6 Reasons to Get the Sun on Your Skin!
When the sun shines you feel alive, your mood lifts, you have more energy and your stress seems to vanish. Yes, the sun, in the right amounts and at the right time of day really does bring benefits to your body.
The Benefits
We are often told to avoid the sun because of health risks, however, it is not as simple as that because it can actually bring you benefits. Exposure to the sun is about being in it at the right time of day and for the amount of time. We need a greater understanding of how to work with the sun. In addition, by understanding your body and skin type, you’ll soon see how the powerful combination can benefit.
Remember, overall, the sun is not as evil as we are often led to believe. In fact, The Karolinska Institute in Sweden found in their 20-year study of women who actively spent time in the sun tended to live longer than those who avoided it.
Wondering what other benefits it brings? Here are our 6 benefits of the sun:
1. The Energy of the Vitamin
Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin, although it is actually a hormone that helps our bodies to work. It makes our teeth, bones and muscles stronger and helps us to absorb calcium as well as many other benefits.
We get 90-95% of our vitamin D from the sun. This makes the sun the best way of getting vitamin D into your skin and in fact, most of us are, to varying degrees, deficient for much of the year. You don’t need to expose your whole body – even if you let your forearms and hands see strong sunlight for short periods you’ll get enough vitamin D. That is if you have fair skin. The darker your skin the more likely you are to be deficient as it takes longer for your skin type to absorb it and should therefore spend longer times outside.
The difficulty for most of us is that you reduce the risk of sunburn outside of 11 am – 3 pm but then it takes longer to synthesise enough vitamin D. And, although the idea of absorbing it through a closed sunny window may sound good, in reality, you won’t get the vitamin D you need. It’s also unlikely that you will get enough vitamin D from sunshine between October and March in the UK.
2. Take Heart
It’s incredible to think but the sun can actually make changes to the molecules and compounds in the skin and blood. These changes according, to researchers from Southampton and Edinburgh universities, lower the tone of the blood vessels and regulate blood pressure. In turn, this reduces the risks of heart attack and stroke.
While you may be thinking of skin cancer, deaths from heart disease and stroke caused by high blood pressure are far higher than those from skin cancer. Some experts actually now believe the benefits of exposure to the sun outweigh the risks of developing skin cancer. Although we often think it is all about vitamin D, scientists, in fact, believe the link is from the sun’s UV rays not just from vitamin D levels.
Don’t just run out into the sunshine though, you must get those rays in a safe way!
3. To the Bones of the Issue
Vitamin D helps our bodies to absorb calcium which gives our muscles and bones their strength. Without it, we run the risk of fractures, bone breaks, osteoporosis and in children rickets disease. Rickets was common in children who didn’t get sunshine many years ago, they were recognised by deformities to the bones in their legs. Too little vitamin D will also affect your teeth.
It also helps muscle strength, which will reduce the risk of falling and the consequences of that, particularly as we get older.
4. A Weighted Question
A shocking 40-50% of people around the world are vitamin D deficient and as we have said, they are all at risk of certain health problems. An interesting discovery from researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that low vitamin D can contribute to obesity and the right dose can benefit weight loss. Essentially, supported by other researchers from around the world, they now believe that low vitamin D tells the body to store additional energy for times of limited resources. This is stored as fat, particularly around your tummy. Vitamin may also trigger a reaction in the hypothalamus that stops the body from needing to hoard fat.
As it also increases energy and stamina levels, it may encourage you to burn more fat by having the energy to exercise! Not only that, but vitamin D boosts your muscle strength meaning you are less likely to damage your muscles during exercise and repair post-exercise is quicker too!
Even more exciting is the news that it can also reduce diabetic symptoms.
5. Make me Happy
Sunshine makes most of us feel happier and that’s because it increases our serotonin levels. Serotonin is linked to boosting your mood and helping you to feel calmer or more relaxed, it’s often known as the feel-good hormone. It’s so good that studies have found that increased vitamin D can reduce depressive symptoms. Looking for more energy and motivation let the sunshine give you that boost.
Low serotonin may also have links to feeling hungry and how full you feel after eating. By being in control of your food you are often happier.
Along with serotonin, the additional vitamin D may also help improve sleep. Sleep always makes us happier!
6. I Remember When
Along with all the other problems low vitamin D contributes to, dementia is just another risk. Medical researchers at the University of Exeter suggest the risks were as high as 53% in those over 65. It is definitely worth the 15 minutes in the sun each day!
And finally….
by learning how we can benefit from the sun, we risk all sorts of risks including skin cancers. Work against the way the sun works to benefit you and your problems will start!
If you’d like to know more about vitamin D and the sun: