63: Your Sun Prescription: Sun, Food, Supplements, Zinc
I love considering our bodies in the context of the symbiotic relationship we share with all of God’s creation - the sun, the moon,the water, the land, the plants, the animals. To me there’s nothing more natural or holistic than considering health from this kind of perspective. I call it the Genesis Prescription - this idea that our very foundation of health starts with making sure we are in sync with the elements of creation.
In this week’s podcast we’re talking about the benefits of sun exposure, how to eat and supplement in order to burn less and how topical zinc is good for the skin!
EPISODE 63: Your Sun Prescription: Sun, Food, Supplements, Zinc
SHOW NOTES
(0:00) Intro
(0:44) Welcome back to the club!
Today’s topic: Your Sun Prescription: Sun, Food, Supplements, Zinc
I love considering our bodies in the context of these seasonal changes and the symbiotic relationship between us and God’s creation:
The sun, the moon, the water, the land, the plants, the animals— We live and exist together and are created to work in tandem.
To me there’s nothing more natural or holistic than considering health from this kind of perspective - I call it the Genesis Prescription— this idea that our very foundation of health starts with making sure we are in sync with the elements of creation.
Light
In Genesis God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will mark events, sacred seasons, days and years. They will be lights in the dome of the sky to shine on the earth.” And that’s what happened. God made the stars and the two great lights: the larger light to rule over the day and the smaller light to rule over the night. God saw how good it was.
The sun determines so much about our health, about our lives. Unfortunately in modern times I think it’s gotten a bad rap for being a big fiery ball of potential cancer in the sky -something we’re afraid of and want to avoid - and I don’t think that’s how God intended it. The dose makes the poison as it does with so many things but completely avoiding it by slathering ourselves from head to toe with chemical sunscreen and spending most of our day indoors has been to our detriment.
Today I want you to understand that we need doses of the sun for our long term health and wellness. Think of it as a nutrient for your body and as with any essential nutrient, a deficiency leads to poor health. I wish more doctors would write a light prescription instead of some of these problematic and unnatural pharmaceutical pills.
(3:13) Looking at sunlight through the historical lens:
Historically sunlight WAS used therapeutically. There’s even a term for it - Heliotherapy is the therapeutic use of sunlight and has been used for centuries.
Around 400 BC, Hippocrates, who is considered the father of medicine, and was amazingly ahead of his time when it came to health, prescribed sunbaths for his patients. He had a health facility with a large solarium that exposed patients to maximal amounts of sunlight as part of their therapy. Hippocrates was also the one who said - with amazing foresight - that all disease begins in the gut, which is what we are truly discovering today. He’s also attributed with this famous quote: Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.
Florence Nightingale - who’s considered the founder of modern nursing- was appealing to hospital designers in the 1800’s to include wards that were brightly lit by natural sunlight. She saw firsthand the positive effects of sunshine on patients.
We know that sun was successfully used as part of treatment for rickets and tuberculosis in the early 1900s and now, of course, we know how critical sunlight is for the production of Vitamin D.
(5:59) A word of caution against excessive sun exposure:
Now, I’m no doctor and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the excessive sun exposure I had in my teen years. My best friend and I used to slather on oil, not sunscreen, and bake in the sun for hours.
I haven’t used a tanning bed in over 25 years but I know I did some damage to my skin - and at the very least I’ll be more wrinkly and splotchy - which is really starting to show here in my fabulous 40’s.
But I still regularly lay out, I love the sun, I try to practice safe sun exposure, by soaking it up in short spurts of time instead of baking all day. That’s more of the proper way to do it - small therapeutic doses.
So I want to dig into this topic a little deeper with you today - share the wonderful benefits of sunshine on our bodies, plus the foods and supplements that can help you increase exposure and decrease burns, and how to use the right sunscreen and clothing as your protection.
(8:44) What the sun does for you
Let’s start with this Bible verse from Matthew 6:22-23 when Jesus says: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
This verse speaks to me in so many ways - it makes me think about the fact that in order to be truly healthy, we have to “see” ourselves as healthy first. You can’t keep picturing yourself, seeing yourself, as a slothful yo-yo dieter if you want to be fit and healthy. That darkness of mind will lead you into vicious cycles of making unhealthy decisions. You’ve got to fill your eye with the light of love and possibility, with the capability of strength that God lends you in order to make change for better health.
Another way this verse speaks to me is in the context we’re talking about today.
The eye is truly the portal through which sunlight beams into our body and signals the brain about where our bodies are in time and space in relation to the earth.
It’s what sets our circadian rhythm which is our internal clock. It tells us when to sleep and when to wake, it releases hormones based on the information it gets from light or doesn’t get from light. It’s what anchors our entire day.
One of the best things you can do - especially if you suffer from cortisol dysregulation, adrenal fatigue or sleep issues - is to expose your eyes to the morning sun as soon as you can.
