WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BODY after 2.5 months with NO sunlight?! | Seeing the effects of Polar Night

do you know what's so cool that's the moon   what happens to your body when you have  no daylight for two and a half months   living in the northernmost town this is something  we experience every winter during our polar night   so this polar night i made it my mission to find  out how my body reacted to this period of no   sunlight and i documented my moods and did blood  work both before and after this extreme season so let's find out what happened to my body  after two and a half months of no daylight   but first if you're new to my channel or just  want to recap let's start from the beginning   and also if you want to subscribe  i would highly appreciate it living in the world's northernmost town is nothing  short of spectacular long even in svalbard is the   last stop before the north pole and living so far  north 78 degrees to be exact we get to see some   of the world's natural wonders in our everyday  lives the magical northern lights polar bears in   their natural habitat glaciers and the beauty  of the arctic but living this far north also   comes with its own set of struggles we have very  extreme seasons not only in temperature but also   in daylight from october to february we experience  powder night this is the time of year when the sun   doesn't come above the horizon at all leaving us  in total darkness for months two and a half months   to be exact for two and a half months we have no  daylight whatsoever it is the darkest of nights   so how does this affect us what happens to our  bodies when we go without daylight for that long   this polar night i decided to find out a bit more  about it and what happens to my body living in the   darkness i usually take a few days here and there  to travel to the mainland during the polar night   but this time of year i decided to do the  polar night all in one go and the results   were shocking so to start this story we need  to jump back to a dark and snowy day in january good morning good morning for me and grim it's nine in the  morning it's not that shouldn't be early but it's   really to me look it's dark outside i'm gonna  go to the hospital and get blood work done yes okay so i have to be there in 20 minutes just  have to go now so i'm gonna get blood work done   i'm bringing a coffee i'm gonna work out after  so i'm wearing workout gear and i have to go oh there's so much always look around and check out   what you got christopher has walked past a  polar bear before because he was in a rush since i'm from sweden and grew up with long dark  winters the effects a dark winter can have on your   body is something i was aware of before moving to  svalbard a common side effect of a dark winter is   vitamin d deficiency but this time of year is  also tougher on many people's mental health   one thing that i really noticed during this polar  night is that i struggled more mentally than i've   ever done any of the previous winters i even  experienced anxiety for the first time in my   life which was eye opening for me today's video  is sponsored by better help in honor of mental   health awareness month may is a month to raise  awareness about mental health fight stigma and   provide support for anyone struggling with their  mental health it's also about advocating access   to mental health care and this has long been one  of BetterHelp's goals BetterHelp does a great job   assessing your needs and matching you with your  own licensed therapist and they have over 20 000   therapists on their platform they offer customized  online therapy that includes video phone and even   live chat sessions with your therapist so you  don't even have to see anyone on camera if you   don't want to you just fill out a questionnaire  to help assess your specific needs and then you   get matched with a therapist in under 48 hours my  favorite part about BetterHelp is that it gives me   access to help that i can't really get otherwise  living so remote better help is kindly offering   my community ten percent of your first month of  therapy when you go to betterhelp.com/blomdahl   that is BetterHelp.com/blomdahl This mental health month if you or someone   you know is struggling please share BetterHelp  with them and thank you so much for being here so here we are at the hospital in longyearbyen  to take some blood tests to see what my vitamin d   levels are after two and a half months of complete  darkness we have one hospital in town and it is   located on the main street so let's take a look  at my levels before going into the polar night   so we know where i started what's a good level  of vitamin d seems to not be fully agreed upon   by all studies but according to our hospital my  number should be within 50 to 150 to be normal   i did blood work at the hospital in town in  june of 2021 at that point after a few months   of sunshine i was at 39 so it was low even  then i hadn't been super strict about taking   my supplement and wasn't paying enough attention  to the vitamin d levels in my diet at that point   so i wasn't very surprised but then during the  summer last year i went to portugal and i spent a   lot of time laying out in the sun and i also made  sure to load up on vitamin d through my food and   i managed to raise my vitamin d levels to normal  levels they didn't give me a number on this scale   after doing blood work there but let's assume  normal would be