Tips From The Top

This week autumn officially starts. We’re entering the darker days. The nip of fall is in the air, the sun goes down surprisingly early and gets up a lot later than we’re used to. 

No wonder light is on our minds these days.

In fact, many begin to feel Seasonal Affective Disorder about this time of year. They already feel the decrease in sunlight and Vitamin D, and they know what’s coming. We tend to spend more time indoors this time of year, too – kids are back in school, many of us are back in the office, and vacations can feel like a long way off. Dinner on the patio is not lit by a bright sun well into the evening hours, but an earlier darkness, the candles and mood lighting igniting much sooner than we’re used to.

Too much electric lighting can be our enemy, for sure. Electric light can interfere with the way the brain’s hypothalamus monitors natural light and controls melatonin to create sleep and alert patterns. Our natural 24-hour internal clock can suffer, big time.

But luckily, smart lighting can help mitigate those effects. Studies have shown that electric light and corresponding daylight can be controlled to better mirror our natural circadian rhythms. Right now, there are three electric lighting processes to improve our wellness in these indoor months: stimulus tuning, intensity tuning, and color tuning.

The positive effects improve our sleep – which can improve a whole lot in our daily lives.  

For example, a recent Harvard University study suggests a nursing home with circadian lighting has seen a reduction in falls among the senior residents.  that circadian lighting has perhaps contributed. When the lighting mimicked people’s natural circadian rhythms, falling incidents decreased by as much as 43%. Researchers attribute this improvement in natural sleep patterns, which led to better awareness and thus fewer falls. The lighting wasn’t just “brighter.” It was more natural, mimicking our natural rhythms throughout the day.

Two Midwest nursing homes were fitted with smart circadian lighting systems, with two other homes as controls. Common areas like dining rooms, activity areas and hallways had circadian and dropped to lower, warmer temperatures in the evening. This better modeled the natural route of sunlight, improving the residents’ natural circadian rhythms.

At Jackson Hole A/V, we also incorporate the use of smart window shading to better use the natural lighting we do have, reducing cooling and heating costs, and more making the day’s natural sunlight available to our clients for their overall health and lower energy use.

To learn more about how you can take advantage of more natural lighting systems in your home or office, call us at Jackson Hole AV. We’d love to discuss the possibilities.