What is daylight light and how can it improve my workplace?
What is daylight?
The colour temperature of daylight is controlled by the earth’s relativity to the sun, with the sun providing us full daylight when it directly faces the part of the planet we are on. This light fluctuates in colour depending on the angle the sun’s light is hitting the part of the planet we are on, which is why sunrise and sunset don’t provide as much light as we would see if it was midday.
Daylight is measured in Kelvins (K), with horizon daylight being around 5,000K and full daylight being approximately 6,500K.
Why does this matter to me?
Daylight helps to regulate the circadian rhythm, which is essentially the body clock and is near but not exactly 24 hours in length.
A lot of the population in the UK commute to work in the dark during winter, work in poorly lit office space and then commute home in the dark, meaning that an awful lot of us don’t see any natural daylight at all and this can confuse our circadian rhythm.
However, exposure to daylight at the right times during the day does make some of our jobs a lot easier but work in poor lighting conditions can cause damage to our eyes, which is then amended by wearing glasses.
Poor light can also negatively affect concentration levels and a lack of light can make us sleepy, with darkness being one of the triggers for the release of the sleep hormone in our brain, which is melatonin.
Visual based workers, such as architects, illustrators or designers should always work in lighting conditions that are as close to daylight as possible because it can enhance their performance at work if they can accurately see the task they are working on. When working in lighting conditions that aren’t daylight, it creates an unnecessary hurdle for the visual-based worker to perform at an optimum level.
Is there a solution?
Although unnatural light will never provide all the health benefits that natural daylight can provide, LED and fluorescent light can mimic daylight, and so enhance colour matching and lighting conditions in our work spaces.
This is because these types of bulbs have colour temperatures of between 5,500K – 6,500K (the respective Kelvins between horizon and full daylight), ensuring that the warmth of the colour can be suited to your needs for enhanced colour matching. Also, it means that if the lamp has multiple settings for warmth, you have the ability to change the colour of light emitted from the lamp depending on the time of day it is in use, ensuring that the daylight you see is what your circadian rhythm is expecting your eyes to see.
Daylights lamps come in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit the needs of the user. Native Lighting sell a wide variety of daylight lamps, with one of our best sellers being the Task Lamp due to its flexibility, wide and even spread of light because of its broad head and the fact that it looks great sitting on the edge of a desk, whilst lighting up your workspace.
Author
Clare Donnelly – Managing Director of Native Lighting Clare has over 15 years of experience working in the lighting sector. She has previously written blogs for the Beauty industry and numerous articles for crafting magazines along with presenting on shopping channels, such as Hochanda