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Hey there, 5HT+ members! We’re back with another special edition, and with just over 50 days left of summer, we’re focusing on none other than Mr. Sun 🌞. The sun is basically like that barista at your local coffee shop in that you see them all the time, buuut you don’t know much about them. Oh—also when they’re not there one day, you’re sad ☹️. Should I keep this metaphor going?
Anyway, let’s get to know the giant fireball our world literally revolves around—and that has a massive impact on everything from our skin to our metabolism. After a zillion hours of research, my takeaway is the sun is one of the most underutilized health tools we have—free, powerful, and profoundly misunderstood. (Reading pairs well with one of my fave songs of all time from The Beatles.)
Let There Be Light
#1 Getting to know Mr. Sun (Oh, Mr. Golden Sun)
If the sun had a dating profile 😎, it’d look something like this:
Name: Sun, but my close friends call me Sol or Helios
Age: 4.6 billion years young
Location: Center of our solar system
Height: 865,000 miles (technically my diameter, but who's measuring?)
Occupation: Powering all life on Earth, NBD.
Star sign: Astronomically speaking, a Yellow Dwarf. Cosmically speaking? A Leo, probably.
Where did the sun come from? Science tells us that over four billion years ago, a giant, spinning cloud of gas and dust collapsed under its own gravity 💥. (Just your average rags-to-nuclear-fusion tale.) Since then, the sun’s been doing the most—powering our food systems, driving the weather and syncing our sleep. No wonder it’s been mythologized for millennia.
How does he do it? Basically here’s how I see it:
The sun gives off electromagnetic energy in waves—some we can see (like visible light), and some we can’t (like ultraviolet or infrared).
These wavelengths carry energy that affects our bodies in different ways.
Shorter wavelengths (like UV and blue light) hit the surface.
Longer ones (like red and near-infrared…ever heard of them?) can penetrate deeper (like, real deep)—impacting tissues, cells, and even internal systems.
Some of the sun rays are blocked by the ozone layer (which is apparently healing?!), but not all. What gets through can cause damage to our skin, eyes, and even crops. That’s where the UV Index comes in: A scale from 0 to 11+ exists to help you gauge how strong the rays are.
But it’s not all doom and sunburns. The right amount of sunlight also helps our bodies produce vitamin D (more on that in a sec), and supports your mood, immune system, and metabolism. Like most things in health, it’s about balance. (And—hey—there’s no GTL without tanning.)
Before we get into all that, here are five sun-believable (sorry, not sorry) facts about the sun ☀️:
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