Can Your Home’s Lighting Improve Your Well-being?
Explore the Health Benefits of a Smart Lighting System
Often when people look for ways to enhance their well-being, they’re looking to disconnect from technology entirely. But in many ways you can use your home technology to enhance both your mood and health in your Atlanta, GA home. For example, a multi-room audio system gives you easy access to music which is proven to reduce stress and enhance cognitive functions. Using Lutron shades and smart lighting control, you can also take advantage of the health benefits associated with both natural and artificial light. Read on to learn more.
Want to get right to the solution? Learn about lighting basics, design ideas and products to create a comfortable, convenient and safe home.
SEE MORE: Reasons to Light Control the Home
Adjust Your Circadian Rhythm
There’s a reason that you feel more active in the daylight and start getting a little groggy once the sun sets. It all has to do with your circadian rhythm; an internal clock that helps your brain alternate between wakefulness and sleepiness. This circadian rhythm is deeply tied to lighting. When it gets dark, your brain knows to release melatonin to help you relax. It then knows to stimulate your senses during daytime.
Many mood disorders can be attributed to an out-of-whack circadian rhythm caused by jet-lag, late nights or even inclement weather. Artificial light at night has even been known to cause cardiovascular disease. With a Lutron smart lighting system, you can manage natural and artificial light to get your inner clock back on track.
In the morning, your Lutron motorized shades open and lights slowly turn on to let your brain know it’s time to get up. When you’re getting ready to settle down at the end of the day, close the shades and begin dimming the lights to help your body relax. Schedule the lights to automatically turn off at a certain hour so they do not stay on overnight.
Coloring Your Daily Mood
In recent years, researchers have found that the color of the lights can also have an impact on your health. For one, exposure to blue light at night—especially that associated with electronic devices—can lead to obesity, heart problems, or high blood pressure. That’s because it suppresses melatonin. For that reason, though, blue-light can be a great alarm clock. Use your smart lighting system to schedule blue lights in the morning and yellow or red lights at night to better manage your mood.
Harvesting the Power of the Sun
Lutron’s Serena shades also let you capitalize on the sun’s health benefits. Sunlight provides us with vitamin D which can dramatically drop the risk of developing cancer. It can also help strengthen bone health in aging adults—with artificial light often having the opposite effect. For this reason, it’s important to use natural light whenever possible instead of relying on your home’s fixtures. With a Lutron RadioRA2 integrated system, you can have shades automatically open when there’s available sunlight. At the same time, artificial lights are directed to dim since they’re no longer needed.
Our Lutron installations not only offer a variety of health benefits, they can also make your home more beautiful and efficient. We’ve put together a guide with more insights on how homeowners can take advantage of these technologies. You can download the guide by clicking the button below.
