How Circadian Rhythm Lighting Actually Improves Your Health?
Ever wondered why you wake up as the first beam of sun strikes your bedroom window and sleep as soon as the clock ticks midnight? No? Well, this is all because of the circadian rhythm!
If you are an alien to the word “circadian rhythm”, and scratching your head trying to find a point of the above words, you have landed on the right place!
Circadian rhythm is a 24-hours internal clock controlling several biological processes in our bodies and sadly we are even unaware of the term. Hands-down to its significance in our everyday lives, this post is all about “how circadian rhythm affects your health and wellbeing”.
Hold your breath and dive into the world of the human internal clock—The circadian clock.
The Concept
Imagine a bright summer morning: you wake up fresh and alert, dress-up in your best attire and head towards the daily life responsibilities and chores bright and fresh. Opposite to that, skip spring and autumn in between, there is one winter morning when you wake up to a dark stormy scenery across your window at 7 a.m feeling lazy and dull willing to crawl back under sheets.
Ever wondered why is that so? No, there is nothing to do with the season. Instead, it’s the lighting game we all are unaware of!
The Circadian Rhythm
Many mammals including human beings are programmed with an internal 24-hours biological cycle that we call circadian rhythm. Roughly, it is an internal clock of a human body responsible for regulating the phenomena of sleepiness and awake-fullness. In other words, this clock is responsible to control a person’s sleep-wake cycle by sending signals to the brain that when to stay alert and when to fall asleep.
Generally, the circadian rhythm is associated with light exposure. It is programmed to progress as per the solar timings. For instance, it functions to make us alert as soon as the sunrises and make us feel sleepy and drowsy as soon as it sets back to home.
Complimentary to that, if you are wondering how light can do that much alone, it is not only light that does this big job. Instead, all this system is associated with the secretion of stress and sleep hormone.
Circadian Rhythm Lighting
Living in the technology-oriented world, we have twisted our routines upside down. Now, most of us sleep in the day time and work at night time. Apparently, this seems very exciting but digging down to the core, it is embedding devastating impacts on our overall health. Primarily, it is generating several types of sleeping disorders rooting from the unsynchronization of the circadian rhythm along with multiple health issues.
Generally, sleeping and eating are the two most important aspects of our lives that regulate our energy level and life span. If we will not take enough sleep and a healthy nutritious diet, our immune system will get weak with time lowering the overall quality of life. However, our health doesn’t only depend on the dietary intake. Instead, circadian rhythm plays a crucial role in keeping our health in the right order.
Health Benefits of Circadian Lighting
Circadian experts have finally succeeded to leverage the information regarding the optimum amount of light required by a human being to progress smoothly with the innovation of circadian rhythm lighting. Science has finally recognized the fact that circadian rhythm works similar to diet for our overall health and wellbeing. It doesn’t only regulates the sleep-wake cycle, instead, it also affects productivity and a few other health issues.
Here are some widely popular health benefits of using circadian rhythm lighting. Have a look!
It restores your sleeping cycle to normal
As stated earlier, the prime and the foremost effect of a disturbed circadian rhythm is on our sleep-wake cycle. As a result, sufferers experience any one of the four circadian sleeping disorders namely, advanced sleep phase disorder, delayed sleep phase disorder, jet lag, and shift work.
Circadian lighting users can benefit by turning back to their conventional sleeping routines. For instance, circadian lights simulate the bright white rays of sunlight in the early hours of the day and dim moonlight in the evening hours that allow one to progress with the solar time. Circadian rhythm lights are featured to kick-start your mornings by exposing you to bright white light even inside your home accelerating the secretion of cortisol to help you feel alert. Whereas, the same light exposes you to dim lightening by the evening so that melatonin can secrete at an adequate level commanding your brain to feel sleepy.
Improves mood and accelerates productivity and alertness
Circadian rhythm lighting also aids in cutting down unnecessary mood swings from your personality. Usually, a person experiences uncertain fluctuations in his mood due to a psychiatric disorder— Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This leads him to have unusual feelings of sadness and irritation with the change of seasons. Circadian lighting treats this disorder by harmonizing the release of melatonin and cortisol at the right time of the day.
Secondly, these lights are also known to accelerate your productivity and alertness. This can be evaluated by the fact that when you have ample sleep at the right time of the day, your productivity will automatically gain some points. As far as the alertness is concerned, so that is what these healthy lights are made for.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, circadian rhythm lights are one of those innovations of science that worth your dollars. Even if you are not a victim of the disorder, you should still get one to compliment your productivity and health where ever it lacks. These lights are now being commonly used in houses and sooner and later making their ways to workplaces and schools. Last but not least, the story doesn’t end here. We are living in twenty-nineteen, An era of healthy lighting benefitting the health and wellness of living beings.
Circadian rhythm lighting—Simulating the natural lighting from sunrise to sunset.
Author Bio:
Afshan Basher Aly is a guest blogger with a passion for health and wellness topics. Afshan regularly writes about the benefits of circadian lighting, and the benefits of Brilli lighting – a USA based wellness company.