The Light Doctor with Dr. Alexander Wunsch

Boomer Anderson 0:06
Welcome to decoding superhuman, this show is a deep dive into obsessions with performance and how to improve the human experience. Twice a week, I explore the latest science, technology and tactics with experts in various fields of human optimization. I’m your host, Boomer Anderson. Enjoy the journey.

All right, superhumans. It’s Boomer. We’re back with the second episode of the year and I’m fresh off the plane from South Korea. In fact, I’m a little tender right now, with some jet lag. Last week, we had Dr. Andrew hill on the show talking about all things neuroscience. This week, we’re going to transition into something a little different. And that’s the field of light. If you recall, we’ve had many episodes on the show on the discussion of light in general. Or the subject of light. But when I made a list of experts in the field of light that I wanted to speak with this person’s name was at the top. My guest today is Dr. Alexander Wunsch. And he is a physician and light biologist who lives in Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. winch researches consults and teaches on the effects of light color and radiation upon human and environment. And he also serves as the deputy Managing Director of the max Lucia foundation in Lucerne, Switzerland. So, you can imagine, I’ve wanted to have this conversation for a while, and at points my excitement may come across as nerves. But thank you to mark Richter and the guys over at flow grid for the introduction. Now, what did we get into? Of course, we talked about chronobiology, zeitgeber, circadian rhythms, blood radiation therapy, and really looking into LED lights versus incandecence Lights specifically as it relates to red light. And then talking about the Lüscher test what that all means. Dr. Wunsch was an absolute blast to speak with. So I want to encourage you guys to go check out the show notes which are at decodingsuperhuman.com/light. L I G H T. Enjoy my episode with Dr. Alexander Wunsch.

Dr. Wunsch Welcome to the show. Hi. Before we get started, I have to give thanks to Mark Rector and Max Goslar for the introduction, because without them this conversation wouldn’t happen. So thank you guys. Dr. Wunsch. I would love to get started with a question that came after I saw you speak at flow fest this year and you were mentioning some Something what I would describe as a tuning fork, do you mind just going into a little bit as to what that that fork is and what it does for you.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 3:17
So, I think the topic of of our conversation today should be photo biology and the tuning fork is some device which belongs more to the vibrational medicine stuff. So, it is not really an answer you can expect from me which perfectly fits into the photo biology. environment. But for me, the the the use of a tuning fork came from Friend of mine, a mathematician from Switzerland, Hans Cousteau. I met him in the early 1990s. And he introduced me into the world of net natural frequencies. And I was interested these days in natural frequencies, because I had invented a cranial electro stimulation unit and I was in search of treatment parameters. And this unit works, worked and still works with frequencies in the range of our brain waves and so, I was looking for natural frequencies of frequencies derived from occurrences in nature and so I found it very interesting this concept, which which dates back to the days of photography us, it has to do with with the law of octave. And it is this system I had been introduced by Hans Cousteau is called the cosmic octave. And it’s a mathematical procedure to calculate the rhythms of, for example, the earth of other celestial bodies into range where you can experience them as frequencies or as tones where you can hear them for example. So if you want to listen to the rotation frequency of planet Earth, you first have to make a decision. Which kind of rotation you want to, to listen to, there is the rotation which lasts one day or 24 hours or 86,400 seconds, there is another rotation which lasts around 365.25 days, which is called the year. And there is also much, much longer rotation. I think it’s 25,720 years which is called the platonic year. And if you made your decision, let’s say you want to listen to the quality of the day, then you have to divide one by at 6400 seconds, which gives you a very, very slow frequency. Too slow to hear it with your ears. So you have to double this frequency several times again and again and again until you end up in the range of the audible frequencies. And this, for example, will bring you to 194.18 hertz, which is one octave of the day frequency of our planet Earth. And to make it easier, there is a tuning fork which produces at 20 degrees Celsius, exactly this 198.1 149.18 hertz. And there are other tuning forks. I think I have 27 of them, of them for many of the celestial bodies in our solar system, and so You can do some frequency meditation you can use them for follow for races, which is a kind of acupuncture without needles where you can put the vibrating tuning fork with its stem directly onto the acupuncture points. You can use them for attunement if you have someone you want to talk with and you are not in accordance you can give the other person exactly the same tuning fork and then you have you both hold the tuning forks in your hands and experience if there is a kind of it works as a kind of antenna for the same vibrational content for the same information so you can use them in many different ways.

