How Smart Home Lighting Affects Our Sleep
Our bodies are amazing, and all light affects how we sleep as well as many other processes in the body. However, that means artificial light affects our bodies too, and not all in a positive fashion. Smart home lighting can minimize some of those negative effects.
Negative Effects of Artificial Light in the Home
While artificial light benefits society as a whole, it sometimes has adverse effects on our individual bodies.
Disrupted Circadian Rhythms
Natural light regulates our wake-sleep cycle, and artificial light sends the same signals. Unfortunately, having so much light exposure messes up the chemicals that normally make us sleepy.
Less Natural Healing
Sleep is vital to our bodies repairing themselves. The more exposure to artificial light outside of times when natural light is normally available, the less efficient these systems can perform.
Increased Strain
Not sleeping correctly increases strain on all body parts, which often manifests as increased stress as we go through our normal lives and routines.
What Causes These Negative Effects?
Simply having artificial lights in the home is not what causes these effects. Instead, these effects generally stem from unnatural amounts of light at unnatural times of the day. For example, if you use your artificial lights only during times of the day when the sun is up, you won’t experience any of these negative effects.
However, this would defeat the main purpose of using artificial lights in a home. After all, the primary reason we have artificial lights in our homes is to provide light during the night or early morning.
So, while we cannot completely follow natural light with our artificial lights, we can make a few modifications to minimize these negative effects of artificial lights.
First, we can keep our lights dimmed during the evening and night hours to minimize the impacts of artificial light disrupting our natural cues for sleep. Second, we can change the color of our light to more accurately reflect natural light and provide natural cues for waking and sleeping. Finally, we can keep our light habits on a more regulated schedule to emulate the consistency of natural light.
All of these methods for reducing the negative impacts of natural light are made easy with smart home lighting.
Combat the Negative Effects of Artificial Lights with Smart Home Lighting
In the past, there was little to be changed about artificial light. We needed it for everyday life, and every light created the same problems. Smart home lighting changes that.
Dimmable
Dimmer switches allow the continued use of artificial light while minimizing the problems. We can control how much light is in a room with dimmer switches, leaving it light enough while minimizing the issues artificial light creates. Smart lights make it easy to pair dimmer switches on any of your bulbs.
Tunable
Tunable lights allow for complete control of our artificial light, from brightness to color temperature. Often, we can control the color temperature to reduce blue light in the evenings and increase red light in the mornings, helping our bodies prepare to sleep and wake up naturally. You can easily make adjustments to the color temperature of your lights through an app when using smart lights.
Programmable Timing
Smart home lighting also offers personalized settings. Whether you program your lights to dim as the sun sets or lighten at a regular time in the morning, automatic dimming helps our body chemistry produce a more stable wake-sleep cycle by mimicking the natural cycle and maintaining a firm sleeping schedule.
Voice Control
Smart home lighting links to your voice assistants for voice control. No need to stumble through the hall to find the light switch at midnight or turn on your mobile, asking your voice device to turn on the light with simple voice commands is a simple, easy-to-use choice.
Home Automation
Smart home lighting can also work with smart sensors for home automation. For example, the motion sensor can detect motion and trigger lights when you pass, and in night light mode, the gentle and warm light helps you navigate during the night without disturbing your rest.
Are you interested in learning more about smart home lighting and how it can change your life? Check out Treatlife, a premier source of smart home lights and accessories.