How To Use Light To Optimise Your Health & Happiness - Matt Maruca - #203

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Oh, hello people in Podcast Land. My guest today is Matt Maruca, CEO of Ra Optics and the creator of The Light Diet. We're talking all about how light affects our body, our wellbeing and our health. Now you might be thinking, Chris, last time I checked, I didn't happen to be a plant. I'm not bothered about photosynthesis. Why are we learning about light? Well, the next two hours are going to blow the lid off your preconceptions about just what being outside, spending time in sunlight can do to your body, your health, your happiness, your mood and a ton of other stuff. Matt has gone so far down this rabbit hole. It is insane. We learned stuff to do with the origins of life in the geothermal vents at the bottom of the oceans billions of years ago and takes it right up to why you should be having a cold shower every day. So yeah, strap yourself in for this one and you might need a pen and paper. But not when the Modern Wisdom Academy launches soon. Hey! Also, Matt gave us a special discount code. If you want to get a pair of Ra Optics Blue Blockers, literally the best Blue Blockers on the planet. I have a pair. I have two pairs. Oli Marchand has a pair as well. RaOptics, raoptics.com/modernwisdomgets you 15% off. I'm not on a commission deal or anything, but I back the glasses if you're thinking about spending money on a pair of blue blockers and you want to get the best that money can buy, raoptics.com/modernwisdom. Oh yeah, before, but for now, all of the people who messaged about the Three Minute Monday newsletter that went out this week, asking why am I using scissors to cut mince? I can't believe that out of all of the things that I said in that, all of the wonderful wisdom, the great quotes and the insights and all the rest of the stuff, the only thing, the thing that most people picked up on was the fact that I was using scissors to cut mince. That's the internet for you. Anyway, it's time for the wise and wonderful Matt Maruca.
ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Matt Maruca in the building. How are you doing, man?

**Matt Maruca** (2:33)
I'm great, man. I'm glad to be here.

**Chris Williamson** (2:35)
Good to be here as well. What are you drinking? You just got and picked up some fancy looking drink. What you got?

**Matt Maruca** (2:39)
Yeah, it's a Yerba Mate. So, you know, I don't drink coffee personally, just out of preference. Not a big fan of it, but this is a great caffeine boost, and it's from like a Brazilian leaf, and it's pretty good. It's one bottle contains 140 milligrams of caffeine. That's like two cups of coffee. So, I'm not drinking this whole bottle, otherwise, I'll be...

**Chris Williamson** (2:57)
Take your head off, yeah.

**Matt Maruca** (2:59)
Yeah, exactly. I'll explode.

**Chris Williamson** (3:04)
So, today we are talking about light, right? You're an expert in light. You've done a lot of research into it, looked at the data on light. What is a light diet?

**Matt Maruca** (3:14)
It's a great question. So, the light diet is a term that I've come up with for an approach to health and wellness and self-improvement that takes the most advanced research, the stuff that we're going to talk about today, and makes it easy to apply for health in the modern world. So, another way to say it is that everyone's focused on food diets, right? Everyone's focused on keto, like you said, paleo, flexible dieting, all these things that address the fuel component of our body, you know, the fuel that's coming in. The light diet addresses the engine component. So, the actual engines that are burning our fuel and making sure that they're optimized. And the way I got into this was I, too, was just like you said, I was in the paleo craze, the keto craze, the autoimmune diet craze, like all these different things to try to heal some gut issues I was having at a younger age without really getting the kind of progress I wanted. And then I ran across a genius actual neurosurgeon from the United states writing about these concepts at a way that was so high level. Most people probably couldn't understand it, but I was so motivated, I wanted to decipher it. And sure enough, I did, took the applicable protocols, applied them, totally transformed my life. And that's sort of how we are where we are now.

**Chris Williamson** (4:34)
Dude, that's awesome. Who was the neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, who was it?

**Matt Maruca** (4:39)