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December 17, 2025Home > Uncategorized >
How Much Daily Sunlight Do You Really Need?
Most of us track our steps, calories, or protein — but you might ask yourself, “how much sunlight do I need?” New research suggests we should treat it like any other essential nutrient, with a “daily requirement” our bodies depend on. The problem? Few people know how much they’re actually getting… or how to tell if it’s enough.
In this article, I’ll share
why sunlight matters more than you think, how much you may need, and simple ways to make sure you’re getting the right dose.
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Table of Contents
Why Do We Need Sunlight?
We need to experience the benefits of daily sunlight for a couple of reasons. Our skin requires the sun for vitamin D formation — and while we can ingest vitamin D in other forms, there’s no substitute for the sun in other ways.
The interesting thing is that our bodies rely on something called our circadian rhythm. This applies to everything that you could think about, including your:
- Thyroid
- Adrenals
- Hormone balance
- Digestive health
- Brain function
All of these things (and more) function on a daily rhythm. And you would think that our rhythm is hard-wired to the earth’s daily rhythm, but it’s not.
Many studies have shown that if you take humans and subtract all of the common cues of daylight and darkness, that most people resort to a 25 or 30-hour day.
What this means is that if you take away the sun and sunlight, your body doesn’t go into a proper rhythm and things start to go out of balance.
So, when it comes to answering “how much sunlight do I need?” It’s more about the fact that a lack of adequate exposure to the sun can lead to things like:
- Mood collapsing
- Your body can’t control inflammation
- The brain doesn’t function as effectively
- Hormone regulation becomes altered
This was a case of what we could call a “subgroup bias.” Of those who did not consume alcohol, it turned out that many people there were not medically allowed to consume alcohol. They had liver disease, kidney disease, or on certain medications that were not compatible with alcohol.
Key Insight: Understanding the benefits of daily sunlight helps optimize our circadian health. Our circadian rhythm can also be altered by the timing of our food, changes in temperature, but the biggest one by far is light exposure.
To better understand your circadian rhythm, just think about how you function differently in the day versus the evening. Things like crazy dreams versus being awake and functioning in reality – it’s obvious that something like that is happening in your body, but it’s also happening throughout the body.
How Much Sunlight Do We Need?
Now that we’ve spoken a bit more about the importance of sunlight, and how it plays a role in our body overall, let’s talk about the amounts that we need to function properly and stay in rhythm.
The amount of light units (lux) that we can get from the sun is much higher than anything we could possibly get by staying indoors. Normally when we’re outside, even on a cloudy day, it might be hundreds of times brighter than it is indoors (even when it doesn’t feel like it).
Key Insight: This is how we’ve come to Simply being inside and turning your lights on in the morning doesn’t achieve that rhythm that we want to engender in our bodies. It might be a good start, but we can’t stop there.
It turns out that the first hour of being awake is the most critical window for our health. Ideally, you would get at least a half hour of sunlight – or something like it – within the first hour of waking.
By getting it, you don’t have to be exposing your whole body to the sun, it’s really your eyes. You wouldn’t want to wear something like sunglasses during this window of time, for example.
You could even be in the shade. The biggest difference is being outdoors, and enjoying natural light upon waking that you can’t really get from staying inside.
What If It’s Not Light Outside?
What do you do if, when you wake up, it’s not light out already? Especially if you live in northern latitudes, it can be worth it to have some kind of version of artificial sunlight available to you.
These are called seasonal affective disorder light devices. The trick is that you want these boxes to be coming at you from above. The angle here is meant to mimic the sun, which is super important.
That’s because your brain expects this light to come from above, much like the sun. Different angles don’t work the same way, so this is an important bit to keep in mind.
There’s another new thing that I’m a big fan of — it’s these visors that you’re able to wear which, instead of sitting under a box, makes it much easier to mimic that sun in an easy way. All you have to do is pop them on and you’re done once the timer is done. The brand that I favor is called Luminette.
What I love about them is the convenience. You don’t have to be stopped in one place — you can put them on and get on with your day, doing the chores you need to do or getting ready to work, and they shut off automatically once you’ve gotten all that you need. Very handy!
Can We Get Too Much Light at Night?
The idea is that the light in the morning has a ‘bluer’ tinge to it, and at night it’s more of a reddish goldish orange. That’s why you may see people embracing more amber-colored sunglasses later in the day.
Because of that, the thought is that because of indoor lights and electronic lights, by virtue of being on the blue side, that must be bad for the brain especially as we seek to wind down later in the day.
While that topic isn’t totally settled, the emerging data tells us that it likely has less to do with blue night being bad at night. It’s probably more related to total light and mental stimulation.
Key Insight: Key Insight: Even if you’re on your phone with your amber-colored bio-hacking sunglasses late at night, you’re still on your phone late at night. And that can still disturb your sleep health.
In general, it is a benefit to have less total light intensity at night. As the night goes along, you’d likely benefit with turning off a light or two. And swap out your phone for a book with less-bright light.
Finally, there are also thoughts around sunlight and macular degeneration, especially for those with fairer eye colors like green and blue. It is a risk to have all-day exposure, so those with lighter eyes are better off with sunglasses — but early bright light is still totally fine.
The Total Benefits of Sunlight
While it is hard to parcel out what you’re doing in the sun, the thinking goes that spending more time is often a net benefit to your health rather than a detractor.
Whether it’s doing something that you love, like gardening or getting some exercise, being out in the sun typically has a positive effect on the body.
But if you have a lifestyle that doesn’t afford that, the smallest benefit comes from artificial lights like the ones I talked about in boxes or visors. That’s already a pretty good start.
Ultimately, you’ll benefit from getting some light in the morning, typically within the first hour of waking, and keeping in mind that sunlight itself is essentially an essential nutrient. We need it.
What Other Nutrients Do You Need?
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and formulating multivitamins that help people take control of their health and get back to feeling better than ever. Especially in the case of thyroid disease, I’ve crafted Thyroid-Specific Formulations with your thyroid in mind.
If you’ve been thinking about dialing in your health in these ways, I’d highly recommend taking this quiz to get to the bottom of which vitamins and nutrients you could stand to benefit from. It will also give you some handy next steps that you can take to really get your health on track. I hope it helps!
P.S. Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you now:
- Schedule a Thyroid Second Opinion with me, Dr. C, Click Here for Details
- Need help to choose supplements? Click ‘Help Me Decide Here'
- Get my top books Here
Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a Naturopathic Endocrinologist and the author of The NY Times bestselling Hormone Healing Cookbook, The Metabolism Reset Diet, and The Thyroid Reset Diet.
Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what works has helped hundreds of thousands reverse thyroid disease, heal their adrenals, and lose weight naturally. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.
