LIGHT, LIGHTING, MOOD, AND ENERGY
USING THESE EFFECTIVELY FOR A BETTER LIFE
In process. Email me (via contact page) if want to see this sooner instead of waiting...
Although the purpose of this website is to get more impactful positive results in a more quickly implementable manner, occasionally it might get into some of the technical details, especially when I think they are needed AND when I think the impact is high enough.
Skimming the cream off of the top:
- Stop blue light two hours before bedtime, so that you will sleep better. Turn off TV and computers or use light screen glasses. See Sleep Tools to see what to use. This has, in some cases, made a significant difference in rest and in energy!
- Hit yourself with bright light first thing in the morning for greater alertness and for regulating your sleep cycle. (I bought the portable blue light for a trip to lessen jet lag. See Sleep Tools.)
- Use bright lights to offset energy declines during the day. 5 p.m and/or during afternoon slump (preferably take a brief nap first).
- For either depression or the winter blues, light therapy "boxes" are frequently used, with 8 out of 10 depressed people being helped!
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Notes for me to harvest in writing this page
Light, Alertness, and Performance
Alertness is associated with high levels of environmental awareness, high levels of wakefulness and low levels of fatigue, and faster mental capacity. Alertness has been shown to be strongly influenced by exposure to light and the timing of the circadian clock: alertness is lower during nighttime hours, when there are high levels of the hormone melatonin and core body temperature levels are low. Melatonin signals sleep to diurnal species, such as humans, but can be suppressed by exposure to light at night. Understanding how light affects alertness can have far-reaching implications, from decreasing sleepiness and increasing productivity in the workplace to helping airline passengers adapt to a new time zone after a long flight.
The LRC has conducted several laboratory studies and field demonstrations to investigate the impact of short- and long-wavelength light on alertness and performance. It has been shown that the circadian system is highly sensitive to short-wavelength blue light, but long-wavelength red light has recently been shown to increase objective measures of alertness at night as well as during the day. Some recent research projects regarding the effects of light on alertness and performance are highlighted below.
http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/lighthealth/LightAlertness.asp
By changing the amount and patterns of your daily light exposure, remarkable changes in your mood, energy and sleep can occur within days.
What to do: Buy a fluorescent light box that provides 10,000 lux of illumination (lux measures the light level reaching your eyes from the source). That is the equivalent of the amount of light that you would get while walking on the beach on a clear morning about 40 minutes after sunrise. The lamp should have a screen that filters out ultraviolet (UV) rays, which can be harmful to the eyes and skin. It should give off only white light, not colored light, which has been hyped to be especially potent but is visually disturbing and no better than white. To be sure of a big enough field of illumination, the screen area should be about 200 square inches (for example, 12 inches x 16 inches) or larger.
When do you prefer to go to sleep, and when do you like to wake up? Your answer indicates your chronotype, your individual inner clock. To determine your chronotype, take the chronotherapy quiz at www.CET.org. Click on “Therapeutic Resources & Tools,” then “Self-Assessment Tools” and then “Your Circadian Rhythm Type (Auto MEQ).”
You can use bright-light therapy at any time during the day to increase your energy and alertness. Some people can quickly recharge with a brief session of light therapy (as little as 10 minutes) when they first feel an energy slump.
Source: Michael Terman, PhD, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City. He is founder and president of the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (CET), New York City. A leading authority on the circadian clock and the role that light plays in regulating it, Dr.Terman is author of Chronotherapy: Resetting Your Inner Clock to Boost Mood, Alertness, and Quality Sleep (Avery).
http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/content/article/health-a-healing/light-therapy-the-15-minute-secret-to-sleeping-better-it-boosts-energy-and-mood-too
With the detection in 2002 of a novel photoreceptor cell in the eye, the biological effects that light has on human beings can be better understood. A large number of research projects that compare the effects on health and alertness as a result of people working under different lighting conditions
http://www.hsimagazine.com/article.php?article_id=668
Blue light can help fight fatigue and improve your alertness
"Our previous research has shown that blue light is able to improve alertness during the night, but our new data demonstrates that these effects also extend to daytime light exposure."
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/043812_blue_light_fatigue_alertness.html#ixzz31KcUdzXy
Researchers at Mid Sweden University compared the effects of caffeine and blue light on the brain and found them both to have a positive effect.
Interestingly, people exposed to blue light performed better on tests of brain function that included a distraction.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2511979/Could-blue-lights-replace-daily-cup-coffee-Scientists-claim-effective-keeping-alert-caffeine.html#ixzz31KdBcZV5
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Do you sometimes feel tired when you're working in the office during the day? If so, some extra light could help. Research at TU/e shows that people immediately have more energy and feel alerter if there's more light. The effect is greatest when you're feeling mentally tired. In addition, people performed better on an attention task. Many earlier studies have showed similar effects among people working at night, but the effects during daytime have hardly been investigated.
