Lighting

Studies affirm that people generally prefer lighting that is variable, rather than uniform.

• Sunlight also stimulates the production of vitamin D by the skin, modulates our immune system, and influences levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps balance emotions. Many people living at high latitudes suffer from wintertime depression known as seasonal affective disorder (fittingly abbreviated SAD) due to the lack of daylight.
• We know that full spectrum sunlight can be as effective in treating a form of depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder, as antidepressant drugs. Studies have shown in Canada in the winter and Italy in the summer that patients in the sunny side of the ward with many forms of depression left hospital on average 2-4 days sooner than those patients on the dark side of the ward.

Why place and well-being are at the new frontier of medicine | Dr. Esther Sternberg | TEDxUTA

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Learn about the three experiences that lead Dr. Sternberg to "aha" ...



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(13:15-13:47)

• In a meta-analysis of twenty studies, researchers reached the startling conclusion that light therapy can be as effective at treating depression as antidepressants. And among Alzheimer's patients in long-term-care facilities, bright light reduced both depression and cognitive decline.
• The irony is that the salutary effects of light have been understood for centuries. "Put the pale withering plant and human being into the sun," wrote the famous English nurse Florence Nightingale, "and, if not too far gone, each will recover health and spirit." In 1860, Nightingale reported that her patients naturally turned toward the light, even as they would complain about the pain of lying on an injured side. "Then why do you lie on that side?" she would ask the patient. "He does not know — but we do. It is because it is the side towards the window."

• Dark walls may look sophisticated, but because they absorb light, they're going to reduce the overall amount of light bouncing around the room.
• Hilary Dalke, a designer and colour expert who works with the National Health Service in Britain, told me she uses this strategy regularly. When she was asked by a hospital in the south of England to redesign the patient rooms without moving any of the patients, she swapped the neutral blankets on the beds for ones in a vivid fuchsia colour and took before-and-after pictures of the room. The reflected light from the bedding was so vibrant that the whole room seemed suddenly much warmer, and for very low cost.

• Sunlight is best, but when it isn't available, broad-spectrum artificial light can provide similar benefits. Scientists have known for years that seasonal depression can be alleviated by spending up to an hour a day in front of a glowing box that radiates twenty-five hundred lux, but newer research shows that light therapy can be effective for nonseasonal depression as well.
• Choosing bulbs with a CRI close to 100 will keep you and your spaces looking bright and colourful.