Global Care
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Read MoreScientific findings
Light influences us all.
We need good quality light – but not just to see well. Light controls important biological processes in our bodies and therefore our internal clock . In buildings however we mostly lack sufficient light and in particular the right light to activate our bodies. At work, we are often in biological darkness.
The regulator for our internal clock.
Biorhythms dictate when we wake up, when we become tired and when we fall; they even have an effect on our body temperature and much more. This internal clock is influenced to a large extent by light. Although our genetic makeup determines our circadian rhythm, this rhythm has to be resynchronized by daylight each and every day. If light, the most important zeitgeber, is lacking then our internal clock soon goes out of sync. As a result we may suffer from sleep disorders, chronic fatigue and in the worst case clinical depression.
Circadian rhythm, hormone secretion:
The hormones responsible for the circadian rhythm in humans are melatonin, which is released in response to increasing levels of darkness and which promotes sleep, and cortisol, which is the biological opposite of melatonin and an indicator of the level of human activeness.
Light affects our body:
daylight with a high blue component has an activating effect. It stimulates the receptors in the eye and therefore the control center in the brain to a much greater extent than light with a high red component.
Light acts via the photoreceptors in the eye on the control center in the brain. These photoreceptors are very evenly distributed over the retina. The signal to the brain – and therefore the biological effect – is greatest when as many photoreceptors as possible are stimulated simultaneously. Such a full-scale impact on the retina can only come from a correspondingly large area in our field of vision however. Indirect lighting in which light is reflected from a large bright surface therefore has a stronger impact than the concentrated light from a spotlight.
Biological effect of light on the human eye:
The activating effect of light depends on a light color with a high blue component, a large light source and the angle of incidence of the light beam in the eye.
