LIGHT and HUMAN HEALTH

The impact of light on human health and welfare is greatly affected by daylight and darkness. Something in our bodies tells us it is time to be awake when it is light out. When darkness strikes, soon after we feel a sense of sleepiness. The level of too much exposure to daylight is associated with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). Even too much exposure to solar light can increase health risks. Too much light exposure causes a sense of feeling very awake and increases the heart rate which can cause levels of stress to go up, which can harm a human being when this happens too much. Some actions that have been taken to prevent this from happening to hospital staff, with which this is most common, include minimal light exposure and having a choice in the light intensity and the frequency of light.

LIGHT AND ITS RELATIONSHIP...

Light is a significant necessity in our world. Every culture is affected by light somehow whether it be by a place, nature, climate, time, or a task.

Light and place play a very important rule with each other. The amount of light you get in the area one is in affects how much light you use in your home or personal space. Water in a surrounding also affects the intensity of light effects in a particular place. This also affects the atmosphere of a place just because of the light in that area.

The sense of light we get through nature can suggest a feeling we had somewhere else. The lighting created in nature can be described by brightness, dimness, and the patterns created by the shadows. One can draw inspiration from shadows from nature because the shapes created are so organic and unique.

Light and climate are related because the type of light within a culture affects their rituals and habits. The colors could be derived from the light affected by the climate and the colors they use for their fabrics are affected by the light sources and the effect of light through their climate. Windows and glass play an important role in letting light in while keeping the heat out depending on which side of a building the windows are placed. If the windows are placed on the East side, every morning that side of the building will be hotter than the rest.

When I think of light and time, the first thing that comes to mind is a sundial. Before clocks, and even after clocks were invented, the way people could tell time was from the sun. This makes sense because I feel as though many people now could estimate the time of day just by looking at the sun and what kind of light it is producing at a certain time. Sunrise and sunset also vary enough to tell the difference just through our eyes, not looking at the time on a clock. For instance during a sunrise the colors are typically a orange, to a light yellow, to an almost yellow gray that changes to a blue when the sun has completely risen. During a sunset the colors in the sky can be anything from a dark purple indigo to a dark blue, or a very strong light pink to a lavender purple to a light blue. Light also changes throughout the seasons. You see more light throughout the summer and spring than you do in fall and winter in most areas. Depending on the time of day, light can totally change the color of something. For example in the article, S. Andrea della Valle is a completely different color in the morning than it is in the late afternoon. One could use this to tell what time of day it was as well.

Lastly, light and task affects our awareness of light. We do not fully realize how much we use natural light until we are put in the position of having no natural light to work in. Many jobs require only natural light to be able to work. Many farmers work throughout the day when natural light is at its fullest and maximize their time by starting as soon as the sun rises. A personal experience I have had with natural light is while I’m working in studio. All throughout the day we use the natural light coming through the windows and skylights, which provide an amazing amount of light to light the room without using any artificial types of lighting. As soon as the sun goes down it is necessary to use the artificial lighting regardless of how many windows there are in studio.

Overall, I think light is one of the things we all take for granted to an extreme level. If it is a cloudy day, we just think “turn on the lights in the house”. It is an almost automatic thought. If we did not have access to electrical lighting we would have to design our whole day around the natural light we get during the day. Our inspirations and influences would not be the same without light, and our habits would change drastically.