I wasn't feeling right all summer. Too much sleeping, and never feeling refreshed. I practically live for the times when the large muscle groups in my legs relax, and have for years been prone to terrible cramps after I do anything like change a vehicle tire or haul yard debris. Stupid garden wasn't doing much last year anyway, and I let it go, unable to face the watering more than anything, hauling that hose out in the morning. (I find a long-handled spade almost as satisfying as a safety razor.)
That's where I went wrong, in retrospect, because what I really needed was to be out in the sun. If I had slept in, and not gotten around to it till 11, some leaves might have got fried, but at least I would have gotten my Vitamin D. But I followed some stupid mainstream advice and largely avoided sunlight between 10 and 2. Barely pulled off a tan by the end of the season, through swimming. (I'm a classy guy. I usually wear a shirt in my yard. If you're at the beach, though, God help you. I've been known to sport lycra swimwear.)
What nobody told me is that unless the sun is fairly high in the sky, around 50 degrees of altitude, the atmosphere will deflect the wavelengths that your skin needs to produce Vitamin D, called UV-B. From November to April, at this latitude, it is basically impossible to obtain enough Vitamin D naturally. They say "fatigue" is one of the symptoms of deficiency, but I think that's an understatement. Wouldn't surprise me if "seasonal depression" is the same goddamn thing.
Because I've been fooling around with this D3, thinking it might help my skin and my shave, I'm doing it backwards this year. I must have moved a ton of leaves this weekend. I felt the wear and tear on the muscles, and thought, "I'm in for it now," but nary a twitch. Getting a little pep back. Easier to roll out of bed (still doubtful that I'll ever become a morning person).
I've been supplementing other things, off and on, since I felt like crap: fish oil, magnesium, zinc, all sorts of B's. I think something changed for me when we got on hard well water a few years ago. But Vitamin D seems to have been the key, hidden in plain sight, where the superficial meets deep physiology. If my skin needs this to kill off seborrheic keratoses, and it changes the skin generally, and I feel generally better having taken it as a supplement... it isn't hard to imagine the cancers I have averted.
And I wouldn't have figured it out without shaving.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-do-i-get-the-vitamin-d-my-body-needs/
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/6/10/4472/htm
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