How Light Resets Hormones in Menopause & And How It Saved My Mother's Life

The "Impossible" Recovery That Shocked Everyone (Including Me)

My mother used to light up every room she entered.

But when menopause hit? She started fading away.

Two or three hours of sleep a night. That's all she got.

I'd find her in the kitchen at 3 AM, exhausted but unable to sleep, making tea she didn't want just to have something to do with her hands.

While she usually thrived from giving her love to others, her days became heavy with fatigue that seemed to restrict her ability to give and share her love with others.

Her once-vibrant skin turned pale and drawn. Her movements slowed like she was walking through water, feeling heavy and weighed down.

The sparkle in her eyes—the light that made her HER—was dimming.

The woman who raised me with boundless energy, who gave every bit of herself to everyone around her without hesitation, who was always the most generous and selflessly serving person in any room... was disappearing into exhaustion.

Her doctors told her: "It's normal. You're getting older. Here's a sleeping pill. Just accept it."

I didn't buy it. But I didn't know how to help her.

Not just yet.

My Accidental Discovery (3 Days That Changed Everything)

It's April 2017. Midnight.

I'm on a farm in Canada with Indigenous people. No electricity. No WiFi. No distractions.

During the day: Farming under the open sky, tending to the plants and nourishing the animals

At night: I sit around a fire with the community. We share stories, reflect on the day, play music and sit in silence

After just 3 days, something phenomenal happened to me:

Here I am, waking up, clear-headed and energized for the first time in years.

My brain fog is gone. My energy is steady from sunrise to sunset: No floppy mornings and no crashes during the day.

It was like my body had been switched back ON after years of running on emergency power.

That's when it hit me...

If 3 days of natural light and darkness could do this for me... what could it do for my mother?

Here is where my deep journey of studying light started.

The Shocking Truth Your Doctor Was Never Taught

Here's what I learned that doctors never teach:

Your body has a master clock in your brain. It's called the SCN.

Think of it like the conductor of your hormone orchestra, governing the rhythm of sleep, metabolism, body temperature, digestion, and the release of every major hormone in your body.

Light is the most POWERFUL force that controls this clock.

Your eyes have special cells in your Retina called (iPRGCs) that detect light and tell your brain: "It's morning, wake up!" or "It's dark, time to sleep!"

But here's what most women don't know, what doctors NEVER tell you:

When women go through menopause, this system needs STRONGER signals to work properly.

Bailey & Silver's 2014 research proved: "Ovarian hormones influence circadian rhythms... estrogen increases SCN neuronal activity and light responsiveness."

Here’s the menopause connection:

• Estrogen makes the master clock more sensitive to light.

• When estrogen drops, the clock needs stronger light signals to stay on track.

• Without them → chaos in sleep, energy, and hormones.

Bottom line: Morning sunlight and evening darkness aren’t optional in menopause — they’re non-negotiable.

The Hidden Role of Progesterone (That Changes Everything)

Progesterone is your body’s natural sedative. When the brain converts it into allopregnanolone, it activates GABA — your brain’s brake pedal — slowing everything down so you feel calm, safe, and ready for deep sleep.

That’s why women often sleep best during the part of their cycle when progesterone is highest.

Progesterone also works like your body’s thermostat, lowering core temperature at night — the signal your brain needs to fall into restorative sleep.

When progesterone drops during menopause, the thermostat breaks and the calming brake of GABA disappears.

Suddenly: hot flashes, night sweats, and shattered sleep.

In simple terms: Less progesterone = broken thermostat + Less GABA activation = terrible sleep = feeling awful the next day.

The Ancient Secret Your Body Already Knows

So are you doomed to suffer because of this natural decline in estrogen and progesterone?

Absolutely not.

Here's what most women don't realize about menopause: your body is DESIGNED for this transition.

For millions of years, women navigated menopause gracefully because your biology has a backup system built right in.

But before we answer this question, let me share with you the Story of how sunlight fuels your hormones.

How Sunlight Creates Your Hormones

When morning sunlight hits your eyes and skin, the red and infrared wavelengths penetrate deep into your cells.

They land on a mitochondrial enzyme called cytochrome c oxidase… and switch it on!

When that happens, three things light up inside you:

✓ Oxygen binds better
✓ Electrons flow faster
✓ ATP (your energy currency) surges

In short, Light literally creates the energy and the perfect conditions your mitochondria need to convert cholesterol into pregnenolone.

Pregnenolone: The Mother Hormone

Pregnenolone is the "mother hormone." From this one molecule, your body builds everything:

• Cortisol → to wake you up and handle stress
• Estrogen and testosterone → shaping mood, fertility, and vitality
• Progesterone and allopregnanolone → which supercharge GABA, your brain's brake pedal, calming your mind and guiding you into deep sleep

And here's something even more fascinating: UV light also interacts with another enzyme in your skin called CYP11A1, which creates vitamin D and more pregnenolone.

This is why sunlight is so critical in menopause: when your ovaries slow hormone production, your adrenals must step in. But they can only do that if pregnenolone is available — and sunlight is what makes pregnenolone in the first place.

Sunlight is literally writing your hormone story.

Cortisol Awakening vs. Hormone Balance

When you first wake up, light enters your eyes and some pregnenolone is converted into cortisol.

That healthy rising tide of cortisol makes you feel awake, alert, focused, and energized.

Under balanced conditions, the rest of the pregnenolone is converted into youth and sex hormones—estrogen and progesterone—the ones that fuel your energy and also keep your skin and hair youthful and vibrant.

The Stress Hijack: When Pregnenolone Gets Stolen

But there's a catch.