Boomer Anderson 9:00
It’s incredible. I almost feel like we’ll have to have a separate show just to talk about that. Now, Dr. Wunsch, how did you become interested in photo photo biology because you’re practicing medical physician Where did photo biology come into the picture?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 9:20
So, now, the question makes a bit more sense because I already prepared the ground. So in fact, I started with this slow frequency or low frequency range for the the human brainwaves and then I discovered the the higher frequencies where we have experience transmitted by our ears. And finally, I was looking for it kind of total experience, not only the brainwaves Last, the music frequency, I also wanted to have much higher frequencies I found them finally in the range of the rainbow colors. And so my first interest was focused on the diligent therapeutical use of colored light. And so this for me was the the start where I began to become interested in photo biological questions.

Boomer Anderson 10:40
And you are one of the early adopters. I mean, frankly, when I came to learn about photo biology was through you and through some of the interviews you had done. How did you begin to study this for one but also apply it within You’re your medical practice.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 11:05
I would not say that I am early adopter regarding photo biology if you look back 100 years or 150 years, then you already will find that physicians that interested in the effects of light, but interested in the effects of heylia therapy, as an example, good interested in the effects of UV photo biology in the beginning of the 20th century, began to become interested in the, the other end of the rainbow spectra, so the short wavelengths are found on the ultra violet side the longer wavelength which can be found at the longer wavelengths part of the spectrum in the infrared in the near infrared and longer infrared waves in I think infrared therapy or thermal therapy had been in use since humans had learned to produce fire, and since Kellogg’s days in the late 19th century,artificially produced luminous heat rays coming fromfrom incandescent lamps had been used by Kellogg and other guys from the medical profession. Um, so I am for sure that I’m not early adopter of photo biology. But what I think is different that my approach today is still, that I think sunlight is very healthy and helpful as long as we follow some important rules. And that, that I, for example, not only convinced, but I know from my personal experience I’ve collected since over 25 years now, that colored light is also very interesting in the therapeutical context, which is something you would not necessarily expect from a modern photo biologist.

Boomer Anderson 14:00
So, Dr. Wunsch, if it’s okay with you, I’d like to go into the aspect of sunlight and then we can go into colored light in just a second. But sunlight I know growing up in the United States, I was told to put on my suntan lotion and that UVB is evil. Is there a right prescription of sunlight for everyone IE how much sun Do we need to be getting per day and is sunscreen evil?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 14:38
There There are no general rules for the use of sunlight. And there are several restrictions with regards to the use of suntan lotion. In in my from my point of view, so there are there are people there are individuals who should not use sunlight as for example, the primordial source for vitamin D production. So, you We all know that that humans exhibit different skin types and there is the Fitzpatrick skin typing which ranges from one to six. This can type one people with skin type one have this Celtic Celtic appearance with with reddish hair with very low content of skin pigment with greenish eyes. And so these individuals might be very sensitive to some light and they Not even benefit from the use of sunlight. But there are I would say more than 95% of humans normally should get some benefit from diligent sunlight use

Boomer Anderson 16:20
and dilligent sunlight use just to clarify that a little bit more for people is that 20 minutes a day, is it an hour a day or you see some of these people now, bathing naked for multiple hours a day? How much sun? Is there a range that would work for people?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 16:42
Well, it depends on what you want to achieve in being exposed to the sunlight. If If you look for the vitamin D production, then you have to take care that there is no ultraviolet be contained in the sunlight in the actual sunlight. For example, you asked me for the weather in Heidelberg today. It definitely was not the right weather to have any vitamin D production even if you would expose your full body naked to the sun during New Moon time. So in vitamin D winter, which means when the shadow of your body standing upright is longer than your body is high, then there is not resumed presumably not enough ultraviolet be contained in sunlight in order to produce vitamin D. But when the season is right, then you should start with three to five minutes during noon time, noon time means that The sun has its highest elevation angle, which means that for the sun rays there is the shortest way through the atmosphere. And this in consequence means that you have the highest content ultraviolet be of the shortwave ultraviolet, which is crucial for the vitamin D production. And if you start with five minutes exposure and watch yourself after the exposure and you have no signs of an overdose, which no itching skin, no, no signs for skin stress and no reddening of the skin, then you could try to increase this exposure time. The next day by an increment of let’s say two to five minutes depending on your individual sensitivity. So, to make things short you have to find out your individual system susceptibility and tolerance to sunlight by diligently increasing the exposure time from one to the other day and increment could be fixed example five minutes. So after for a skin type towards skin type three person, which is the Caucasian skin type, there should be a maximum exposure of 20 minutes a day because it makes no sense tends to stress your skin longer than that, for people with darker skin skin type five or six exposure time of 40 to 60 minutes could make sense depending on the individual conditions.

