“You can’t add days to your life, but you can add life to your days.”
Have you ever stopped to think about why walking outside after spending half the day indoors in the AC makes your skin seem excited and causes you to inadvertently take a deep breath? Even when we lived in South Texas, and that process took you from a crisp 72* to 115* with 92% humidity (because it’s all about the heat index down there), it still feels really good…for a minute.
Why is that?
It’s because sunlight produces several hormonal responses that our bodies are designed for. It releases endorphins and serotonin, both hormones that make you feel calm, happy, and release stress. Simultaneously, it triggers melatonin to back off for the day as well. By suppressing it in the early daytime, it informs your brain on your circadian rhythm. If you find you’re not falling asleep well at night, it could be that you need to get outside first thing in the morning sunlight – every day. This helps to regulate your wake-sleep cycle because of this early suppression of melatonin. It’s like resetting your internal clock instead of hitting the snooze for four hours!
Sunlight also can release stored nitric oxide from the skin, which dilates the blood vessels and can improve blood pressure.
Most importantly, sunlight (especially in the middle of the day) produces Vitamin D, which is one of the most important elements to a healthy body. Did you know that Vitamin D is more than just a “vitamin” – it’s actually a hormone?
A vitamin must be consumed from an external source and is like food used for biochemical functions within our body; a hormone is produced within our own body and is both a messenger and a regulator of bodily functions such as metabolism, growth, and the immune system. So a vitamin is what your body needs to function; a hormone is what regulates that function.
Vitamin D boosts the immune system by regulating cell functions, particularly in the respiratory system (more on that later) and strengthens bones and teeth by regulating calcium. Vitamin D coupled with Vitamin K2 can aid the cardiovascular system and contribute to an improved mood and sense of well-being. The benefits of Vitamin D to the human body cannot be overstated, but there are some caveats.
First of all, one cannot simply drink a glass of milk (fortified with manufactured Vitamin D) or pop a pill from the grocery store. These forms of Vitamin D are generally incomplete, which renders the benefit mostly unavailable for our body to use.
Sunshine is the most bio-available way to acquire Vitamin D…bar none. However, there are some foods that contain it, too. Interestingly, it’s mostly animal foods: dairy, red meats, fish, and egg yolks.
Sorry, egg whites don’t help here, folks.
Sidebar – It rather aggravates me the things we’ve been told over the years: Avoid dairy! Red meats = bad! Egg yolks are dangerous! That last one never made sense to me because we all knew that people that lived 100 + years ago ate eggs for breakfast Every. Single. Day. and lived to a ripe old age. The difference is they physically worked right before and after breakfast and walked everywhere they went. We typically don’t anymore, but that’s another topic.
The problem is we cannot depend on food solely for our Vitamin D intake because we just can’t eat enough of these foods to provide all we need. That’s why our brilliant Creator made our bodies to produce the Vitamin D from sunshine through our skin, too.
It’s interesting to note there are two types of Vitamin D: D2 and D3. D2 is found in plants, primarily in mushrooms that have been exposed to UV light; D3 is the form found in animal sources and what is made from sunshine. D3 is far better in raising and sustaining the blood levels of the active form of Vitamin D.
Cheap supplements don’t usually differentiate between the two, so be careful. Reputable supplements usually specify and are fine (and beneficial – especially in winter) as long as they also provide Vitamin K2 with the Vitamin D3. These two work synergistically to help your body use and properly store calcium. The D3 helps your body to absorb the calcium, and the K2 directs the calcium directly to the bones and teeth instead of being stored somewhere else, namely your arteries. 😳
During the COVID pandemic, most patients that ended up in the hospital were vitamin D deficient. This is a known fact that was known early on but was not made public early on. Following is an excerpt from a study done in July 2020.
“A principal defence against uncontrolled inflammation, and against viral infection in general, is provided by T regulatory lymphocytes (Tregs). Treg levels have been reported to be low in many COVID-19 patients and can be increased by vitamin D supplementation. Low vitamin D levels have been associated with an increase in inflammatory cytokines and a significantly increased risk of pneumonia and viral upper respiratory tract infections. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increase in thrombotic episodes, which are frequently observed in COVID-19.”
Link to study here.
This is why (in my mind) it was so maddening when all these mandates were out there to stay inside unless you were at home – parks were closed, people were criticized for going to the beaches, etc. But I digress.
Open-air treatments have been utilized since the late 1700s. An English doctor began exposing children who had been diagnosed with tuberculosis to sea air and sunshine. We’ve all seen the pictures from the 1918 Spanish flu of hospital beds being wheeled outside for the fresh air and sunshine. What’s interesting to me about this is they didn’t know about Vitamin D yet; it wouldn’t be discovered for two more years (1920). But they knew it was helpful. Just like people in the Middle Ages knew using silver utensils and goblets was not only beautiful but helpful, but they didn’t understand why. I’ll make a post about that too.
Ever experienced genuine “cabin fever”? I experience this every year on the first sunny and warm day after winter; I have to get outside for a bit and soak in some sun. Our body really does tell us what we need to do; we just need to listen and follow through.
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