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Solar Protection
🕑 Added 2021-04-14 12:15:24 +0000 UTCI will start off by saying I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where the UV index reaches 10-11 and temperature reaches 110-120 degrees F regularly during the summers, so I have quite extensive firsthand experience regarding this subject.
So it starts off in 2017 when I was still consuming the vegan diet. My diet was never heavy in industrialized vegetable/seed oils, but they were still present, and refined sucrose consumption was high. Anyway, I had went to the local river with a friend to go river tubing. I had eaten about 2 grams of psilocybin mushrooms and was oblivious to the UV index of 11 that day. All was fair and well until the next day after getting home. Having spent 4 hours in direct sunlight with repeated applications of sunscreen, I experienced a second degree sun burn on my shins and legs, I was hardly even able to walk from the excruciating pain. I still have minor scarring or freckles on my shins from this incident. It literally crusted over with scabbing, it was as disgusting as it was painful.
That’s important for context here, I only started to notice a difference in my sun tolerance when I began eating an omnivorous diet again and began to remove inflammatory triggers from my intake. All the common triggers I mention frequently, consisting of refined sucrose, industrialized vegetable/seed oils, corn, soy, wheat/gluten, legumes/beans, smoke, alcohol, and caffeine all play a role in your body’s defenses against inflammation and oxidative stress.
This is what sun damage or sun burn is, in essence. Inflammation and oxidative stress produced by the UV light spectrum and poor redox status (ability to deal with oxidative stress).
I started using butter/ghee and tallow to cook with instead of vegetable oil, olive oil, and coconut oil, I began reincorporating eggs, seafood, and goat milk/kefir initially before moving onto red meats, organs, and everything else you know me for on Twitter. Over the period of about 3 months, I began to notice I would burn less and less and less with my daily sunlight exposure that was part of my health recovery routine. Vitamins A/C/D/E/K, vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, biotin, folate, B12, collagen, sulfur, boron, iron, copper, zinc, selenium, iodine, methionine, cysteine, glycine, lysine, taurine, and molybdenum are perhaps some of the most important nutrient factors here in inflammation/oxidative stress protection, which can be covered by an ancestral diet, aside from molybdenum which is primarily found in beans and boron, which can be low depending on soil quality. A simple low dose supplement should suffice just fine here.
Another important factor here aside from elimination of inflammatory triggers and supplying the full profile of micronutrients in surplus for your body to work with is the daily topical application of magnesium chloride. This provides enough magnesium for the body to remain hydrated, helps to cool down when overheating, and to help protect against some of this inflammation/oxidative stress. This brings us to the rest of the electrolytes, being sodium, potassium, and phosphorus (inositol-phosphate). Ensuring you are PROPERLY hydrated is essential in your body’s redox status. I prefer including small amounts of each to all of my drinking water as dead or demineralized water saps your body of these essential electrolytes. If you ever start feeling dizzy, lightheaded, etc., that is your indication to go inside immediately and have some magnesium in your drinking water or even a pickle to rehydrate.
Now comes in the adaptogenic herbal medicines, all sharing antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in common. Black seed oil was most major, as such a potent tool with the aforementioned properties, but also the common herbs I share in my daily tea routine, such as Astragalus, Bacopa, Blue lotus, Gotu kola, Magnolia bark, Oat straw, Peganum harmala (ensure you do not consume MDMA, SSRIs, dextromethorphan, and/or pharmaceutical/recreational stimulants before experimenting), Polygala tenuifolia, and Rhodiola rosea. Adaptogens actually improve your body’s resilience against all stress, including heat and cold. Very useful applications, especially when used in combinational formulation.
Increasing your seafood intake is also major, as a proper omega 3 to 6 fatty acid ratio balance is essential to your baseline inflammatory state with higher omega 6 being vastly inflammatory. That’s one of the issues regarding vegetable/seed oils. I enjoy salmon and oysters most regularly, but also cod, cod liver, salmon roe, and scallops. The DHA is essential to really taking in the full light spectrum from sunlight exposure to fuel your mitochondria.
For those with extra concern or low solar callus (sun tolerance), a mineral based sunscreen is a much better alternative to the chemical sunscreens so commonly recommended, which are being implicated in estrogenic induced cancers via the xenoestrogenic properties. I’ve also recently been experimenting with daily application of a vitamin C and ferulic acid lotion on my face at night. The vitamin C will accumulate over time and counter any oxidation that may occur in terms of wrinkles.
A routine to build your solar callus...
Beginner:
1) sunrise/morning sunlight at least 30 minutes
2) sunset/evening at least 30 minutes
Try to expose as much of your skin as you can to the direct sunlight, but special focus on the eyes (don’t look directly into sun, but take in full light spectrum), face, and back of neck.
You will want to stick to this for at least a month before exposing yourself to midday sun (highest UV index).
Intermediate:
1) Sunrise/morning sunlight
2) Sunset/evening sunlight
3) Mid day/noon for at least 5-10 minutes initially
UVB exposure will be highest at this time, which is essential for vitamin D synthesis in the skin (only apply your mineral based sunscreen where you would burn most severely)
There‘s a phone app called Dminder, which can tell you when the best time to go outside is, while counting your average vitamin D synthesis from that duration of exposure. Very useful.
Note: The darker your skin tone, the longer you need to expose yourself under mid day sun for vitamin D production.
Expert:
Wherever and whenever you want to expose yourself to sunlight.
To summarize here, you want to build up your sun tolerance or solar callus by chronic exposure, initially starting with short durations. Do not miss sunrise and sunset, these are most important to setting your circadian rhythm. Eat lots of yummy seafood and eliminate those vegetable/seed oils. Be smart about it! Try not to miss any days and don’t force it as sun damage is what contributes to melanoma. Go inside before you start to feel yourself genuinely burn.