Boomer Anderson 20:21
And in terms of exposure, are we talking about exposing just the face or ideally as much of the body as possible is there any guidance

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 20:31
as to the of the body as possible, because if you would try to, to serve the the demand for vitamin D just using the skin for example, then you would have to to expose yourself seven times 10 times longer, you would still not have the same positive effect and you definitely would have very negative effect to your to your skin in the face. So, the formula is you should try to have the highest UVB content in sunlight which is achieved. Yeah in mid middle Europe for example, around between 12 and one o’clock during noon time, and the larger the area of the body the shorter the total duration of the treatment can be and this is what we want to achieve. We want to have an exposure as short as possible in order to achieve the highest vitamins The production possible in this exposure time.

Boomer Anderson 22:07
And Dr. Wunsch during this time of year, and I normally live in Amsterdam, I’m not there today. But this time of year, it’s quite difficult to even get sun. You mentioned this with Heidelberg as well. What are your feelings on some of these UVB lamps? Or even looking at things like blood error irrigation therapy as well as you know supplementing vitamin D as an alternative to get vitamin D during the winter?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 22:40
First question is do you need the same amount of vitamin D during the winter time compared to summertime? And the answer to this question depends quite a lot on your understanding of light in India. If you think that vitamin D is some pretty requisite for good health, then you would try to supplement or try to irradiate either blood or skin. But blood irradiation By the way, will not be as efficient with regards to vitamin D production compared to the skin radiation because there is a very specific mechanism which is responsible for the photosynthesis of vitamin D, which is hosted in the skin cells around the basal cell membrane of the skin and this will not be addressed when you irradiate the blood. There are other also positive effects of direct blood irradiation, but since this is not exciting possible for you and me without the help of a physician? I think it’s not that interesting to talk about blood irradiation in this context of vitamin D production in the organism. The question is if if you can have some UVB lamps if you can find UVB lamps which are balanced in the spectrum of distribution in a way that you have more ultraviolet be than ultraviolet A, then they could be put they could provide a feasible means to have some skin based photosynthesis of vitamin D. Otherwise, supplement could could be an alternative. But again, the question which which hangs over overall these things is, do you need vitamin D throughout the year in the same concentration? Or do you understand vitamin D rather as a signaling molecule, which signals your body that it’s summer with high amounts of ultraviolet radiation around you? In a similar way then melatonin signals to yourself that it’s dark outside world you

Boomer Anderson 25:43
and Dr. Wunsch. Do you mind elaborating on your point here about vitamin D be more of a signal of summertime rather than a focus for optimal health because some of us are sitting here getting their vitamin D Winter and being told to to supplement quite a bit is that not how you see it in your own practice?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 26:11
So, my personal approach is in fact that vitamin D or Yeah, my personal approach is is predominantly a natural one, which means that I first tried to look into nature and to understand what was going on there. And then I want to consider if it makes sense to reproduce what I found in nature, or if I am allowed to follow a different path. And in in the context of vitamin D, there are some good arguments to

