Home Lighting and its Effects on Your Health

Making choices about home lighting is all about style and function. You choose locations and fixtures based on where you need light, and how the lamps look. Have you ever considering how your lighting may affect your health though?

If you are getting concerned that your lights are a health concern, do a little research and arrange to have an electrical inspection to make some changes.

Your Sleep Patterns

One of the big ways your lights can affect your health is how they alter your sleep patterns. In particular, it’s all about the color spectrum in your light bulbs. Modern CFL and LED bulbs, as well as mobile device screens, all produce light that is much heavier towards the blue end of the spectrum. This tends to keep you awake, and will make it harder to sleep when the lights do finally go out.

It’s recommended that you stay away from device screens before bed, and replacing light bulbs with those designed to produce light that is more yellow. Look for bulbs labeled “soft” or “warm”.

Your Eyes

Lights that are too bright can be harmful to your eyes. We tend to consider this risk more associated with too much time looking at computer screens, but you can develop the same sort of eye strain from any constant exposure to bright light. This isn’t a new problem, but the popularity of LED bulbs has made it worse because the light is brighter than the old incandescent bulbs. The spectrum is also different, and that can increase strain on your eyes.

The opposite of this problem can be true as well. Trying to function in dim lighting can be just as bad for your eyes. Low light is mainly a problem if you are trying to do fine work that requires a high-level of focus, like reading.

Headaches

Anyone who suffers from migraines knows that light can be a major trigger, and this is still true for more typical non-migraine headaches. If you are prone to headaches or migraines, you’ll want to pay close attention to the lights in your house.

For most people, headaches are triggered not by the color so much as the slight flickering from certain kinds of bulbs. In particular, CFL and standard fluorescent bulbs are the problem. They have a flicker to them that most people don’t even notice. Unfortunately, it still has an impact on your vision and can be very straining.

Switch your bulbs to LEDs in this case, and it should help clear up some of those mysterious headaches.

So if you want to make your home a healthier spot, these are things to consider when arranging the lighting from room to room. Save the extra-bright bulbs for localized task lighting only, and try to stick to bulbs that are in the warmer color spectrum. Your doctor may have more information for you about switching to better products, if you have these sorts of ongoing health issues.