It helps signal our body to release cortisol appropriately throughout the day and to release melatonin, our sleep hormone at night. Your body knows that approximately 12 hours after it registers that morning light, it will be time to release melatonin for sleep.
If you can be outside when the sun rises or soon thereafter and let that natural light hit your eyeballs, it’s so good for your system. I purposefully don’t wear sunglasses or a hat on my morning walk. I want that sunshine in my eyes!
(11:54) Vitamin D:
Another way that the sun helps us is by making Vitamin D - which is called the sunshine vitamin.
When the UVB rays hit our skin, it reacts with a cholesterol compound to make Vitamin D, which is not just a vitamin but also considered a hormone.
Statistically, there are so many people who are deficient in Vitamin D and it’s important to have your levels checked because it is so crucial to health. We need it to be able to absorb calcium properly. It’s so critical for bone health, and it’s also important for your muscles, your nerves and your immune system.
The best way to soak up sun to make Vitamin D is to get it when the sun is high in the sky, so more middle of the day, and to expose a large area of your your body, like your stomach, your back, your legs - to the direct sun for about 10-30 minutes depending on your skin and how much you can take in before you burn.
(13:28) Mitochondria:
Another very cool thing sunlight does for us is energize our mitochondria - you’re going to hear more and more about mitochondria in the next few years. There are a lot more books coming out about it and biohackers have been speaking about it for years.
Our mitochondria are the power engine inside our cells. They take in nutrients from the cell, break it down, and turn it into energy FOR the cell to carry out all of the functions it needs to take care of. The life and work of your cells depend on the health of your mitochondria. We’re talking core health stuff here y’all.
Sunlight produces a beneficial negative charge inside our cells and activates our mitochondria. Gives it a boost. I love this idea that we’re solar beings that can be charged up by the sun - literally. Our cells are meant to capture and hold sunlight. I love thinking of it that way.
Speaking of boosting boosting mitchondria - fasting and exercise are also good for that. And do you know where we have some of the greatest concentration of mitochondria in the body? - in the retina - in the eyeballs. In fact, a lot of eye failure and disease is a decline in mitochondrial function. But isn’t that interesting how this all comes together - the eye is the lamp of the body that allows rays to signal the brain, it’s teeming with mitochondria...
Another interesting fact about mitochondria is that we inherit pretty much all of it from our mothers. So if you’ve got bad genetic mitochondria, blame it on the mama.
(15:35) Endorphins and Serotonin:
A few other things the sun does for us is release endorphins and boost serotonin - all of which are feel good, warm and fuzzy hormones.
My friend Erin and I always talk about how much being in the sun makes us happy. Think about a day at the beach - being in the sun, water and sand, it’s perfect Genesis prescription stuff right there - and how content you feel and how wiped you are at the end of the day. It’s all of these feel good chemicals flowing through you and your body getting the clear signal for daytime and nighttime hormones. The physical interaction with the earth is so good for our bodies.
Oh and the Sun can also boost libido and metabolism. So if you feel sexy and skinny after being in the sun, there ya go.
(16:35) Photoprotection: How to decrease sunburns
Now, I know a lot of you are like I can’t sit in the sun 5 seconds without getting burned. And while, yes, there are varying tolerable levels for people, we can help our body better tolerate sun exposure in several ways.
The first is to reduce the things that are causing your body inflammation on the inside. When your inside is on fire, you’re much more likely to catch fire on the outside.
Your diet, of course, plays a ginormous role in inflammation. When you’re shoveling down sugar and hot cheetos and drinking cokes and eating fried foods, you’re gonna fry sister.
What we want to do is eat foods and use supplements that are photoprotective - in a sense we want to sunscreen ourselves from the inside out.
You want to get plenty of:
Healthy fats - especially Omega-3 fatty acids which we mostly get from fish or fish oil. This is one I usually recommend supplementing, especially if you don’t get enough fish like wild-caught salmon, sardines, mackerel - the really oily fish.
Omega-3s enhance the immune system and strengthen the skin’s barrier function. One study showed it inhibits UV-induced skin damage. So we want to get plenty of Omega-3s but in general, you want to make sure you’re including all healthy fats like avocado and eggs and olives or olive oil, coconut oil and real butter. Also, really beautifully pigmented foods like colorful fruits and vegetables make great sun protectors. Make that connection between food pigment and our skin pigments.
Foods like goji berries, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, watermelon and cantaloupe - those are all high in carotenoids. Carotenoids are antioxidants known to be useful as systemic sun protectants.
Antioxidants are chemicals that help stop or limit damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are unstable molecules that can damage the cells in your body and contribute to aging more rapidly, plus contribute to health conditions like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
The more antioxidants we get in our diet or through supplements the better we can slow down the aging process and fend off illness.
