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Safe Tanning Guidelines to Get Vitamin D and Other Benefits
Sun exposure remains the best way to get optimal vitamin D levels, and there’s a whole science in doing it! For starters, it’s important to know that if your skin is unused to the sun, it’s important to build up your tolerance regularly and gradually.
Natural health expert Dr. Joseph Mercola adds that it’s good to start early in the year – in the spring and early summer. This will prepare your skin for the stronger sunlight later in the year.
Here are other sun tanning guidelines you should take note of:
1. Consider the time of day. The best time to sunbathe is early morning (if you haven’t already built up a base tan), because this makes burning less likely to occur. It’s best to sunbathe when the temperature is below 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius), so that you don’t overheat, adds Dr. Mercola
2. Set regular intervals. You should know that you can’t cram all of your sun exposure in a two-week vacation period and expect to reap all the benefits. Make time for regular sunbathing.
But don’t forget to treat your tanning as a medicine whose dosage you have to control. This means that short period of exposure are best, and that while regular sun exposure protects against skin cancer, intermittent overexposure can increase the danger.
3. Strive to have at least 40 percent of your skin exposed. One common myth is that occasional face or hand exposure to sunlight is sufficient to help synthetize vitamin D production in your body.
4. Estimate optimal exposure time. Your skin color plays a factor here. Caucasian skin achieves equilibrium within 20 minutes of ultraviolet exposure, while it can take three to six times longer for darker skin to the equilibrium concentration of vitamin D in the skin. Depending on your skin type and environmental factors, you should aim toward exposing large areas of your skin to the sun anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours at a time.
5. “Listen” to your skin. Ultimately, you have to use your skin as a guide. Stay out under the sun long enough to get it looking slightly pinkish in color. “Remember that continuing UV exposure beyond the minimal dose required to produce skin redness will not increase your vitamin D production any further,” adds Dr. Mercola.
In case you lack outdoor time or find yourself in the middle of long winters, choose only safe tanning beds or stand-up tanning systems to optimize your vitamin D levels and acquire other skin health benefits from UV, red, blue, and infrared lights.
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Tags: dr. joseph mercola, dr. mercola, safe tanning beds, sun tanning, tanning bed, Tanning Beds, Vitamin D