To keep the the pendulum some of the pendulum in our organism in a naturally swinging and moving way, which means that that under the viewpoint of living more or less natural, it is just the fact that our ancestors would have higher vitamin D levels during summertime and low vitamin D levels during winter time, and when we tried to adjust the vitamin D concentration to the same level throughout the year, then we take away one ultradian zeitgeber What What do I mean with ultradian zeitgeber, there are some signals from our environment. And light is called site gaber. site is a German word means time and skiba. Again a German word means a giver. So light is a time giver. It’s light. It’s one of the important creators of crono biological reactions. And so, the sunrise and sunset is a is a natural zeitgeber but the seasonal changes the alterations in environmental characteristics are also zeitgeber, not Diane. Referring To the day dian zeitgeber, but seasonal zeitgeber and if we look at the vitamin D as a transmitter molecule for environmental season more signals, then it would take a way this function of the seasonal zeitgeber if you try to achieve the same if you try to reach the same concentration throughout the year, it is not necessarily bad because people who live in equatorial regions they have might have this constant vitamin D concentration throughout the year. But I think who, who had who people who people who live in equatorial regions, they could tell us that it’s definitely something different if you have

equalized and homogenized climate conditions and solar irradiation conditions throughout the year or if you’re living in regions far away from the equator, where you have definitely seasons in quality as we experience them, for example, in the in Europe or in many other regions on the planet.

Boomer Anderson 30:41
So if just from my own life, I lived in Singapore for six years dead on the equator, and I wouldn’t say that my vitamin D levels were anywhere near where they are now in terms of just quantum but it is the key takeaway from what you just said there, Dr. Wunsch is that other factors other than vitamin D level will have an effect on how we feel and be more of a signaling molecule or signaling to the time of year than just vitamin D level. Do I have that right?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 31:21
So first thing we can learn from your experiences that even people living close to the equator practice a non equatorial lifestyle in terms of the use of clothing, for example, otherwise, if you would, if you if you would have adapted to equatorial lifestyle, this would have had consequences to your dressing behavior. So if you’re watching me D level near the equator is low. This just means that you do not live really under equatorial conditions. And this shows on the other hand that we kind of have managed to have equatorial conditions in terms of we have 20 plus degrees of Celsius in almost any building worldwide throughout the year. So, we just took away these natural environmental stimuli for example, with regards to temperature, and people do not behave in an adaptive way they they dress in the equatorial regions like they would dress in In New York or in Paris or in, in London and so we we just equal it out or just took away the the natural stimuli. And this makes it even more difficult to decide with regards to vitamin D level as an example, what to do? Would it be good to go out even if it’s cold outside, would it be better to not dress according to the to the international rooms when rules when you are living under equatorial skies what what would be the best So, the the the Larger the distance to natural behavior, the more important supplementation for example, will become okay. And yeah, this is a very complex question which cannot be onsets that easily.

Boomer Anderson 34:23
I’ve been known to ask a few of those. Dr. Wunsch, you rightfully transitioned into sort of the circadian aspect that I wanted to go into next when you mentioned zeitgebers. In preparation for this conversation, I watched a talk that you gave on photo endo chronology. And in that you said, the beginning of the Earth is the beginning of chronobiology. I’d love to understand just a little bit more about what you mean by that, but also get into some of the aspects of Lights knock on effects to hormones other than vitamin D, if you don’t mind. Our sponsor for today’s show is one of the two brands of blue light blockers that I actually recommend using. And I’ve had the CEO Matt maruka on the show before and we got into a two hour long discussion, which I think to this day is the longest episode of the decoding superhuman podcast. But his company raw optics has made blue light blockers sexy. In fact, I know they worked because I’ve seen the test results. And the beauty of their product is that blue light doesn’t get in and if any amounts of blue light gets in that Netflix show that you’re watching late at night, that book that you’re reading that email that you’re answering is disrupting your sleep. So where do you get yours, head over to raoptics.com plug in the code Boomer, you’ll get 15% off your order. Enjoy

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 35:59
with With this, with saying that the beginning of the Earth is the beginning of chronobiology. It means that as soon as the mass of our planet began to rotate around itself and began to spin around the sun, in this early days of our planet Earth, there was already a very important influence coming from sunlight. So, evolution did not really start with the first living cells. Evolution started. Before in a way that for example, when when you think about a planet which which is made from the rocks, these rocks they will heat up during the daytime and they will cool down during nighttime, which is an influence nagging on the structural integrity of the rocks constantly throughout days and nights in their ongoing alternating sequence. And so, it was from the moment on where matter on our planet was able to react in a specific way to these influences of changing radiation conditions and so on. It was, for example, especially when when life came onto the stage on our planet, it was crucial to kind of foresee when the next cycle starts. And when this cycle ends, the actual cycle ends.

