This is part 1 of 3 in the Sunshine Series.
Mulder Sunbathing on the deck
A couple of weeks ago I was watching the news and the anchorman said “today will probably be the last sunny day of the year”. Talk about a downer! Since then we’ve actually had a few sunny days, but otherwise it has been rainy as predicted, and more on the way. The gray curtain of the Pacific Northwest winter is about to descend up us and it won’t leave until around Spring Break. To make matters worse we are pretty far north so the days are much shorter here than in the south. That means that soon after you “Fall Back” for daylight losing time it can get dark before 5:00 PM. If you work 9-5 in an office you may not see sunlight for much of the winter. According to this BusinessWeek article Portland ranks Number 1 as America’s unhappiest city. Ouch!
For those who don’t live in this part of the country you might have misconceptions about the notorious winter weather out here. It doesn’t rain all year long, and it doesn’t rain all the time in the winter either. However it is almost always cloudy and overcast from November-February. It’s not just partly cloudy overcast either. I’m talking about a dark gray 100% cloud cover that looms overhead emitting drizzle, fog, freezing fog, humidity, and the constant threat of rain, which does happen quite often. To top it off the humidity makes the temperature feel colder than it really is. The temps usually hover in the 40’s during the day, and 30’s at night, rarely deviating from that cycle. To make matters worse many people in the seasonably cloudy northwest get SAD (seasonable affective disorder) during the long winter months with minimal sunshine. Many locals will tell you its all hype and the cloudy weather doesn’t bother them. Others are more frank about it and just accept the fact that it’s a seasonable thing. While I enjoy the indoor hibernation of being “rained in” for a while I can tell you it gets old very fast. By the time January rolls around it can be a downright drag.
Before you start feeling SAD let me share with you some good news about how to cope with the winter blues. It’s very simple really, so simple that you might kick yourself for not thinking of it sooner. Take a vitamin D supplement. Sounds ridiculous I know, but it actually works. This was suggested to me by another Coloradoan who moved out here and felt SAD in the winter. After leaving a place that has about 300 days of sunshine per year and moving to a place that has about 300 cloudy days a year it can be a difficult adjustment. I might add that in my case I had been working swing shift inside of a factory building that had no windows at all. Additionally I am slightly lactose intolerant so I drink very little milk, which is a good source of Vitamin D for most people. Something had to change.
I’m not usually one to promote taking pills to fix problems, especially pharmaceuticals; however when talking about natural holistic supplements I do feel there are many advantages to be had. In a time when most people’s diets consist of processed foods you miss out on a ton of vitamins and minerals that our ancestors got naturally from real food. Additionally people’s lifestyles have changed over the last several hundred years with the advent of the indoor factory job starting during the industrial revolution, and today with cubicle jobs. Simply put people don’t get out enough, and don’t eat enough natural foods, which amounts to an unnatural lifestyle.
With this in mind I bought a bottle of Vitamin D pills for about ten dollars, per my fellow Coloradoans suggestion. These pills each contained 1000 IU of Vitamin D3, or 250% of your RDA (recommended daily allowance). According to this article and others I’ve read, the RDA of Vitamin D is outdated and should be much higher than the current standard. Apparently this outdated standard is the amount needed to prevent rickets. That is a malnutrition condition that my Grandma used to warn my sister and I that we’d get if we didn’t eat all of our food. If only I had the Internet and Google back when I was a kid I would have informed Granny that nobody in Florida has a Vitamin D deficiency.
When winter settled in last year I started taking the Vitamin D daily. The first day I took the sunshine pill I felt like Superman at work. It was just one of those days that I felt absolutely terrific like I was on vacation at the beach. I wondered if it could all be in my mind, maybe the power of suggestion. Over the next few weeks the effect was less significant, however if I stopped taking it for a week or so, and then took it again I would definitely notice a difference. Very rarely do you get a noticeable feeling from taking a vitamin or supplement like you do from a drug like caffeine. In this case however, I have concluded that the Vitamin D does have the effect of making you feel as if you spent a day in the sun, but without the sunburn.
If you’re still not convinced then let me tell you about our doggie Mulder who is a regular sunbather. Every chance he gets, but especially in the wintertime, he will find the only available patch of sunlight in the house or yard and just go sprawl out there. Sometimes it’s just a small corner in the backyard where the sun is shining, or a spot in the hallway where the sun is beaming down from the skylight. He is always excited to go on a walk, but especially if it has been raining recently and the sun makes an appearance. That is when he will really campaign for a “W” (walk). Some of his political strategies to speed up the W are staring out the front door window pane and then looking back at me with longing puppy dog eyes. If I get up out of my office seat he will get excited and start walking around in circles and snorting as if to say “oh we’re going now”? I have a hard time saying no to his enthusiasm so he usually gets his way. I wonder, does he naturally know about the benefits of catching some rays, while I’m just now figuring out?
You talking about me?
There are other ways to beat the winter blues too. Many folks around here try taking a vacation to someplace sunny during the winter months. We haven’t had this opportunity yet, but I do think a trip to Hawaii in January sounds delightful. I also like to go skiing or snowboarding where you can feel surprisingly warm being all bundled up, and get lots of sunshine reflecting off the snow. Of course it is absolutely necessary to wear sunscreen on the mountain or you will be fried to a crisp, but this brings up another concern. Does sunscreen block Vitamin D like it blocks UV rays? I’ll explore this concept in the upcoming part 2 of the Sunny Series.
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