Lighting conditions that give you more self-control

Do you spend too much, eat too much, or do anything too much? You might be interested to know that you have more self control in certain sorts of light than in others. This can be handy to know if you’re an active online shopper, etc.  Kang, Youni, and Yoon found that “warm bright light improved participants’ self-control; however, that effect extended to cool dim lighting conditions as well. By contrast, self-control was weakened under cool bright lighting and warm dim lighting.” Lighting levels were 100 lux in the dim condition and 1,000 lux in the bright one; the colour of warm light tested was 4,000 or 3,000 K and the colour of the cool light evaluated was 6,000 K.

Seo Kang, Nara Youni, and Heakyung Yoon.  “The Self-Regulatory Power of Environmental Lighting:  The Effect of Illuminance and Correlated Colour Temperature.”  Journal of Environmental Psychology, in press, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.02.006