Get Out in the Sun Action Steps

Getting out in the sunshine has many health benefits for you and your body, and the best part about it, they’re all free.

Use the Action Steps below to get the best of the sun, without damaging your body or skin.

Get Out in the Sun Early in the Day

The best time to get out in the sun is early in the day (before 1:00 pm).  Outdoor activity in the morning exposes you to the bright natural light that suppresses daytime secretion of melatonin and helps to establish a normal sleep rhythm.  Turning off melatonin in the morning makes it more likely that you’ll produce the optimal quantity of melatonin in the evening to ensure you fall asleep easily, and get a good night’s sleep.

At the minimum, get outside and face towards the early morning sun for 5 minutes.  Even if the sun isn’t shining, just look in its direction, and it will benefit melatonin regulation.

Get Your Daily Dose of Vitamin D

Sunshine has other benefits in addition to its assistance with sleep, as described in number 1.  It’s important for the synthesis of Vitamin D, a key nutrient in hormone balance, mood, digestion, and lots more. Work on getting at least 20 minutes a day of sunshine directly on your skin. To avoid burning, get out in the non-peak sun times, rather than wear sunscreen, which can have a negative impact due to toxic ingredients.

And, let’s be realistic.  If you live in a northern area, where the winters are cold and sunlight very indirect, you’ll probably need to supplement Vitamin D to get enough sunshine.  Even if you were able to lie naked on your rooftop all winter long, you probably can’t get enough sunlight directly on your skin to produce adequate amounts of Vitamin D.

Get tested at start of winter to see how you’re doing, then supplement as necessary.  Test again at the end of winter to determine how to supplement.

Educate Yourself about the Many Benefits of Sunshine

In addition to being a key factor in the synthesis of Vitamin D and the regulation of melatonin, sunshine has the following among its many benefits and gifts to us.

We hear so much about the hazards of sunshine, and are warned to minimize exposure and wear sunscreen due to the risk of skin cancer, but according to to the 2006 World Health Organization (WHO) report The Global Burden of Disease Due to Ultraviolet Radiation, excessive exposure to the sun accounts for only 0.1% of the total global burden of disease, and many diseases linked to excessive UVR exposure tend to be relatively benign.

What it means is that we are warned about preventing skin cancer by avoiding sunlight, when in reality the risk incurred from a deficiency of sunlight is far more dangerous than the risk from excess, including risk of osteoporosis and other major disorders of the musculoskeletal system and increased risk of various autoimmune diseases and life-threatening cancers, like colon, breast and prostate.

Here are some of the benefits, as reported in the article Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health, by M. Nathaniel Mead.

  • Prevention of autoimmune diseases by upregulation of TNF-alpha and Interleukin-10, which leads to increased activity of T regulatory cells that the remove self-reactive T cells that are implicated in autoimmune disease.
  • Natural vision improvement – check out this article and learn how to do “Sunning“
  • Increases Alpha melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH), which has been implicated in suppression of contact hypersensitivity and reduction of DNA damage, leading to decreased melanoma risk, as reported 15 May 2005 in Cancer Research.
  • Role in treating skin disorders such as psoriasis, due to the release of Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP).
  • Decreases inflammation and pain in skin receptors due to the release of neuropeptide substance P from sensory nerve fibers in the skin.
  • Reduces pain and leads to an enhanced state of well-being because it releases endorphins, aka natural opiates.