10 Questions with T.S. Wiley, the Author of "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival"

A few months back after sufffering from a several-month-long bout of insomnia, a friend insisted that I read T.S. Wiley's book "Lights Out."  In the book, T.S. discusses the importance of sleep and how getting the appropriate amount of sleep can help with weight loss, help reverse type-II diabetes, help with depression, as well as other possible benefits.

In my own office, I have always found that my night shift workers and my clients who don't sleep well, also don't lose weight, and are normally not as healthy as they could be. So, I found this book to be quite interesting. 

I wanted to figure out a way to help my readers learn more about this book, and since the last written interview with Matt Stone was so popular, I thought we would try that format once again.  Today I am posting this interview I was lucky enough to conduct with T.S.  Hope you enjoy it.  Hope you can find a way to get a copy of this book.  It is available from the main page of this website if you click the link for my Amazon store.  Also, if you want to learn more about T.S., please visit this website:  http://www.thewileyprotocol.com/ .

Thanks T.S.!  

Now, on to the interview:

Hunter:  How, when, and why did our sleep get so screwed up and can you explain for our readers/listeners how our more modern sleep patterns may be incompatible with the way our bodies have been wired?

TS: At the turn of the century the light bulb was invented and we suddenly had the capacity to take two days to one.  In the normalcy of the planet spinning in and out of sunlight, we have something called dusk.  The pink light blocks the blue light and you can take melatonin and turn it into serotonin.  But when you never are subjected to dusk or dawn, the serotonin keeps going up until it rebounds back to dopamine.  So, you can stay awake, but when you do, you’ve missed all kinds of critical state threshold changes of neurotransmitters.  That happened because of the light bulb.  When light became cheap, human beings abuse it like drugs and it makes you sick. 

In the dark of winter, one would sleep 14 hours.  We no longer go to bed when it gets dark or get up when it gets light.  We have lost what is known as an extinct sleep state from midnight to 4 am when you were in transcendental state.  We’ve excised that sleep state and slapped together the other two.  By losing that, we’ve lost all sorts of brain function.

Hunter: You mention in the book that if people would sleep the number of hours that it is normally dark, they would only crave sugar in the summer.  How can a lack of sleep contribute to sugar cravings?

TS: Photo period effect on appetite control is guided by the planets’ offerings.  When the light is long and the fruit is out there, you want it.  When the light is short, it would be complete misery if you were craving sugar, so you don’t.   But we never have short light, so we crave ho-hos and ding dongs.  Endless summer creates an endless appetite for carbohydrates.   

Hunter: You called Type-II diabetes the end result of “excruciating fatigue from light toxicity.”  Can you explain?

TS: I am referring to being dead tired.  When you’re dying for a good night’s sleep, it means that you’ve consumed so much energy in the form of light and food, you are quite literally poisoned.  And that poison manifests itself as type ii diabetes through uncontrollable blood sugar because of insulin resistance.

Hunter: The book seems to blame many modern illnesses (type-2 diabetes, depression, heart disease, infertility, cancer) on lack of sleep.  I’m curious if the sleep issue is always a direct cause or sometimes could it just be the original cause in a chain.  For instance, could it be that the lack of appropriate sleep causes weight gain, which in turn, causes type-2 diabetes or heart disease?

TS: Yes, exactly.  Sleep is the cause of death.  Food is the instrument of death. 

Hunter:  Can you explain what causes cortisol production to increase and what effect does this increase have on the body?

TS: Exposure to light and stress cause cortisol production to go up which in turn causes mobilization of blood sugar which demands insulin to follow.  Over exposure to insulin creates insulin resistance at the receptor level.  Then, blood sugar has nowhere to go.  And circulating blood sugar to go up and you are declared a type ii diabetic.  Simultaneously, you are aging in fast forward because you come into the world with hormones to deal with so many hours of light and dark.  Cortisol isn’t a hormone to deal with the light.  So twice as much cortisol means you experience two days to one, which has to come off the end of your life. 

Hunter: I want to touch just a bit more on the mental effects of inappropriate sleep patterns.  How does lack of sleep contribute to anxiety and depression?

TS: Temporal distortion, time dilation and perception rest on dopamine and serotonin.  Too much food—too many carbohydrates—raises your serotonin to the level of a panic state where you feel like you are paralyzed and can’t get out of bed in the morning.  The reason for this is because in nature, you would only be in a panic state if you were about to be eaten by and animal, so you would lay very still.

Hunter:  You mention that in the summer we can relax a bit, sleep less, and eat more carbohydrate, but in the winter we should stick with more protein and vegetables. What’s up with that? Does that again go back to what our bodies are expecting due to the way we are wired?

TS: That means that summer is Margaritaville—it’s party time.  It’s when you would mate.  You can eat as much sugar as you want and stay up as late as you want.  It’s one trip around the sun.  if you do it all year long, it’s four trips around the sun, which means you are aging inside four times as fast.  Everything is based on duality.  Yin and yang, light and dark, hot and cold, men and women, up and down.  You can’t have one without the other.  So you can’t have carbohydrates all the time.  That is universally and scientifically unsound.

Hunter:  I really enjoyed your exercise recommendations.  You recommend lifting weights, yoga, meditation, pilates, and it doesn’t sound like we should expect to see you out on a morning jog.  What’s wrong with cardiovascular exercise?

TS: There’s nothing wrong with it.  But it needs to be seasonal and rhythmic.  I would suggest a book called Making Waves by Irving Dardek.  It’s basing cardiovascular exercise on lunar cycles.  Running constantly is a fear state.  And in your mind and body, something’s got to win, you or the tiger.  Your heart isn’t just a pump, it’s an endocrine gland that puts out hormones that talk to you brain.  To exercise it like a bicep is simplistically stupid.

Hunter: I have read articles claiming people are unique and require different amounts of sleep.  I remember reading about how Bill Clinton would only sleep 4 hours a night and was still very productive during the day.  How much sleep do we really need, and do we all need the same amount?

TS: We all need the same amount seasonally.  There is no how much.  Two hours after dark is about when people would tuck themselves into the caves at the latest.  And when the sun comes up, you should get up.  So seasonally, daily, how much you need changes. 

Hunter: What are some basic things people can do to improve the quality of their sleep?

TS: Over 25, take hormones.  Cover up all the blinking things in your room like the cable box, smoke detector and lights from the outside.  Darkness should be palpable and feel cool.  If you’re old, take hormones because sex hormones control something called slow wave sleep.  That means you can avoid interval waking if your estrogen progesterone and testosterone are at youthful levels.  Also, don’t exercise before bed.  That shoots up your cortisol and keeps you awake.  Exercise first thing in the morning.  Sex is always good before bed.  And don’t drink a lot of water before bed or take a glass of water with you to bed.