Sunlight

The last section was about the power of morning sunlight for aiding sleep patterns, but in general, sunlight has several benefits for your biology.

In recent years, Vitamin D has become very popular in the medical community as a supplement. However, supplemental Vitamin D is pretty controversial, and can have consequences if taken improperly.

This is unfortunate because Vitamin D is an essential component in optimal hormone function, and our hormones dictate everything from our mood to our sex drive to muscle recovery after exercise.

Your body makes Vitamin D naturally when exposed to sunlight, and even as little as 20 minutes of exposure to the sun can be enough to get your daily values of Vitamin D.

We already covered one way that sunlight can optimize your hormones: by using morning sunlight to cause earlier melatonin production in the evening.

But sunlight also increases serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of happiness, and is the main neurotransmitter associated with depression when it is too low.

This is a primary factor of why people get Seasonal Effective Disorder (SAD), or “winter blues,” during the cold part of the year. As the weather gets colder, people go outside less, and the sun simultaneously appears for fewer hours during the day.

This creates a one-two punch where people who live in northern states face both harsher weather conditions that keep them from getting enough sun, as well as fewer hours of opportunity to do so.

If that’s not enough to emphasize how sunlight can be used to improve your life, recent studies have linked sun exposure to increased testosterone production in men, as well as increased libido. Think about it: beach cultures are hubs for the muscular and athletic, and Muscle Beach has been world-famous as an outdoor gym ever since the days when Arnold Schwarzenegger and other major bodybuilders frequented it.

They may not have known the science at the time, but beach communities benefit from a constant testosterone supplement and aphrodisiac just by spending their time outside. Exposure to light has been shown to increase testosterone levels and interest in sex in mean above the age of 40.

Regarding testosterone, sunlight exposure to your private regions may be the most effective method.

A Korean study showed increased testosterone production in male rats whose you-know-whats were exposed to low-level red light lasers, and another study showed increased function and size of sexual organs after weeks of sunlight exposure.

A study on humans published in 1939 is often cited as evidence that sunlight exposure on the genital area increased testosterone in men by 200%, whereas exposure to the chest only resulted in a 120% increase. I haven’t purchased and read that study myself… it’s from 1939, after all. Nonetheless, you have my permission to tan in the nude — just don’t get sunburned down there.

Hopefully, you have high fences.

I haven’t done significant reading on possibly similar effects of sunlight specifically for women. However, it does appear that exposure to sunlight can help reduce osteoporosis, improve Vitamin D levels in specifically at-risk people like nursing mothers, improve fertility in those receiving IVF treatment, and reduce the risk of breast cancer for those with light skin.

Doesn’t excessive sunlight increase your risk for skin cancer? While I don’t believe it’s as severe a risk as people emphasize, I’d be remiss to tell you otherwise. The data does support the idea that sunlight, in excess, raises your risk for some cancers. However, it appears that this risk is greatest when you get sunburned, but is less of a factor when you tan slowly and evenly.

Furthermore, most sunblock and sunscreens may be more carcinogenic than sun exposure. A series of active chemical ingredients common in sunscreen are under scrutiny as being potentially cancer-causing in humans. I’m not going to make a claim; the research is not complete. However, in general, I tend to avoid synthetics and chemicals where possible.

One little interesting tidbit to know is that, despite a lack of direct evidence, skin cancer rates have risen in tandem with sunscreen use. This could mean people are just more careless about sun exposure because of sunscreen (though in that case, I’d question the effectiveness of sunscreen in the first place), but it could mean that sunscreen itself is harmful. Then again, there could also be completely unrelated factors, like poor diets, that increases susceptibility to skin cancer.

Long story short, while I do suggest getting more sun exposure, be careful. I don’t think that the risk of skin cancer from sun exposure is as big as people think, but sunlight is not harmless either. Make sure you aren’t regularly sunburning yourself, and be extra careful if you have a pale complexion.

Melanin is the pigment your body creates that causes a tan, and it is your body’s personal mechanism to protect itself from the sun’s UV light rays. Even with all my belief in the benefits of sunlight, I don’t recommend sun exposure, for example, to my Dad. He is pale and doesn’t tan whatsoever, and low-and-behold, he had skin cancer years ago despite generally avoiding sunlight.

With that said, my best training always seems to occur in the middle of the Texas summer. Despite the intense heat, which reaches 100 degrees Fahrenheit by mid-June and often doesn’t dip below 90 again until October, this has always been when I feel the most active.

Part of that is probably because I used to lifeguard, meaning I’m used to high amounts of sun exposure, and though indoor rock-climbing was my sport at the time, getting sun while on the job helped my performance.

In fact, it has been during the summer that I tried most new athletic activities. I got into rock climbing in the summer, started biking to work during the summer, discovered CrossFit, and even did hot yoga for the first time during the summer (fun fact, the yoga studio had a temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit while outside it was over 100. Though it was more humid in the studio, it actually felt cooler than walking outside).

I haven’t done blood testing to see how sunlight effects testosterone in my own body, but I am a believer and can anecdotally say that there has been a connection between higher amounts of sun exposure and more athletic activity in my experience of life.

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