On Light

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As I write this I’m sitting in my kitchen that overlooks the sea. It’s a bright morning. The sunlight is pouring in, illuminating the entire room. I’m enjoying the atmosphere and mood. I feel good and energized.

People are by nature phototropic. You can say the human has a phototropic tendency. They move toward light, and when stationary, they orient themselves toward the light such as adjusting a table or chair to be in or facing the light. Sometimes this happens unconsciously, as we pick a spot in the room closer to the light or table outside while dining at a terrace.

We tend to take light for granted when we have it. But when we don’t have it, we sure realize how important it is

Sun light

When sun light enters a room at the right time of day, or at the right angle, with the right intensity, it can feel like a substantial physical presence in its own right, like a piece of furniture.

I love the workings of light. It is quintessentially indescribable. It transcends all other living structures, in my humble opinion. For instance, riding the train to work in the morning on a sunny day can be like a journey in an ever-changing arcade of light.

Light is always life-giving. I mean that literally: I almost always feel just a little bit more awake, and ever so slightly rejuvenated, when I see light coming through trees or see it bounce off walls. Light changes the way you feel about a place.

Take for instance majestic home libraries. Many people love libraries that look like this:

But now all I see is a book prison. A dungeon. Somewhere I do not feel comfortable staying. It’s dour, sad, dead, with no connection to the outside world. This is a punishment, not a place of comfort and vitality.

Meanwhile, look at the home library of the novelist Umberto Eco. Bright, alive with white shelves. The books pop off the screen. The desk is at a shiny large window. This would be a great place to read and write.

The Benefits of Light

Most public health messages of the past century have focused on the hazards of too much sun exposure. I feel like for almost my entire life there has been a bias against going out in the sun. Constant warnings over skin cancer or wrinkles.

Skin cancer kills surprisingly few people: less than 3 per 100,000 in the U.S. each year. For every person who dies of skin cancer, more than 100 die from cardiovascular diseases.

In a 2016 study published in the Journal of Internal Medicine, a study put it in perspective: “Avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor of a similar magnitude as smoking, in terms of life expectancy.”

People with low levels of vitamin D in their blood have significantly higher rates of virtually every disease and disorder you can think of: cancer, diabetes, obesity, osteoporosis, heart attack, stroke, depression, cognitive impairment, autoimmune conditions, and more.

Vitamin D is a hormone manufactured by the skin with the help of sunlight. It’s difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities through diet. When our ancestors lived outdoors in tropical regions and ran around half naked, this wasn’t a problem. We produced all the vitamin D we needed from the sun.

But today most of us have indoor jobs, and when we do go outside, we’ve been taught to protect ourselves from dangerous UV rays.

The sun may be best known for boosting production of vitamin D, but sunlight triggers the release of a number of other important compounds in the body, not only nitric oxide but also serotonin and endorphins. It reduces the risk of prostate, breast, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. It improves circadian rhythms. It reduces inflammation and dampens autoimmune responses. It improves virtually every mental condition you can think of. And it’s free.

Sun Screen

Sunscreen blocks our skin from making vitamin D

Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years. Until the industrial revolution, we lived outside. How did we get through the Neolithic Era without sunscreen? Actually, perfectly well. What’s counterintuitive is that dermatologists run around saying, ‘Don’t go outside, you might die.’”

All early humans evolved outdoors beneath a tropical sun. Like air, water, and food, sunlight was one of our key inputs. Humans also evolved a way to protect our skin from receiving too much radiation—melanin, a natural sunscreen.

As humans migrated farther from the tropics and faced months of light shortages each winter, they evolved to produce less melanin when the sun was weak, absorbing all the sun they could possibly get. They also began producing much more of a protein that stores vitamin D for later use. In spring, as the sun strengthened, they’d gradually build up a sun-blocking tan. Sunburn was probably a rarity until modern times, when we began spending most of our time indoors.

Suddenly, pasty office workers were hitting the beach in summer and getting zapped. That’s a recipe for melanoma. We went from 0 to 100 suddenly.

Mood and The Sun

There are direct health benefits from sunlight. But light works in other ways too. For example, have you ever suffered from depression? The light outside looks a bit different.

I remember one point of my life I encountered a series of terrible events. Laid off, relationship broke apart, death of a close relative, etc. It eventually led to depression (I think). How did I know it was depression and not just sadness? The light outside looked different.

On a bright sunny day, I would feel like it was dark, like the light wasn’t really there. It was a sort of “unreal” lighting of the environment. It’s a bit startling, like you’re in a movie.

Eventually it passed after a few weeks. But there has been some research done on this phenomenon.

