Tips on how to enjoy the sun’s warmth while staying safe

The sun naturally lifts your spirit, provides you with vitamin D, tans your skin, and overall, just makes you feel good. However, even with all those benefits, it can also cause premature aging, dry your skin out, and in some cases, cause skin cancer. With summer upon us, it is especially important to protect ourselves from the sun.

Here are some tips on how to enjoy the sun’s warmth while staying safe:

Nutrition

Nutrition plays a big role against sun protection and even sun damage. Foods such as blueberries, carrots, hemp seeds, tomatoes, cacao, leafy green vegetables, green tea, sunflower seeds and sardines are among the top foods that can help you fight off damage from the sun.

These foods are packed with nutrients and are rich in antioxidants and vitamins that help you prevent damage from UVB rays. Sardine and salmon are high in omega 3, which helps protect against melanoma. Watermelon, on the other hand, contains lycopene, which protects you from getting a sunburn.

Sunblock

We all know this one, but what a lot of us miss is reapplying it every 30 minutes, whenever possible. If you are going to be spending the day outside, it is important that you reapply consistently. Make sure it is SPF 30 or greater, especially if you plan to be outdoors in the peak hours of the sun.

Hat and Sunglasses

The wider the brim of the hat, the better! Even though it looks funny, you should consider getting the ones with longer ears and coverage for your neck. You also want to make sure your sunglasses have UV protection.

Clothing

Long sleeve and tight clothes are best when it comes to protecting your skin from the sun. You may also want to try darker colors. Even though they tend to make you warmer, they provide better shielding from the sun than lighter colors.

Give Your Skin a Drink

Hydrating is key to keeping skin from drying out from all the sun and sunblock. Invest in a good moisturizer or face mist that you can spray on throughout the day and make sure to apply to your face and your whole body. For best results, exfoliate to get rid of dead skin and apply a thick moisturizer at night. The thicker you layer it, the more your skin will thank you in the morning.

Keep having a great summer while staying safe from the sun!