Do vitamin D pills give you what sunlight would?
What works instead
Get outside within an hour of waking most days: roughly ten minutes bright, twenty to thirty overcast. No sunglasses, sunscreen fine. Aim for two hours a week in green space. And if a blood test shows a genuine deficiency, take the supplement for your bones and immune system. Just do not expect it to do the light's job.
The honest bottom line
The pill and the sun are not substitutes. They are two different interventions that happen to share a molecule. Supplement a deficiency, and go outside anyway. The mornings are free.
Written by Kyle Jenkin · updated August 31, 2026 · how we grade evidence
The light itself does the mood work. Go collect some.
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