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Impact of Light on Productivity and Emotion

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Home lighting and its role in your wellbeing

The impact of light on productivity and emotion is often overlooked in everyday life. We get up, we work, we come home—and all without stopping to think about how exposure to brightness and light affects our moods from place to place.

Understanding the impact of  light on productivity and emotion and how it can affect our mood and mental state can help us see more clearly the placement and usage of light in our homes and at our jobs. And by seeing more clearly, we can make the adjustments necessary to alter our moods and improve productivity whether we’re crashing on the couch or working late at the office.

Below we explore the impact of light on productivity and emotion at home and in the workplace.

At home
What words come to mind when you think of home? Maybe words like warm, comfort, or cozy. We arrange our furniture, fixtures, and décor to create a mood for our space—but have you thought about how the placement of fixtures, the bulbs that you use, and the brightness of light affects how you feel?

Warm light induces a more relaxed state making it ideal for use in living rooms, bedrooms, and anyplace you like to unwind. Carefully balancing the light in a room for that warm, cozy feel can be achieved by placing fixtures in dark corners, using different kinds of lighting (ambient, accent, task, etc.), and selecting bulbs between 1,500 and 3,000 lumens.

In the workplace
More than just our moods, lighting has a significant impact on day-to-day productivity. Whether you work in an office, teach in a classroom, or stock shelves at a local grocer, fluorescent lighting has an effect on how we do our jobs. Cool, bright light stimulates alertness, energy, and general productivity in the workplace while improving mood and combatting depression.

Light intensity is also said to influence how we make decisions. The brighter the light, the more intensely we feel our emotions, therefore, affecting the choices we make in the office, at the store, and in the classroom.

Temperature and brightness
Temperature and brightness have everything to do with light’s effect and influence on productivity and emotion. The color temperature of light is measured in kelvins (K): the lower the kelvin and lumen, the lower and warmer the light—the higher the kelvin and lumen, the cooler and brighter the light. With us so far?

LEDs and fluorescent lighting are best suited in studies, offices, and kitchens where energy levels shift from leisure to labor so we’re more engaged and attentive with the task at hand.

Feeling SAD
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) affects millions of Americans every year in the long, cold winter months. Described as a seasonal affliction to lack of daylight, SAD induces a depressive state that often begins in late fall and subsides in early spring.

And while treatment for SAD often includes light therapy, having a knowledge of how light brightness and color affects our moods can help us introduce change in our homes with different lighting techniques, placement, and bulb usage to help elevate and regulate our moods and how we feel.

If you’re ready to change the impact of light on productivity and emotion in your home or office space, Eric Krise Electric offers lighting design and installation from their team of expert electricians. From accent and ambient lighting in homes to CFL and fluorescent lighting in retail or commercial spaces, the team at Eric Krise Electric are well-versed in achieving the ambiance you need for every space. Schedule an on-site consultation today, or call 856.769.3932 to learn more.

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