• Lighting the way to healthier daily rhyt

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Thursday, March 17, 2022 22:30:46
    Lighting the way to healthier daily rhythms

    Date:
    March 17, 2022
    Source:
    PLOS
    Summary:
    A new report addresses the issue of exactly how bright lighting
    should be during the day and in the evening to support healthy
    body rhythms, restful sleep, and daytime alertness.



    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    The light we experience across our daily lives has a major influence on
    our body rhythms. Modern lifestyles, with 24-hour access to electric light
    and reduced exposure to natural daylight, can disrupt sleep and negatively impact health, well-being, and productivity. A new report publishing
    March 17 in the open access journal PLOS Biology addresses the issue of
    exactly how bright lighting should be during the day and in the evening
    to support healthy body rhythms, restful sleep, and daytime alertness.


    ========================================================================== Professors Timothy Brown from the University of Manchester, UK, and
    Kenneth Wright from the University of Colorado Boulder, US brought
    together an international body of leading scientific experts to agree the
    first evidence- based, consensus recommendations for healthy daytime,
    evening, and nighttime light exposure. These recommendations provide
    much needed guidance to the lighting and electronics industries to aid
    the design of healthier environments and to improve how we light our workplaces, public buildings, and homes.

    A key question tackled by the new report was how to properly measure
    the extent to which different types of lighting might influence our
    body rhythms and daily patterns of sleep and wakefulness. Light affects
    these patterns via a specialized type of cell in the eye that uses a
    light sensitive protein, melanopsin, that is distinct from the proteins
    in the rods and cones that support vision (and upon which traditional
    ways of measuring "brightness" are based). Since melanopsin is most
    sensitive to light in a specific part of the visual spectrum (blue-cyan
    light), the new recommendations used a newly- developed light measurement standard tailored to this unique property, melanopic equivalent daylight illuminance. Analysis of data across a range of laboratory and field
    studies proved that this new measurement approach could provide a
    reliable way of predicting the effects of light on human physiology and
    body rhythms and could therefore form the basis of widely applicable
    and meaningful recommendations.

    An important next step will be integration of the recommendations into
    formal lighting guidelines, which currently focus on visual requirements
    rather than effects on health and well-being. Additionally, increasing sophistication in LED lighting technology and the availability of low-cost light sensors are expected to increase the ease with which individuals
    can optimize their personal light exposure to best support their own
    body rhythms in line with the new recommendations.

    Brown adds, "These recommendations provide the first scientific consensus, quantitative, guidance for appropriate daily patterns of light exposure to support healthy body rhythms, nighttime sleep and daytime alertness. This
    now provides a clear framework to inform how we light any interior
    space ranging from workplaces, educational establishments and healthcare facilities to our own homes."

    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by PLOS. Note: Content may be edited
    for style and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Timothy M. Brown, George C. Brainard, Christian Cajochen, Charles A.

    Czeisler, John P. Hanifin, Steven W. Lockley, Robert J. Lucas,
    Mirjam Mu"nch, John B. O'Hagan, Stuart N. Peirson, Luke
    L. A. Price, Till Roenneberg, Luc J. M. Schlangen, Debra
    J. Skene, Manuel Spitschan, Ce'line Vetter, Phyllis C. Zee,
    Kenneth P. Wright. Recommendations for daytime, evening, and
    nighttime indoor light exposure to best support physiology, sleep,
    and wakefulness in healthy adults. PLOS Biology, 2022; 20 (3):
    e3001571 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001571 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220317143718.htm

    --- up 2 weeks, 3 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes
    * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)