Bring me sunshine in your smile, bring me laughter all the while….

I reckon there are three things going on here.  Four if you count Morecambe and Wise.  If you’re under 55 please ignore the ancient TV reference!

And because there are three things, there could’ve been three blogposts.  But I like to bundle all of this up together.  For me it’s all about Vitamin D, sunlight and mood.

Vitamin D.

Like all vitamins, Vitamin D is essential to our health and wellbeing.  It’s mostly made in the skin by exposure to sunlight.  You can also get it from some foods, but not that many.  If you eat oily fish like salmon, tuna or mackerel then you’ll be upping your Vitamin D levels.  It’s present in egg yolk, red meat and liver too.  I’m trying to think what a high Vitamin D meal could be by doubling up on some of these foods but it’s not working for me.  Beef and Mackerel Soup with Eggy Bread anyone?  No thanks!

Some of our foods are fortified with Vitamin D, like margarines and some cereals but generally the best and easiest way we can get it is through sunlight on the skin.  I wish!  When did we all last get a really good boost of sunshine on our faces?  Last spring when Coronavirus first hit was great wasn’t it?  I don’t mean the virus of course, but the weather during the first lockdown was amazing.  I really felt that I’d never need a sunshine holiday abroad again if our weather could stay like that.  Sadly it didn’t.  Grey skies came back and with further lockdowns to negotiate through a damp autumn and cold winter, sunshine on skin has been rare for me.

Should I take a supplement?

This is a bit tricky.  I’m an Osteopath, not a GP.  There are really good reasons for taking a daily Vitamin D supplement especially in the North East of England in winter and the NHS gives a recommended daily dose.  But there are groups who definitely shouldn’t take it.  These include people on certain medications or who have high calcium levels or some types of liver or kidney disease.  It’s also possible to take too much.  This is easy to do by accident by taking a multivitamin containing Vitamin D as well as Vitamin D supplements themselves.  If you’re not sure about whether it’s right for you a pharmacist or your GP can help you decide, if necessary by doing a blood test.

Smiles and laughter.

So, what about them?  They’ve been in pretty short supply during 2020 with masks and social distancing.  Fewer hugs.  Not normal.

There’s some really interesting research around about how the act of smiling, actually creating the muscle movement, can affect mood.*   It’s been found that there’s an association between facial expression and the areas of the brain that control emotion.  Relaxed face, happier mind.  It means that if we deliberately pull our faces into smiles we can jump start a better mood.  Sounds mad doesn’t it?  But I feel that I intuitively understand this idea.  I smile.  You smile back at me.  There’s a little boost for both of us.     

In this world where we live there should be more happiness.

That’s not me doing some sort of feel-good lecture.  It’s the next line of the ‘Bring me Sunshine’ song.  I do like that song.  It brings together the sunshine, Vitamin D and mood.  When I looked up some of the symptoms of Vitamin D deficiency, I found that even a mild lack can cause general tiredness, vague aches and pains and a general sense of not being well.  So, let’s all eat loads of oily fish, get some daylight on our faces and smile at everyone we see.  Or you could just stay in and watch endless repeats of Morecambe and Wise.

*if you’d like to look at some of the research about smiling, get in touch with me and I’ll send you the references.