Your Brain Loves (And Needs) Sunlight
Multiple perspectives on the brain in relation to sunlight
The brain is no different than any other organ in the human body.
It is a light-sensing mechanism because it uses sunlight to perform a number of unfathomably complex circadian functions.
Let’s start with the neuroectoderm.
Your brain, eyes, and skin are made of the same tissue when you’re an embryo in your mother’s womb. Formation of the neuroectoderm is the first step in the development of the nervous system.
After recruitment from the ectoderm, the neuroectoderm undergoes three stages of development:
1. Transformation into the neural plate.
2. Transformation into the neural groove (with associated neural folds).
3. Transformation into the neural tube.
After formation of the tube, the brain forms into three sections:
the hindbrain
the midbrain
the forebrain
Light has an incredible impact on the trio of your eyes, brain, and the skin through its interaction with the light-sensing proteins known as non-visual photoreceptors, the mitochondria, and melanin.
I want you to view the eyes, brain, and skin as one unit from now on due to our current understanding of the neuroectoderm.
Whatever impacts the eyes has a direct effect on the brain and skin, with the same being true for the other relationships they have with one another.
All opsins are found in the brain, skin, and eyes. Melanin is found in the brain, especially in areas like the substantia nigra which is a key discussion to neurodegenerative disease. Mitochondria are also a part of this discussion.
In the brain, mitochondria are particularly important because neurons have high energy demands. The brain consumes a significant portion of the body’s total energy despite making up only a small fraction of its mass. This high energy requirement is due to the brain’s complex functions.
Now, here’s where it gets crazy.
Most of you likely don’t know this, but even the brain has access to external near-infrared light from the sun. Sunlight penetrates through the bone, hits the cerebral spinal fluid, diffuses, gets into the crevices of the brain, and then stimulates the gray matter. How about that for a shocker.
UV-A light wavelengths create nitric oxide in the skin and blood vessels.
Nitric oxide serves as a vasodilator, which means it relaxes and opens up the blood vessels to allow more blood flow throughout the system. This, in turn, effectively lowers blood pressure, thereby prompting brain health.
The most important mechanism by which sunlight plays a crucial role for the promotion of brain health is in the pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) system. I wrote an article a while back on POMC and its relationship with light, which you can read below.
Yet this remains the point:
If you want to access the central controller of bodyweight regulation, appetite metabolism, pain tolerance, endorphin production, and much more.. then you must create a circadian appropriate light environment to stimulate the production of Mother Nature’s most powerful peptide hormones.
In relation to the deep structures of the brain, you have the suprachiasmatic nucleus and habenula nucleus. The SCN serves as the master circadian clock. The habenula nucleus is where the reward tracts in the brain are, largely responsible for addictions, mental illness, so forth.
What’s interesting about both of these brain structures is that light information from the external environment gets into the retina and has no interference from synapses which act like breaks for such information. Evolution has given a free ride without any friction to the light that gets into this part of our system for good reason.
Below, I’ve included two of my favorite infographics provided by the work of Dr. Alexander Wunsch.
The first infographic displays the relationship that light has on every aromatic amino acid produced in the brain. As a matter of fact, without the necessary morning and midday light wavelengths, you create dysfunction in aromatic amino acid production which interferes with the creation of neurotransmitters.
Phenylalanine is needed to make tyrosine, which is a precursor to T3 and T4 for the thyroid along with DOPA (melanin, dopamine, adrenalin, noradrenalin).
Tryptophan is needed to make serotonin which then can get converted into melatonin.
Histidine is needed to make histamine and urocanic acid, which displays photoprotective and moisturizing properties for the skin.
You cannot have these brain chemicals without sunlight.
Full stop.
Phenylalanine, tryptophan, and histidine are all made of benzene rings which structurally act like photon traps. In other words, they readily take a photon from the sun and use it to perform their functions.
Let’s go a level deeper, how do we know this to be true?
Look at the absorption spectrum of aromatic amino acids like phenylalanine, tryptophan, and histidine.
Phenylalanine has an absorption maximum (λmax): around 257 nanometers.
Tryptophan’s absorption maximum (λmax): around 280 nanometers.
Histidine’s absorption maximum (λmax): around 210 nm and 280 nm.
Let’s cover steroid sex hormones now and their relationship the sunlight.
As you can see with the infographic below, the Vitamin D3 precursor molecule (7-dehydrocholesterol), is converted into Vitamin D3 with the help of ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation from sunlight.
Cholesterol has a specific absorption spectrum in the ultraviolet (UV) range, particularly around the lower wavelengths of UV light. Its absorption maximum (λmax) is around 210 nm. This peak is due to the presence of conjugated double bonds within its structure.
While cholesterol itself does not absorb significantly in the red and infrared spectrum, these wavelengths of light can influence biological processes related to cholesterol metabolism and cardiovascular health.
From this process, we then get all of the sex hormones people rave about on social media and within the health space.. Testosterone, progesterone, estradiol, and all of the corticoids. Every single hormone in your body needs a circadian friendly environment to thrive.
As it relates to red and infrared light for the health of your brain, just know that there is quite a bit of compelling research on this front.
It is truly astonishing when you piece all of this together and realize that sunlight exposure, while avoiding artificial light, is the single greatest habit we could develop for the function and longevity of the brain.
Artificial light is another rabbit hole, but just know that it decimates the function of your mitochondria, non-visual photoreceptors, and melanin. It destroys all of the light sensing mechanisms due to its alien light spectrum.
What else do we expect, anyways?
The brain evolved directly under the influence of the full light spectrum, and naturally comes packaged with pro-life adaptations that involve all of its specific light wavelengths.
Get outside, get your skin and eyes in the game, and provide your brain with all of the light nutrition that it needs on a daily basis.
Much love,
Zaid
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It’s so crazy, I was just talking with someone yesterday about how I think the brain really needs natural sunlight, and a lot of it, to function correctly. And here you are. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were listening to me through my phone. 😂
I AGREE! I didn’t realize what I was missing! I’ve been retired for 3 years, and I’m in Nature everyday! I make a point of walking 5 miles/day in sunshine. I now have a “sun callous”…I no longer burn! Amazing!🤩 🌞🌻
This is what people NEED!