Cure Anxiety and Depression with Sunlight
Our profound connection with the sun and how it can heal.
The sun represents power and energy, light and warmth, the ultimate life force. Without the Sun there is simply no life.
In ancient societies that heavily depended on agriculture, ‘worshiping the sun’ became a way of life. These societies relied upon the sun for survival and sustenance; it was what made the crops grow each season. So, it’s not a surprise that the sun became a God. The ancient Egyptians had ‘Ra’, the Sun God, The Greeks honored ‘Helios’ and the Persians celebrated ‘Mithra’.
Today, we still ‘worship’ the sun in our own way. We gaze at the sunrise and sunsets, we whip out the BBQ as soon as we see a glimmer of sunlight through the curtain and we flood to the beaches to top up on that all-important tan.
Nothing’s changed.
In my mental health journey, I had always seen myself as a ‘night owl’, enjoying the solace while others slept and often finding myself in the habit of drawing the curtains and blocking out the sun during the day, not thinking that this may have any relation to my anxiety or depression.
I came to learn that we are programmed at the deepest level for natural light from the sun to enter our systems at specific times of the day and the way this light enters is through the eyes. The most ancient form of human vision before developing the ability to see color, shapes, and motion is the detection of sunlight.
There are cells residing in the lower part of the eyes that when the eyes open and let light in these cells respond by sending an electrical signal to a ‘clock’ in the roof of the mouth. Then this clock sends a signal to every organ in the body.
Now, you may have heard of the phrase, ‘Circadian Rhythm’? Circadian simply means ‘about a day’, it refers to physical, mental, and behavioral changes across a 24-hour cycle, much like the earth’s solar cycle spinning on its axis to give us day and night.
The circadian rhythm is what we call our internal clock, it’s present in all animals and determines when we want to be awake and when we want to be asleep.
Our bodies are acutely attuned to getting natural light early in the day and less light in the evening. If you get this wrong and disrupt the circadian clock it can lead to a whole host of mood disorders and negative effects. In particular, this disruption is a signature of anxiety and depression.
In our modern society, we have access to light at times of the day that we wouldn’t normally, our phones and laptops constantly pump out artificial blue light day and night. The worst thing we can do is wake up, roll over and scroll through a phone, stick on some sunglasses, get in a car, sit at work in a dark room, then get back home, draw the curtains and have artificial light overhead until the middle of the night. Then repeat the next day.
Just to add though, I am not advocating to stop evening Netflix sessions but there are ways we can use light to avoid serious negative effects:
To keep our internal clock anchored, science suggests that getting outside (rather than through a window) and letting bright light from the sun hit your eyes around sunrise or at least while the sun is at a low solar angle can be hugely beneficial. The optimum duration for this resetting of the clock is between 2–10 minutes but if you can be outside longer it’s even better.
During the day, if you work indoors try to sit by the window, don’t draw the curtains and then again get outside to view the sun setting. From 8 pm onwards aim to use less overhead artificial light, have lights or candles on the floor or low in the space and no artificial light between 11 pm and 4 am if you can help it.
Most importantly, experiment with the timings, listen to your body and see what works for you. It normally takes around 2–3 days to reset your clock and get in a true rhythm. The positive and beneficial factors from a more regular cycle can improve your ability to focus, be more alert, learn effectively, increase cardiovascular health, and is a huge step in helping to cure anxiety and depression.
