Did you know: The light in your house could be the cause of your depression symptoms?

Have you ever noticed yourself feeling a little bluer during the winter months? If so, you may have experienced Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is quite common in most people. SAD is a specific type of depression that is affected by the changing weather or seasons.

A similar effect can also be caused by poor lighting in your home, even in the Summer months. Fortunately, we’ve got some great ideas to show you how the benefits of light can help brighten up your home and your life.  

Sun Lamps

The Winter months can be long, dark, and cold. Almost everyone can feel the effects of the lack of sunlight. A great solution to brighten your room and gain the benefits the sun has to offer is by adding a sun lamp into your home.

These kinds of lamps produce similar light the sun would and can provide benefits of increased productivity, higher levels of alertness as well as boosted feelings of happiness.

Cool Tones vs. Warm Tones

Choosing warmer tones for your home in things such as paint, furniture, and lighting can make a huge difference in your mood. Warmer tones can help provide a feeling of coziness, especially during the cooler and darker months.

So take a trip to the store to find a new warm paint color for your walls or add a perky yellow piece of furniture to brighten up the room. You’ll be amazed by the benefits of light, warm tones on your mood.

Cozy Nooks

f you’re ever feeling blue, having a cozy nook to escape to can help lessen feelings of depression. Being in a safe space where you can be yourself and do something you love can help elevate your mood significantly.

Find a comfy chair, a cozy blanket and a cute little bookshelf for a nice little nook. Make sure there’s plenty of good lighting for your nook to really add that extra cozy feeling.

Open the Window

This seems simple but it’s an easy thing to do to help boost your mood. Letting in some fresh air and some natural sunlight will really help you feel the benefits of light in your home.

So draw open those curtains, pull up those blinds and let the warm sun seep into your home.

Donate Clutter

Clutter can actually have a significant negative effect on your mood. Clutter creates dark corners in your home and can increase levels of stress.

Take some time to clean out the things in your home that you don’t use anymore. Keeping things simple and clean can help you feel more comfortable in your own home.

Set a Theme

When you are feeling sad or depressed, closing your eyes and transporting yourself to a more peaceful place can be helpful. Why not make that peaceful place a reality in your own home?

Perhaps a jungle bungalow brings you peace or maybe beach vibes relax you or maybe even a cozy cabin to hunker down and help you feel happier.

You can create your own little paradise by incorporating plants, pictures, lighting and even scent to your home to help brighten your mood.

Brighter Lights

Changing the actual light bulbs in your home can make a significant difference in your mood. Typically, fuller coverage with warmer toned lighting can provide you with the full benefits of light. Ensuring that you have the right coverage of light and the right temperature are very important in creating a safe space in your home.

The Benefits of Light

Having better lighting in your home can add a multitude of benefits to your life. Better lighting can increase mood, productivity, focus, alertness and more.

Super Lite has experts to help you find fixtures that will fill your home with wonderful bright light. The lighting in your home can make a huge difference in your mood. If it’s too dark in your home, feelings of depression could come creeping in. Don’t let that happen, visit one of the experience rooms at Super Lite and see for yourself how the benefits of light can change your mood for the better.

We’ve come a long way since Thomas Edison. Light has advanced to serve more purposes and help us live better, but there are still some concerns about which are the safest light bulbs.

With the recent push towards a greener, environmentally-conscious world, consumers have become increasingly interested in the dangers of products in their own homes—and rightly so.

If the products we use can harm the very ecosystem that supports us, how can we be sure they aren’t harming us as well?

To ensure your home is the safe, inviting place it should be we’re breaking down the different light bulbs in your home.

The most common types of light bulbs are incandescent, halogen, compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), and light emitting diodes (LEDs). If you’re concerned which are the safest light bulbs in your home, this guide will help you determine which light bulbs are best for you.

Incandescent

The most commonly used bulb type, incandescent bulbs hold a filament that lights up when heated. Bulbs of this type can be found all around—from the lamp at your bedside to the headlights in your car. Whether it’s primarily for decoration (string lights in a vintage bar) or serving a specific purpose (like in a flashlight), the wide variety of shapes, sizes, and uses means incandescent bulbs are here to stay for quite a while.

So, since they’re the most common, they must be the safest light bulbs, right?

Wrong.

Despite their frequent use, incandescent bulbs still pose a few dangers.

Because these bulbs run so hot, they have been known to cause fires if in direct contact with an easily flammable material. Thankfully, this can be avoided in bulbs that allow the heat to dissipate, lessening the likelihood of a fire.

Additionally, if an incandescent bulb gets, wet, too cold, or lacks proper sealing, it may explode without warning. Depending on how it is installed, it may or may not lead to pieces of broken glass being scattered throughout the room for you to find in the following weeks in the most painful way possible.

But exploding isn’t the only way it can break.

