My Health Journey, A New Discovery

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In my last post I discussed my sleep issues. I also mentioned my Intermittent Fasting (IF) which was very positive. This post will concentrate on some very major life changes that were compressed into a four month stretch.

We have very good friends who lived in Brooklyn and we used to see them regularly. Roughly 15 years ago they moved to California. For a number of years we saw the husband regularly (a couple of times a year) when business brought him back east. A few times his wife came as well.

Mostly, we kept up via text/email/phone. During Covid, that contact became more infrequent (not unusual for a number of our relationships). When we did catch up, it was typically a lengthy phone call.

In June 2024 one such phone call occurred. Lois spoke to the husband for an hour, then passed the phone to me. My conversation with him ended up being closer to two hours and was eye opening and life changing.

During our general catch-up, I mentioned my sleep issues. He asked me if I ever heard of Quantum Biology (QB). I hadn’t. He warned me that if he started to tell me about it, it would lead to a very large rabbit hole, and that he was happy to hold his tongue if I wasn’t ready to be pushed in. Guess what my answer was?

Since you can read better descriptions of QB than I could ever give, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader who has any interest. Aside from our very long discussion, he pointed me to a podcast (I believe there is a video version as well, likely on YouTube, but definitely on Spotify) of one of the main proponents of QB (Dr. Jack Kruse), talking to Rick Rubin (host of the podcast Tetragrammaton) and Andrew Huberman.

It’s roughly a six hour yell-a-thon, spread over two episodes (4-ish then 2-ish). Jack is a very passionate speaker, who doesn’t really let others speak much. That said, he can be a fascinating and convincing speaker (as well as an annoying one). I admit that I bought the basic concepts hook, line and sinker!

Again, if you have the slightest interest in QB, you should read about it from better sources than me. At the highest level I’ll simply say that it’s critical to get natural light in your eyes and on your body at specific times of the day. There are many other things you can and should do to optimize the cells in your body, but simply doing the light correctly will take you a long way.

I was insanely down the rabbit hole. To some extent for worse rather than better (I won’t leave that hanging, but I’ll defer that for a bit). I subscribed to many podcasts that dealt with QB and couldn’t get enough (thank goodness I am retired, as I had the time to study, or rather waste, depending on your perspective).

I changed my lifestyle immediately. I was outside every single morning catching the sunrise. I haven’t worn sunglasses (not even for a second) since July 2024, even though prior to that, I was overly light-sensitive!

While I was exercising regularly walking outside prior to this new revelation, I stopped wearing a hat (I shave my head completely) and welcomed the sun like a long-lost friend. My skin darkened but never burned.

I felt great and loved the new routine. Unfortunately, sleep didn’t get much better. I was disappointed. On the other hand, another issue improved immeasurably.

I won’t go into too much detail, but for quite a while, perhaps partially given my age, my digestion wasn’t what it used to be. It’s almost a meme to talk about how much time elder men spend on the throne, but it’s often the case that the struggle is real…

However, with my new routine, and zero changes in diet (I was still doing IF with the same exact foods), I became regular and better (I’ll leave it at that). This was a miracle, and could be attributed only to my new sun worship, because nothing else changed.

It proved (to me) how important the connection is between sunlight and biology (one of the main tenets of QB) that it could affect my digestion as quickly and completely as it did.

I wonder how my life would be now (a year later) if I had simply stopped there. But, I already said “for better or worse“ earlier, so let’s keep going.

As I said, I was listening to so many different podcasts, with so many different experts, that I continued to modify my routine, searching for better health (generically speaking), but most importantly, better sleep (the nirvana I was actually chasing).

I should have taken it as a much bigger red flag when some of the experts had 180 degree opposing views from each other. Unfortunately, often both sides sounded extremely logical and convincing. To be clear, I realized the problem, but felt like I could use logic to discern the right path, leaning heavily toward the wisdom of Jack Kruse specifically, if he was on one side of the debate.