Light on Two Sides

Modern buildings are often shaped with no concern for natural light, they depend almost entirely on artificial light. But buildings which displace natural light as the major source of illumination are not right places to spend the day. We should treat the presence of natural light as an essential, not optional feature of indoor space. People all over the world are rebelling against windowless buildings, and complain when they have to work in places without daylight.

I spent a few years working in a place with no windows. It was dreadful. When I would walk outside for lunch or at the end of the day, the sun would shine on me and I could actually feel in real time the rays penetrating my skin and increasing my energy and overall well being levels.

I always felt tired after work. I never knew why. One unexpected finding was that workers bathed in natural light were more likely to be more physically active throughout the day.

It turns out, sunlight and circadian rhythm are intricately connected. By removing sunlight, you’re creating a strange environment for the human animal. Remember. The human already comes out optimized.

Rooms with Windows on Two Sides

When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to rooms which have a light on two sides, and leave rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.

Rooms with windows on two sides of them feel better to be in, more alive. Think about it in your own home.

I moved into a great modern new apartment one time that had very high ceilings but light only on West side. It felt slightly oppressive! Slightly disconnected from the world, not of the world. Once I felt it it I couldn’t “unfeel” it

Light on two sides and Light on one side

In a room lit on only one side, the light gradient on the walls and floors inside the room is very steep, so that the part furthest from the window is uncomfortably dark, compared with the part near the window. Even worse, since there is little reflected light on the room's inner surfaces, the interior wall immediately next to the window is usually dark, creating discomfort and glare against this light. In rooms lit on one side, the glare which surrounds people's faces prevents people from understanding one another.

Supermarkets

Supermarkets in general can be bewildering places. It’s not just the crowds or the variety of choices. It’s the layout. The perfectly designed rows, straight lines of color coordinated products, economic use of space all of which is perfectly optimized. It resembles being in a (spacious) airplane. By that I mean, it feels like you are on a film set. Every item is placed for maximum efficiency, manipulation, and capturing your attention. There is no rough spaces, variation or slack. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the convenience and am glad I live somewhere where I can just buy food. But I can’t stay in a supermarket for very long or else I get sick.

The one thing that sticks out about supermarkets (or CVS, Walgreens, etc) is the lighting…

The fact that humans are phototropic is not lost on marketers or designers. When you step into a Walgreens/CVS or Supermarket you immediately notice how bright it is. You are flooded in it. The light penetrates through your skin and stimulate your nerves. You are AWAKE. FOCUSED. In a hyper aware mode, like a stimulant.

Dimming the light makes the environment more enjoyable, surely, everyone can agree. But why do supermarkets (and other retailers) insist on extremely bright artificial light?

I've noticed a stimulating effect for the rest of the day just from being in the Home Depot lighting department for 20 minutes.

Bright Lights and Work

If you’ve ever tried working outside you notice that it’s great for some work and not great for other work. Which may be a signal of how organically stimulating your job actually is.

In contrast to the brighter supermarket light, natural light doesn’t put you in the same stimulated state. Aware and attentive? Yes. But in a softer and more subtle way.

Even with natural light coming from the windows modern offices will still use bright overhead lights. Why? For the same reason Supermarkets use it. They work. You’re AWAKE. FOCUSED. Your posture probably changes too.

This is another form of light therapy, I guess. If you’re looking for a way to enter high functioning lots-of-beta-waves modes without the use of chemical stimulants. Utilizing very bright light works really, really well. Find the brightest light bulbs you could get cheaply and the result will be about as painful to look at as the sun. 240 watts (that is, 25kLumens) of LED lighting in your home office will keep you alert while they're on, and then you’ll pretty much crash when they turn off or leave the room. Which is what a lot of people feel like when they leave the office. Coincidentally.

Here is a study done on extremely bright light in a call center making employees feel focused.

There is research that says dim lighting is better for creativity. Nice restaurants for romantic dates tend to be on the dim side. Good for conversation and intimacy. And the lighting makes you feel relaxed.

Lighting is powerful.

Horizontal Light

With lighting, it just comes down to how you feel. Think of the kind of light that makes you feel good when you look at it. It’s probably not the white-hot sun beating down at high noon. It’s more likely the reflected glow from a sunset or from a warm cozy fire. This light is softer, maybe a bit rosy and golden. It’s diffuse and coming at you from the side.

Unfortunately this is the kind of lighting that house flippers are putting in nowadays

If you have overhead lighting, find fixtures that can be angled so light bounces off the walls and hits people at a side angle. Also effective are so-called wall washers - fixtures designed so light bounces off baffles or reflectors inside the housing, which then directs the light out more horizontally than vertically. You get a very nice, broad wash for light, like mist. You are spraying the wall with light.

What's the solution if your living space is already outfitted with these? Just put lamps throughout the room and turn them on individually.