The glass on incandescent light bulbs is usually made very thin. But this fragility means it is more prone to breaking with even the slightest tap or drop. These nearly invisible shards can end up in your hair, eyes, mouth, and anywhere on your skin if you’re not careful. If a bulb breaks, be sure to do multiple rounds of cleaning to ensure no broken pieces are left behind or you may continue to find broken glass for weeks! This is especially bad news if you have small children or enjoy walking around barefoot.

Halogen

These bulbs are a variation of incandescent because they work with the same filament heating process. However, unlike incandescent bulbs, halogen bulbs prevent tungsten evaporation. The evaporated tungsten actually sticks to the glass in a black film throughout the bulb, significantly reducing light output.

The gas in halogen bulbs push the tungsten back to the filament.

So, you get no blackened bulbs and much more time before you need to replace it.

However, this doesn’t mean that they’re the safest light bulbs out there.

Yes, halogen bulbs are more efficient than their incandescent counterparts, but unfortunately, their warmer temperature output poses a fire hazard, especially if they are touching one item for too long.

Halogen bulbs also emit UV rays when turned on. So, although some UV exposure might be good for you, it’s important to take the necessary precautions if you’ll be directly exposed to it for an extended period.

In addition to sunburns, halogen bulbs can also burn your skin when touched.

Don’t attempt to change one of these bulbs until waiting for it to cool. WIth heat output that could start a fire, there’s no telling what it could do to your skin.

The overheating capabilities of both incandescent and halogen bulbs make them frequent culprits of house fires.

In fact, 97% of the electricity they use becomes heat that poses serious risk to everyone in your home.

LED

One of the most efficient and long-lasting types of bulbs on the market, LED bulbs pose no fire hazard thanks to their ability to absorb the heat that they create.

LEDs have been found to contain a number of harmful chemicals and substances including arsenic, lead, and nickel.

These concerns are primarily surrounding red (and some other) colored LEDs—like the ones used at traffic lights or in your favorite Christmas lights.

If you’re dealing with white or soft white lights, you can rest easy. These colors have the least amount of possible toxins. In these bulbs, nickel may be present and may cause an allergic reaction in individuals with severe sensitivities.

But even the most allergic individual would need to have direct and extended contact with the nickel in a broken bulb to trigger any reactions.

Although the amount of these substances present in one bulb may not be enough to cause cancer or other ailments in just one instance of exposure, they can be very harmful to the environment if poorly discarded. A buildup of chemicals in the waters can pollute the water and harm animals that call it their home.

To be sure you’re purchasing the highest quality LEDs, avoid box stores that sell low-grade products and purchase from a committed lighting provider instead.

CFL

CFLs are 75% more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs and last much longer.

What’s the catch, you ask?

CFLs do contain mercury. The mercury in these bulbs emit UV light when charged with electricity. Although most fluorescent tube bulbs have a filter that protects against this, CFL bulbs do not. So, handle them with care.

Thankfully, the hazard isn’t as serious as most people think it is. A study on this clarified the amount of mercury in these bulbs and noted it’s small fraction of 3-5 mg compared to older thermometers, which had about 500 mg of mercury.

But there is evidence that these low levels can build to serious toxicity if a broken bulb isn’t cleaned up immediately.

The study also mentioned that the state of the mercury only changes to a vapor if the bulb is turned on—this means more vapor is released if the bulb is broken while it’s on.

In addition to being a danger for small children, a broken CFL bulb can even disperse toxic vapor into the air for at least 43 days, and as the engineers in this study discovered, possibly up to 85 more days.

And if that wasn’t enough, using flickering fluorescent lights can lead to strained eyes and blurry vision. Avoid serious health issues by changing any flickering bulbs immediately.

Hope for Your Health

So, what are the safest light bulbs?

As you can see, every light poses some threat to people or the environment. If your lights are poor quality or are not used properly, you may challenge the health of your eyes; and improper handling can result in broken bulbs, leading to short- or long-term issues.

Many of the dangers that light bulbs present have a lot to do with the quality of the bulbs and the way they are used and handled. However, high quality LEDs are the safest light bulbs available. Most manufacturers have stopped making glass LED bulbs and opt for plastic or acrylic instead, so they’re less prone to shattering and less likely to harm you if broken.

By far, the biggest danger relating to light bulbs is the potential injury associated with changing them. Light bulbs are usually fixed in hard-to-reach places and can require some skill and maneuverability to change.

In an effort to lower the risk of this #1 cause of home deaths, some states even make a legal push for LED bulbs in homes built for the elderly because of their efficiency and less frequent need to be replaced.

To ensure the safest home for yourself and your family, always buy quality bulbs and handle them with care. We recommend getting professional help for lighting installations, if needed. The time it takes to do so will be well worth your health and happiness.

