So THAT'S Why It's So Important To Get Sunlight Every Morning

On busy mornings before work or school, seeking out some morning sun may feel more like a luxury than a necessity.

But there are many reasons why you should aim to get as much early light as possible — and they go way beyond the mood benefits that many people experience.

Specifically, morning sunshine can help you sleep better and prepare you for the day ahead, experts say. Here’s how:

The sun acts a cue for our daily routine.

“We have this term called ‘zeitgebers,’ which is basically German for ‘time-giver,’” said Elizabeth “Birdie” Shirtcliff, a research professor at the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. They’re environmental cues that “help us know how to set up our daily rhythms.”

These time-givers impact many factors, including your cortisol awakening response, which is “the sort of stress hormone version of your body’s get-up-and-go [signal]in the morning,” Shirtcliff explained. It helps you wake up and feel prepared for the day.And the best time-giver in the world is the sun.

“The cortisol awakening response actually starts in anticipation of the sunrise, so it starts going up during the last little bit of sleeping. When we anticipate waking up, we have this rise in cortisol, and within the first few minutes of waking up, our cortisol levels spike by about 70% — so literally the biggest stressor your body can go through is just waking up,” Shirtcliff said.

When that peak in cortisol doesn’t happen, folks can feel tired and sluggish all day, she said.

But some of those time-giver cues are “built into our everyday events, things like the sunshine, or meal times, or when the noise on the street kicks up. All of those time-givers prepare our body to be ready for what’s about to