And so light sunlight was the Paramount side cable because sunlight is the primordial source of energy. And this primordial source of energy causes an energy flow and energy distribution, which can be attributed to the fact that the earth is rotating around its own axis and this rotation creates the day and night cycle and this day and night cycle leads necessarily To an energy flow. So, the energy is you could say, kind of staring the conditions of liquids of matter on this planet and this is especially important when the first life forms came into existence.

This is being prepared. It’s just crucial for all the life forms. So, if a plant for example or even a bacterium, even single cell in water is not prepared that the sunlight will come up during the next hour or so, the the metabolism in this cell is lagging. So, so there is a kind of reaction shift which results from not being fully adapted to the temporal patterns in your environment

Boomer Anderson 40:17
Do you mind going into that a little bit more because it sounds like if you’re not being fully adapted to your the temporal patterns in your environment that sounds slightly a bit like jet lag You know,

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 40:29
when you when you come late it’s it’s always a negative thing. So, for example, if if you miss the train and you have to run, in order to reach the train, you will need you need a lot of energy. Your energy expenses are exceedingly high. If you have to, to run instead of sitting comfortably accommodate into your seat in the train. And this is what what can act as as a picture. So if, if there let’s go back to the plant if the plant knows from it’s in a clock that the sun will come up in an hour also the metabolism has to be modified because this this constant alternative alternating flow of energy automatically demands from plants and other living creatures that they react to this alternating characteristics of the energy so, we You have, for example, when we talk about just about temperature, we have maybe even too much too high temperatures during the daytime when the sun is shining on to the matter. And we might experience exactly the opposite. A lack of warms a lack of heat during the nighttime. So the organism would try to cool itself down during the daytime, but it would have to heat itself up during the nighttime. And this again is the picture for all the different activities in our metabolism. We we have to be active during the day and we have to repair ourselves during the nighttime. We have to eat during the day and we have to digest during the night time. We We have to live under the influence of stress hormones during the daytime. And we have to switch off the stress hormones in order to give chance to the immune cells to become active during the nighttime. So everything in life is just can just be compared to the pendulum which could be an example for any kind of parameter in our metabolism, activation, cetacean eating, digesting, moving, resting and so on and so on and you can look at all the hormones you can look at all our features of life they are all submitted to this basic principle. The alternation of light and darkness, the alternation of activity and rest and so on.

Boomer Anderson 44:13
Thank you. Thank you for elaborating there. Dr. Wunsch, color therapy, and the use of colors in treatments and therapies. I would love to just delve into that a little bit more with you.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 44:28
Just Just a second. I’m not what before you switch over to color theory, I just would would finalize what I said before.

As soon as you fall out of the rhythm as soon as you get these synced, as soon as you’re not in sync, you will lose a lot of energy and this is the the core meaning of Corona viologic functions the better your synchronized to the environmental conditions, the more energy your organism is able to save. So, you are working on an optimal energy level if you are optimally synced to your environment and this is the core of chronobiology and all the circadian stuff and even coming back to vitamin D and coming back to exposure to sunlight, if your environment does not provide provide some light, then you should not think that you have to follow the same rules which applied during summertime. So some people they just feel during winter time That they get depressed, sad seasonal affective disorder or some other symptoms in this direction. They will benefit benefit, most probably from light exposure. And others, they just feel good by hanging around being less active during the winter time compared to summertime. So it’s all subject to our full individuality which which you can find amongst humans. And so it’s not so easy to give stiff rules. But I think it’s an intelligent way to look what would be natural and to ask yourself, what feels better, the natural way or The artificial way of life.