About Us

We’re committed to offering families more than just quality lighting options. In line with the Danish concept of hygge, our goal is to bring you closer to a home where you feel cozy and happy at any time of day.

Lighting affects life on Earth and in space.

Come aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and see how lighting affects human performance. Earth applications and improvements can be drawn from this innovative advancement.

The ISS orbits Earth approximately every 90 minutes; therefore, everyone onboard experiences sixteen sunrise and sunsets.The fast changes in days are consumed with demanding work schedules, night shifts, and irregular sleep cycles.

Here are some insights about the lighting research history and how it has advanced lighting technology on Earth:

International Space Station Project Overview

Modern advances in lighting technology have been issued onboard the ISS by George C. Brainard. George C. Brainard, director of Jefferson’s Light Research Program for over 30 years advanced innovative lighting solutions within the spacecraft. Brainard is an expert in the effects of light on neuroendocrine physiology and studies circadian regulation in humans.

Focusing on the lack of sleep and how it affects the overall performance of astronauts, Brainard and his team wanted to improve the lighting on the ISS as it greatly affects astronauts. With hope of giving astronauts regularity, minimizing sleep deprivation, and improving alertness during working hours, the light used aboard the ISS was expertly studied and revised.

Light Cycles on the International Space Station

Human beings operate on a 24-hour circadian rhythm here on Earth, meaning light helps create alertness and productivity when it is time to get up in the morning and darkness signals it is time to sleep. However, in space, this rhythm is altered because a day transpires more rapidly. 

Astronauts need to be awake and alert in case of an emergency or the need to dock abruptly. Sometimes this can happen in the middle of a sleep cycle and because the days are irregular, astronauts and crew members are unable to get recovery sleep.

The bottom line is that astronauts do not get enough sleep, no matter how hard they try. Most schedules allot for 8.5 hours of sleep, but it is common for most to get less than 6 hours. Experiencing insomnia, astronauts often turn to supplements and sleeping pills to aid. 

How Light Affects Human Performance

Evidence supports the fact that lighting influences sleep, alertness, and overall productivity. 

Without the proper amount of light, the human body fails to function properly. This extends to artificial light and the impact it has on the circadian rhythm. Not receiving enough sunlight can be damaging to overall health, impact the amount of sleep, and lead to serious health concerns including: diabetes, anxiety, depression, and even some cases of autism. 

In space, the differences in sleep-wake cycles and demanding schedules make it difficult to maintain healthy habits and hormonal regulation, which ultimately impact performance. Using pharmaceuticals while on a space mission can impact the safety of those on board and on the space mission. 

The Solution

Brainard was on a mission to see which light type would provide the best light therapy for astronauts.

Through studying different light tones and the effects within tight quarters and with countless volunteers, Brainard found blue light suppresses melatonin levels and could draw insights into which solution would be the most useful on board the spacecraft. His research concluded all lights need to fall under white spectrum with variation in tones, but include a specific blue light in space as it has significant health advantages.

The lighting in space, specifically on the ISS, was updated to allow astronauts and crew members to adjust the lighting brightness and intensity according to the time of day. Being mindful of the tasks to be completed aboard the spacecraft, task lighting was also evaluated. 

Switching out the lamps on the ISS required tailored measurements and unique designs, as it is not done often and the lamp has to be an exact fit. 

With three different color temperatures, astronauts can ease into the different times throughout their routine – the light is brighter with slight blue tones in the morning and turns warmer with red intensities in the evenings. Improving the environment on the spacecraft for sleep and productivity, the ISS is working to restore the circadian rhythm of all astronauts and increase lighting options for Earth life.

Earth Applications

Brainard’s research and expert knowledge in lighting and how it affects human health has gleaned insight into how to change lighting here on Earth. Through the advances in technology and lighting specifics, different lighting options are available.

All living organisms have an internal clock, circadian rhythm, which help them become alert and accomplish specific tasks. The body recognizes darkness and specific hormones are released to help prepare the body to sleep. A similar process is completed when the sun rises and it is time to get up.

When humans are exposed to artificial lights and spend significant time indoors, they do not get the required amount of light from the sun, just like in space. With a lack of sunlight and vitamin D, the internal clock is altered. When the rhythm is irregular, it makes it difficult to sleep and perform well. 

Some researchers and studies refer to a “constant twilight” state, which is when humans experience neither day or night but are stuck somewhere between. This can happen frequently as artificial light allows humans to have some type of light around the clock, regardless if the sun is up or down. Not allowing the body to follow the pattern of the sun and naturally arise or go to sleep has led to decreased sleep, mood, mental performance, and increased health concerns. 

Installing different lighting tones, fixtures, and solutions throughout your home to mimic the sun can help you receive more sleep, increase alertness and productivity, and improve overall wellness.

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