7 Reasons Sunlight is Essential During Winter

With much shorter days and even longer nights, winter often feels like it is a season that’s meant for hibernation. And, if you live in a colder climate like I do, you know how hard it is to want to go outside when you’d rather stay cozy indoors. But if you spend too much time inside, it can have many effects on your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. 

Have you noticed yourself feeling more tired, unmotivated, or down during the winter months? If you have, first, you’re not alone, and second, it’s not just in your head. Your body is deeply connected to the Earth’s natural rhythms, and sunlight plays a key role in keeping you balanced. Without it, your system can fall out of sync, leaving you feeling fatigued, moody, and more prone to illnesses.

But winter doesn’t have to mean shutting yourself off from the benefits of sunlight. In this blog, we’ll explore how in bundling up, implementing some practical solutions, and intentionally seeking the sun, you can still harness its essential benefits for your health and thrive this winter. 

1. Essential Vitamins 

One of the most obvious benefits of the sun that comes to mind is Vitamin D. We all know we need it… but why? 

There are countless reasons why vitamin D is extremely essential to our health in many ways. 

Here are just 7 reasons that vitamin D is essential: 

1. Calcium Absorption

By aiding in calcium absorption, Vitamin D helps to strengthen your bones and prevent bone disorders. 

2. Bone Health 

Vitamin D also promotes bone mineralization, which is the process of laying down minerals in the bone structure and making them strong. 

3. Immune System

By helping your body defend against infections, reduce inflammation, and regulate your immune responses, vitamin D plays a vital role in your immune system health. 

4. Improve Mood 

Vitamin D has a significant impact on mental health. Vitamin D helps your body naturally create more serotonin (the happy hormone) and reduce cortisol (the stress hormone). It also reduces your risk of depression, and supports cognitive function, allowing you to experience improved memory and focus. 

5. Heart Health 

By helping to maintain healthy cholesterol levels, Vitamin D reduces the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular disorders. 

6. Regulates Blood Sugar

By improving insulin sensitivity, vitamin D reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes. 

7. Reproductive Health 

Vitamin D naturally supports hormone balance and influences fertility in both men and women. In women, vitamin D helps to regulate hormonal balance, support ovarian function, improve uterine health, enhance pregnancy outcomes, and reduce inflammation. In men, vitamin D helps to boost testosterone levels, improve sperm quality, and protect against testicular cancers.

Of course, you want all these benefits, but what do you do if you can’t get them through the sun? 

It’s true that sometimes it’s simply not possible to get enough sun in the wintertime for effective vitamin D. 

So, if it’s too cold, or too cloudy, here’s how you can be sure your body still receives the benefits of vitamin D: 

Dietary Sources 

You can incorporate vitamin D into your diet easily by adding in some of the following foods. 

• Fatty fish, such as salmon, halibut, mackerel, tuna, or sardines. 
• Fortified dairy products, such as milk, yogurt, cream, cheese, and butter. 
• Eggs.
• Mushrooms. 

Supplementation 

It’s very difficult to receive a sufficient amount of vitamin D from your diet alone, so supplementation can be very helpful. Many healthcare practitioners recommend taking Vitamin D3 and K2 together, particularly during the winter months or if dietary sources are insufficient. Look for supplements that combine these nutrients in balanced doses to ensure the maximum benefit. Vitamin D3 and K2 work together because Vitamin D3 helps the body absorb calcium from the digestive tract into the bloodstream. And, once calcium is in the bloodstream, vitamin K2 directs it to the right places. 

Feeling Tired… All The Time 

Sunlight reduces natural melatonin in your body, so it actually helps to wake you up. So, when you’re feeling exhausted in the wintertime, it could be because your body is producing too much melatonin.  

Feeling exhausted all the time is not just inconvenient… It also affects your mood, mental function, creativity, and intuition. 

Here are 3 ways that chronic fatigue affects your well-being: 

Cognitive Fatigue: When you are extremely tired, your brain’s processing capacity is reduced. This affects your ability to analyze situations and think through problems logically, which can cause you to miss the messages from your intuition. When you’re exhausted, you may find it difficult to identify patterns or make connections you usually would. 

Emotional Instability: Fatigue can make your emotions feel more intense and more difficult to regulate. This can cloud your intuition, leading you to make decisions based on emotions, or stress, rather than clear, calm insights. Emotional responses often cloud the judgement that intuition relies on.

Lowered Creativity: When you constantly feel exhausted, it becomes very difficult to channel your creativity. You may find it harder to think outside the box or see alternative solutions to problems, reducing your ability to trust and act on any intuitive downloads or messages you may receive. 

So, how can you feel the rejuvenation effects of the sun when it’s not shining much in your area and you can’t spend much time outside due to the cold? 

If you really can’t get out, consider picking up a sun lamp. The blue light rays from this type of light activate the hormones within your brain that help you to wake up and feel alert, and help to regulate your levels of melatonin. 

Sunlight and Natural Rhythms 

Sunlight also plays a major role in regulating your circadian rhythms. 

Your circadian rhythm is essentially your body’s internal clock. And sunlight, (particularly blue light), helps you set your body’s internal clock, making sure it stays in sync with the day and night cycle. 

When you expose yourself to sunlight, especially in the morning, it signals to your body that it’s time to wake up and be active. This keeps your energy levels up during the day and helps you sleep better at night by aligning your sleep patterns with the natural light around you. 

