Get Out and Enjoy the Sun

We've all has the doom and destruction speech about how the sun will kill us if we stay out in it too long. How it will breed quick spreading cancer throughout our skin and we will be helpless as it sloughs off in bloody sheets.  This is of course an exaggeration but really it's how a lot of people  view getting out in the sun.  It terrifies them and so they stay home or go to an indoor mall where the deadly radiation can't reach them.

The fact is that even if you get a bad sunburn, not what anyone wants, the chances of you getting skin cancer is less than 0.05% and the chances of you dying from it if you do get it are less than 13% making the probability of dying from skin cancer less than 0.005%.  That makes your chances pretty good that you won't come down with much less die from skin cancer. This is a worst case scenario too if you happen to live in a state more prone to getting it and have an ethnic background to support it. Overall the chances are actually much lower.

The drawbacks of not getting enough sun are actually worse for you. Your immune system needs vitamin D to function properly and without sunlight it can be difficult to get enough vitamin D to stay healthy.  On top of that your mood is worse and depression can get a foot hold. In high latitude areas where the sun is seen less in winter time depression gets to be a real problem. In the end you will likely spend more combating the effects of not getting enough sun and feeling miserable than if you just got out for a while each day.

Getting outside has further positive effects. You likely aren't going to be staring at a screen.  Instead you will be looking around enjoying the scenery or playing some sport or another. Either way your eyes will benefit from the change of focus promoting good eye health.  It has been said that by our teens we are now having our visual focus trained to look 2.5 feet in front of us, right where a screen would sit. retraining our eyes can be a benefit to not only our eyes but our health in general by getting out and doing something in the sun.

A quick note: All percents are on a yearly basis.  This still makes the probability of dying from skin cancer less than half a percent over an 80 year lifetime.  Pretty good odds and one I can live with. (Numbers rounded to worst case and then some. Actual chance is probably more around three hundredth of a percent (0.03%). That is still thousands a year though many of them have extenuating circumstances.