I know, I know, I know: Like most of you, I too wake up some days thinking summer will never arrive in western Canada again.

But smarter people than me assure me that this is wrong: Summer will eventually arrive and when it does, if you’re anything like me, you will rush outside to spend some time bathing in that big, beautiful, hot sun.

So let me play my standard role of parent and warn you all ahead of time that while some time in the sun is necessary for good health – sunshine acting on our skin helps our bodies produce vitamin D which we all very much need – too much sun is clearly linked to poorer health both in the short term which leads to problems such as sunburns and sunstrokes, and especially in the long-term through much higher risks of skin cancer, especially the most serious form known as malignant melanoma.

So here’s the advice that you really need to heed in the coming months: 10-20 minutes of sun exposure several days a week is OK but

• Try to avoid being out there at the peak-sun times of day
• Cover yourself and especially your kids with sun-protective clothing while outdoors
• Wear a hat even if like me, you think that a hat makes you look nerdy: No one really notices, believe me
• Slather on sunscreen with a SPF of at least 30 (and it’s a very good idea to carry extra tubes in your car, just in case)
• Don’t forget to protect your eyes – sunlight exposure is said to raise the risk of cataracts
• And remember that just being outside is linked to better health so a walk in the park in the shade is probably better for you overall than 2 hours spent on the beach.

Check out our full selection of suncare solutions here.

If you’re like me (‘heaven forbid”, I think I heard a few people cry out), then you often have trouble sticking to hard schedules especially ones that involve resolutions, and particularly, of course, resolutions about improving your health.

I mean, I cannot begin to count the many times I’ve vowed to eat less of some of the things I eat too much of such as salami and pickles and a list of others too long to mention in a brief blog post.

I invariably resolve to eat less of these foods just after I pigged out on them late on December 31 – I celebrate the new year by eating stuff I know I shouldn’t eat – and I can usually manage to stick to my resolve until the next time I see these items again when I re-open the fridge early on January 1.

OK, so that’s a slight exaggeration – some years I manage to hold out till January 2 – but you know what I mean: lifestyle resolutions are exceedingly hard to stick to.

For example, some studies have estimated that the average smoker makes 8 or so attempts to quit before he’s finally able to succeed at not smoking.

And the reason they call it yo-yo dieting is that the vast majority of people who want to lose weight go on and off diets regularly because diets are so very hard to stick to.

So my advice at this late point in January is this: if you resolved to do something on that artificial deadline of January 1 and like the vast majority of us, you did not succeed to hold out this long, please don’t be hard on yourself: that’s just how tough lifestyle change can be.

And even more important, don’t take any failure to be a signal to give up: remember those average smokers I mentioned earlier – even though they fail most times they try to quit, a great proportion of them, perhaps as many as half, do eventually succeed.

Bottom line: it’s never too late to make a positive health change even if you’re well into your senior years.

And there’s no reason not to pick another totally artificial deadline date – say February 1, or February 3, or whatever – to try to make that change.

Check out the London Drugs Health & Wellness Library for more information on health conditions, natural health products and healthy living.