Hi, I’m Kris Stokes from Custom Fitness Personal Training Studio. And today we’re going to talk about the benefits of adding some sunshine into your daily life.
So getting too much sun can be bad. I think we all know that. And to a point that it’s caused us to fear sunshine, which is also a bad thing. So sun is one of those things like many others that we need it in the right balance. We don’t need too much and we don’t need too little and it can greatly improve our overall health. So while too much sun can be bad, mild sun exposure can actually help us to decrease the risk of deadly cancers and harmonize our body’s circadian rhythms. So that’s kind of a neat thing unless you don’t know what circadian rhythms are, right?
So that’s actually our body’s ability to have the right balance between our sleep and our wake cycle. Our circadian rhythms determine when our melatonin will be released, when our cortisol will be released, how our body will respond to day and night. So that’s a pretty big piece. And to know that the sunshine can affect that is pretty cool. Your hormone cycles are also optimally based on those natural circadian rhythms tied to the sun.
And so what do we do? Our whole body’s health balance relies on this factor. And so many of us are drawn inside right now. So yes, we just came from earlier weather of being cold this week, but yesterday it was an absolutely beautiful day and there were many people outside; I can tell you that. But the more that we can make that part of our daily schedule, the better our health will be.
So our goal is to aim for between 15 to 30 minutes of sunshine. And if you can get that between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM, that’s perfect. But you also want to make sure that when you’re outside, that you’re not always covering your eyes with sunglasses, because whenever your sunglasses are on, your body can’t accept the sunlight for all purposes. So if you take those off and you let the sun actually hit your eyes for about 10 minutes or more, then you’re going to help that circadian rhythm issue, and that’s going to help you to get better sleep, which would be wonderful for a lot of people right now because a lot of people are struggling with that.
So how can we do that? Well, we can take walks outside first thing in the morning, letting the sunlight hit our skin and our eyes. We can eat our lunch outside right now with the kids. We’re probably going to go on a picnic this weekend somewhere, just to get out of the house and do something different.
We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing things that feel good to us, but that we’re remembering to incorporate this into our day. I’ve talked to a lot of people who have been working from home and feeling overwhelmed lately, and they just are not stepping outside. And so we’ve got to remember how important that is, to get outside, to be in the sunshine, to be in the fresh air. I can tell you from personal experience, that the days when I stay in all day versus the days that I get outside, I just have more energy on those days outside, I feel better. It kind of washes away all the extra that seems to be around lately.
But basically, if we don’t get that sun exposure, it can be negative on our health. It can cause these problems with our hormones and our circadian rhythms. But on a more up front model of maybe what some people understand better, is that it can cause depression. It can cause you to be more frustrated. It can cause you to be less creative. It can cause you to be less focused.
So if we just take 10 to 30 minutes a day to go outside, and while you’re out there, you could exercise. Just throwing that out there. Then that may very well be the turning point for your health.
So if you have any areas that you’re needing a little extra guidance in, feel free to comment below. I’d love to shoot a video on it. Maybe it’s something that can help other people. And if you feel like you need some extra coaching and help during this very trying time, feel free to give us a call. We are still training people virtually through Zoom and also at the park; keeping social distancing, all those good things. So feel free to give us a call if you need extra help in that area with exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, mindset. We do a little bit of all of it. Have a great day.