Why You Should Have an After-Sun Ritual
Ten Non-Negotiable Minutes After a Day in the Sun
There’s a liminal space I’ve come to love; one that exists between day and night, movement and rest. It’s the moment after a day in the sun, just before the night begins, when your body is still humming from movement, endorphins are running high.
Somewhere between adolescence and adulthood, we lose days like this. Long, sun-drenched days once came easily; then slowly, and hardly without notice, these days become work, routine, responsibility. Maybe it’s when your eyes begin to burn from all the blue light from your screens that you start to miss the tingle of the salt-water in your irises.
Yet when you do manage to have a day in the sun, it almost feels holy. I began honoring these days with an after sun ritual. Don’t worry it’s not another complicated routine to add in. It’s natural and intuitive. If you’re coming home from a day out in the sun, on the water, and jumping straight into the shower to doom scroll pipeline, try giving yourself this ten minute breather.
Four Steps to an After-Sun Ritual
- Rinse & Restore: After a full day in the sun, rinsing is less about skincare and more about feeling clean again. Sweat, salt, and sunscreen weigh on the body, and a light, gentle cleanser like Fresh Milk Body Cleanser feels easy on the skin. Post shower, I lotion up with something uncomplicated and not fussy. Bonus points if it carries a natural element like aloe or coconut oil. These elements feel luxurious despite their simplicity and work wonders. SheaMoisture’s 100% Extra Virgin Coconut Oil does the trick every time.
- Replenish internally and hydrate deeply. Salt and sun exhaust the body, and when we’re spending hours on the water, we don’t always reach for our water bottles. If I don’t have coconut water on hand (my go-to is Harmless Harvest), I’ll get the largest glass in the cabinet, fill it with a couple ice cubes, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt.
- Loosen: Post-shower, I want nothing structured. Clothes should breathe and move with you, not against you. The Handloom, native to Los Angeles, makes pieces precisely for this moment. The point is to stay light, like you’re still carrying the air and ease of the day with you.
- And lastly, Reconnect. Get outside. Especially if there’s still a bit of light outside like during the blue hour. Don’t overthink it, just find a good place to sit.
At this point, sometimes I journal, sometimes I read. But more often than not, I’ll just sit and let the day settle in my body. Sit and embody gratitude. I take a second to recognize the gratitude for time, which expands differently outside on the water or in the sun, stretching into something generous and slow. Gratitude for my body, used in the way it was meant to be: carrying me through the world not as a machine of output, but as something alive.
It isn’t elaborate and that’s the point. Instead, it’s elemental. It’s a reminder that health was once intuitive. We moved, we ate, we lived.
And look, nothing catastrophic happens if you skip it. But allowing a cushion of time like this before hurrying into the next stimuli of choice is like manually slowing down the clock. If adulthood has stolen the slow, elemental days we used to live effortlessly, the least we can do is honor them when they come back around.
Ten minutes, no excuses, try it out.