Boomer Anderson 47:03
And thank you for saying that because I know there’s a lot of people out there espousing that we should all get tons and tons of sunlight every single day. And for a lot of us, that’s actually quite a stressor to even find that sunlight. So I’m glad I’m glad to hear that in each case, it may be very individual. So thank you, Dr. Wunsch. Going on to color therapy and how to use it because I think much of the audience is familiar with, well, certainly infrared and near infrared has been getting a lot of intention. But do you mind just giving us an overview on how you use some of these other colors in therapeutic practice? In a show about all things light, it would be a travesty if we didn’t talk about blocking blue light. And one of my tools for blocking blue light at night is blue. Blocking glasses, of course, right? Everybody has them these days. One of my favorite pairs or favorite brands out there is raw optics. The CEO Matt maruka has been on the show before. And I really, really love his products. So head on over to raoptics.com website and use the code Boomer or discount. And back to this show with Dr. Wunsch.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 48:27
So, my approach was kind of different one compared to other photo biology’s the history photo biology was dominated by the effects of ultraviolet light because ultraviolet light gives you a skin burn ultraviolet light can even kill you if you overdose it intensively. So, it was the predominant effect that if you take From the sun and shine it on to the skin, that the first thing you you will experience is sunburn from the coming from the ultraviolet radiation, and this was also the reason why the photo biology’s decades ago. We’re claiming that ultraviolet be is the bad part in sunlight, and all the other parts are beneficial or have no effect at all. And they thought photo by biologists decades ago, they thought that UVB is the bad guy.

The complicated thing was that it’s also responsible for producing vitamin D. But the beneficial part in the spectrum is the gloominess, red and infrared and what is right in the middle in between between the ultraviolet and infrared the visible part namely, would have almost no effect. And

I personally started with my exploration of exactly this visible part I started my approach to photo biology started with becoming interested in the effects of the different colors, the effects of visible light and so I got in contact with ensures spectral chrome chromotherapy which is still in the Official idea, nothing else then quackery. So many of my colleagues in the medical realm and even more scientists which have more physical approach and purely scientific approach, they still think that colored light used for treatment is quackery. But all those who do think that it’s just that they supposedly do not have experienced the effects of colored light on their own.

So I was kind of 0And in the meantime, it is beyond any questioning that for example, red light and the close nearby lying near infrared light is in fact very effective. There is even a name for it, it’s photobiomodulation red light therapy is very Fancy nowadays, we also know for example, that blue light has a very specific effect, because it stimulates some specific cells in our retina, which are directly connected to our midbrain, which is governing our vegetative functions, our sympathetic and parasympathetic reactions in the body. So, in the last years, I just can witness that the effects of the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum fills up so, the gaps for certain colors are closed, more and more become closed more and more so filled up not closed, become filled. More and more. So in the meantime, I think we have a lot of indicators that it’s not only the red light, it’s not only the blue light, but all the different colors which form the rainbow, which which feed our eyes with with visible radiation have specific effects on to certain molecules in our body. And we are not only have our photoreceptors in the eye we also have a lot of different molecules flowing in our blood, which act as photoreceptors as chemical photoreceptors. So there is enough evidence to say that it’s not only the red light or the near infrared light, which is effective. And it’s not only the ultraviolet light, it’s the full spectrum between ultraviolet And long infrared rays which have specific effects and execute specific effects on to our organisms. Yeah And so, I was especially interested in the visible part of the spectrum in chromotherapy interested in using colored light because colored light is much easier in handling, for example, compared to the ultraviolet be radiation which can be overdosed quite easily. And it’s very hard to overdose colored light, especially if we talk about colored light from green into the longer wavelength.

Boomer Anderson 55:49
And so, Dr. Wunsch, can we just double click on one of these particular maybe green and just kind of some of the positive effects that therapeutic are some of these colors that most people may not be familiar with like green or even orange in terms of what they may have in terms of benefits

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 56:13
yeah let’s let’s in fact double click on green what what comes to your mind when you think about green? Where would you go if you would look for green in nature?

Boomer Anderson 56:25
I would go right out into the woods in my backyard and shop.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 56:30
Bingo. So if if you take a walk in the woods does it feel good?

