How to Winter-Proof Yourself
by ryan heeney / february 7th, 2024
During the cold months of winter, we are missing out on one thing that is very important to our health—sunlight.
I believe sunlight is right there with nutrition, exercise and sleep when it comes to the factors that influence our health. Like sleep, sunlight is massively undervalued, misunderstood and misused.
Sunlight provides two things that are vital to our health: Vitamin D and something called "red light". While both of these come from sunlight, the way they each benefits us is much different.
1. Vitamin D
With all things considered, this is could be considered one of the most crucial vitamins to our health. It's activity in the body suggests it is actually more pro-hormone than vitamin. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that plays a crucial role in helping the body absorb and retain calcium and phosphorus; both critical for building bone. Also, studies show that vitamin D can reduce cancer cell growth, help control infections and reduce inflammation.
Another reason I feel vitamin D should be given the attention it needs is because we simply don’t get enough of it. The average person in the West in chronically low in this nutrient, which some estimates point to nearly 50% of the population being deficient.
This is mainly due to lack of sun due to our modern lifestyle.
For most of us, winter makes this nearly impossible and that is where supplementation can be useful.
If you do wan to start taking control of this extremely important nutrient three crucial points to remember when wanting to get you vitamin D in check are:
Do not burn. This is what can lead to premature aging of the skin and skin cancers. As long as you avoid overexposure to sun, negative effects will be minimal. The weekend warriors who are indoors during the week and roast in the sun during the weekend greatly increase their chances for skin cancers. If you choose to get your vitamin D from the sun, gradual, consistent sun exposure which only browns the skin is key.
Adequate blood levels of vitamin D are between 50-70 ng/dl. This is only found out through blood labs and can be extremely helpful in knowing how much to supplement.
If you choose to supplement vitamin D it should be in the form of vitamin D3. Vitamin D2 is found in plants, while vitamin D3 comes from animals. It has been shown that vitamin D3 is far more effective in raising vitamin D levels in the blood as opposed to vitamin D. Taken alongside vitamin K2 will also greatly enhance the body’s ability to absorb vitamin D even further.
Important benefits that are not covered in the video include the powerful effect vitamin D has in calcium metabolism. Vitamin D is crucial in putting calcium to work in the body and often these two nutrients are sold together in supplementation form. Vitamin D also effectively lowers prolactin, parathyroid hormone and serotonin—three hormones associated with stress and aging.
In addition to these benefits, vitamin D keeps bones strong, powerfully improves mood, alleviates depression, reduces the risk of many cancers, supports the brain, nervous, and immune systems, regulates insulin levels and does many, many other positive things.
2. Red Light
This is the second piece of the puzzle in the sun’s magic. As with vitamin D, red light from the sun has a powerful effect on increasing metabolism and improving overall health. Red light is an often overlooked and undervalued benefit from sunlight—and while red light therapy is becoming increasingly popular these days, it is still not getting the attention it deserves.
To better understand red light, I think it would be helpful to examine the entire spectrum of sunlight provides. Below is a visual of the range of light that sunlight covers measured in wavelengths.
As you can see sunlight encompasses ultraviolet light starting from the left, all the way through the visible spectrum (light we can see with our eyes), and up through much of the infrared light on the right side of the graph.
Where it gets interesting is that certain types of light, like red light and near-infrared light, are actually really good for us. While other types of light, like UVA, blue, and violet, can be quite harmful.
Yes, these harmful types of light do come from the sun too, but only become significant when exposure to them is in excess. All of the negative effects of these lights will be the subject of another article but common sources of blue light we are frequently exposed to are from televisions and phone screens.
Red light and near-infrared light have an incredibly positive effect on our health and metabolism. The benefits of red light are so numerous that for brevity's sake, I will just link to a post here that goes into the subject further. Some of the standout benefits include improved eye health, increased collagen production in the skin (which reduces the appearance of wrinkles and stretch marks), clearing of acne, alleviation of depression, improved sleep quality, and improved immune function.
The main mechanism of benefit from red light actually has to do with an enzyme. Red light penetrates through the skin into our tissues and activates the enzyme cytochrome c oxidase. This enzyme has the ability to ramp up the energy production of our cells (our metabolism), which in turn increases our overall health in a powerful way.
If we zoom in on the "visible light" section shown in the graph above, we can see that red light has a wavelength between 635 and 700 nm (nanometers). These longer wavelengths are going to be the ones we are interested in for health reasons.
While red light is the type of light we are looking for to increase health, we can also go even further up the spectrum into infrared to activate cytochrome c oxidase. While sunlight has a broad wavelength range of 290 nm to 3,200 nm, we are only really interested in the range of about 600 nm to 1,000 nm. This range is where we will get most of the benefit.
As you can see below, the range for increased cytochrome c oxidase activity is quite narrow. You can also see that there are peaks of increased cytochrome c oxidase activity at certain wavelengths of red light and infrared light creating "sweet spots".
These wavelength sweet spots can be targeted by certain types of lights and light devices that are widely available for purchase these days
These wavelength sweet spots can be targeted by certain types of lights and light devices that are widely available for purchase these days. Tanning salons are also beginning to offer red light and infrared light therapy. An extremely informative interview that goes further into the practical uses of red light and infrared light can be found here and here.
During winter, I've found the easiest and most cost-effective way to receive adequate amounts of red light is from incandescent bulbs or heat lamps. These bulbs do not contain UVA or UVB rays and will not give you a tan or change the color of your skin in any way, they are strictly for the beneficial properties of red light without the melanin-producing effects of the sun or tanning beds. You will also notice that these bulbs don't produce light that is dramatically red in color but does in fact contain red light.
Note: The first time I purchased an incandescent bulb I thought I had purchased the wrong type of bulb because the light coming from it wasn't necessarily red in color, but the beneficial wavelength is there and the red color is more subtle compared to other red light devices commonly sold.
Nutrition researcher Danny Roddy goes into which specific bulbs to buy below and also further summarizes the health benefits of red light. I will also include a link to where to buy the bulbs mentioned here.
It is sometimes thought that the health benefits of being in the sun through a long summer can carry our health through the winter, but I'm afraid most of the time that won't be the case. Vitamin D stores in our tissues from summer can last about a month at the longest, and the effects of decreased exposure to red light will begin to take their toll quickly.
Ideally, we would all live in a climate that gives us access to the sun year-round, but with many other aspects of health, and life in general, we must adapt. If you can move to a climate with sunny, warm weather year-round, that's great, but for those of us who experience winters, supplementation of vitamin D3 and the use of healthy light will be necessary.
Sunlight is just another thing that has become twisted in the mainstream health community and in society. It has become demonized due to its negative health effects because of overexposure and misinterpreted data. As with almost everything, our body gives us the best clues as to what is good for our health and what isn't—the warm, energizing, uplifting feeling you get from the sun on your skin after a long winter is no different.
Interesting note: The amount of polyunsaturated fat we eat and store in our tissues can affect the way the sun interacts with our skin when it comes to aging, age spots, liver spots (otherwise known as lipofuscin), and skin cancer. It is not necessarily the sun that is the culprit of these negative effects, but rather polyunsaturated fats in our skin tissue interacting with excessive amounts sunlight. Keep your diet low in polyunsaturated fats and enjoy the ability of your skin to age terrifically while minimizing the risk of skin cancers—even in the presence of healthy amounts of sun.