Sunny D Experiment - Results
A Spring Awakening at Northern Latitudes
As an applied quantum biologist at the Institute of Quantum Biology, I love taking ideas from theory and putting them into practice.
That’s essentially what the Sunny D experiment was.
A fun, free, enjoyable. and fairly effortless — or at least as close as we could get in a Canadian spring learning experience.
No cost per se, just being human, outside, in the day.
Thank you for following along, and to those who participated, I appreciate you!
A reminder of The Simple Protocol
This was a relational building exercise above all
Before solar noon (timing will vary depending on where you are), the goal is to warm the system.
Sauna, movement, hot bath, warm shower, or time outside.
The goal was to heat the tissues and open circulation.
Then, at solar noon:
Step outside.
Expose as much skin as is reasonable.
Eyes open, relaxed gaze, no need to look directly at the sun.
A few minutes is enough, or longer if you have the capacity.
For context, where I live, it was still hitting –30°C with wind chill some days.
This isn’t about standing in the cold hoping for magic.
Use your discretion.
It’s about training the body so that when UVB is present, it knows what to do and has the available pathways to carry it out.
Now that UVB is back where I live, vitamin D synthesis is possible if the conditions are right.
And by that, I mean the body actually has what it needs to do something with that light. We’re talking about: cholesterol as the precursor, adequate circulation and vasodilation in the skin, liver and kidney function to convert it into active metabolites, and a body clock that’s actually online and coherent.
Simple Reflection
This is a quick, simple publication of what came out of this little experiment.
And again — this was for fun!
My approach to health, wellness, quantum biology, and circadian health is through the avenue of fun. So the whole premise here was just: Is this even possible?
And then, naturally, a few other people jumped in.
In total, we had about 5–6 people playing along over the month of March.
Nothing was tightly controlled, no time tracking, and no measuring exact minutes in the sun.
It was simply:
do what you can, when you can, and see what patterns show up.
What showed up first
The number one thing that became obvious:
it’s actually very hard, in the modern world, to access solar noon and be outside.
Not because people don’t want to, but because of how life is structured.
All of it! The work schedules, indoor living, schools, and the setup of daily life required people to really put in effort, change schedules, and even then, often things came up or got in the way of this time period. And where I live, it’s still cold!
We had days down to –30°C, with some warmer days above zero, but most of the time still below and with low UVB levels, you’d need a lot of skin exposure to get meaningful vitamin D synthesis quickly.
So to work with that, I encouraged movement, baths, warm showers, or, ideally, a sauna before solar noon. On the days I did that, it became surprisingly easy to step outside, barely clothed (sometimes naked), even in those conditions.
The body was warm, my circulation was open, so the experience completely changed.
How we tracked it
Nothing fancy.
Just simple Instagram / Facebook story sliders before and after.
Energy.
Mood.
Warmth.
Sleep.
Overall coherence.
And across the board, there were steady improvements.
What stood out most
Sunny D Experiment — Before vs After (Approximate)
Feb 28 (Baseline)
Energy: ~6/10
Mood: ~5/10
Warmth: ~5/10
Sleep: ~6–7/10
Coherence: ~6/10
April 1
Energy: ~9/10
Mood: ~8–9/10
Warmth: ~8/10
Sleep: 10/10
Coherence: ~8–9/10
Average shift
Baseline avg: ~5.7 / 10
After avg: ~8.8 / 10
Total shift: +3.1 points across the system
The people who were actually participating, especially those consistently hitting that solar noon window with heat + light, had noticeably better responses across all markers.
And interestingly, people noticed their kids mirroring this too when they were included.
The people who weren’t participating (from what I could see) but still participated in the polls had little change, and in some cases actually felt worse.
When I actually looked at the before and after, everything moved up, not just one marker. Energy, mood, warmth, sleep, and overall coherence all increased by roughly 2–3 points on a 10-point scale. That kind of parallel shift isn’t random. It’s the system reorganizing and a stronger pattern of coherence coming back online.
What I actually took from this
Two things:
First: this is a really simple, effective habit-building practice.
Second: it highlights how close we are to missing seasonal programming entirely without even realizing it.
Because in the modern world, without intention, it’s almost impossible to naturally hit those cues. Not because we’re doing anything wrong, but because of how life is structured now.
In Conclusion
It’s important for us, as a culture, to take a moment to step back and examine how our schedules are affecting our biology. To ask, honestly, where we’re spending our time, and whether there are any simple shifts we could make. Even a few minutes, multiple times a day, adds up. Those small inputs, repeated over time, become something meaningful. Over time, that compounds into a stronger circadian rhythm and a more solid foundation for how your biology is actually functioning.