Boomer Anderson 56:42
feels incredible. I I enjoy it. I know the Japanese have been doing this for a long time and even had a name for it, but I love it

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 56:55
and I think most human beings Get a positive feeling from being in the woods being in the forest being surrounded by green leaves and plans. And it’s it’s being in the forest for example it not It not only has an effect with regards to some orders or chemical molecules which are which are transported in the air. It’s not only the biochemical environment you can find very, very specific spectral distribution when you are in the forest, and this pack of distribution varies throughout the year. So we have seasonal changes in green. But all in all, there is a very special Specific effect of green which gives your organism the information Yeah, you can, you can say it like everything is in the in the green range. There is no danger there is the blue light would signal some danger on one hand and we know as well that red light can also have some, some attribution in to the dangerous realm that in the green, there is everything balanced. It’s the center of the rainbow. It’s has an equal distance from the violet and from the red. So if red Dance for activation for sympathetic action or sympathetic effects and violet represents parasympathetic effects, then green is right in the middle, which means for the organism, there is balanced activity between parasympathetic and sympathetic effects and this is, in a way, the direction for all of us to go. If we want to stay healthy, we should achieve, to be not constantly stressed, as well as being not constantly relaxed or depressed or inactive. So the golden path right lies in the middle and nature gives us this golden path sign by using green as a signal in color. And if the next question would be, where do I use the green or in which cases do I use the green?

The answer is if I have enough time, and someone is stressed, this person will experience relief from green as well as a person who is tired and excessively sedated. For example, as well. The green would bring this person into the right direction. Every time I don’t really know what to do specifically Just requires the treatment was green just as a simple rule of thumb

Boomer Anderson 1:01:09
and Dr. Wunsch Are you using LED lights or incandescent in these cases? What what types of lights can people get if they wanted to experience this?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:01:23
So, for chromotherapy, I always use filtered incandescent light because LED light does not provide the same photo biological quality compared to filtered incandescent light. But I have to specify this because for example in in nature what You are out in the forest, you will not only have green even if your eyes experience a green environment, you will always have green and near infrared in addition. So, this applies to almost all the colors, you would be able to experience in nature that it’s not just a single color, it always comes together with near infrared. And this is the big difference if you are using LEDs. For example, in the green range, there is a significant lack of the near infrared, which would be standard in nature

Boomer Anderson 1:02:59
brilliant Thank you, one of the things you mentioned about red light was it has a tendency to turn on the sympathetic side of the nervous system is there a danger than in using red light at night before you go to bed.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:03:20
Um So, in fact, all the light which is applied after sunset, can have a negative impact on circadian rhythms, of course. So, even if red light would be the light which is closest to the natural condition when we think about the environmental conditions of our ancestors, in fact, when they had light of the sunset, it was a light cool Quality with enhanced spectra in the long wavelength range. So it would be the color of fire.

And this is pretty close to red light. But all artificial light as long as it’s visible will have an impact on circadian rhythmicity. And so I would not recommend to fly therapeutic doses of red light before you go to bed. Okay.

Boomer Anderson 1:04:47
Dr. Wunsch. The last thing I wanted to ask you about before breaking today is something that mark brought up when I saw him in Finland this year, and it’s the Lüscher test . Forgive me if I’m pronouncing that wrong, but

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:05:03
Oh, it’s Lüscher test your pronunciation was quite okay.

Boomer Anderson 1:05:11
Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:05:12
And you have the ü in German that can you say the Lüscher Lüscher? Yeah, I’ve got this

Boomer Anderson 1:05:22
Yeah, I should for my ancestral heritage purposes be able to speak German better than I do but the Lüscher test how do you use it in your practice and if you don’t mind just explaining briefly for people what it is yeah be appreciate it.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:05:43
The Lüscher test has been invented over 70 years ago from Max Lüscher. He was a psychologist and philosopher from Switzerland. He He was interested in psychology, even before he became a student. And he discovered in the late 1940s, that he could use colors as an ex emanation system. And he worked on this test, which is named after him for many, many years and refined it even more. And the major thing is that he discovered quite early that he was looking at the type of interaction between humans and their human environment, more or less, and you can act in communication with others. This focused on yourself or you can act focused on the other and you can act in an active way as well as in a passive way. And this heteronomous and autonomous approach combined with an active and then passive approach, if you four quadrants in a system, which consists of four different types of communicating with your environment. And this was the first step in Max Lüscher system that he had the definition is the interaction focused on you or on the other person is it active Is it passive and so you can for each of these quadrants which result from, from from this precondition, you can attribute one of the four psychological, basic colors. So one is the blue, the green, the other, the third is the red, and the fourth is the yellow. And when when I now show you certain color, and I asked you to do like this color or saying, explaining it in the way the color test really works. For example, I show you a set of different colors and I asked you which color do you prefer most. So for x sambal think of blue, green, red and yellow. When I ask you, Which color do you prefer most? What would be your answer?

