Participants: Agatha Thrash, Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000135
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00:02 We see the glad sunshine and it makes us very happy.
00:04 And there are some physical benefits and emotional benefits 00:07 that we get from sunshine. 00:08 I'm Agatha Thrash, a staff physician at Uchee Pines 00:12 Institute and for the next half an hour, we will be talking with 00:16 you about the benefits and some of the problems with getting 00:20 too much sunshine. 00:21 So join us won't you? 00:42 Welcome to "Help Yourself to Health" with Dr. Agatha Thrash 00:46 of Uchee Pines Institute. 00:48 And now, here is your host, Dr. Thrash. 00:51 I can't imagine that our Heavenly Father could have shown 00:56 us His love for us in a better way, than with the sunshine. 01:01 It's always there, though sometimes we can't see it. 01:04 But it is always giving earth it's benefits. 01:08 Without it, we cannot live, nor could we produce any food, nor 01:13 a place for us to have shelter. 01:14 So, we can expect that there are many good benefits from it that 01:19 our physical bodies and our minds would derive 01:22 from the sunshine. 01:23 And with me today is John Champen and also, a little 01:27 later will be Don Miller and we will be talking with you 01:30 about some of the benefits of sunshine and some of the 01:33 cautions that we need to have. 01:36 I'm so happy that the sun goes all around the world and it 01:40 is able to bless and encourage so many in so many ways. 01:44 We are going to go to the screen now to look at some 01:45 of those benefits that are ours to receive every single day 01:49 when the sun is shining. 02:07 We see the benefit of outdoor exercise as opposed to 02:10 indoor exercise. 02:12 It also, here in graphics 2, we have a word from the Scripture 02:16 which encourages us. 02:24 Our next one, and we can testify to that, each of us has 02:30 experienced that. 02:31 Let's see what else it does. 02:34 Lowers blood pressure which we need. 02:42 Increases white blood cells to fight our infections and 02:47 to keep our immune system in the best shape. 02:50 Also lowers respiratory rate and slows resting heart 02:54 rate and we need that also. 02:57 Blood carries more oxygen increasing our health. 03:02 Many people are not aware of that 03:05 but that is a real benefit in sunlight. 03:22 We'd like to have that. 03:23 The more blood the heart pumps at each beat, the less 03:26 it has to work; the more resting takes place. 03:29 The blood output increases 39% for several days and the 03:36 benefits of this continue to last. 03:45 We feel better about ourselves, about our world, 03:48 about everything. 03:52 Crises met with less difficulty and we do have crises more 03:56 and more in our lives. 03:57 Calms the nerves and decreases the adrenaline... what a 04:03 blessing that is. 04:04 Also, our next graphics shows us that as the sunlight touches 04:05 the water, it purifies and kills many germs such as listed. 04:26 We see that there is not more water being produced every day 04:32 but God is able to purify the water that is, so that we can 04:37 have clean, pure, fresh water. 04:39 Our next graphics... Kills bacteria on the skin. 04:45 I remember my wife had an operation and after the 04:48 operation, she had a little infection there and they wheeled 04:53 her out into the sunlight and the sunlight was able to kill 04:56 bacteria that was on the skin. 04:58 It was marvelous... without anything else being done. 05:01 We see that sunlight also is good for arthritis. 05:18 It's a very comforting experience having the sun 05:22 warm the joints. 05:30 Dr. Thrash, the sun does a lot of good things, doesn't it? 05:33 Yes it does. 05:34 And I'm especially interested in your mentioning about how 05:37 it kills germs, not only on the skin but also in water. 05:42 So that we could take a jar of water and expose it to the sun 05:47 and it may have been contaminated before but we can 05:50 expect that with the exposure to sunlight, that we will have 05:54 some benefit in purifying water and making it so that it might 05:58 be capable of being drunk. 