A plant without sun exposure dies. Humans don’t die from lack of sun exposure, they get very frail and sick. In short, every living thing on earth needs some sun exposure.
Regular sun exposure is very important for becoming invincible. Sun is the most basic source of energy and vitamins there is. Sun is up there every morning for a reason. If it weren’t of sun, there wouldn’t be life on earth.
Our ancestors spent the majority of their time outside. They were basically on the sun all the time. They got plenty of sun without even thinking about it.
But these days, when sun has such a bad reputation, because of a skin cancer, and our indoors lifestyle we don’t get enough of it. And even the little we could get, we protect ourselves from it.
The health frick, that does everything right, exercises regularly, eats super healthy diet, but is completely pale because he puts tons of sunscreen on himself before he goes outdoors blows my mind completely. Here he is spending his day in the office and home and the only chance he gets to get some great for health necessary sunshine, he protects himself and puts that stinky chemical on himself.
Sun exposure and long life
Since I am a personal trainer I hang out a lot at health clubs and swim clubs. I meet a lot of people that are 90 years old and older. They all have one thing in common. They are tanned. They spend some time on the sun every day. They lie on the deck naked on direct sun for quite a while before they swim. Recently, my friend Bob, who is 95 answered my question, if he ever uses sunscreen with a disgust: I will never put that s… on my skin. And I never did in my life.
I agree with Bob. You should never put anything on your skin, you wouldn’t eat. And that leaves us with only some cold pressed virgin olive oil and some real butter.
Sometimes that sunscreen can be necessary. When you’re spending the whole day on the sun and your skin is pale, you should avoid long sun exposure. And if there is no place to hide, use sunscreen. You should use sunscreen only in emergency situations, when too long sun exposure to your sun untrained skin is necessary.
If you do your homework and expose your skin to the sun regularly, your skin will be most likely darker. And that makes your skin less prone to burning.
Regular sun exposure is the best sunburn prevention
If you spend some time, at least 30 minutes on most of your days on the sun, you are automatically preventing sunburn when you stay on the sun for longer period of time later. I can stay easily for several hours on the direct sun without seeing any difference on my skin after. That’s because my skin is already dark and attracts sun less.
Don’t try this if you haven’t spent any time on the sun for some time. You can get very burned. Instead, time yourself for 20 minutes on the direct sun, do it for a week, than increase it to 30 minutes and than maybe even longer. And soon you will be able to stay on the sun for longer periods of time without being burned. You have to be smart about your own sun exposure – not too much and not too little. Sun can be like an aspirin. If you take a small dose regularly, it can be very beneficial to your health. But if you take too much at once, it can kill you.
Sun exposure and skin cancer
I know a doctor. He is a retired very well known heart surgeon. And I was talking to him about what he thinks about sun exposure and cancer.
I will never forget what he told me. He starter as usual, about how too much sun, getting burned regularly and exposing yourself to sun too much can really hurt you. And yes, it can cause skin cancer. I was standing in front of him without a t-shirt and my skin was very dark from recent surfing trip to Hawaii.
He looked at me and he said, that I was more likely to die in shark attack accident than of consequences of skin cancer. Since, shark attacks are very, very, very rare I asked him why? And he said, because you are very fit.
Than he continued and said that a person who never exposes his skin to the sun, but is overweighed, leads inactive lifestyle and eats bad diet is 100 times more likely to be diagnosed with skin cancer than person, that is lean, healthy, active eating healthy diet, who spends all days long on the sun. And apparently sun does nothing to do with it.
Are you overweight and inactive?
Are you eating processed garbage foods?
Do you consume sugar dense foods?
Are you stressed often?
If yes, there is a serious reason to be afraid of skin cancer. But not from the sun, from your lifestyle.
But, if you are lean, active, healthy eating individual, you don’t have to be afraid. And regular sun exposure up to 2 hours every day will make you even healthier and closer to being invincible. So don’t be afraid of the sun and take that shirt of for some time while playing tennis or working in the garden or walking around the lake.
People are afraid of sun exposure. And they are afraid for a very good reason. Not because the sun exposure is bad for them, but because it is bad for them if their lifestyle is unhealthy. And majority of people lead unhealthy lifestyle.
Sun exposure and vitamin D
Sun exposure creates healthy and natural vitamin D in our bodies. It is the most natural source of vitamin D. And we need some floating in our bloodstream at all times. The recent new thing at the doctor offices is than increased amount of people’s blood tests are showing low vitamin D levels. This is mainly because our jobs moved from cornfields to the offices. We breath dust all day long in an air conditioned offices and all the light exposure we get is from the fluorescent lights. And they are not that great for our well being either.