Boomer Anderson 1:09:11
Green?

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:09:14
Green. So this answer gives me much more information about your inner setting. Then, if I would ask you, Boomer how to how do you feel today?

Boomer Anderson 1:09:29
And that would be a much longer answer as well.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:09:33
It would be a much longer answer and you would think about it much longer. Because you always would bear in mind that I have an idea if I ask you something like that. And this is in all psychological tests where you test the personality, which are verbally Based The one who is asked very quickly develops an idea why she or he is asked a certain question. And so you think even twice, or even more often before you give me an answer, because you know that I want to find out something about your personality. Just by the way, I’m asking you, and this is the great advantage of the of the Lüscher test that I don’t talk about the content. I just show you a basic principle which has certain meaning throughout the different cultural contexts and everything. We have universal meaning of the color right As well as universal meaning of the color blue, and I can link the red to activity and I can and can link the blue to set ation and relaxation. And I can do the same for the other colors. And when I just ask Which color do you prefer? Or Which color do you dislike most? Then you give me answers you would never think of. But you give me answers referring to your inner core. And this is the great advantage that I can take this test I can make this examination in, let’s say, five minutes or so. And I think get very rich description of the inner emotional structure of the person I tested. And this can be used in a beneficial way in the context of for example, medicine, because it’s an old given rule that the better the diagnosis, the better the therapy will be.

If you have only diagnostic means which refer to the body then you necessarily has have to ignore or you will ignore necessarily. I think an even more important Part of a person because what makes us is not our body, even if if the mass media tried to tell us that beauty. Shiny appearance is the most important thing in life. This will not hold. This might hold as long as people are young. But as we grow older, we will experience that. What makes ourself meaningful is not our body. It’s more about about our emotions, about our thinking. And here, we can optimize ourselves. We can make corrections in the I would say in the emotional energy flow as long as we have a means to objectify how our emotional energies really flow, in fact and how we respond to others.

If we are angry, if we are happy if we think that our communication is successful, there are so many different aspects spinning around our non physical existence, which normally hide themselves from diagnostic tools. And for me the Lüscher Test is exactly this diagnostic tool, which gives me access to these hidden features of a person. And this helps a lot in my medical activities and in my therapeutical practice.

Boomer Anderson 1:15:19
Dr. Wunsch, this is incredible. We’ve covered so much today and I want to be cognizant of your time. I would love if you’re up for it to come down to Heidelberg sometime and dig a little bit more into the Lüscher tests and you can help me work on my German pronunciation as well. It would be it would be my honor to come down there and just experience this firsthand. But thank you for this feel invited. Thank you for all of this. This has been an incredible education on photo biology as well as Lüscher test and color therapy. I appreciate your time.

Dr. Alexander Wunsch 1:16:04
Thank you for asking all these diligent questions

Boomer Anderson 1:16:10
to all the superhumans listening to this have an absolutely epic day. All right now that episode left me with a lot to do in the field of light and a lot of action points, but also add a little bit of fun to flipping through a book about the loser test as well afterwards. You can check out the show notes once again at decodingsuperhuman.com/light. If you enjoyed this episode or other episodes of the decoding superhuman podcast, can you guys do me a favor, just head over to iTunes. Just do it right now or whenever you can, it’ll take a matter of seconds and leave a five star rating. Leave a comment, share some rough, it really helps get the word out about decoding superhuman and really elevate Feeding the human experience through health. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for tuning in today and share this with a friend. share it on Facebook, share it on Tick Tock. Not that I’m on there, but let’s have some fun with this and get it around. Thank you guys have an epic day and choose health.