Vitamin D and its Importance
How to Obtain Vitamin D in the Fall & Winter Months
Christina Markos
Now that the long summer days are behind us and we are well into fall, it becomes clear that we aren’t able to be outdoors as much or be exposed to sunshine as often. It is a bittersweet feeling as we leave the longest and sunniest days of the year and enter into a new season and many of us struggle with the effects of darker, colder months.
Looking into “The Need for Vitamin D” in Davis’ Let’s Stay Healthy, she recognized that “Each Spring many of us experience a feeling of well-being and easily forget the aches and pains of winter. Apart from the psychological aspect of longer, sunny days and the prospect of vacations, much of this can be ascribed to the increase of vitamins in the food we eat.” She realized that we should ” try to spend as long as possible in the open in the wintertime to get some benefit from the sun. If this is impracticable because of work hours, climate, and so on, then it makes sense to check vitamin content of your diet.”
Looking into what vitamins can really do for us, here is some more information on vitamin D, why it is so important and how it really does affect our mood. It also gives great ideas on how to obtain it safely through sunlight and also through dietary forms in these fall and winter months.
It is the only vitamin that is also a hormone and most people are Vitamin D deficient because the best way to get vitamin d is through the sunshine! People who live in sunny climates tend to be fine (all it takes is about 10-15 minutes of sun exposure) but others have to rely on other forms, i.e. milk, fortified dairy-free substitutes, fish, fish oil or with supplements. We all must practice safe sun exposure, so we all can’t be lying in the sun welcoming the “D” all the time, but if you can take a walk to manage to get outdoors for just 10-15 minutes with your sunscreen on then you will be safe and feeling all of the positive effects vitamin d has on our moods and our bodies. So if you are somewhere where the sun is shining bright today, think of getting outdoors as your daily dose of a vitamin that is very good for and hard to obtain with food and supplements alone.
Let’s all stay healthy during these colder months and keep our spirits sunny.
Davis, A. (1981). The Need for Vitamin D. Let’s Stay Healthy (169-180). London: George Allen & Unwin.
Vitamin T. “It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright, sun shiny day.” Retrieved from http://www.vitamintdaily.com
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