Are you getting enough sun?

Like many people nowadays, I grew up learning to see the sun as a threat. Exposure to its rays meant consequences like premature wrinkles, sunspots and, of course, skin cancer. The Korean aunties I knew heeded this dogma with sunglasses, flared visor hats, parasols and sun sleeves.

While I’ve never gone to such lengths, I internalised the message. But in his latest book In Defense of Sunlight (2026), the journalist Rowan Jacobsen argues that the common aversion to the sun has gone too far. He lays out decades of research linking moderate amounts of outdoor sunlight exposure with various positive health outcomes.

One especially surprising study – which followed almost 30,000 Swedish women over 20 years – suggested that avoiding sunlight was about as big a risk factor for death as smoking. Sunlight is thought to aid physical health by, among other things, stimulating the production of vitamin D as well as the release of compounds such as nitric oxide (which can lower blood pressure). Then there are the mental health benefits.

Sun on the skin helps the body release endorphins, its natural opioids, and might help protect against depression. And proper exposure to sunlight and darkness massages the circadian rhythm into regularity, improving sleep quality, which, in turn, benefits your wellbeing. Of course, everything in moderation: we still need to protect ourselves from excessive sun and UV exposure (so don’t throw away your sunscreen).

But Jacobsen’s writing has helped me see how too much fear of the sun might be harming rather than protecting my health. Now, the trick is to strike a balance, which I’ve sought by listening to my body. This past summer I tried to embrace the sun, retreating to the shade when I felt overheated or overstimulated.

Maintaining moderation takes some push and pull, but I try to follow Jacobsen’s bottom-line message: ‘Get sun. Go outside.’ For more on how the sun looms large in our minds, you can read Karl Ove Knausgaard’s ‘An Ode to the Sun’ (2017) on Literary Hub. This short piece meditates on the sun’s godlike power, its indifference to life and its inevitability.