06:00 So, as each one of these benefits of sunshine stacks up 06:07 and we have one after the other, we are enjoined to believe that 06:14 our Heavenly Father loves us. 06:15 He wanted us to meet the tempter 06:18 Meet the great enemy with as many tools to fight 06:23 with as possible and the sun is certainly one of those. 06:27 Now Don Miller is here and he is going to tell you some more 06:31 things about the benefits of sun. 06:35 Really, I'm going to elucidate a little bit more on what 06:37 Brother Champen had just said on a few of these benefits but 06:39 I want to go back to when I was a child. 06:42 I remember when I was a little child, someone said if the sun 06:46 were one inch closer to this earth, we would all burn up. 06:49 I was afraid to grow. 06:50 I was afraid to jump for a long time. 06:52 But the Lord has that sun at just the right distance from us 06:55 to give us everything that we need for life and a lot of the 06:59 things that Brother Champen mentioned. 07:00 I want to go into a little bit more about how that really works 07:04 Let's think about the cholesterol thing. 07:06 You know, we've got good cholesterol. 07:08 As a matter of fact, sometimes we think that cholesterol 07:10 is a four-letter word. 07:11 Well, it is not. 07:12 Cholesterol is good. 07:14 If it wasn't good, our bodies would not produce it. 07:17 We produce all the cholesterol that we need. 07:19 Now, why do we produce the cholesterol? 07:21 We've got these natural oils in cholesterol in our skin. 07:26 As the sun strikes the skin, it turns that cholesterol into 07:32 vitamin D. 07:34 And, of course, we need vitamin D in our bodies. 07:36 And so that is one of the good reasons it is there. 07:38 Now the sunshine reduces our cholesterol through that method 07:42 and there was a study once done, not a study, a case history 07:46 of a woman who had her blood taken and her cholesterol was 07:50 333 and her triglycerides were 229. 07:55 They put this lady on a strict sunbath regimen, 08:00 did not change her diet, no exercise, did nothing else 08:04 but put her on a sunbath. 08:06 Gave her four days of sunbath. 08:08 Now, I'm not talking about just laying out in the sunshine for 08:11 four days long. 08:12 But each day, she got a couple of sunbaths. 08:15 In those four days, her cholesterol fell to 221 and her 08:20 triglycerides to 197. 08:22 That is over a 100-point drop in four days just from the 08:27 application of the sunshine to the skin. 08:29 I'd say it's a pretty good benefit. 08:30 Now, so we got our cholesterol coming down... 08:33 How about our blood pressure? 08:35 Well, let's take the step one step further with 08:38 the cholesterol thing. 08:39 We've got the cholesterol in the skin... the sunshine strikes 08:43 the skin, turns the cholesterol into vitamin D 08:47 But, we have to have cholesterol in the skin and so the body says 08:52 "hey, hey, we need some more cholesterol in the skin... 08:54 where are we going to get it?" 08:55 Where does it get it? 08:56 It gets it out of the blood. 08:57 It gets it off of the artery walls and 08:59 so it sends it up there. 09:01 Now, in doing that, it lessens the fat in the blood which 09:05 brings our blood pressure down because now the heart 09:08 is not having to pump so hard through those narrow streets. 09:11 Just imagine if you will... (many of you probably live in 09:16 large cities)... the interstate going around your city or the 09:19 largest street in your city... 09:20 rush hour traffic completely full. 09:24 What happens, and this happens quite often in many major cities 09:27 ...they are fixing four of the lanes and only two are open 09:30 one going in one direction and one in the other direction. 09:34 Everything gets slow. 09:36 Same thing in your body. 09:37 As these main arteries, our main highways, our main streets in 09:42 our body get smaller, it slows down the traffic. 09:46 But as we open that up, our traffic moves better; therefore, 09:49 our blood pressure gets lower. 09:51 Now also sunshine increases the oxygen-carrying capacity 09:56 of our blood. 09:57 How does it do that 09:59 Well, step one, our cholesterol is going down and 10:01 if our cholesterol goes down, we've got less 10:04 cholesterol in the blood. 10:05 Now, we do need cholesterol in the blood as part of our 10:07 clotting mechanism but many people have far too much 10:10 serum cholesterol. 