Your circadian rhythm also has a great impact on your hormones. So, if you are someone who is looking to balance your hormones, consider some ways where you could add natural sunlight into your daily routine. On cold days, you may have to bundle up, but if you can make it a priority to get outside even just for a little while, you will see significant improvements. 

Viruses & Bacteria

Heat and humidity are known to reduce the viral load on your body. This is why we see colds and flus popping up so often during the cold months. 

It’s not just the heat either, though, the light from the sun itself actually has antibacterial effects. Even just exposing yourself to the sun’s rays on a cold day can increase your resistance to infections and boost your immune system. 

Sunlight and Inflammation

The infrared rays from the sun also help to reduce inflammation in your body. 

Infrared light is a hugely beneficial thing for our bodies. If you are not able to get out in the sun very often, or you have to bundle up a lot when you do go out there, consider trying an infrared sauna, or hot yoga class. 

The Role Sunlight Plays in Digestion

Did you know that being in the sun actually helps improve your digestion?

It’s more than just the warmth also–sunlight plays a major role in the overall balance of your body, including your gut health. 

And your gut is not just a digestive powerhouse; it’s also one of the strongest intuitive centres in your body. 

We’ve all heard the phrase, “trust your gut instinct”. This points to the vital role that your digestive system plays in processing subtle signals and information. 

Your gut also communicates directly with your brain and acts as a bridge to your innate wisdom. 

The Gut as an Intuitive Center 

Your gut health is immensely important for many reasons, and one that is often not mentioned is that your gut is actually one of the strongest intuitive centers in your body. Your nervous system communicates directly with your brain through the vagus nerve, making it a key player in processing subtle signals from your body and environment, and opening up your intuitive channels. 

Maintaining a balanced gut creates a container for clear and accurate intuitive readings, downloads, and messages. And, alternatively, a gut imbalance, or inflammation, go on to cloud this connection and lead to feelings of uncertainty and disconnection from your innate inner guidance. 

Mind-Gut Connection. 

Your gut produces the 90% of your body’s serotonin in your digestive tract and other neurotransmitters that influence your mood and intuition. 

Meaning, when your gut health is optimal, these chemicals create a sense of calm and clarity, making it easier to trust and act on intuitive insights. 

And, when your gut health is imbalanced, it can disrupt the production of these crucial chemicals, leading to feelings of anxiety, brain fog, and emotional instability. This imbalance can make it more difficult to have discernment and trust your intuitive signals. 

Supporting your gut health through natural sunlight, a balanced diet, probiotics, and stress management can help restore this connection, enhancing both your mood and ability to tune into your intuition. 

Sensitivity to Energies 

Having imbalances in your gut may make you hypersensitive to external energies, which could amplify anxiety or emotional reactivity. A healthy gut, however, acts as a grounding force, stabilizing your energy and enhancing your ability to discern what truly aligns with your higher self.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) 

Just as the acronym suggests, SAD is a form of depression–one that is specific to the colder months. 

When the days get shorter, and we experience more darkness than sunlight, it can take a major toll on our mental health. 

This is because, as human beings, we were not created to be indoors all the time. We really do need sunlight. It is essential to our mental health as much as it is to our physical health. When sunlight enters our eyes, it actually boosts our happiness, and reduces our stress. Being in the sun drastically improves our mood. So, without as much access to it in the wintertime, it makes sense why 10 million Americans struggle with this form of depression. 

Now, if you can’t spend enough time outside during the winter to feel the sun’s mood boosting effects, there are some other ways you can lift yourself up and out of the SAD winter slump. 

Sweating: Get your sweat on! Go to a sauna, get a work out in, or even shovel your driveway (bonus because you’re also outside!). Any way that you choose to sweat, you will feel a sudden shift in your mood. The act of sweating is both a physical and energetic release. 

Music: Listening to some music that makes you feel good will shift your frequency immediately, and is even more powerful if you choose to get up and dance too!

Smiling: At times, this one can feel silly, but even when you are forcing yourself to smile, it truly does boost your mood and your energy immediately. If you feel a stagnant or looming energy, just start to smile and laugh, and notice how immediately you begin to feel better. 

All that being said, sometimes it’s not just the lack of sunlight, but also just the slow, quiet vibe of winter itself that causes people to experience winter blues.

So, how can we reframe the winter into something enjoyable and supportive for us? 

I personally like to think of the winter as a natural time to slow down and to enjoy a cozy routine. Winter is a great time to both plan and prepare for the upcoming year ahead, and rest after a year of hard work done. Take advantage of the restful energy of the season rather than trying to power through into the end. 

Let the Sunlight In 

Winter doesn’t have to mean shutting yourself off from the life-giving benefits of sunlight. By making small, intentional efforts to incorporate the benefits of sunlight into your routine–whether through a morning walk, a sunlamp, heat therapy, or supplementation–you can uplift your mood, support your health, and stay aligned with your natural rhythms. 

Remember, sunlight is more than a source of warmth. It’s a vital ingredient for your physical, mental and spiritual well-being. 

So bundle up if you need to and seek out those golden rays! Allow the sunlight to energize and rejuvenate you this winter. 

I’d love to hear from you! What will you be doing to incorporate more sunlight into your routine this winter? 

Curious to learn more about connecting to your intuition, cultivating abundance, and manifesting your dream life? Schedule a discovery call with me here.