Ventilate!

Natural light has an almost magical effect on how we think and behave.  Whenever you can incorporate it into your home, without glare, the psychological payoffs are worth the effort involved.

In your house taking steps to work more natural light into your home means choosing curtains and blinds that let light in without letting in too much hot or cold air or letting the neighbours and passers-by see more than they should.  Your windows are where your windows are, neighbouring buildings are where they are, etc.  It’s not reasonable to think you will change the architecture of your home or reconfigure your neighbourhood for the same effect.  The one exception to this is that it may be possible for you to replace some parts of the plaster board-type walls inside your home with glass panels to encourage light to flow through outer rooms to inner ones.  Mirrors can also help you move natural light through your home.

Also, even if inquisitive eyes have ready access to the windows in your home, you can install blinds and curtains that are open to allow light in through a window at the top but solid to block views in at the bottom.

 

Why is all of this worth the effort?  Why do humans prefer spaces with natural light?  When we have access to natural light we are better humans, for example, we’re in better moods, our cognitive performance and mental and physical wellbeing improve, and we get along better with others.  We even learn better in spaces suffused with natural light.  Stress levels are lower in natural light Part of being experiencing natural light is making sure that the space where you sleep is dark at night, that night-time darkness is also important for our mental and physical health and wellbeing.

Glare often accompanies natural light and glare does make us tense, so whatever shielding is required to stop glare is money well spent.  Be particularly attuned to glare in warmer spaces because when temperatures are warmer, we are more apt to “see” glare than we are if the temperature seems comfortable.

• Natural light is so good for our minds and our bodies because it helps keep our body clock, also known as our circadian rhythms, aligned with wherever we are on the planet. When a misalignment occurs, we experience a lot of stress. Putting together a circadian lighting system accentuates the advantages that you’ll find result from filling your home with whatever natural light is available.

There are lots of circadian lighting systems out there, some quite expensive, but you can complement the natural light in your home with a circadian lighting system that you develop on your own.  A homemade circadian lighting system can give you the same sorts of psychological benefits as an expensive, ready-built one.circadian rhythm

The most important thing to keep in mind as you develop your own circadian lighting system is to put warm white bulbs in some fixtures in your home and cool white bulbs in others.  White bulbs are the sort sold every day of the year, their packages are labelled cool or warm, so you don’t have to remember what degree Kelvin readings apply to warm light and cool light.  Don’t try to generate warm and cool light with the sorts of bulbs sold at Halloween and Christmas with orange, red, green, etc. coloured glass bulbs.  Those sorts of light will only give you a headache, they won’t up your wellbeing, psychological or otherwise.

Try to use the lights with the warm bulbs at the beginning and end of the day and the cool ones during the middle of the day.  In nature, light at dawn and dusk is warmer and at noon is cooler.  Also, make sure, whenever possible that the fixtures with the cool lights in them are mounted in the ceiling or high on the walls while the warmer lights are in tabletop lamps or locations that are closer to the floor.  Distributing the light in this way mimics where the sun is in the sky when each colour of light predominates.