10:11 That's when you go to the doctor or the lab and have your blood 10:14 drawn... that's called your serum cholesterol. 10:17 And we recommend that your cholesterol be about 10:20 100 plus your age. 10:22 And most people, it's 100 plus their age, plus their mother's 10:25 age and someone else's age in the house. 10:26 We want to keep our blood cholesterol down. 10:29 So, as our cholesterol falls, that means less fat in our blood 10:34 our red blood cells aren't aggregating or sticking together 10:38 And they are more capable of carrying a larger load of oxygen 10:42 down to the cells where it needs it. 10:44 And so, therefore, less cholesterol, more oxygen 10:47 to the cells. 10:48 It also reduces the resting heart rate. 10:52 Now, how does it do that? 10:54 Well, we have to go back to the same steps again. 10:56 When our cholesterol is falling down, our blood pressure is 11:00 going down and we are getting more oxygen to the cells 11:04 and to the muscles and so, therefore, our heart is saying 11:09 "I don't have to work quite so hard. " 11:10 Now how does your heart rest? 11:12 It beats and it rests, it beats and it rests. 11:16 Some people's heart goes like a like a humming bird's heart, 11:19 pumping so fast. 11:21 But you get your heart rate down to 60, 56, 54, there is 11:26 a lot of rest in between those beats. 11:29 All right, how about blood sugar 11:31 It will lower your blood sugar. 11:33 Now this is for people who have a high blood sugar. 11:36 It's not going to hurt your blood sugar if you are a regular 11:40 person but what it does is it sort of works on an enzyme 11:44 action and it changes the glucose in your blood, that's 11:48 your blood sugar, into glycogen and that is your stored sugar, 11:52 it stores it in the liver and it stores it in the muscles... 11:55 so that basically your blood glucose is going 12:00 down just by a sunbath. 12:02 I know a young man who is a juvenile diabetic. 12:05 He is in his mid 30s. 12:07 He has no manifestations, physical manifestations 12:11 of juvenile diabetes. 12:13 But he has learned how to control his blood sugar by his 12:16 diet, by exercise and by sunshine. 12:19 Now, yes, he does take some insulin but as a maintenance 12:23 dose, because he's got his body finely-tuned and in control 12:28 of his own intelligence and he can take care of it that way. 12:32 The immune response goes up when we get sunbaths, 12:38 also through this whole mechanism... the immune response 12:41 is encouraged by a healthy condition of the blood. 12:45 Our blood fats go down, the oxygen comes up, therefore, 12:49 our immune system is stronger and it raises, as 12:53 Brother Champen already mentioned, our white blood cells 12:55 in our body. 12:56 Energy and endurance also are increased by the application 13:03 of the sun to the body. 13:04 How does that work? 13:05 Again, we've got to go back through those steps. 13:07 Energy, what gives your body energy? 13:10 Now, granted one of the things that we've not talked about 13:13 is drinking water, that is one of them, but the other one is 13:16 oxygen. 13:17 Now, if you're not getting oxygen... 13:19 You ever notice how when you run what happens? 13:22 You start breathing deeper because your body says, 13:24 "we need more oxygen" and so you start breathing deeper 13:28 getting more oxygen to the tissues. 13:30 Well, if you have less fat, 13:33 if your blood is pumping better and stronger and more 13:36 effectively, you're pumping more blood with more oxygen 13:40 to the tissues, therefore, increasing your strength. 13:44 How about the endurance thing? 13:45 What gives you endurance? 13:47 What do you need for endurance? 13:48 You need the energy. 13:49 Where do you get the energy from 13:51 You get the energy from the glucose. 13:53 We've already told you that by the sunshine converting glucose 13:57 into glycogen, which is the stored condition of sugar, 14:05 in the blood, now it comes out of the muscles, 14:07 it comes out of the liver and when we really need that burst 14:11 of energy, that extra work because we're really working 14:15 hard, one day we've got all the energy that we need 14:17 to give us those things. 