I used to work in an office like that few years back. And seriously, I would rather be a garbage man that collects stinky garbages, than spend 50 hours in the closed office. With the condition, that I would be collecting garbage on midday when the sun is the strongest and I could keep my shirt off doing it.
Vitamin D is vital to our healthy bodies. It increases the immunity system, so our body is able to fight germs more efficiently that we get in contact with every day. Vitamin D is helping keeping healthy bone strength and it’s believed to be efficient cancer fighting vitamin.
The main danger of the sun is you
A lot is written about dangers of sun. While I agree that sun can be dangerous for us, many people go to extreme and are responsible for dangers of the sun themselves. Sun is vital to our health. And we need it on regular basis. And if you want to become invincible, you will find a way to expose your body to the sun regularly.
If you are inactive, overweight and you put a lot of chemicals to your body by eating diet full of processed foods, than the sun will hurt you sooner than it might help you to improve your overall health.
But, you are already at the fifth step to becoming invincible and you are lifting heavy weights regularly, choosing your carbohydrates very carefully, spending majority of your day on your feet and being active and not drinking anything flavored and sweetened. If you are already doing all this, the sun will certainly not hurt you. It will add to your overall invincibility.
We were born to this world, where sun already existed. So it is natural. It can also be unsafe, because of migration of people. When person with light skin who was born in Sweden moves to Africa, he needs to be careful and he needs to watch his sun exposure. Inventions like airplanes are mainly responsible for this. People couldn’t move much 300 years ago and usually stayed in the safest sun areas for their inborn skins.
The true danger for our skin and health is sugar in foods, processed flour, diet full of processed foods, TVs, Sofas, sedentary lifestyle, stress and general physical weakness that makes our immunity weak as well. That is responsible for our bad health and skin problems, not sun.
Healthy sun exposure
If you work long hours in the office, don’t despair. There are ways to get enough healthy sun exposure even if you basically live in the air conditioned cave for most part of your day. But, you have to plan well.
You most likely have some sorts of breaks at your job, like lunch brake and maybe two other 15 min breaks or so. Make sure you spend these breaks outside. Especially if the sun is out. Take your unprocessed, healthy lunch with you, take blanket and sit on the sunny grass patch, or find a sunny bench and sit there, or just walk or stand on the sunny place for certain time. Take your shirt off and expose as much of your body to the sun as you can.
I remember going to the bank on my office lunch brake without my shirt on. Having worked at the office in downtown, where everybody wears business attire was making people to really stare at me like I was some kind of guy escaping the mental institution. But while there were rushing to their offices completely covert by suits with low levels of vitamin D in their bodies and about to catch a cold or flue, I was walking slowly and soaking up the immunity enhancing vitamin D.
How much sun is enough?
It all depends on few factors. Sun is much stronger in the spring and especially summer time and much weaker in the fall and winter time. My rule is to be on the sun as much as I can be in months of November, December, January and February. I live in California and there is plenty of sun here even in these winter months. If you live in eastern Europe, Scandinavian countries and other colder parts of the world, you want to add months of October, March and April to it and spend as much time on the sun as you can.
If you live in Australia, Brasilia, or other countries that have summer at these months, this doesn’t apply to you. You will consider these months as a summer. And if you live in tropicals you probably get enough sun already and your skin is dark and doesn’t burn.
Than in the late spring and summer start with 20 minutes of sun exposure every day. When your skin gets darker, add more time up to 1 hour and more. But be careful. You really have to be smart about this. If you spend regularly some time on the sun, your skin becomes protected by being darker and it doesn’t burn. So if you had longer periods without sun exposure, get back to 20 minutes on the sun and slowly build it up again.
Take of your shirt whenever you can to get more of the body exposed to the sun. After 3 weeks of moderate sun exposure I start playing tennis, or run shirtless for an hour on a hot sunny day. I still keep my bald head covered to avoid a heat stroke and I drink plenty of plain water and so should you. But once you have spent substantial regular time on the sun, you can go for it and keep your shirt off for more than an hour on hot summer day without being afraid of it having a negative effect on your skin. You will just benefit from it by increasing your vitamin D level in your blood.
So, don’t be afraid of sun and wisely use it as another powerful tool on your way to becoming invincible.