The Health Space’s Deepest Blindspot
It's all around them, yet they are blind to its significance
The health space is in dire straits at the moment.
My perspective on the space has changed tremendously since stumbling upon circadian biology and dedicating the past three years of my life to studying this realm.
The current model of health in mainstream circles is very much hyper-reductionist from my standpoint. We can debate about the reasons why, but I think it ultimately comes down to the fact that it’s wedded to centralized medicine.
Whenever I speak on the standard medical model of today, I must always couch my argument with the incredible value it offers. There are many health influencers who have a bad taste in their mouth from the experience they’ve had with centralized medicine, myself included.
Yet, I refuse to throw the baby out with the bathwater because that’s poor thinking and doesn’t move the needle on this work.
Centralized medicine is excellent for addressing acute situations.
It’s horrendous at viewing the body as one system and addressing the root cause of chronic disease due to a number of factors.
If you needed any evidence of that, you can study the skyrocketing rates of chronic disease. Cancer, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, all at a high.
Back to the subject at hand.
I firmly believe that the health space is focused on the wrong things in relation to circadian biology. They hammer exercise, nutrition, sleep, supplements, bloodwork, and more. While these are crucial fundamentals of health, the health space as it stands today doesn’t understand that there is a hierarchy to this game.
Here’s a simple question I pose to people about this:
What controls exercise, nutrition, sleep, supplementation, bloodwork, hydration, and every other area of health?
Circadian biology.
That answer should make you take a step back and think deeply about the implications involved here.
With enough study, you’ll eventually conclude that circadian biology controls everything from nutrition to mitochondrial function to training to metabolism to immune function to body composition to mental health.
It doesn’t just influence these areas in some insignificant way.
I propose that it totally controls them.
People will come out of the woodwork to deem this opinion as nonsense, yet they conveniently forget that Mother Nature has programmed the circadian mechanism into the origin of life itself.
Circadian rhythms are ancient biological mechanisms, which date back at least 2.5 to 3 billion years. These rhythms are found in nearly every living organism on this planet, from bacteria to human beings.
Why did they evolve?
As a response to the 24-hour light and dark cycle caused by the Earth’s rotation.
The ability to anticipate daily environmental changes and adjust biological processes accordingly would have created a significant survival advantage, making circadian rhythms a fundamental aspect of life on Earth.
Light is the most powerful zeitgeber, which is just an external circadian cue that tells your body where it is in relation to time and space. For this reason, light is the most powerful input to health across all species.
It certainly has the ability to heal or destroy your body, on its own.
Furthermore, there is plenty of evidence to show the direct relationship between light/circadian biology to blood sugar, sex steroid health, fertility, metabolism, of which cannot be ignored.
It’s fine to talk about the latest biohacks, calories, and aging, but do not forget about the essence of this work. Otherwise, you lose sight of the biggest levers and end up going down routes which don’t offer much value.
The trickiest thing about this is that there’s no conventional authority or education system where you’ll come to this insight.
You’ll have to learn about this realm and piece everything together as an autodidact from the ground up, which is why I genuinely believe you’re fortunate to learn from somebody such as myself. I have done the heavy lifting for you to compile all of this into one framework.
Much love,
Zaid
Altogether too idealistic. You give medicine too much credit. See https://robertyoho.substack.com/p/275-almost-everything-scares-me-these?utm_source=publication-search