Hello, every day I take a midday walk around 2pm for around 30-40 minutes and was wondering if it’s really necessary to put on sunscreen for that amount of exposure. My arms and legs are tanner relative to my torso because I always wear a shirt so is ithe skin adapting to that amount of exposure to the sun without being damaged? Is it only being damaged if you are getting sunburnt? Like if you adapt to benching two plates and just stay at that weight, I don’t plan on upping the dose of sun exposure every day. I like to wear a sunscreen on my face but wondering if it’s necessary for the arms and legs. I’m lazyat putting it on the limbs but don’t mind putting it on my face.
There are changes occurring in the skin regardless of whether you are sunburnt, and these effects accumulate over the course of a lifetime. As far as what the specific degree/level of risk is that you may be incurring, I can’t say because there are far too many variables at play.
Is the general recommendation to always have sunscreen on regardless of exposure time? Is there any benefit to sun exposure without sunscreen for brief periods? I know most of the BBM team are also in “always sunny” areas, so are there different recommendations for northern latitudes (Canada, Scandinavia, etc)?
For average risk individuals it is not necessary to always wear sunscreen regardless of exposure time; of course there are benefits for circadian biology and vitamin D synthesis.
For individuals at high risk for skin cancer (people with a history of skin cancers, on certain immunpsuppressing drugs, or who have genetic conditions that increase cancer risk), I would be more aggressive with protection.