Category: Lighting

Taken from Harvard Health Publishing Published July 7th, 2020 What is blue light? The effect blue light has on your sleep and more. Although it is environmentally friendly, blue light can affect your sleep and potentially cause disease. Until the advent of artificial lighting, the sun was the major source of lighting, and people spent their evenings in (relative) darkness. Now, in much of the world, evenings are illuminated, and […]

Since the development of the light bulb 142 years ago, human’s natural exposure to light has changed. In an increasingly digital world, more and more people are working in offices, in front of computer screens. In 2018 it was estimated that Brits spend 90% of their time inside, which equates to a whopping 22 hours a day. Fast forward to a world ‘post pandemic’, where we are living under more […]

Light from the sun plays a key role in powering all life on earth, even in the makeup of our cells. We have talked a great deal about how an imbalance of blue can be extremely detrimental to our sleep/wake cycle and many aspects of our physical and mental wellbeing, actually impacting our bodies at a cellular level (read more here: “Your Lightbulb Moment- What’s so Bad about Blue?”)…but what […]

The start of a New Year can be a really exciting time. You may feel re-energised or refreshed for a ‘new start’, particularly if you had a chance to rest over the festive period  (many lines of work allow for staff to have at least a few days off for Christmas and New Year). Even if you worked at Christmas or New Year, you may still feel positive about the […]

When you think of winter, what do you think about? Frost on the ground in the mornings? Wrapping up warm to leave the house? Snow? The drop in temperature might be the first thing that comes to mind for most people, but the impending months of feeling low is the reality for some. It’s not the most positive sounding disorder, but SAD syndrome is very real, and is how the […]

It may be something that you’ve not thought about before. If light impacts sleep and sleep impacts the balance in the gut, as research is finding, it’s a fairly simple leap and may go some way to explaining the propensity towards weight gain, obesity and even diabetes amongst those who suffer with insomnia or work night shifts. Here’s how, why and what you can do to address it.  Circadian rhythm […]

Mainstream human-centric lighting is based around changing colour temperatures throughout the day in an effort to persuade the body’s Circadian rhythm while indoors that it is experiencing natural sunlight. Unfortunately mainstream human-centric lighting currently uses conventional LED, which is built around blue chip at its source. This means they contain a significant spike of excess high frequency blue, in proportions that would never occur in natural sunlight. Typical colour changing […]

Amidst the Corona pandemic, another pandemic is unfolding and it’s impacting our children most of all. It’s referred to as ‘the myopia pandemic’ and it essentially means that 50% of young people in Europe today are short-sighted, according to Caroline Klaver MD in the Netherlands. (That’s half! Up from 10% naturally occurring short-sightedness in young people less than 20 years ago). Dr Klaver isn’t the only one concerned – research […]

Parenting expert, Sue Atkins, has been concerned about all aspects of children’s development for many years, but one specific issue has caught her attention recently as technology and scientific discoveries reveal a cascade of concerns: “We are all spending more and more time indoors and on technology.” Exposure to excess screen times and poor quality indoor light is impacting our health and wellbeing – from sleep deficits to anxiety and […]

There’s so much buzz about blue light right now, it’s clear that it is a major influencer for the mental and physical health of everyone. Many of us are getting to grips with the fact that too much blue will overstimulate our systems, by supressing the production of melatonin (the hormone that helps us to relax and rejuvenate) and may have come across the term Circadian rhythm – the daily […]

Did you know that virtually all existing LED lights are actually blue? They are built around a light source in the form of a small chip of semi-conductor material that releases energy in the form of photons. These photons are emitted as extremely bright blue light. This is then covered with a layer of phosphor that makes the light we actually see appear white or yellow. The resulting light is […]

As parents, we’re constantly being told what’s best for our children. There’s so much advice out there to scare us and tell us we are doing everything wrong, it can all feel very negative. But when there are real, practical things we can do quickly and inexpensively to counteract genuine dangers, it’s totally worth a four minute read. If your home lighting features LED lights, then the light your children […]

4 tips on how to instantly improve your productivity and boost your environmental wellbeing Most of us have one – that lamp that adds a bright focus to our working area. But is it set up for optimal benefit? Or, is it actually doing us more harm than good? You might be surprised at how some very simple changes in lighting could improve your motivation, help you manage concentration levels, […]

You may have heard that blue light is not good for us. It triggers a ‘good morning’ response in our brain, meaning we can never truly switch off. But very few of us realise that it’s the baseline in almost every light we use. It’s not just phones and computer or television screens – LED light has traditionally used blue light as its source, too (with a special coating to […]

Why you need to look twice at the lights in your home We’ve all seen a flickering lamp. But did you know that all artificial light flickers – whether you can see it or not? And it turns out that LEDs may actually be the worst offenders. You might be thinking ‘so?’ but the fact is, these flickering lights are doing you harm. Here’s why. LED lights are often considered […]