Vitamin D & Your Sleep: What’s the Connection?

by Eliana Raver

Original publication date: July 23, 2019   Updated: March 29, 2023

With all the summer warnings on avoiding harmful UV rays, it’s easy to forget that a little sun can be a good thing. Exposure to sunlight provides up to 90% of our Vitamin D[i]; an irreplaceable, life-sustaining vitamin that has a profound effect on all facets of our health including your sleep.

Vitamin D for Your Sleep Wellness

We all know Vitamin D is essential, but we’ve only started discovering its far-reaching effect on all body systems.  The relationship between Vitamin D and sleep is a relatively new area of research. Its connection to a healthy sleep cycles has yet to be fully understood, but the results we have so far are startling.  According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information

 “…several large sample epidemiology studies found that dietary intake of vitamin D was related to midpoint of sleep, sleep duration, and maintaining sleep.”

In addition, their statistics showed that as Vitamin D levels rose, people’s risk for sleep disorders dropped significantly. That itself is an overwhelming discovery, but Vitamin D does more than simply lower the risk. It has been shown to work synergistically with the immune system to fight against harmful inflammation, improving symptoms in several cases of sleep apnea[ii]. Hence tapping people into healthy sleep cycles.

Chronic Pain Relief and More

Beyond that, Medical News Today shared that taking Vitamin D to support sleep has further secondary effects. Research shows that a healthy sleep cycle and Vitamin D levels together may help reduce chronic pain:

“Following a review of published research on the relationship between vitamin D, sleep, and pain, researchers propose that vitamin D supplementation, together with good sleep hygiene, may offer an effective way to manage pain in conditions such as arthritis, chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, and menstrual cramps.”

These findings correlate to an American study of veterans suffering chronic pain that assessed their reaction to high doses of Vitamin D.  The researchers found that higher levels led to better sleep and reduced pain-without any side effects. Considering the valuable role Vitamin D plays in fighting inflammation, these results make perfect sense.

We may not fully understand all the ways Vitamin D protects and supports our bodies, but what we do know for sure is that it is an amazing help to promote both healing within the body and restful and pain free sleep cycles. In fact, Dr. Mercola considers Vitamin D the most effective cancer prevention vitamin.

Getting Vitamin D from Sunshine

So, are you ready to go outside now?  All the benefits Vitamin D provides are a wonderful reason to soak up the sunshine this summer. It’s recommended to get between 15 to 30 minutes of natural sunlight daily sometime earlier in the day rather than later. Enjoy your summertime, reduce inflammation in the body, and sleep better, too!

While you apply natural, non-toxic sunscreen at the beach or pool this summer, you might want to consider that what you sleep on is just as important as what you put on your skin.  The average mattress is a hotbed of harmful petrochemicals, and achieving healthy sleep is actually something that will support your wellness 24 hours a day. Read more about petrochemicals here, and we invite you to explore SAMINA’s organic, master-crafted sleep systems today.

[i] “Sleep, Sunshine, and Vitamin D.” The Royal Women’s Hospital, www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/periods/healthy-periods/sleep-sunshine-vitamin-d.  Accessed July 16, 2019.

[ii] “The role of vitamin D in obstructive sleep apnoea syndrome”, Breathe, ERS Publications, (Kostas Archontogeorgis, Evangelia Nena, Nikolaos Papanas, Paschalis Steiropoulos) breathe.ersjournals.com/content/14/3/206. Accessed July 16, 2019.