Our light environment affects our health. We didn’t evolve to be indoors all day with artificial lighting. We are meant to be outdoors in sunlight. We live disconnected from natural signals that regulate our biology.
Getting outdoors in the morning to watch the sunrise is a good way to reconnect. Exposure to the near-infrared light can help regulate your sleep, improve energy levels, and support cellular health.
The circadian rhythm that regulates sleep, hormone release, and metabolism depends on light exposure.
The sun’s rising, and the higher proportion of near-infrared light in morning compared to later in the day, signals the brain that it’s time for activity and alertness, and cortisol increases.
The sun’s setting signals that it’s nearing time for sleep and restoration, and melatonin increases.
Artificial lighting doesn’t produce the same wavelengths of light, and modern LED bulbs tend to produce a narrow range of predominantly blue light.
This has negative health effects, which is why many computer operating systems now come with blue light filtering options.
Blue-light blocking glasses are also available with different levels of filtering for different times of day.
Some varieties of LED bulbs are designed to reduce the intensity of blue frequencies, giving off amber or red light.
Incandescent bulbs are better from a health perspective because they give off a broader range of frequencies, including infrared light.
This produces heat, which ironically is considered by the government to be a problem of energy inefficiency.
To promote more “efficient” use of energy, government regulations have effectively mandated use of LEDs instead of incandescent bulbs—without any thought to human health consequences.
Artificial light pollution, of course, also harmfully impacts wildlife.
The detrimental consequences of spending our days under artificial lighting include difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, grogginess or fatigue, and mood instability.
Exposure to red and near-infrared light may also support cellular health by improving mitochondrial efficiency, reducing oxidative stress, and supporting tissue repair.
The benefits include better sleep, more energy during the day, mental clarity, and greater resilience to stress.
Getting outdoors daily for even just ten minutes of light at sunrise can help anchor the body’s circadian rhythm to produce those hormonal and cellular health benefits.
While blue light filtering device software, lightbulbs, and glasses can help mitigate the health harms of our artificial light environments, the best solution is to just expose ourselves to light as nature intended—by getting outdoors.
Aside from everything else, you might just find that getting outside for a short walk every morning makes you happy. That’s a sufficient reward.