Researcher Karin Smolders gained her PhD on Tuesday 3 December for her research on this subject. Her work involved 52 test subjects who wore a light meter close to their eyes for three days, for example attached to eyeglasses. Using an app, they reported hourly on how they felt. The combination of the resulting data showed that the test subjects had more energy and felt more alert when they had been exposed to more light in the preceding hour.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-12-brighter-yields-greater.html
More incidents and performance failures, such as automobile accidents, occur in the mid-afternoon hours known as the “post-lunch dip.” A new study shows that exposure to certain wavelengths and levels of light has the potential to increase alertness during the post-lunch dip.
Exposure to more than 2500 lux of white light at night increases performance, elevates core body temperature, and increases heart rate.
They showed that both short-wavelength (blue) and long-wavelength (red) lights increased measures of alertness but only short-wavelength light suppressed melatonin.
Red light also seemed to be a more potent stimulus for modulating brain activities associated with daytime alertness than blue light, although they did not find any significant differences in measures of alertness after exposure to red and blue lights.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130422100801.htm
These findings demonstrate that prolonged blue light exposure during the day has an alerting effect.”
The researchers subsequently found that participants exposed to blue light consistently rated themselves as less sleepy, had quicker reaction times, and had fewer attention lapses during performance tests as compared to those who were exposed to green light. The subjects exposed to blue light also showed changes in brain activity patterns that indicated greater alertness.
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Bright light and mental fatigue: Effects on alertness, vitality, performance and physiological arousal
Highlights
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We investigated effects of diurnal exposure to bright light after mental fatigue.
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Participants felt less sleepy, more vital and happier when exposed to bright light.
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Effects on subjective sleepiness and self-control were moderated by mental fatigue.
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Physiological and performance-based measures showed mixed results.
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Daytime bright light effects need not to be identical to effects reported at night.
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Abstract
Alertness-enhancing effects of bright light are particularly strong at night or after sleep deprivation. Alerting effects during daytime also exist, yet these appear to be more modest. In this study, we investigate whether a higher illuminance level particularly benefits individuals who suffer from mental fatigue – not from sleep pressure, but from mental exertion. A 2 × 2 within-subjects design (N = 28; 106 sessions) was applied to investigate effects of 1000 vs. 200 lx at the eye on self-report measures, task performance and physiological arousal after a mental antecedent condition (fatigue vs. control). Results showed that participants felt less sleepy, more vital and happier when exposed to bright light. Effects on subjective sleepiness and self-control capacity were stronger under mental fatigue. Vigilance benefited from bright light exposure – although this effect emerged with a delay irrespective of the antecedent condition. Other tasks showed more mixed and sometimes even adverse effects of bright light.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272494413001060
People initially exposed to orange light had greater brain activity in several regions related to alertness and cognition when they were retested, compared with those pre-exposed to blue light. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25195-a-burst-of-orange-light-wakes-up-our-circadian-eye.html#.U25bEWdOV9A
½ hour of light therapy using the SAD light box in the evening around 5 p.m.
Light therapy increases alertness in the evening, and this is experienced by such patients as an improvement in their general condition.
http://light-therapy-info.blogspot.com/
BLUE LIGHT DAMAGE TO EYES?
http://www.cclvi.org/contributions/effects1.htm
In 2010 a study from Harvard University confirmed that increasing the level of blue light wavelengths does not improve the ability of a light therapy lamp to influence human physiological functioning. 3 In comparision, a Sunnex Biotechnologies Lo-LIGHT lamp using the patented GreenLIGHT technology has been found to be more effective at inducing physiological responses than a blue-enhanced (465 nm) light therapy device that emits 10 times as much light.4
When blue light is absorbed by retinal tissue it induces oxidative stress and the causes the formation of indigestible debris which accumulates in the outer retina. The cummulative effect of chronic, sub-lethal oxidative retinal stress and the accumulation of oxidative debris in the outer retina contributes to the development of AMD.
We believe it can now be established that cummulative exposure to blue light over a lifetime contributes to the development of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD)6. Therefore, the use of blue or blue-enhanced light therapy lamps substantially increases the risk of earlier loss of vision, and has no offsetting benefit.
http://www.sunnexbiotech.com/therapist/main.htm
http://videos.howstuffworks.com/sciencentral/2674-eye-damage-from-blue-light-video.htm
blue light also helps to increase feelings of well being. But exposure to large amounts of blue light can be harmful to the eyes.
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*** excellent: White, Blue, Green? Which light is best?
http://winterbluescoach.com/white-blue-green-light
In contrast, green light of 500 nm is only one-tenth as hazardous to the retina than blue light with a wavelength of 440 nm
http://www.sunnexbiotech.com/therapist/blue%20light%20damage.html
This has not been shown to occur in humans, only inconclusively in some rodent and primate studies.[4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-light_hazard#Blue-light_hazard
