Spending time in the sun is not really one of our favorite pastimes. Well, it should be!
Oh but who wants to get tanned?
I am already brown skinned, I don't want to turn black!
It burns my skin!
Sitting in the sun? It gives skin cancer!
Yes, these are all valid points. But something is more important than tanning or skin color. It is our health!
Trust me when I say this from my personal experience-Sunshine is IMPORTANT! Maybe the most important thing to run after nowadays.
My experience starts right from my college days. All through my school and my high school days,I spent at least 2 hours in the sun, walking to and from the bus stop near our home, between 9 and 11 in the morning as well as 3-4 in the afternoon. Needless to say I was heavily tanned all over my face, neck and arms. But hey,who cares about these things when I was also a walking ball of sunshine? :) I was constantly told by my teachers as well as my classmates that I was the chirpiest, cutest, funniest girl in the class. YES,I was. I had a joke ready all the time. I always looked at the glass as half full. My smile lit up my loved ones' life.
When I went to college, it turned out that I spent way too much time in AC classrooms than frolicking in the sun. The timings of my lectures also changed and I would enter my college building by 8-9 AM and leave in evening by 5-6 PM. After that,it was only when my family would decide on an outing on a weekend that I would actually feel sunshine on my skin.
One fine day, I felt a sharp pain in my jaw on the left lower side. Going to the dentist was a nightmare. I needed a root canal. ME? ROOT CANAL? I have extremely obsessive dental care routine. No, this had to be a mistake. Of course not. There was a little infection which had spread to the nerve of the teeth and I needed a root canal. What? But I drink milk, eat yoghurt, I have a calcium rich diet, how is this possible?
This was also the time when I had lost some of my otherwise cheerful disposition. I started crying in the dentist's room. She said, 'You have Calcium, what about Vitamin D?'
Everything clicked together!
Do you know that the calcium in our diet is transported to our bones and teeth ONLY with the presence of Vitamin D? And this Vitamin D is actually Vitamin D3 which our bodies get ONLY when we spend time in the sun!!!
All through my childhood, spending time in the sun had kept me fit and healthy. 2 years of spending time in college halls and AC indoors and I needed a root canal! Plus my friends vouched how I had turned so dull compared to how cheerful I used to be earlier. Another way we know how deficient we are in Vitamin D is how low we feel for no reason at all! Yes, Vitamin D gives a boost to our happy hormones.
So, No Sunshine = No Vitamin D3 = Bone and Dental problems + Depressive attitude!
Why did we never read about this in school?
Anyway, what is done is done. Now what is important is to remember some important things-
Regular exposure to sun is a must for everyone. We need to be out in the sun for at least half hour to 1 hour and that too between 9 AM-3 PM because that is when sunshine is at its most potent in terms of making that essential Vitamin D3 for our bodies! Our bodies can store excess Vitamin D3, so even if we do not get access to sunshine in monsoon or winter season, we can make up for it by soaking up all the sun we can during the summer months.
Now remember why our grandmothers used to force us to go out and play or atleast sit in the sun whenever we went to village? Sunshine is really the source of happiness and peppiness amongst us humans, we must never forget that :)
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
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