We’ve Drifted Away From the Sun

The following is adapted from Get Sexy, Girlfriend! by Candi Frazier.

If you believe your body “can’t tolerate” sunlight, it’s not because something is wrong with you. It’s because modern life has trained you to live without it.

Most of us spend our days under artificial lighting, behind windows, inside temperature-controlled buildings. We move from home to car to office with barely a moment in real daylight. When we finally go outside, our skin reacts badly. There’s no resilience, no gradual conditioning. Burning isn’t a mystery—it’s the predictable result of never giving your body the chance to adapt.

Imagine taking someone raised entirely indoors and dropping them into the wilderness. They wouldn’t fail because they’re weak. They’d struggle because they’re unprepared.

Human skin is meant to interact with sunlight. But adaptation takes repetition. You don’t go from avoiding the sun to full exposure in a single day. You build tolerance slowly—early daylight, brief midday exposure, stepping into shade when necessary. Over time, the body learns.

When sunlight reaches your skin, it stimulates melanin production. Melanin isn’t about appearance; it’s a protective response. It helps your skin handle greater exposure over time. A tan is not decoration—it’s biological training. Without that process, the skin remains vulnerable, making sunburn far more likely.

The idea that people are locked into rigid “skin types” oversimplifies things. You don’t have a sun-proof or sun-broken body. You have skin that is either accustomed to sunlight or not. Hair color or complexion doesn’t override basic biology. Every cell in the body responds to light, and your mitochondria depend on it to operate efficiently. At a fundamental level, humans are designed to run on sunlight.

Your eyes follow the same rules. If stepping outdoors feels overwhelming, that’s often a sign of reduced tolerance. Constantly blocking natural light trains your visual system to become less adaptable. Given regular exposure, your eyes know how to regulate light on their own.

Think of sunlight as a personal power source. We’re meticulous about charging our devices, yet ignore the need to recharge ourselves. Sunlight does far more than support vitamin D—it helps regulate hormones, reduce cellular stress, repair damage, and keep your internal clock aligned. Light filtered through glass or replaced by artificial bulbs doesn’t deliver the same signals.

At the same time, modern life saturates us with synthetic blue light. Screens dominate our mornings, workdays, and evenings, keeping our nervous systems in a constant state of alertness. The body never receives the cues it needs to slow down.

This overload affects everything—sleep quality, energy, focus, and emotional balance. Artificial blue light also overstimulates dopamine, raising the brain’s reward threshold. Over time, motivation drops and ordinary pleasures lose their impact.

The solution isn’t extreme. Spend time outdoors. Let natural light reach your skin and eyes. Limit unnecessary screen exposure. Restore your relationship with the environment your body evolved in.

You don’t need to fear the sun. You need to relearn how to live with it.

…

For more on reclaiming your health in a modern world that works against it, check out Get Sexy, Girlfriend! on Amazon.

Candi Frazier is a natural weight-loss expert and co-founder of Primal Bod, the renowned weight-loss program that empowers individuals to achieve sustainable health through education. Board-certified in holistic nutrition and with more than a decade of experience in functional nutrition and holistic wellness, Candi specializes in helping women reclaim their physique by aligning their habits with nature-based principles. 

Thomas Frazier is an entrepreneur and the co-founder of Primal Bod. With a background in finance and business strategy, Thomas refines the Primal Bod messaging by pairing a reverence for nature with his knowledge of insulin as a type 1 diabetic. He has a sharp business acumen and blends this with a deep passion for shifting the paradigm on epigenetics and the truth about healthy living.