How To Up Your Vitamin D Levels In Winter

The clocks go back this weekend which means an extra hour in bed – we can hear London’s night owls simultaneously rejoice. Don’t get too excited, come Monday morning, that extra hour will seem like a distant, dark memory as we fumble for our phones to hit snooze one more time. Reality check: we’ll be getting up and coming home from work in the dark until February. So, during these long, dreary months, how can we up our sunshine levels? Get outside Less sunlight hours means less vitamin D which is responsible for keeping so much of our good health in check, from bone strength to our immune system, circulation to brain function. It’s also thought to help prevent a multitude of illnesses including depression, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. OK, it sounds obvious, but you need to get outside to reap the benefits of vitamin D from natural sunlight. That means actually taking your lunchbreak – the average UK lunch break is now a measly 22 minutes long and it’s thought one in five of us don’t even leave our desks at all. Go for a stroll or eat al fresco, factor in some walking into your commute – get off a couple of tube stops early, or if possible, walk to work a couple of times a week. It will up your steps if nothing else. However, during winter sunlight months (October to early March), the UK’s sunlight doesn’t contain enough UVB radiation for our skin to be able to make it into vitamin D. In fact, we get most of our vitamin D from March until April. So, other than buying a holiday home in the Caribbean (the dream) we need to be looking at other ways of boosting the essential vitamin. Up your breakfast game […]

Click here to view full article