around 70 for me on this scale   so now i'm back at the hospital after  two and a half months of darkness   after being on a strict supplements and diet  to see where my levels are at since we have   universal healthcare working on svalbard as it  is a part of norway this visit cost me next to   nothing in total i think i paid around 140  norwegian kroners which is around 15 euros   or 15 us dollars and that was for a checkup as  well as blood work which is great and so cheap   i also got the appointment within about a week of  booking at this hospital we also have our dentist   and physio you can get the most bed basic medical  care here but for any surgeries or emergencies or   like specialized treatment you will be sent to  the mainland after i was done at the hospital   i also had to quickly stop by the pharmacy to pick  up some things so i thought i would show you what   it looks like it is also located on the main  street about 200 meters away from the hospital   in the little shopping center we only have  the one pharmacy in town and this is the   only place where you can buy medication and  they also have a great selection of skin care hi guys it is cecilia from the future i've  wanted to make this video for such a long   time but it took a while to just kind of get all  of the footage get all of the hospital visits and   also kind of like digest how did this polar  night go what is the differences i'm feeling   and i think after i went to portugal where  i just was i really felt like okay i can see   such a big difference in how i feel after you  know a bit more sunshine and getting out of the   you know winter and everything and i felt like  okay i can make this video now because i really   know how i think it affected me you know and  i look back in all of my videos and i can also   see like from the start of the polar night kind  of how you can see my moods really go down and i   remember also reading it in the comments like  are you tired i was like it's not that bad   but after watching it now i'm like i was so  tired and i thought we would talk a little   bit more about like the effects of a vitamin d  deficiency and why i am so like interested in   like checking on what my levels are all the time  so common signs of vitamin d deficiency in adults   is muscle fatigue it can be mood changes weakness  also even weight gain because it all kind of works   together you know it affects your life in a way  where let's say you're so fatigued you don't   want to move as much as you did before you're  too tired to go to work out there comes the   weight gain so i think it has a possibility to  really do a lot to your daily life that's what   at least i felt during the polar night when i  was just you know tired all the time a vitamin   d is very important for your body to function  properly especially because it helps in your bone   building bones and your bone strength also  what is so interesting is that i read a study   i will quote everything below as well so you  can read it and that one said that about like 20   of americans are deficient and 40 of europeans  are said to be deficient in vitamin d   and vitamin d affects so many different areas  of your life so maybe you're thinking oh you   know why am i so tired or why do i feel like  this it could be low vitamin d i christopher   he was feeling so tired he was going to bed  like straight after work every day and he was   taking naps this was last year and i said we  have to go and check your levels he was at 23   on the scale of vitamin d where 50 to 150 is  good so he was on 23 which explained everything   they're like oh my gosh you have to take a lot  of supplements because you're feeling this like   because because of this i realized that the sun  isn't enough to get vitamin d in most cases and   that you should take supplements because it is  the easiest way to make sure that you are getting   enough so i think that was really interesting  i've been taking supplements for i do it take it   all year round and i do the dose of 4 000 i use  i think it's called which is like not the max i   think it can even take 8 000 they told me maybe i  should do that maybe i should do what they told me   just load it up but you can also get it through  salmon also like things like soy milk they have   it's not it's added to it so it's not  naturally in there but they add vitamin   d which is quite interesting i think it's  that herring maybe not your choice canned   tuna could be better it also said oh cod fish  liver oil that is one that is very common in   norway because kids take it on a spoon in  the morning and drink it it's so common   but so there's a lot of different ways to get  it into your diet but definitely add it because it makes a difference but apart from just the  vitamin d if i look back at this polar night i   i was quite shocked by how this one affected  me and i think why this one made such a big   difference is because almost every single other  one i've left to go to the mainland for a few days   here and there or you know for a week and that is  kind of like breaking up this very long darkness   so it doesn't feel that heavy on you this winter i  was here the entire time i also had a a lot bigger   workload than i ever had before which is great  because it was all of this youtube stuff but   i think it was very stressed and kind of nervous  about it so that also played a big role so as much   as it of course isn't only the darkness it is more  that the darkness kind of