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  • 🌞 Sunlit Pathways: A Dive into Holistic Health with Zaid

🌞 Sunlit Pathways: A Dive into Holistic Health with Zaid

From the Soccer Field to the Realm of Health Mastery

Remember to follow Zaid K. Dahhaj on all of his socials:

Interview with Zaid K. Dahhaj pt. 1

  • Zaid's transformational journey.

  • Sunlight's holistic benefits.

  • Impacts of blue light.

Personal Insights:

Zaid, can you provide our readers with a brief introduction about yourself and your unique journey into the world of health and fitness?

My modus operandi throughout life has been that of the obsession archetype. My first real obsession as a child was with soccer beginning from the age of four with the desire to play professionally. I've dedicated well over 20 years to the game in pursuit of mastery and recognition. Travel back to 2015 and I suddenly found myself halfway across the world with a father who was in a heart attack induced coma while in pursuit of this objective.

From that point, my perspective began to take a continental shift. Playing professional soccer was no longer the objective after numerous failed attempts at making it into the big leagues. I went on to focus solely on learning everything I could about health and wellness from a holistic perspective since I felt as if my father was robbed from me when he died at the age of 51.

That's eventually what led me to men's health coaching today.

The loss of your father was a pivotal moment in your life. How did this heart-wrenching experience influence your decision to delve deeper into health research?

The loss of my father has and always will be the root cause of my drive to understand health and master the craft because I've seen what chronic disease can do to a family firsthand. It no longer was a game of vague statistics you would hear about on the news, but rather a real internal war between the most fundamental aspects of reality - life and death.

I'm grateful for what the experience has taught me because it allows me to work with family men from a place of authenticity and skin in the game. I understand each and every one of their fears in regards to chronic disease and do everything in my power to help them avoid what I went through. To protect yourself from alien light, you must take a comprehensive approach to your light environment.

Step 1) Rise with the sun and expose most of your bare skin to AM sunlight between sunrise and the hours of 8/9 AM.

Doing this will kickstart every system in your body at the quantum level. I'm a big fan of exposing your skin to AM sunlight as well because it has a higher concentration of regenerative red light wavelengths which primes your skin to avoid burns when heading into the higher UV index conditions for sunbathing.

Step 2) Stop using sunglasses, contact lenses, and conventional sunscreen.

All three of these tools designed to "protect" you from sunlight actually do the opposite - they only serve to worsen your health and make you MORE susceptible to burns.

Within your eye, there is a special protein known as neuropsin that is a UV-A light (sunlight) detector. Mother Nature never makes a mistake. The insidious thing about sunglasses, contact lenses, sunscreen, and even Lasik surgery is they destroy neuropsin which creates unintended second and third order biological consequences.

Caveat:  I suggest using sunglasses when necessary in situations where the light intensity is magnified due to the environment. Think boating, snow, sand for long periods of time. Of course, never look directly at the sun as well.

Some ask, "How does sunscreen destroy this protein?" Neuropsin and other non-visual photoreceptors found within the opsin family are found throughout the body, including the skin. Your eyes, brain, and skin were made from the same tissue when you were an embryo in your mother's womb. It's all interconnected.

These non-visual photoreceptors are directly connected to the brain which is largely responsible for many functions (neurotransmitter production, sleep/wake cycles, body composition, you name it). Lastly, all of these so-called "protective" tools prevent you from building melanin which has some incredible health properties.

Melanin is your natural sunscreen. It's one of the most powerful antioxidants. Melanin is also a heavy metal sink, meaning it plays a key role in detoxification. It has many other amazing properties as well.

Step 3) Build your solar callous wisely.

Every mammal (you) has the ability to build melanin with the right approach. Getting your AM sunlight religiously will do wonders for your skin so that's your first step to building a solar callous. From that point, sunbathing with most of your skin exposed between the hours of 10 AM - 3 PM is where the magic occurs. If you have lighter skin and no experience under the sun, start with 5-15 minutes daily, depending on your situation and skin type. If you have darker skin, you can get more exposure without the fear of burning immediately. Aim for 30-60 minutes daily. Use this role of thumb and download the Dminder app for free: Lower UV index = more time under sunlightHigher UV index = less time under sunlight You do not want to burn under any circumstance because that will raise your risk of skin cancers. The sun must be treated with respect. It can heal, but it can also harm. That's not because the sun is inherently harmful, but because people don't have a healthy relationship with it.

Step 4) Religiously block artificial light (both during the day and especially after sunset).

Your eyes and skin are extraordinarily sensitive to sunlight. In the right situation, your eyes can pick up on ONE photon. Here's your checklist: 

  • Right after sunset - use non-toxic candles, incandescent bulbs, BonCharge red bulbs, fire light

  • Turn off all overhead lights or dim them to the lowest setting (Off is better)

  • Purchase some black out curtains for your bedroom

  • Get a sleep mask if you desire

With that system, you'll be golden and notice immediate improvements in sleep, mood, eyesight, so forth.

Circadian Rhythms:

There's been a lot of talk about blue light's impact on our health. How does blue light specifically disrupt our circadian rhythms, and what can we do to mitigate its effects?

Artificial light is toxic in every sense of the word to our biology because we evolved to receive natural light from one of three sources in nature - sunlight, moonlight, and fire light. The introduction of electric lighting by Edison in 1879 was single handedly the most devastating point in time for humanity from a health context. Interestingly enough, you'll notice an upward trend of all the most common chronic diseases from that point forward.

Within each mitochondria in your body, there are about 30,000 biological motors known as ATPase nano-motors. These nano-motors function exclusively on free electrons (from food or grounding) and red light wavelengths (from the sun). Isolated man-made blue light is never found in nature, hence it's not what mitochondria can use for energy. 99% of people are constantly bathed in alien light which creates serious dysfunction in their system. As a result, since mitochondria are largely at the heart of overall health, broken mitochondria create and contribute to all man made chronic ailments.

Alien light destroys the neuropsins (special non-visual photoreceptors in the eye) and mitochondria within the retina which leads to countless problems with weight management, sleep/wake cycles, macular degeneration and other eye diseases, atrophic skin which results in burns, anxiety/depression, so forth.

We often hear about the importance of food timing. How does this relate to our circadian rhythm and overall well-being?

Food timing is a grossly underappreciated health fundamental, especially as it relates to circadian biology.

I'll give you two great examples:

1. Acid reflux is nearly always a problem of eating too late during the evening. Because circadian biology is such a strong evolutionary force within us, the valve between our esophagus and stomach is supposed to naturally be closed into the night. Yet, what happens when you have a meal after 7/7:30 PM? You force that valve to open when it's supposed to be closed. As a result and if done chronically, this leaves the door wide open for gastric juices to spill over and create acid reflux and other symptoms.

2. Your body becomes less sensitive to insulin as you head into the evening. In other words, if you eat food during this time, then you have a substantially worse blood sugar response, even if the food you consume is nutrient dense. This especially holds true for carbohydrate consumption. Repeat that chronically and eventually you create a situation where your body becomes insulin resistant.

You can likely get away with a light nutrient dense snack, but consuming large meals at night is one of the worst habits you can develop from a biological standpoint.