Slip slop slap and sleepy?

I have found this very interesting website called thisisveryinteresting.com.  It covers all sorts of interesting topics. I was reading this morning about daytime sleepiness and vitamin D.

The cheapest and easiest source of vitamin D is a few minutes in the sunshine a few times a week. For adults in Australia it seems we are not getting enough either.  A different website says...."Still, we do need some exposure to sunlight. And in fact, many of us are not getting enough. Studies reveal that there are widespread deficiencies in levels of Vitamin D in many Australians. And lack of exposure to sun is thought to be the cause"........See this study. It continues to say " Professor Rebecca Mason, an expert on vitamin D and calcium metabolism and Professor of Physiology at the University of Sydney, says the recommended levels of sunlight exposure won't put anyone at risk of skin cancer."

Those levels are: in summer, six to eight minutes a day on most days. In winter, it should be half an hour most days. You need to have only 15 per cent of your body exposed - arms, hands and face - to get this exposure.

So from what we are told, many people are vitamin D deficient. I wonder why? Our kids hardly ever play outside now. They don’t walk to school, they don’t play outside after school because they are doing homework or glued to their tv sets or computers. When we take them out we drive from the front door of the house to the front door of the shops or into under cover parking lots in malls.

So how much sunshine do our children get?  And then when they do get outside, the rules are that you cover them up. They must wear hats, sunscreen, and cover up their skin in case they get burnt. The scare of skin cancer means that we might be inclined to go to the other extreme where they are so covered up they hardly get an vitamin D.

The correlation here is that daytime sleepiness could be related to vitamin D deficiency.  They also make the point that skin colour can also affect it, those with black skin don't absorb so much.  I thought it was a very interesting article.

You might too.