As Spring, Summer and even a bite of winter simultaneously visits my region of the world in May ( I kid you not), I try to take every opportunity I can to ‘Soak up the Sun’. But not in the typical sun worshipping way you might conjure. I just like getting outside. Who doesn’t? I remember my Mom would say to me as a child ‘there will be other nice days’ when I was inside and wanted so much to be outside. But I never subscribed to that philosophy! I quietly said to myself “there will be plenty of cloudy days”. ‘Seize the Day’ made a lot more sense to me. Now, it turns out, we are realizing, how important the sunshine is for our well-being. Sure, there are a lot of important things we must do to protect ourselves from the sun’s harmful rays, like applying sunscreen, wearing a hat, and wearing lighter colors. But all these things are more important when spending significant time in the sun. Like everything else in life ‘moderate sun absorption’ is actually extremely important to our health. 15- 30 minutes of exposure to the sun is healthy for so many reasons…
There has been a media blitz covering scientific studies about Vitamin D and sunshine in the last couple of years and we all have read how important the nutrient is for our bodies. But there is also a lot of division among medical professionals as to whether we need to ‘supplement’ our Vitamin D intake. I came across this very enlightening article this week (no pun intended!) from the digital site ‘Forks Over Knives’. It’s entitled ‘Vitamin Supplements Are Harmful –Sunshine and Food Determine Good Health‘ by Dr. John McDougall and I wanted to share with you. I am sharing this particular article with you because no matter how you feel about supplementation it’s very informative and gives us a better understanding about ‘how’ health trends catch on as well as ‘how’ mis-information spreads. It also explains just ‘how’ the body uses the nutrient we receive from the sun.
For excellent health, people must get sunshine; there is no substitute. The amount of sun required depends on one’s skin pigmentation. For a light-skinned person, exposing the face, arms, and hands to five minutes of sun at noon two to three times a week at a latitude of Boston, MA in the spring, summer, or fall will cause the body to produce sufficient vitamin D to meet all of its needs. Asian-Indians may require three times as much exposure, and dark-skinned people may require 10 times as much exposure under the same sunlight conditions. During wintertime, this fat-soluble vitamin is stored for long periods of time, mainly in the liver and the fatty tissues. ~John McDougall, MD The informative article from Forks Over Knives also reminds us that ‘one size fits all’ medicine is just not useful and may even be dangerous. For the record, I am not anti-supplement at all. I believe we all have our own individual bio-chemistry & lifestyle, and depending on what that is, we may sometimes need additional supplementation. As a World Wise Beauty, I know you will always be your own guru and make the right decisions for yourself! Soaking up some sunshine is truly an ‘inside out’ wellness practice and the key takeaway to remember here. But I also ask you to get a complete overview on Vitamin D from the NIH ( National Institutes of Health) which is very comprehensive and gives you the full contextual story on Vitamin D. Our government agencies do actually try to give us the information we need to make informed decisions but we often get our medical information in ‘sound bites’ from the general media instead. So why is everything so complex? The NIH report is long for a reason. The ancient wisdom is simple enough–get moderate sunshine, but the modern complication is climate change, access to different food sources and each of us have different absorption capabilities based on all these factors. These are all things to consider when you are thinking about whether to supplement. Looking for simple wellness wisdom? Below is a photo I took in my backyard of a Peony Bush which seemed to be ‘Soaking Up The Sun’ and beaming with happiness. A beautiful reminder that for all the biological reasons our body needs the sun, we can’t forget how important the sun is for our spirit, and how we all need to ‘lighten up’ just a little. 😉 
