Why Sunlight and Fresh Air are Vital to Healthy Living and Wellbeing
Vitamin D levels are boosted by being outdoors — also if you have large windows
The Covid-19 pandemic has created many associated health concerns, one of them being a deficiency in Vitamin D — something people would get naturally if they spent more time outdoors.
Being outdoors can improve physical and mental health. Even being indoors but bathing in sunlight is a great start, for which you need large windows… more of that further down.
What exactly are the benefits of sunshine and fresh air on wellbeing? Let’s have a closer look…
Sunshine
- Research has found that spending just 30 minutes in the sun can provide you with a day’s recommended supply of vitamin D, absorbing it through the skin. Vitamin D helps reduce your risk of type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and heart disease.
- Spending just 15 minutes soaked in daylight can help your body close down melatonin, which sends you to sleep. So sunlight helps your body develop a more stable sleep routine.
- Sunlight fights off depression because serotonin — our happy chemical — is more prevalent in our brain when the days are lighter and longer. When serotonin levels increase, so does our mood as endorphins are produced red blood cell production rises carrying oxygen through our body and to our brain..
- Sunlight has also been found to improve liver function and speed up metabolism, helping to prevent obesity.
- It has also been claimed that sunlight lowers blood cholesterol levels and possibly even slows down the signs of ageing.
Fresh air
- By inhaling fresh air it helps to clear your lungs. This means you can take deeper, longer breaths of air. And this increases the amount of oxygen in your body, giving greater energy and giving your mind greater clarity.
- Is crucial for your body’s metabolism and energy levels.
- Strengthens your immune system — because white cells need extra oxygen to help them beat off viruses.
- As the brain needs more than 20% of the body’s oxygen to function properly, fresh air undoubtedly Improves concentration.
- Like sunshine, fresh air boosts serotonin levels, so improves our mood.
- Helps to improve heart rate and blood pressure.
- Also helps to reduce sore muscles — the aches and cramp caused by lactic acid built up during exercise.
Scalesceugh Hall & Villas co-founder Anita Herdeiro is also an experienced general practice doctor. Scalesceugh has reinvented the retirement living model and the huge villa windows are imported from Denmark to provide that extra natural light.
Anita explains: “In Cumbria, we experience 30% less sunshine than people do in Mediterranean countries like Spain.
“It has been proved that mood and activity is significantly affected by light, which was one of the reasons our international group of architects created a lot of light in the villas — through positioning and sizes of the windows.
“Fortunately, our beautiful location also entices people outside into their own gardens, or into the gardens of Scalesceugh Hall — or to explore the region around us.”