14:18 It increases our muscle strength not just because of the oxygen, 14:23 not just because of the glucose but because the sunshine somehow 14:27 They've done studies showing that those people who really 14:30 wanting to get into building their bodies, the best month 14:34 of the year to build muscle mass and muscle strength 14:38 is the month of July. 14:40 Now why would it be the month of July? 14:41 Well, because the month of July the sun is out the longest. 14:45 And you know, I'm often amazed at people who go to spas 14:50 to work out. 14:52 Have you ever noticed... 14:53 I drive by spas sometimes and I look over, I've never seen any 14:56 windows in these places. 14:57 They are inside this closed-in place, breathing everyone else's 15:00 carbon dioxide, laying in everyone else's sweat 15:03 when they could be out in the sunshine, fresh air and getting 15:07 more muscle mass, more oxygen more everything they can get 15:11 from being out in God's nature. 15:13 God has given us the sun for a very special reason. 15:15 And, we have listed a whole bunch of these reasons 15:18 Sometimes we just think it's so we don't have to bump into 15:20 trees in the daytime. 15:21 No, it's so we can have healthy happy, holy lives. 15:25 And that's what God wants us to have, Dr. Thrash, is happy, 15:28 healthy and holy lives. 15:29 Yes, I like those, the three H's 15:32 Happy, healthy and holy. 15:33 And, of course, that's the status that our Heavenly Father 15:37 wants us to have. 15:38 Now, since the time of the flood I suppose, when the canopy 15:43 that we had over the earth in the form of the firmament... 15:46 when that collapsed, and fell in and all the water up there came 15:50 down through the windows of heaven onto the earth 15:53 and we lost that protective canopy there, that filtered out 15:57 all the cosmic rays of the sun 15:59 Since that time, the sun has not always been only beneficial 16:04 to us but now sun can be harmful to us. 16:07 And I have a report here that tells about skin cancer as a 16:13 result of too much sunning. 16:16 In the last few years, because of continued dissipation of 16:20 those protective elements in the outer stratosphere of 16:25 earth's various layers... 16:28 Because of that, we are now getting more radiation down to 16:33 the earth and that is causing us to have more skin cancer. 16:36 Basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinomas and the most 16:40 treacherous and malignant of all skin cancers, the melanoma. 16:45 But, it has been found and this report mentions that, 16:48 that the diet can be helpful in reducing the likelihood that 16:54 a mole or a previous sunburn could turn into a melanoma. 17:00 The diet needs to be low in fats 17:03 It also needs to be high in fruits and vegetables 17:07 and backed up by plenty of vitamin C and selenium... 17:11 All of which we can get in fruits, vegetables, whole grains 17:15 nuts and seeds. 17:16 And leave off the refined and fermented products as much 17:21 as we can. 17:23 Now we know also that blistering early in life has a more 17:27 deleterious effect on the skin than blistering even 17:30 later in life. 17:31 And so we want to protect our children very carefully from 17:36 the blistering sun, so that they never have a sun burn. 17:41 And even a little bit of reddening should be avoided 17:45 if we can possibly do so. 17:48 We should protect the skin in such ways as by umbrellas, 17:54 and also by hats. 17:56 Now here is an umbrella... this is a major size umbrella. 18:01 And it is, of course, for more than one person, or a 18:05 very large person. 18:06 But because of the fact that it is so nice, you can see that 18:11 it's very good protection for one. 18:14 Now, I don't usually take a walk with that but when I'm going 18:18 for a walk on Sabbath, I usually take a parasol. 18:21 When I was a little girl, I had these very beautiful ones 18:25 that were hand-painted and silk that came from Japan. 18:26 But now I usually use one that's like this. 18:32 Just enough to give me a nice shade and it's very helpful. 