Is Vitamin D Good for Your Mental Health?

Before we discuss the details of how vitamin D can impact your mental health, let's talk about some common topics associated with vitamin D.

There are all sorts of ways to obtain vitamin D. The one focused on in this particular article is sunlight. The body produces vitamin D after being exposed to specific UV rays. So, let's clear one thing up. You cannot produce vitamin D from sunlight if you wear a sunscreen to block it. This is not a debate about sunscreen or about the effects of tanning on cancer. It's simply a section that states facts about sunlight and the production of vitamin D.

To my knowledge, vitamin D deficiencies have never been proven to be the sole cause of any mental illness or the sole cure for one.

So, what is the connection between vitamin D and good mental health? It's an underlying connection that is all too often overlooked. Vitamin D plays a role in a variety of functions in the body. It aids in the development and regulation of calcium and a variety of other minerals. It has an impact on our immune systems as well as our nervous system, helping to regulate them both. Some of the chemicals that are released into the brain that help to regulate our mood are a derivative of vitamin D. In other words, a vitamin D deficiency can have impacts on our physical and mental health that we may not ever even associate with a vitamin of any kind for any reason without a physician explaining them to us.

Our bodies have systems in place to warn that there is a problem. For example, if you are feeling low in energy and unmotivated, why not simply take the time to go out in the sun and relax. You may be tired from the heat at the end of the day, but there is also a good chance that your mood will have improved both from the vitamin D and the time you took to simply relax.

Ignoring the fact that vitamin D plays a role in the chemicals of the brain, let's focus on other areas of the body. Did you ever feel like your skin was vibrating as if a cell phone was laying on it and going off in "vibrate" mode? This is one of the symptoms of a vitamin D deficiency. Now, imagine if a lack of such a vitamin can cause your skin or muscles to feel like that. What must it do to other areas of your body?

The bottom line is that we need vitamin D for physical and mental health. Obtaining it from the sunlight is just a common sense sort of way to improve your mental health. After all, when we go outside, we step outside of our own worlds for a moment in a quite literal manner. We exercise our imaginations and may even increase our social interactions, all while helping our bodies to produce vitamin D. Step out into the sunlight and let your body do what it was built to do!

References: Consumer Health.org, Healing Therapies.info and the Vitamin D council