 Can sun exposure improve your mood? Probably not a shocking finding that a recent pilot study found that sun exposure actually can reduce depression. And I'd like to share the result with you, just show you better understand how important it is to find time to be in the sun on a weekly basis. I'll put the abstract up here on the screen, the study entitled, sun exposure and behavioral activation for hypobitaminosis D and depression, a controlled pilot study. And now let's look at some of the parameters and the findings of this study in brief, just to support the finding that when we take a group of individuals who are depressed, half of them go on a waiting list and half undergoing intervention of obtaining time in the sun, the sun group sees an improvement in their mood. So specifically to quote here, those participants who were severely vitamin D deficient and experiencing clinically significant depression were randomly allocated to either 12 weeks of behavioral activation, emphasizing safe sun exposure, a group of 10 or a waiting list control group, another group of 10. A key point there is the safe sun exposure, sometimes when one advocates for sun exposure, those who are on the anti-sun position of the spectrum throw their hands up in the air, I think because they picture people going outside for hours at a time, lathering themselves up with sun tanning oil or baby lotion. And there's a big difference between no sun exposure or avoidance and excessive exposure. And this is the niche of safe sun exposure. So this might be anywhere from roughly 10 to 20 minutes on most days, just as a general guideline, making sure you never burn knowing your skin type and adjusting the amount of sun so that you see some of the benefit, perhaps a slight pigment change of your skin, but never anywhere near burning. So the results, the sun group showed a significant increase in vitamin D and there was no change in vitamin D in the control. And similarly, these sun groups saw positive results for their depressive symptoms, leading the researchers to conclude, sun exposure and behavioral activation just essentially changing your lifestyle such a way where you get some time in the sun, maybe an effective approach for improving vitamin D efficiency status and alleviating depressive symptoms. So this is great news. Now, this also begs if you follow up questions, what if you can't get in the sun? What if you're in a climate that has summers and winters and you're depressed in the winter, this is known as seasonal affective disorder or the winter blues, it's also known. What do those people do? Well, good news. I'll put up here on the screen an option or two for you, but certain sun lamps have been shown to reduce seasonal affective disorder or the winter blues. These are often known as white lights or blue lights and you can put these on your desktop and we'll put a few guidelines up here and a product recommendation for essentially a light you can buy, you can bring it to work or keep it at home and we'll put a guideline up here for how long to expose yourself. Usually it's around 10 to 15 minutes. Once per day, exposure to this sunlight-like light can actually and has been shown to improve mood. Now, this also begs a question regarding tanning beds and this is definitely a contentious topic and understandably so. It appears at least according to the early and preliminary evidence that we have so we should be cautious with this recommendation, but it does appear according to at least one analysis that if one obtains less than 12 tanning bed sessions per year that seems to correlate with benefit and not with any type of detriment. However, if one goes over 12 sessions per year that does seem to correlate with reduced health outcomes. So there may be a sweet spot for those of us who are trying to obtain some type of sun exposure with tanning beds in the winter months making sure that over that winter stretch you don't exceed 12 sessions. And of course, probably the most intelligent starting point would be trying one of these sun-like lamps that don't necessarily give you a tan and if that doesn't work potentially consider escalating to a tanning bed although you wanna be cautious you wanna check in on that with your doctor. And also don't forget that if you are experiencing depression or depressed moods you may have a gut-brain connection, a barrency present and we have good evidence as one example showing that probiotics can improve depression and anxiety. So don't think just because some research is showing that sun exposure can improve mood that that's the only way to improve your mood. You have to try to force a sun solution and in this case another option may be taking some steps to improve the health of your gut. Okay, this is Dr. Ruscio and I hope this information helps you get healthy and get back to your life. Thanks.