Kruse himself was in a way at fault for my making too many changes. He’s pretty clear that the light is the most important aspect of health, and if you do nothing else, that should be it (it’s way more complicated than I laid out above, so be aware that I’m not trying to teach anyone how to adhere to QB principles!).

There are other things that you can do (according to Kruse) that can be very beneficial to health, but they get progressively less important as you go down the list. Near the top of the list (following light) are cold exposure (he takes regular ice baths), heat exposure (saunas), and avoiding Non-native Eletro-Magnetic Fields (nnEMF).

I stopped touching the hot water faucet in the shower. I took very cold showers (nowhere near ice bath temperatures, but cold nonetheless), from July 2024 until nearly the end of October 2024 (even when it was already cold outside!). It was uncomfortable each time in the beginning of the shower, but perfectly fine by the end of each one.

Throughout September and October, when I went outside in the morning, I stood barefoot (learning about grounding in many of my podcasts) in shorts, with no shirt on (every single morning), in 30 degree weather. It was cold (very cold), but to be honest, it didn’t bother me at all, I was cold adapted, just like I adapted to no sunglasses as well.

You might wonder how long I was out there in the mornings. On average, around 45 minutes. I listened to QB podcasts while facing the rising sun (going deeper down the rabbit hole every day…).

I tried cutting out as much nnEMF at night, hoping that would help my sleep. I was either unsuccessful in reducing it enough, or that wasn’t my issue, so I eventually reverted to my normal setup in the bedroom.

I used Blue Light Blocking glasses all day and even darker ones when watching TV at night (so as not to give my body the wrong circadian signals). It didn’t help. I changed bulbs. It didn’t help (at least not the sleep, but I did somehow prefer the different light, even if it was all just psychological).

In sixth place on Kruse’s list (yes, I skipped mentioning numbers 4 and 5) is food. He’d be the first to tell you that if you were religious about the first five things on the list, you could (reasonably safely) ignore anyone’s advice on food, including his. Of course, he still has a lot of advice on food, so why not follow that as well? (uh oh…).

He has very specific advice on food. Much of it derives from his praise of Terry Wahls, a medical doctor who relieved most of her Multiple Sclerosis (MS) symptoms by changing her diet. I read one of the earliest books Kruse wrote (when he was more focused on food), and that led me to read Terry Wahls’ book as well.

It’s the first thing I regret changing for two main reasons, only one of which I’ll mention here (the second one will be in the next post).

My main complaint is that both of them (and many other QB experts) said that eating a meal within 30 minutes of waking up is extremely important to set your circadian rhythm in motion, and to fuel your mitochondria for the day.

As I’ve mentioned a number of times now, I was well into my third year of IF, which I was loving every bit as much as I did when I began. Following this QB advice would necessitate stopping my IF lifestyle. I didn’t have to do it, since Kruse places it sixth on the list of things to do…

I switched to a protein rich breakfast. Lois and I started cooking together (for me, her eating habits didn’t change), something we hadn’t done in many years. In fact, I never had, though Lois used to cook for me/us early on. I was eating super healthily (according to QB tenets, but not necessarily right for me…).

I was feeling great, and even though I was clearly eating more (three meals a day now), I started losing weight again (while feeling stronger and better). QB was truly miraculous (in my opinion).

Pre-pandemic, we typically spent four months in NYC (every third month), so March, June, September and December. Post-pandemic was much more haphazard, including going 16 months without visiting NYC at all (I wonder why…). 2024 was going to be different, as we were planning on spending November and December in NYC due to having company coming in waves throughout those two months.

The last week of October was extremely cold in VA (where we live). So much so that I took my first hot shower and shortened my stay outside in the morning to 15 minutes (still shirtless and barefoot though, in 20 degrees).

Out of the clear blue, without a hint, I developed joint pain all over. It was in my fingers, wrists, elbows, knees, toes, and even the bottom of my feet. Getting out of bed in the morning was a chore, because simply standing on my feet first thing was painful.

Since I’m going to end this post here, I’ll jump ahead and let you know that I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. The next post will cover what got me started on this “Health Journey” series to begin with.