The Mood Regulating Vitamin
The Winter season is here and the sun sets so much earlier than we remembered. We get out of our long work days and all of a sudden it’s already night time. We see less and less of the sun during our waking hours and our moods change. Why is that? Surprise, surprise! It’s our lack of vitamin D. Studies have shown that around 5% of the population experience seasonal depression and somewhere around 20% experience winter blues. Of course, there are other factors adding to our mood dysregulation, but something so simple as a lack of vitamin D can easily be reversed.
Let me start by saying, vitamin D does way more for us than just help us to regulate our mood. It is also an amazing addition to our daily immune system regimen. As expected, since we do receive vitamin D from sun exposure, our bodies are lowest in vitamin D during the winter months. It is important to supplement because vitamin D helps boost immune cells’ production of microbe-fighting proteins. Which basically just means that it helps us to fight the intruders to our immune system. Harvard has also reported that adults tend to have lower vitamin D levels when they recently had upper respiratory tract infection.
As far as the mood regulation, vitamin D plays an essential role in the production of serotonin in our bodies. Serotonin is the “happy” hormone that our body produces that performs critical functions in the brain like controlling appetite, sleep, mood, and social cognition. The vitamin D ensures that the release of serotonin is controlled which allows you to deal with stress better. So what is the simple solution? Supplement. Especially in the winter when the sun goes down at 5:30pm, it’s best to get your vitamin D through foods rich in the vitamin, vitamin supplements, or vitamin D booster shots.
Try a mood boosting shot today. Let us know how we can help you. We would be happy to help. Schedule your appointment with Navo today.
SOURCE: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-d/
SOURCE: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6042449/