If your mitochondria sense danger—like a tiger chasing you, or even chronic psychological stress—pregnenolone gets hijacked. Instead of flowing into fertility and youth, it's diverted into cortisol so you can fight, flee, and survive.

As Dr. Loriaux explains: "Stress-induced increases in ACTH result in preferential production of cortisol, often at the expense of sex steroid synthesis."

And here's the tragedy of the modern world: artificial blue light.

• During the day, without the natural balance of sunlight, your mitochondria read it as a threat.
• At night, it's even worse. In nature, there is no blue light after sunset. Artificial light completely hijacks your mitochondrial rhythm.

Decades ago, German scientist Fritz Hollwich showed that people sitting under artificial light had abnormally high cortisol and ACTH.

Translation: Junk light hijacks your pregnenolone. Instead of building estrogen and progesterone — the exact hormones women need most in menopause — your body stays locked in survival mode.

Why Symptoms Appear in Pre-Menopause

During pre-menopause, a woman's ovaries naturally slow their production of sex hormones.

In a healthy body, the adrenal glands should take over, producing just enough estrogen and progesterone to make the transition smooth and easy.

But when pregnenolone is continually stolen for stress hormones, the adrenals can't keep up. They're too busy making cortisol to make sex hormones.

And with little to no estrogen or progesterone being produced, the symptoms every woman dreads begin to show up:

⚠️ Hot flashes ⚠️ Weight gain ⚠️ Crushing fatigue

Not because the body is broken… but because the environment is hijacking the very system designed to protect her.

In other words: pregnenolone stolen by stress means youth and vitality hormones never arrive. And the smooth transition nature designed turns into the suffering that has become far too common today.

Ancestral Blueprint vs. Modern Life

Think about this: your ancestors got intense morning sun and complete darkness at night.

Result? A smooth menopause with minimal symptoms.

Today's women live under artificial light 24/7. This confuses the backup system and forces it to make stress hormones instead of the hormones you actually need.

But when you get the right light signals and your circadian rhythm is in sync:

→ Your adrenals naturally increase hormone production as your ovaries slow down
→ Pregnenolone converts efficiently into estrogen and progesterone instead of stress hormones
→ The transition happens gradually over years instead of crashing suddenly → Hot flashes, mood swings, and crushing fatigue become rare instead of inevitable

You don't need hormone replacement therapy. You need to restore the light environment your hormones evolved to work with.

Your body knows exactly how to handle menopause. It just needs the right signals to activate its built-in adaptation system.

The Gift That Changed Her Destiny

When I came home from that farm, I was a man on a mission.

For nine months, I experimented in my garage trying to perfect a pair of glasses that block the right amount of artificial lights.

I made my mother a pair of VivaRays circadian glasses. At that time, they weren't called VivaRays—they were just glasses that I made in my garage, the first prototypes we'd ever created. And I taught her the protocol that would change everything.

I gave my mother a pair and taught her this simple protocol:

Morning (within 30 minutes of waking):

• Get outside, no matter the weather
• 10-20 minutes of sunlight, no sunglasses. No window glass between you and the sun
• Let that natural light hit your eyes

Evening (2 hours before bed):

• Dim all overhead lights
• Use warm table lamps, candles, or warm bulbs under 1900K
• Use the evening circadian-protective eyewear right after the sunset and switch to the nighttime red lenses 1 hour before bedtime

All day:

• Keep a consistent sleep schedule

She listened with the patience of a mother and trusted me the way only a mother can.

And she acted.

The Results That Defied Everything Doctors Told Us

Mother's First Wins: The Transformation Begins

I'll never forget the phone calls that first week.

"Roudy," she said, her voice brighter than I'd heard in years. "I fell asleep without pills last night."

Within one week:

✓ She was falling asleep faster than she had in years
✓ She stopped waking up at 2-3 AM in a cold sweat
✓ The crushing morning fatigue began to lift
✓ Her mood stabilized

Within 3 weeks:

✓ She was sleeping 7-8 hours nightly, deeply and peacefully
✓ Hot flashes disappeared
✓ Mood swings that had been plaguing her for years softened
✓ Her energy lasted throughout the day

Within three months:

✓ Her skin tone improved dramatically and she started gaining back her beautiful glow ✓ Her energy became stable from morning to night
✓ She began exercising daily for the first time in years
✓ The sparkle returned to her eyes

I was watching my mother come back to life.

Every morning, I look at her vibrant face and feel overwhelmed with gratitude—not just for her transformation, but for the lesson it taught me about the power of working WITH our biology instead of against it.

She didn't need hormone replacement therapy. She didn't need antidepressants. She didn't need sleeping pills. She needed what every woman needs: the right light at the right time.

YOUR TURN: THE LIGHT REVOLUTION STARTS NOW

You are not broken. You are not "too old." You are not destined for decline.

Your environment is broken. And environments can be FIXED.

What happened to my mother is happening to millions of women around the world.

We're living through the first generation in human history to experience menopause under artificial light.

For millions of years, your female ancestors navigated menopause with grace, vitality, and wisdom. They remained the powerful matriarchs of their communities well into their 70s, 80s, and beyond.

That ancient programming is still encoded in your DNA. Your body remembers how to do this.

You don't need more pills, more patches, or more synthetic hormones pumped into your system. You need to step into the light—the RIGHT light at the RIGHT time.

Your biology knows the way. It's been doing this dance for millions of years.

Trust it. Honor it. Give it what it needs.

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The light revolution starts with YOU. The time is NOW.

Step into the light—and watch your hormones remember their ancient rhythm.