When it comes to skin, Antioxidants are known for fortifying cell membranes and preserving intracellular components from UV-induced cell damage and intracellular water loss. Vitamin C is one of the most documented beneficial antioxidants. It’s found in citrus fruits, mangos, strawberries, cauliflower, broccoli.
Polyphenols are also antioxidant compounds that help protect the body’s tissues against oxidative stress and protect the immune system.We polyphenols are found in foods like berries, pomegranates, tea (especially green tea), red grapes, red wine, onions, and citrus fruits, turmeric.
Essentially you want to eat healthy fats and lots of colorful fruits and veggies - especially the ones that are in season. Don’t you know God packaged up the most protective compounds, the ones we need the most, with each season of the year.
Ecclesiastes 1:9
(21:03) Supplements:
If you want to specifically target your body’s ability to tolerate the sun better, you could include things like extra Vitamin C, Astaxanthin - which is one I like to use at this time of the year - it serves as a natural sunscreen in marine plants. It is a really potent antioxidant.
EGCG, a powerful polyphenol antioxidant that has been shown in studies to offer preventive effects against the sun. It’s also a good one for metabolism - EGCG stands for this long name that’s hard to pronounce - epigallocatechin-3-gallate but it’s a compound commonly found in Green tea. So if you like green tea, that’s even better.
There’s another supplement I read about called Polypodium Extract that is another antioxidant that’s supposed to be particularly helpful when it comes to sun protection - I haven’t tried it yet, but I want to order it.
(22:54) Sunscreens and Coverups:
Practicing safe sun exposure most definitely includes using clothing and sunscreen to prevent getting too much. Again, the dose makes the poison and while we want to let some of those beams in, we don’t want to bake.
It’s so good for us to spend more time in the outdoors, interacting with nature, and yet, that could mean us getting too much sun if we’re not careful. Ideally, like I said, we get morning light into our eyes, a short burst of daytime sun onto our skin, and then it’s good to get a little evening light into our eyes as the sun goes down.
These three exposures help ground our bodies in time - and make our internal clock tick like a champ. It sets us up for a solid circadian rhythm and good adrenal health. Plus, when we’re getting some regular exposure our skin becomes more tolerant if it’s building a base slowly.
Well, the disciples weren’t greasing up with Coppertone as they walked between cities or went fishing. But they did wear a lot of protective clothing back then.
Clothing was the original sunscreen and it’s obviously a great option for us today.
My husband is a cattle rancher, and he’s in long-sleeves and a cowboy hat pretty much year round. It looks so hot to be in long sleeves on a 100 degree day, but that’s what he does to protect himself.
I can’t say I’m as disciplined in covering myself up but I do wear a hat and sunscreen on my face every day. I use the Beautycounter Dew Skin which is a tinted sunscreen moisturizer with zinc in it. I wear it under my makeup and it is my #1 Beautycounter must have.
When it comes to sunscreen you want to avoid the chemical ingredients like oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate, and octinoxate.
Many of these are endocrine disruptors, which mean they can interfere with your hormones, they can make you more estrogenic. This is true for a lot of the skin and makeup products we use - and that cumulative effect of using them every day can drive a serious chink in our hormonal balance.
You want to go for a mineral based sunscreen like zinc oxide or titanium dioxide, which create a physical barrier to protect the skin from the sun. You want to be sure to get non nano particles- nano particles are super small and can find your way into the blood stream more directly, but non-nano particles are bigger and safer.
There are a lot of great mineral based sunscreens out there. There’s an app called Healthy Living by the EWG - that rates a lot of products including sunscreens for their safety of using them on the body.
Some good options are Badger, Blue Lizard, The Honest Company, California Baby and of course Beautycounter - those all rate well for safety. I use Beautycounter because a lot of the zinc-based sunscreens are white and chalky and my kids are not down with looking like casper the ghost.
(29:30) Be like Goldilocks:
Make sure you’re stocking up on the good mineral sunscreens this summer and using clothing and hats to avoid overexposure.
I don’t know how many times I’ve used the goldilocks analogy on this podcast but, yet, again, it applies so well. We don’t want too much sun, but we also don’t want too little, we want it to get it jusssssssst right. That’s going to be different for each person but I hope everything we talked about today gives you an appreciation for our bodies, creation, the life-giving properties of the sun.
As I always I so appreciate YOU spending this time with me - I love when you tell me you take me with you on a walk or in the car - Rebecca, Page, Melissa are a few people I know of off the top of my head - and I so appreciate when you leave me a review - Danielle thank you so much for the kind review you left. I read them all and it makes my heart burst and it also helps other people to find the podcast when it gets reviews. And I’m here to keep all of us focused on more God and better health, so the more people we can reach, the better and I’m so grateful in the ways you help me do that.
(31:01) Outro & Disclaimer
Thanks for listening! Have a healthy and blessed week!