No, I don’t mean the electricity that you get from putting solar panels on your roof. I am thinking more along the lines of solar power driving us, people. I suppose it may not just be solar power, possibly just being outside, I am not sure. What I do know is that when I spend a lot of time outside I feel better. How so? Well, I feel like I have more energy, it isn’t hard to get out of bed in the morning, and I think that I generally have a better outlook on life.
I, Like so many people have a job that keeps me inside much of the time. Not only inside, but often literally in the dark. My job can be a little odd in the land of hours because sometimes it is just a regular nine-to-five job, sometimes it is a nine-to-whenever-we-get-done job (often late nights), and sometimes it is an evening job. Keeping up with the ever changing dynamics of the schedule can be hard, but I enjoy what I am doing. I also tend to have the time to get out and do things like ski for a good amount of time.
However, during the spans of time that I work a lot, especially during the daytime I find that I have significantly less energy and motivation. It is harder to get up in the morning and there are many days that I just feel like I drag through the day. Then there are weeks like this past week where I got out and did a bunch of skiing and spent a lot of time outside enjoying the fresh mountain air and the sun. I suppose that I should mention that the air quality here in the Salt Lake Valley is pretty bad which may be another contributing factor. This past week I have been feeling pretty darn good, though it is always a bummer to drive down the canyons into the SLC smog. On weeks like this, I can get up when the alarm goes off, get ready and get out the door. Even coming in to work in the afternoon isn’t so bad!
I have found that I feel the same way when I spend the summers working at summer camp. Camp is a very demanding job but it is very rewarding too. Somehow I find that I can spend most of the summer getting up between 7-7:30AM, running around with the kids all day, hanging out with the staff until 1AM and do that pretty much every day. I don’t know how it works because during the rest of the year I go to bed earlier and wake up later and just don’t usually have the same energy. Thus, I attribute it to solar power and being outside.
I know that there is all kinds of science that probably backs up what I am feeling, something about the sun and getting different vitamins because of it. That is all well and good, but it is still very interesting that it seems to make such a huge impact. I guess sometimes we just need to get out more.