6 Ways Natural Light Can Make You Healthier (and How to Get More)

Apart from being the key ingredient in taking the perfect Insta picture, a sales pitch for homes and an added bonus for office employees, natural light can help you stay healthy in more ways than you’ve ever imagined.

Most people prefer natural light as opposed to the artificial one coming from fluorescent bulbs. In fact, the Harvard Business Review revealed in a recent study that over 1,600 surveyed people considered “access to natural light and views of the outdoors” the most important perk when it came to their home or workplace environment.

If you also prefer the sunlight to the detriment of artificial light and do everything in your power to enjoy it as much as possible, keep it up. If you’re happy with artificial light, these impressive health benefits of natural light might change your mind and turn you into an avid sun-seeker from now on. Let’s take a look!

 

Health benefits of natural light

It boosts vitamin D

Exposure to sunlight facilitates the absorption of vitamin D, an essential vitamin that keeps your bones strong and healthy, boosts your immune system, reduces the risk of heart disease, weight gain, and various types of cancer. After all, it’s not called the “sunshine vitamin” for no reason.

Just how important is vitamin D? Well, according to a 2010 study, this nutrient plays an important role in for more than 200 genes in our bodies. Dr. Andreas Heger from the MRC Functional Genomics Unit at Oxford, one of the lead authors of the study revealed that the study “shows quite dramatically the wide-ranging influence that vitamin D exerts over our health.” What’s even better is that it doesn’t matter where you get your vitamin D from, whether it’s by bringing the sunlight indoors or going out in the open. What matter is to get the most of it on a daily basis.

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