
The undersides of the clouds were just beginning to ignite. Fiery oranges, reds, and pinks brightened above Camelback Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona. It looked like its own natural wonder that would anyone appreciate, had they opted to go outside that evening. So I wondered, what the hell am I doing in a parking lot getting ready to go inside of a sticky, humid gym when I could have gone for a hike for my exercise?
That was the practical reason I stopped going to gyms on that transformative day in 2007 while living in Phoenix. But that evening sparked a bigger theory that began percolating in my mind.
When Did We Ever Exercise Shielded from Sunlight?
In the following years, and especially after relocating to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I began to develop a theory. This was spawned by not only my own experience at the gym parking lot, but also in recounting other friends’, both in person and online, admissions to how difficult it was to get to the gym consistently. Indeed, it’s almost even a cliche at this point to make a New Year’s resolution saying, “I’m going to go to the gym more.”
This, of course, contrasted greatly with my own experience of not ever being able to hike enough. I simply wanted to be outside on a trail every day. Meanwhile, gym goers I was in touch with in some form or another were visibly trying to motivate themselves just to get to the car, and ultimately, to the gym; they knew if they could at least get to the car, the hard part was over.
It made me wonder, why do people have such a hard time motivating for the gym?
As I learned more about the natural world around me, I realized that as I’m hiking, I’m absorbing and receiving vital nutrients such as Vitamin D, melatonin, and much more from the sun, the fresh air, and even the forests and vegetation themselves. Because gyms are indoors, people in a gym are cut off from such beneficial nutrients.
Putting the two together, it was then that I concluded that nowhere in our history, prior to the last 100, maybe even 50 years, were people ever regularly active while also being shielded from the sun.
In essence, we evolved to do everything short of sleeping, under the sun and in daylight. Sure there were cloudy days, but clouds don’t have nearly the blocking effect of modern walls and ceilings. Sure there’s big glass windows in gyms, but even those are UV-blocking and typically even tinted, minimizing any effect from the sun.
This has led me to conclude that while we exercise outside, whether it be hiking, running, climbing, skiing, or really any outdoor recreation, our bodies continually get nourished and replenished, not just from the water and snacks we consume, but also from the sunlight and nature itself. This comes in the form of numerous nutrients, many of which we’re familar with, such as Vitamin D. Serotonin and melatonin are just two others among an array of nourishment.
Melatonin is often associated with sleep. This is because when you sleep in actual darkness (no light trespass, no light pollution, no TV/screens/etc.), your body releases melatonin, which regulates your circadian rhythm (ie, how well you fall asleep and wake up from a good night’s sleep). In addition, bright daylight is also required to suppress the production of melatonin, something that doesn’t happen as productively if you’re in a dim environment (compared to sunlight, such as a gym).
So the theory goes, people have a hard time motivating for the gym because subconsciously they know they’re not going to be adequately nourished while exercising. It’s almost innate in us to want to be outside in sunshine moving around, because that’s what we’ve been doing since the dawn of time. When you contradict that, you face resistance. Conversely, people who exercise outside regularly have a hard time not getting out to recreate and stay in shape.
In theory, this is because our bodies benefit tremendously from sunlight, because we evolved exercising under sunlight, whether from hunting, farming, or even just basic maintenance of tribal or village duties. Our bodies developed to need and utilize nutrients from the sun and other natural surroundings to function under exertion and stress, so locking ourselves away in a dark room to do just that is counterintuitive to our own physiology.
This is only a theory, however. What do you think?