Light Is Information: How Light Informs Our Biology
Light is a nutrient that impacts every cell, yet our culture trades the spectrum of sunlight for the narrow peaks of LEDs. The result? A rise in chronic illness that isn’t evolution, but epigenetics.
Light is not brightness. Light is information.
When light enters our eyes, it travels along the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT) into the brain, setting our circadian clocks and rhythms. Our bodies are primed to receive this information, using it to influence hormones, metabolism, sleep, fertility, and every physiological process.
But visible light is only a sliver of the story. It makes up less than 1% of the electromagnetic spectrum. The rest, infrared, ultraviolet, microwaves, X-rays, and gamma rays can’t be seen, yet they are felt, absorbed, and interpreted by our cells and even the water within us.
✨ Each frequency carries instructions that shape biology.
For millennia, ancestral and Indigenous ways of life were rooted in light. Cultures didn’t just survive, they thrived by aligning with the rhythms of the sun, moon, and seasons.
Even here in Northern Saskatchewan, Indigenous peoples have lived in relationship with this land and light for nearly 10,000 years. Across the globe, civilizations from Egypt to the Americas built their temples, calendars, and daily practices around celestial cycles, long before Wi-Fi was invented.
What’s striking is that current science is only now catching up to what our ancestors embodied all along.
Modern science began harnessing the sun in medicine in the early 1900s. Heliotherapy was everywhere, winning Nobel prizes, curing rickets, and treating tuberculosis.
By the 1930s, the retinohypothalamic tract (RHT) had been described, demonstrating that light directly entrains the circadian clocks. Something that traditional medicine people had long observed.
Mid-century mapping revealed even more: hormone release, nervous system pathways, and brain stimulation were all tied to the light environment.
What our ancestors lived by, modern science confirmed, and yet society chose another path.
✨ Instead of giving people more access to real light, the cultural shift went toward “energy-efficient” lighting. Restricting and fragmenting full-spectrum exposure. LEDs and blue-lit screens took over, sold as a sign of progress.
Meanwhile, medicine and industry began to patent the healing rays of light. NASA funded red light therapy, and suddenly, medicine approved what it once ignored: specific rays of light as legitimate healing tools.
At the same time, propaganda against the sun took root: UV rays are dangerous, so avoid them at all costs. And so we stayed inside, soaking in artificial light.
📉 The result? Chronic disease has skyrocketed in a single lifetime.
Yes, people argue we’re “just better at diagnosing.” But the speed and scale of these changes cannot be explained by evolution.
This is epigenetics. Biology is thrown off course by the light it receives.
Every wavelength is a biological code.
UV → hormone regulation
Blue → dopamine & circadian wake signals
Green → serotonin, balance, mood
Red/IR → cellular repair, mitochondria, melatonin
We can think of natural sunlight as a nutrient-dense meal, feeding the body a full-spectrum multivitamin. In contrast, artificial light, particularly LEDs, delivers only narrow peaks of blue light. Like junk calories, it overstimulates while leaving the deeper systems undernourished.
This comparison becomes especially striking at 52°N latitude here in Saskatchewan. For a large portion of the year, we receive minimal visible light and virtually no UV rays during daylight hours.
From October to March, the sun sits too low for UVB, meaning no vitamin D production. Days are short, light is weak and red-shifted, and cells receive only a fraction of the visual spectrum. Depending on your genetic makeup, your body may be adapted to these northern light cycles or, because of globalization and migration, you may not be.
Currently, the spectrum our bodies evolved to expect is absent. Instead, we spend our days indoors under LED lighting and screens.
The result? Our cells receive conflicting signals. Expecting sunlight, but bombarded instead with the chaos of artificial light. Oversaturated with blue wavelengths and layered in electromagnetic “noise,” the body loses its rhythm. The mismatch drives oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and the steady rise of disease.
The data in Saskatchewan makes the story hard to ignore:
MS: Saskatchewan has one of the highest rates in the world (~314 per 100,000) [PubMed].
Type 2 Diabetes: ~9% diagnosed, ~13% total prevalence, above national average [Diabetes Canada].
Cancer: Among the highest incidence rates in Canada [Canadian Cancer Statistics].
Once you consider these numbers alongside the reality of our light environment, it becomes clear: this is not an evolutionary shift. It is epigenetics in action. The instructions for our biology have changed, because the light has changed.
To drive this point home, I’ll include photos: the spectrum of the Saskatchewan sun versus the narrow bands of LED light, a visual reminder of what our bodies are designed to receive, and what they are actually getting.
The key to vitality is simple: match your light environment to what you want your body to do.
Perhaps part of why we are so sick today is that culture has shifted us away from nature’s codes. Those in power have long recognized that light is a form of information. By shaping artificial light environments, they shape human biology. It’s a sobering thought, but I choose not to dwell in cynicism.
Instead, I focus on what we can control. We each can reclaim our light environment and make choices that support the biological functions we desire, rather than passively accepting the story we’ve been told.
🌿 Work with me 1:1 — decode your family’s light + rhythm
🌿 Elemental Self — daily practice of light + elemental wisdom
❄️ HIBERNATION — seasonal repair & circadian reset
🌞 Primal Regeneration — not a masterclass, but a body of wisdom to restore your biology
Because the light you live in is the life you create.