New research suggests that getting a good dose of sunlight on a regular basis will help you live longer, healthier, and happier. Apart from the positive effects of vitamin D, sunlight helps protect against a wide range of debilitating conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, diabetes, asthma, obesity, depression, low libido, and multiple sclerosis. Sun exposure causes the body to produce more nitric oxide and serotonin, which helps protect the cardiovascular system and elevate the mood.
Researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden found that avoiding the sun is just as bad for a person as smoking. They found that non-smokers who avoided the sun had a life expectancy comparable to smokers in the highest sun exposure category. Scientists at Cambridge University in England say that sunlight even affects gene activity and found that health-protecting, anti-inflammatory gene activity is highest in the summer.
Avoiding sunlight or using too much sunblock could be a new heart disease risk factor. Sunscreen should still be used, but more sparingly so as not to obstruct all the advantages of sunshine, though it is not advised to spend hours sunbathing. The sun can be a double-edged sword when it comes to skin cancer. You don’t want too much or too little. It turns out that the optimal time of day is between 10AM and 2PM, as you need a shorter exposure time. Earlier or later in the day, when the sun is lower in the sky, UVB is filtered out more than UVA. UVA is associated with wrinkles and melanoma while UVB help the skin produce vitamin D.
