Getting enough sun per day is important; but if a person overdoes this, the scorching hot sun could result in actual damage to the person's skin. As such, experts answer how much sunlight do you need a day and why it's necessary.
How Much Sunlight Do You Need a Day?
According to Healthline, the recommended amount of sunlight per day for a person to maintain healthy blood levels lies at around 10 to 30 minutes during midday. Ideally, humans should expose themselves to the sun regularly as a way to get natural vitamin D.
However, this might not apply to everyone since exposure time should be adjusted depending on a person's skin sensitivity to sunlight. Exposing oneself to the sun at healthy volumes could help prevent potential skin burns.
A misconception about sunbathing is that people shouldn't cover their heads when in fact, since the head is only a small part of the body, sunbathers are free to cover it and keep it away from the sun. Healthline also recommends that lighter-skinned people might need exposure to the sun only thrice per week.
Darker-skinned individuals were also recommended to spend longer periods under the sun since they could require more sunlight. This is to get enough vitamin D from exposure to sunlight.
Importance of Vitamin D
The National Institutes of Health reports that without enough vitamin D, a person's bones would become thin, brittle, or even mishappen. Having enough vitamin D would also help prevent conditions like rickets in children and with regards to adults, it helps counter osteomalacia.
Vitamin D, together with calcium, helps combat osteoporosis in older adults. Aside from that, Vitamin promotes calcium absorption, reduces inflammation, and modulates processes like cell growth or immune function.
As noted by Mayo Clinic, a regular adult would need 600 internal units (IU) of vitamin D daily. Older adults would require 800 IU of vitamin D daily but other experts, like those from the Endocrine Society, recommend an adult getting up to 1,500 to 2,000 IU.
Benefits of Getting Enough Sunlight
Good Rx reports different benefits of enough sunlight starting with getting enough vitamin D. Aside from the benefits mentioned earlier, vitamin D also helps regulate blood sugar and ensures the brain works well.
Sunlight is also known to kill bacteria, especially for those spending most of their time indoors around different bacteria types that could trigger symptoms of allergy and asthma. A study in the Bio Med Central journal reports that only 6% of bacteria survive in sunlight while 12% of bacteria survive in darkroom environments.
Another study uploaded in the Aha journals suggests that sunlight exposure could reduce high blood pressure by lowering systolic blood pressure in people who were undergoing dialysis and had kidney failure.
The study found that UV light increases nitric oxide availability in the body, causing a widening in a person's blood vessels, and resulting in blood pressure reduction. However, more research is still needed to confirm the connection.
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