18:38 Now when I work out in my garden 18:40 I take something like this. 18:43 This is a sun hat and you want a sun hat that will shade 18:48 the face as much as possible and make it so that especially 18:51 vulnerable parts are shaded by the broad-brimmed sun hat. 18:57 The nose, the chin, the cheeks and the forehead are those areas 19:02 that are most likely to be burned by the sun... 19:06 And so, of course, we want to be very careful to protect 19:09 those areas. 19:10 Now, as we think about other things that are a problem with 19:15 our exposure to sun, then we need to think about things that 19:21 are problematical for the mind as well. 19:25 Now in dealing with the mind, we know that there are several 19:32 things, several features of our life style that can elevate the 19:36 spirits and make it so that we are more likely to have a bright 19:41 spirit, rather than a gloomy or dull spirit and the sunshine 19:46 is one of those. 19:47 And apparently, it's the very light itself getting into the 19:51 eyes that acts as a re-setting stage for the entire psyche 20:00 and makes it so that we are more likely to have a glad heart. 20:03 So reset your set point there for being glad-hearted by 20:12 getting out in the sunshine as early as possible 20:15 Especially for women, it's good if women go out into the 20:19 sunshine very early in the morning and take their 20:23 exercise early. 20:24 In the morning, when I get up early, I first go outside to get 20:31 my outdoor exercise before the sun gets hot. 20:34 And, before the sun's rays are directly down which are more 20:38 damaging than sun rays coming in from the side. 20:42 Now, so far as exercise is concerned, one of the very best 20:46 times for us to exercise is early in the morning. 20:49 And after a meal, rather than before the meal, 20:54 although before the meal is fine too if you don't 20:56 overdo the exercise. 20:57 But after the meal, if it's mild exercise, it stimulates 21:02 digestion and gets things started with the digestive 21:06 process and makes it so that the individual is more capable 21:11 of digesting food. 21:13 In Alabama, I like to go out in the cool of the day, either 21:18 early in the morning or late in the afternoon. 21:21 Early in the morning when the sun's rays are not very hot 21:24 one can exercise more vigorously than one can in the middle of 21:30 the day, or even middle of the morning when the sun gets 21:34 very hot and, of course, one gets overheated if 21:37 one is not careful. 21:39 One should not exercise just before bed if one is the kind of 21:46 person that exercise stimulates their mind. 21:49 Some people can exercise just before they go to bed 21:52 and they don't sleep. 21:53 Other people are not that temperament at all. 21:57 They get out and exercise and go to bed 22:00 and sleep like a baby. 22:01 So, you have to decide which kind you are... 22:05 Whether you are the kind that benefits from exercise or 22:08 whether you do not benefit from exercise just before bed. 22:13 Now another thing that you need to know is that you should not 22:18 exercise if the area where you would exercise is dangerous. 22:22 If you are likely to slip or if you're likely to encounter dogs 22:29 or unfriendly people, then you would exercise indoors... 22:34 which means that you need some kind of exercise equipment. 22:36 But exercise will do you a lot more good if it's done 22:41 in the sunshine. 22:42 So if you have a sun porch, or any place, even a large 22:47 window where you can put the exercise equipment there and 22:51 do your exercising on the indoor equipment in the sunshine 22:55 and an open window where the air would be fresh... 22:58 that can be very helpful. 23:00 So, I think that if you understand these things, it can 23:05 be helpful to you to know how to handle your sunning and 23:10 your exercise better. 23:12 And now, Don Miller is going to give you another aspect of 23:15 helpfulness in these areas. 23:18 You know Dr. Thrash has mentioned the parasol and the 23:22 umbrella and the hat and I'd feel sort of funny walking 23:25 through the woods holding an umbrella. 23:27 And so, I usually do wear a hat... 23:29 But you know, there are things that we should do. 23:32 Many people, when it gets warm out in the west, 23:36 they take off clothes, thinking that that's going to make 23:39 them cooler. 