Lighting
sleepy’. Without these signals, our bodies can’t clearly distinguish between night and day, and don’t provide the energy and hormones we need to feel at our best and to resile from the day’s stress. The key point here is that circadian rhythms are not driven by an external cycle, but instead are generated internally and then synchronised to the external 24-hour world with the Zeitgebers. A critical part of the circadian rhythm is the brightness of our surroundings. Seeing too little light in the mornings, or too much light in the evenings, or receiving the wrong colour of light at the wrong time of the day, can upset our circadian rhythms and impact health and wellbeing, even increasing the risk of several diseases. In the mornings, many of us are already using bright light devices (10,000 lux, 4000 Kelvin) at home when eating breakfast and getting ready for the winter day ahead. This is great, but as we spend most of our time at work or in places other than our homes, these places should also support our
indicate that if we were to look at an electronic device within two hours of going to bed that suppresses our melatonin production. We send a signal that it’s daytime at the wrong time. Ideally, it should be dark, the light intensity should be decreasing, and ideally, the colours that we get exposed to should shift from blue and rich white light to more oranges and yellows.
Intelligent, human-centric lighting in the workplace
wellbeing better. Let’s explore why workplace lighting is the key.
Light intensity, colour temperature and contrast
The winter’s greyer skies, shorter days, and lack of sunshine and natural bright, blue light affects us both outdoors and indoors. During the winter months, people leave their homes in the dark and then commute home again, in the dark. If they also spend all day in a workplace without enough bright light, it can affect most people’s dispositions. In more recent years, we’ve also adapted to spending almost 90% of our time indoors. This lifestyle change means that we typically spend less time in natural light, so this has a huge impact on our circadian rhythms. Ideally, to keep or reset our circadian rhythm, we would receive lots of natural, bright blue- enriched light at the right time of the morning. The open sky’s light intensities range between 10 000 and even greater than 100 000 lux with 4000-6500 Kelvin (pure white to bright blue colour temperatures). That’s a lot of light that we should be able to enjoy every day!
The darkness of the sombre period is accentuated at the winter solstice, on 22 December, when the daylight hours are at their shortest in the annual cycle. The weather
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“Fixed, traditional lighting isn’t designed to support our wellbeing. Modern, human- centric lighting controls offer dynamic lighting features.”
conditions have a major influence on the amount of light at the winter solstice. Snow, especially dry and pure snow, reflects light effectively, increasing the amount of light.
Mid-winter light levels often do not add up to enough bright light and contrasting lighting conditions during the working day. We should prioritise getting enough bright blue light in the morning to generate more contrast and provide a stronger Zeitgeber cue. This contrast can help to stabilise our circadian rhythm improving health, sleep and cognitive performance.
For many of us, the winter blues mean problems with sleeping – either feeling tired all the time, struggling to fall asleep in the evenings and thus not sleeping enough or not getting enough quality sleep. Spending most of our time in the constructed environment with fixed lighting and smaller light contrast during working hours, as well as the increased blue light exposure after sunset (mobiles, screens, reduces slowing down our personal circadian clock further. Some studies
Fixed, traditional lighting isn’t designed to support our wellbeing. It lacks the ability to tune lighting levels throughout the day as optimal lighting conditions would also require variation in hues and intensity. Modern human-centric lighting controls, however, offer dynamic lighting features including brightness and colour temperature controls. By incorporating these dynamic features in a workplace, a human-centric lighting system more accurately emulates natural light, therefore supporting the circadian rhythms of everyone using the space.
As discovered, fixed 300-500 lux level lighting in the workplace will not help us to feel more energetic and perform at our best, nor will it support our wellbeing and health. The lighting at our workplace should give us what our body- clock needs – better quality light during the darker winter days to counter all the effects causing winter blues or SAD. Our indoor lighting should optimally resemble a summer day – lots of bright light and occasional changes of light levels similar to shadows from drifting clouds in the sky ending with a beautiful sunset.
There are huge benefits to be gained by improving workplace lighting. Lighting is one of the easiest renovations to accomplish, and modern lighting will also save energy. When I walk into my workplace lobby in the morning, I feel bathed in light – not a bad way to start the day!
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