trapped me in all of my   stress i think so i experienced anxiety for the  first time i usually say that my brain or my   mental head space is usually extremely sunny i  wake up and it's sunshine in there and for these   days when i experience anxiety and i understood  how that feels i was kind of like not shocked it's   not the right word but i was so overwhelmed you  know when you kind of need to experience something   to understand it that's how it was for me and  i thought that was quite scary and i just think   that mental mental health is such an important  subject that's why i think like may is a mental   health awareness month is so important and why i'm  so happy to work with better help on this video   but so that was definitely a first for me this  winter like i said all of this isn't 100 just   the darkness but when you take away the most  normal thing for most people you take away   daylight i think your body kind of everything else  becomes very big so i think i learned from this   polar night that i need to be a bit more prepared  mentally but like and also make sure to kind of   not get trapped in the darkness before we continue  this let's check back to when i got my results   this is quite funny the hospital  here kind of forgets about you   and they're like we'll let you know i think it had  been a month and i'm like nobody's let me know so   i'll just call them and then the receptionist  will tell you your results like whatever it is   they're like yeah so this is this is what it  was i'm like okay so so let's check that out y'all please okay so maybe 10 minutes yesterday did you hear that christopher this is so  fascinating i'm at 49 and a good level is like 50   to 150. so it's not like it's terrible but she's  like i wouldn't be surprised if you're a little   bit tired i'm like are you kidding me like sleepy  central so she's like yeah you need to go to the   pharmacy and get some vitamin d i'm like i've been  eating vitamin d literally haven't missed a dose   but it's very fascinating with the vitamin d  thing i'm literally shocked okay so now you saw   that i had a result of 49 so i was just under  50 which is the normal limit quite interesting   because i had been taking these pills  religiously every day the dose that they said   i even maxed it at that point i had been thinking  about my food i had been eating so good i had   been working out you know everything and still  this fatigue and this anxiety and everything   probably came a little bit from the whole picture  so i thought that was very interesting i learned   a lot about myself this polar knights and also  about how i will go into this other polar night   that is coming in a few months but before then  we have four months of midnight sun so that is a   whole different all season altogether which i will  have to you know talk about in a different video   but yeah so this polar night i had low vitamin d  i had anxiety um i definitely gained a little bit   of weight which i don't know if it comes from  the fact that i ate cinnamon buns every day   during december so i'm pretty sure i cannot  blame that on this but i would if i could   fatigue cloudy brain which might to you seems  so like obvious that it would happen but i mean   i've done six polar knights up here this was my  sixth so for me decided like the side effects   of this powder night were shocking because  again i've never experienced anxiety and   that was like is debilitating the right word  debilitating so now is my time to get super strong   again and i'm very excited about that i will  obviously eat good and work out and try to work   less but also put out more videos because  i missed you guys as you can see i was in   portugal and i got a little bit of a tan my nail  girl she she looked at me when i came to do my   nails and she said haven't you been on vacation  i'm like yes she's like why are you you so pale   i was like thank you that's very kind of  you i worked on this for three weeks also   another thing i got hyperpigmentation now that  i was in portugal can i blame the polar knight   probably can my porcelain skin i hadn't seen the  sun for so long that it just went so i i'm like   a pancake i've got the pretty cool patterns  going on but you know what i feel sun kissed   subscribe if you like this video okay i'm gonna  let you guys go i hope this video was interesting   and i love you guys and thank you so much  for being here i'll see you in the next video   i'll show you some views before we go  or after with some beautiful music so   enjoy the small bird views of right now  and you'll know that this was just a   day or two ago before i posted this video this  was like the day before how crazy smooches   this is so gorgeous there are geese over  there and also reindeer it's a zoo out here   look i'm gonna leave you out with the this  for a moment so it's so listen to nature huh you

Channel: Cecilia Blomdahl

Views: 1,124,670

Keywords: spitsbergen, remote, island, weather, spitzbergen, longyearbyen, north, arctic, northern, swedish, norway, norwegian, winter, snow, polar bear, glacier, adventure, extreme, polar, explore, polar night, hygge, cabin, hytte, darkness, aurora, northern lights, fire, real talk, deep talk, decor, snow storm, snowing, dark, struggles, everyday, life, lifestyle, restaurant, new year, fresh start, motivation, hiking, hike, mental health, anxiety, mental health awareness month

Id: v-9WU7feI2c

Length: 19min 31sec (1171 seconds)

Published: Sun May 22 2022