23:40 And I have found, in my own experience, the more clothing 23:43 I put on, as far as covering my skin surface, the cooler that 23:47 I will be. 23:48 I usually always wear a long- sleeved shirt even in Alabama. 23:52 You see I'm from north, up in Ohio and Alabama is a hot place. 23:56 And I find that I'm much cooler wearing a long-sleeved shirt 24:00 because it's the skin being struck by the sunlight itself 24:04 which will cause some damage, especially during those 24:07 dangerous hours about 10 o'clock in the morning to o'clock 24:10 in the afternoon. 24:11 And so it's best to keep yourself well-robed. 24:14 I have yet to see someone over there in Arabia wearing Bermuda 24:18 shorts and a tank top. 24:19 They keep themselves well- covered. 24:22 In Bible times, in Christ's day they always wore the longer 24:26 robes, because that is a way to keep yourself cooler. 24:29 I remember one time I was in the Philippines, in the Marine Corps 24:34 and a buddy and I were walking out in the jungle and we came 24:37 to a little village on the South China Sea... 24:41 and we decided we would like to use one of their outriggers 24:44 to go canoeing. 24:45 And so we talked with the person, we paid them some money 24:48 and we took their little outrigger out into this 24:51 beautiful lagoon. 24:52 The trouble was, it was in the heat of the day, very tropic... 24:56 The sunshine was coming straight down on us and as I held that 25:00 paddle in my hand, my knuckles were blanched... which meant 25:06 the blood wasn't there to carry away the heat and 25:09 I got an extremely bad sunburn on my knuckles 25:13 as I was out there rowing. 25:15 As a matter of fact, even today my knuckles are more sensitive 25:19 to sunburn because once you've burned it, it's more sensitive 25:23 to the sunburn in the future. 25:24 It was burned so badly that they put me on light duty and I 25:27 couldn't go rappelling the next day, which really broke my heart 25:30 But we need to protect ourselves even our hands, especially where 25:34 we have bones right underneath, it will really give us a problem 25:37 I want to give you a few facts and figures about the sun... 25:40 Because the sun, we realize is 93 million miles away. 25:43 It takes about 8 minutes for sunlight to get all the way from 25:46 the sun to this earth. 25:48 That's a pretty quick trip. 25:49 And so whatever sunlight is striking outside your house 25:54 right now... if the sun is shining, it got out of the 25:57 sun 8 minutes ago. 26:00 Also, about 4.7 million tons of sun mass is lost every single 26:09 second because of the fact that it's burning, burning, burning 26:12 But they have estimated... 26:13 Now when I listen to man's thinking about how long 26:17 things are going to last, that the sun will last so many 26:19 millions and billions of years. 26:21 It will probably last forever because God has made it 26:24 to last that way. 26:25 And other nice facts and figures about sunshine but you can read 26:30 it in the encyclopedia. 26:31 Dr. Thrash, what else to you have to say about sunshine? 26:33 I should say a few words about some of the skin problems that 26:38 come with the sun. 26:40 Aging of the skin is largely due to the exposure that we have 26:45 to the sun. 26:46 And, we can have skin cancer as we've mentioned already. 26:50 We can also get cataracts because of too much sun. 26:53 And, we can get osteoporosis if we have too little sunning. 26:59 So, we need to be careful about that one also. 27:02 Breast cancer is more likely to occur in those who never see 27:06 the sun, than in those who are regularly out in the sun. 27:10 Then, of course, there is the "SAD" disease, or seasonal 27:14 affective disorder that people in the far north who rarely 27:18 see the sun... they have a depression and a sense of not 27:24 being very well because of not being able to see the sun. 27:28 Then there are such things as solar blindness and solar 27:32 cheilosis which is an inflammation of the lips and a 27:36 variety of other problems that can come from too much 27:40 sun exposure. 27:41 But let us not let things keep us from enjoying the wonderful 27:45 things about the sun. 27:47 The benefits that God has built into these are a sign of His 27:51 great love for man. |
Revised 2014-12-17