There are a lot of different things that go into making a home an uplifting and happy place for you and your family, ranging from arranging your furniture and decorations in an aesthetically pleasing manner, to maintaining good temperature control, and ensuring adequate space for things like group dining.
One of the most important elements of an uplifting home, however, is adequate lighting — especially in the digital age, when our normal dark-light cycles are so frequently disrupted in all kinds of ways and at all hours by our electronic devices and other modern gadgets.
Here are a few reasons, and ways, in which lighting plays a critical role in your home.
Allowing for maximum natural light (and light reflection) during the day will make you more energetic and help you to wake up
In his bestselling book, Why We Sleep, the neuroscientist Matthew Walker emphasises the fact that our ability to get a good night’s sleep in the modern world is often critically disrupted by the way in which artificial lighting helps to throw off our circadian rhythm.
The way things should work, naturally, is that we wake up and are greeted by the sun. The closer we get to bedtime, the darker it becomes.
In a strange twist, however, many of us now experience things in reverse. We wake up and the home is fairly dark, often because of poor window placement and illumination.
As the day wears on, we switch on more and more artificial lights, and so it’s brighter around bedtime than it was in the morning. This, of course, will mean you’ll struggle to be wakeful and energetic during the day, or restful and tired at night.
One good way of tackling this is to install stylish kommerling windows around the home and take extra steps to maximise natural light during the day. Painting your walls white, for example, will improve light reflection.
Dimmer switches or warm, subdued lamps will help to improve your sleep and regulate your circadian rhythm
Just as too little light during the day can leave us feeling sleepy at the wrong times, so too does too much light in the evening leave us feeling awake at the wrong times.
You don’t, however, need to turn off all your lights as soon as evening arrives. You just need to switch from full-spectrum white light, and blue light, to more mellow, warm lighting that mimics the effect of firelight.
Dimmer switches or warm, subdued lamps for evening use can be invaluable here.
Strong full-spectrum artificial lighting can help you to overcome seasonal blues and improve your mood
Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, is a time of depression that strikes in winter and affects certain people disproportionately.
There are various theories for what causes this depressed, low emotional state, but one thing that research has found is that strong, full-spectrum artificial lighting can serve as an effective remedy for this condition.
Either by purchasing yourself a SAD lamp, or lightbox therapy device, or by installing full-spectrum light bulbs in your home for use during overcast days, you can help to improve your mood and ward off the winter-time blues.
Disclosure: This is a featured post.