The Surprising Science of the Benefits of Sun Exposure with Rowen Jacobson
Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder
PodcastOne
4.7 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 June 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kimberly explores the surprising science of sun exposure with Rowan Jacobsen, challenging common fears about sunlight and revealing its profound health benefits. Learn how to balance sun safety with the need for natural light to improve health, mood, and longevity.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Sunlight and Health
02:52 The Historical Perspective on Sunlight
06:00 Understanding Skin Cancer and Sun Exposure
08:50 The Benefits of Sunlight Beyond Skin Cancer
12:02 Sensible Sun Exposure and Aging
14:56 Circadian Rhythms and Sunlight
17:56 Alternatives to Natural Sunlight
20:58 Vitamin D and Its Importance
24:41 The Vitamin D Dilemma
29:59 Sunlight and Fertility
33:40 In Defense of Sunlight
38:53 The Impact of Light on Children
43:44 Sunscreen Insights
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Rowen Jacobsen Resources:
Book: In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure (June 16th, 2026) (Simon & Shuster)
Website: rowanjacobsen.com
Social: @unrealrowanjacobsen
Email: rowanjacobsen@gmail.com
Bio:
Rowan Jacobsen writes about science and nature and the less-explored corners of the world for Harper’s, Outside, The Atlantic, Scientific American, Smithsonian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MIT Technology Review, Businessweek, and others, and his work has been anthologized in The Best American Science & Nature Writing and other collections. He has received awards from the James Beard Foundation, the Society of American Travel Writers, and the Overseas Press Club. He is the author of nine books, including A Geography of Oysters, Fruitless Fall, and Truffle Hound, which have been named to Best Book of the Year lists by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, NPR, and Publishers Weekly. He has performed with Pop-Up Magazine, lectured at Harvard and Yale, and appeared on CBS, NBC, and NPR. He has been an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellow, writing about endangered diversity on the borderlands between India, Myanmar, and China; a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, focusing on the environmental and evolutionary impact of synthetic biology; and a Nova Media Fellow, researching the science of sun exposure. His new book, In Defense of Sunlight: The Surprising Science of Sun Exposure, will be published by Scribner on the Summer Solstice, 2026.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Feel Good podcast, which is all about heart-led living and wellness. |
| 0:07.8 | When we awaken the power of our hearts and let that guide us through our daily choices and decisions, through our four cornerstones, food, body, emotional well-being, and spiritual growth, we will experience the most incredible |
| 0:22.8 | results and create more vitality, health, strength, peace, abundance, and love in our lives. |
| 0:32.0 | I am your host, Kimberly Snyder, New York Times best-selling author, founder of Saluna, |
| 0:39.3 | creator of the research-based heart-aligned meditation, wellness expert, nutritionist, and international speaker. |
| 0:45.0 | I am passionate about supporting you on your unique heart and wellness journey. |
| 0:51.4 | Let's get started. |
| 1:01.1 | Hi, everyone. Welcome back to our Monday interview show. I'm really excited to share this exciting conversation with you today about sunlight. Now, most of us have been |
| 1:08.8 | taught that we need to cover up. We need to wear sunscreen, even if we're inside most of the day, that the sun is really scary. |
| 1:15.7 | We can get burned. |
| 1:16.4 | We can get skin cancer. |
| 1:17.7 | And there is some truth in that we don't want to fry our skin, but there's also incredible |
| 1:23.2 | benefits to sunlight, which is supplying earth to life to earth's plants and indirectly to the |
| 1:32.0 | animals and to us in so many ways. There's incredible science around this. My guest today is |
| 1:38.6 | Rowan Jacobson, the celebrated author who has a new book out called In Defense of Sunlight, The Surprising Science of |
| 1:46.1 | Sun Exposure. Rowan writes about science. He's a journalist. He has lectured at Harvard. He has been |
| 1:53.9 | on the best book of the year lists from the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, |
| 2:03.3 | publishers weekly, so on and so forth. And I love how he goes really deep into picking apart some of the misconceptions, |
| 2:12.3 | the myths, literally some of the things that get passed around about sunlight, which simply is not true. |
| 2:19.2 | You may have felt this intuitively, how good it feels to just be in sunlight to get a little bit |
| 2:23.6 | of sun, especially on your limbs. And today, there's a lot of surprising facts and science |
| 2:28.7 | that we're going to cover. So I can't wait to share. Before we go deeper, reminder that our show |
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