproduction in test animals, what impact is light having on you?
Both an incandescent and a fluorescent light produce a yellow frequency. The incandescent light (that is, the ordinary light bulb) is high in the yellow, orange and red frequencies, and this makes your eyes squint because the yellow frequency of the light bulb is the single worst frequency for the eye. It was developed because it was the brightest of all the colours, and it reaches the cones first, but it also causes the eye to contract. In addition, the yellow that hits exposed skin causes a contraction in the muscles and the nerves. The yellow that comes from fluorescent and incandescent lights causes a low-grade stress condition in your body all the time. The cool white fluorescent is even higher in yellow. You will notice these lights have a yellow tinge in comparison with a full spectrum light. You will feel better if you actually keep a full spectrum light on in the general vicinity of your regular lighting.
When you read under an incandescent or fluorescent light, the yellow does not absorb into the paper, and it becomes glare. This glare from regular incandescent lights actually is what puts you into reading glasses earlier. The full spectrum is white. It has no glare, and the letters stand out. Basically you can read for hours on end under a full spectrum without even squinting or eyestrain. With regular lights, I start rubbing my eyes after about 20 minutes. Sodium lights are bad also. They also give out a yellow basis.
Halogen lights also produce a yellow frequency. If an incandescent light is a bad light, a halogen is a very bright bad light. Halogen lights were initially created without glass to protect them, and they produced more ultraviolet than any other device.
Problems with fluorescent lights
Fluorescent lights have the wrong light frequencies (or colour). Radiation in the form of soft X-rays escapes out the ends of the tube. This causes a slow clustering of blood cells and restriction in oxygen flow which makes you drowsy. The only way to shield the radiation is to put lead tape on the ends of the tube. You can obtain small pieces of lead tape from security companies who use lead tape around the windows. The third problem with fluorescent lights is pulsation or flicker, and that occurs not from the bulb, but from the fixture itself. The fixture pulsates 60 times a second - 60 Hertz, 120 power. By changing the power supply in the fixture to an electronic one, it will pulsate at 25,000 times a second and you will get no flicker. All the new type of fluorescents are flicker free, 25,000 electronic ballast.
Cure for seasonal depression, all influenza flu viruses and diseases.
If you have severe seasonal depression, you should be using the UV lighting, and you should replace them after every third winter season, because the UV will deteriorate. The UV lighting will have most effect if it is used first thing in the morning. If you put a screw-in UV bulb in your bathroom, that is the first light you will use in the morning, and it will stop the melatonin production right away. So basically, that is the least expensive way to treat seasonal depression.
Full spectrum (UV) bulbs are generally available in plant stores and pet stores because they never use anything but full spectrum lights on all their plants and animals. They are treated better than humans.
Full spectrum (UV) light provides sunlight indoors, reduces eyestrain when reading and counteracts drowsiness and prevents most of the diseases and viruses that inflict us as a result of lack of natural sunlight (UV) exposure. The artificially created radiation coming out of fluorescent tubes causes drowsiness. Fluorescent tubes are identical to your computer screen and your TV screen. Therefore, your computer screen is doing the same thing to you.
Substituting one bad light with another.
A new law is set to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs, due to concerns about energy costs and greenhouse gases. Yet, light bulb manufacturers admit that the typical compact fluorescents that governments are pushing for are at best a temporary fix, because they contain the very toxic and cancer causing mercury, emit hazardous EMFs, and no recycling centers will accept them. The government is substituting a alleged power hungry incandescent light bulb with no toxin and can be disposed of safely for a very toxic poisoning and environmentally unfriendly compact fluorescents. Instead our government should be replace your incandescent bulbs with healthy full spectrum light bulbs - light bulbs that brings nature’s healing UV sunlight indoors to you.
With all of the dubious gadgets and toxic sprays marketed today shining an ultraviolet light on something is the safest way to kill germs. Ultraviolet light is actually an extremely effective germicide, able to kill more than 99 percent of germs. Ultraviolet lamps are used in sewage treatment plants, hospital clean rooms and many other areas where killing bacteria, viruses and spores is crucial. Combined with good housekeeping and duct maintenance, an ultraviolet system can help to ensure that your household air supply is as sanitary as possible. Why use toxic deodorizers, cleaning sprays or liquid cleansers in your home when ultraviolet light, preferably natural, is safer, 100% less toxic, more environmentally friendly and kills 99% of germs that causes odors and sickness.