Winter is just beginning to lower its heavy hand over most of North America. Long gray days, icy roads, and blowing snow will grab ahold of our collective mood and lower us into a vitamin D deficit of epic proportions. Lack of sunshine and the hard, painful effects of the cold air wear us out and grind us down, seemingly sucking the energy out of us at an astounding pace. We are grumpier, more tired, and some of us clinically depressed.

Then there it is, in a magazine, on the TV, on the internet. Long golden sandy beaches, rolling waves caressing the shores under the green puffs of coconut fronds. Warm sunlight dances on the windswept surfaces of crystal clear waters, and here you sit, looking out the window at gray sodden skies, drizzling and spitting near freezing water and the brown, dead, hunching landscape that surrounds you. What are you going to do, how can you get out of the dark of winter and into the warm grasp of the sun? [Read more…]