Sun Safety from a Holistic Perspective
How to navigate healthy sun exposure with research, tips, and science!
(I will not shut up about the sun, however, but this is easily one of my husband’s and my most quoted Office lines)
With summer around the corner, navigating sun exposure in a healthy, evidence-driven way can help alleviate confusion and fear (and a bad sunburn).
With that in mind, we’re going to cover the truth of when and how to have safe sun exposure, as well as address the deep benefits of sunshine.
This is not medical advice and mostly will be a collection of well-informed scientific literature to help each of us make wise decisions!
Wait…I thought the sun wasn’t safe?!
“It is now understood that regular exposure to the sun is not the risk once thought to be; it might be worse to have only intermittent exposure. Sunscreen and sunblock use have increased enormously, but so has incidence of skin cancer. In fact, skin cancer rates have increased the most in places that people use the most sun creams, leading to speculation that something in the creams themselves may be carcinogenic.”
Don’t, worry, I’ll come back to chat about non-toxic sunscreen choices!
Did your mouth just drop?? It’s possible the very tool created to keep skin cancer at bay has had the opposite effect and that sunshine can offer immense health benefits after all. However, there is also good research to suggest that proper use of sunscreen can also be beneficial for skin health, so what are we to do?
Be Smart Outside
We are no strangers to playing outside, and as a more olive-skinned family we typically fare well. These are the principles we personally keep in mind when dealing with sun exposure!
Because the truth is, we can still be team sunshine and do it wisely. Getting a bad burn is NOT skin-friendly, even if the sun can be!
Before 10am and after 3-4pm, UV rays are not as strong, and these are great windows for less worry around burning; however, for optimal vitamin D production, getting 10-15 minutes of sunshine on larger exposed areas of skin between 10am-3pm is helpful.
If we ARE going to be outside in hot summer months with little to no shade during the windows of 10am-3pm, hats, safe sunscreen, breezy clothing and other skin shading methods are used.
We personally don’t do much additional in non-summer months unless we have a long stretch outside on a warm day, but you can always keep an eye on the UV index for your area each day - the higher (up to 15), the more protection and or shade you may need!
If we are going to a beach, pool, etc, where burn risk is more likely, we also use shade, hats, sunscreen, clothing coverage, etc. as needed and reapply sunscreen on exposed areas (especially those that have not had a build up of sun exposure yet) every 60-80 minutes!
The important thing is to protect from burning especially, which can increase risk for melanoma (source).
Our diet can influence our sun safety
A more recently circulating conversation has begun around how our dietary fats influence our resiliency to a sunburn, with the unfortunate rise of polyunsaturated cooking oils in processed foods and even in home cooking (to include vegetable oil, canola oil, etc).
“Should we avoid the sun as much as possible? The more your diet is full of pro-inflammatory fats and sugar, the more my answer is yes. But if your diet is healthy, then your collagen won't be seriously injured unless your skin actually burns-which I would never recommend. The more vegetable oil in your diet, and the more PUFAs end up in your skin, the more readily you will get burned and the more extensive the invisible damage to the deeper layers of your skin.”
-Shanahan, Cate, M.D. Deep Nutrition. Flatiron Books, 2017.
I could quote nearly the whole chapter, and Dr. Shanahan has conveniently turned it into a blog post as well, which you can read in full here!
Choosing to pursue a whole foods diet rich in antioxidants and using stable cooking fats like ghee, butter, coconut oil, etc instead of canola, vegetable and seed oils, etc, can be great support in neutralizing oxidative stress, as well as in supporting our skin’s sun response.
Need help eating well without losing fun and flavor? I’ve got ya! Head to my cookbooks and recipes, here! “{Your cookbooks} changed our lives.” - Kim K. 🥺
We NEED the sun- vitamin D from sunlight is superior to supplementation!
“When the skin is exposed to sunlight it produces corticotropin-releasing hormone…{which} has a wide range of physiological effects, including regulation of immune function and endocrine function.”
-Gaby, Alan R. Nutritional Medicine. Fritz Perlberg Publishing, 2017.
“There is a major difference between supplemental D coming out of a vitamin bottle versus vitamin D that comes via the transactions triggered by sunlight. Vitamin D produced by sunlight exposure is sulfated, meaning that it is water-soluble. It has completely different properties than supplemental D, which are fat-soluble…Fat-soluble vitamin D is incapable of circulating through the body in the same way that the sun-derived natural, sulfated form of vitamin D does.”
-Robbins, Morley. CUre: Your Fatigue. Gatekeeper Press, 2021.
“Sunshine is considered to be the most important source of vitamin D. Due to an increased risk of skin cancer, sun avoidance is advised, but this directly contributes to the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.”
-Sunshine is an Important Determinant of Vitamin D Status Even Among High-dose Supplement Users: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial in Crohn's Disease Patients, PubMed link here.
Some Good Options for Non-Toxic Sunscreen
These are all EWG verified for low toxicity!
Babo Botanicals - fragrance-free, SPF 50, water resistant for 80 mins
Sky & Sol - (love the ingredients in this one!) - SPF 50, safe enough to eat (but don’t 🤭)
Think Sport - chemical-free, SPF 50, water & sweat resistant for 80 mins
Attitude - unscented, mineral-based, SPF 30, oat extract
There’s honestly a LOT of good options! I don’t have a singular one I swear by, and the EWG site has others as well. (These are my Amazon store links but are not sponsored in any way, just wanted to give some inspiration!) I look for fragrance-free, mineral-based, and usually EWG certified personally!
Be smart out there, friends - the sun is powerful in more than one way - we both don’t have to ignore it’s potential effects OR succumb to fear of what God designed for our good, when viewed appropriately!
I hope this helps!
