Is Avoiding the Sun REALLY as Bad for Your Health as Smoking?

There’s some new research out recently showing that women who sunbathe are more likely to live longer than women who don’t! The study looked at almost 30,000 Swedish over a period of twenty years.

Heart disease being one of the big factors that decreased in women who regularly get some sun.

But this was the craziest quote in the study…..

“We found smokers in the highest sun exposure group were at a similar risk as non-smokers avoiding sun exposure, indicating avoidance of sun exposure to be a risk factor of the same magnitude as smoking,” said Dr. Pelle Lindqvist, lead author of the Journal of Internal Medicine study.

“Guidelines being too restrictive regarding sun exposure may do more harm than good for health.”

Read that again.

Yes you read that right. Avoiding the sun may be as big of a risk factor to your health as smoking cigarettes is. You can see the full article and study here: Sun Avoidance as Bad as Smoking

Whats a good way to start getting some sun?

Early morning sun, right at sunrise, is some of the best sun available. Its full of red, green, blue and infrared wavelengths. Sunrise sun is usually totally missing the UVA and UVB wavelengths. This depends on your latitude and season but even if there is any UVA at sunrise it is very weak.

If possible, try to get outside every morning at sunrise and get 15-30 minutes of sunlight on as much skin as possible. Depending on where you’re located on the planet this good early morning sun period could be from the moment the sun comes up until about 10am or so. Take your sunglasses off too as they block the sunlight from getting through your eyes and to your brain and disrupt circadian signaling and the production of melatonin among other things.

And yes, you read that right, you make melatonin from specific rays in the AM sun.

Enroll in the Blue Light Detox program to learn all about how to use light to help rather than hurt your health.

If you would like to find out if the light you are living under every day is helping or hurting you, take our free blue light toxicity test now at the link in the upper right corner of this page.