May Is the Month of SUNSHINE!
If you follow the health experts or even if you don’t care about their opinion, but you pay attention to some old human practices, you know how important the sun is for us. Just look at the Egyptians or the Mayans and then you realize how the sun was treated as the highest level deity. The ancient Greeks came up with the term heliotherapy (“helio” means “sun”) for what we now call sunlight therapy. Exposure to sun was considered to be an important part of their Olympic athletic training (check out Philostratus). In Romania we have this proverb: “where the sun does not enter the window, the doctor enters your door”.
There’s no doubt that exposure to sunshine is beneficial for health. Our bodies are able to synthesize vitamin D from the sun and store it in our adipose tissue (fancy word for fat). However, there is more to sunshine than just vitamin D, which indeed has numerous benefits for our wellbeing. The UVA light from the sun helps us produce nitric oxide (NO). According to the GrassrootsHealth Institute’s research, “benefits from increased nitric oxide production include dilated coronary arteries, lowered blood pressure, and reduced risk of angina – a condition characterized by severe chest pain and inadequate blood supply to the heart.”
Here is an interesting TED talk by Dr. Richard Weller that shows how good sunshine is for your heart health. Take 12 minutes to watch this video then go outside to get some sun!
If you or a loved one are considering improving your heart health, beyond just spending time in the sun, please contact me. I have a new health coaching protocol based on The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up book. Ask me about the special discount!
