Realign Your Sleep Schedule Naturally
Light, and particularly quality lighting, is good for our waking lives. Not only does it increase cognition, but it also has the ability to make us feel more motivated, driven and excited about the day. Scheduling your lighting to turn on and off via the ilumi led smart light scheduling feature can help to activate your natural circadian clock and produce a variety of important sleep and waking benefits.
What is a natural circadian rhythm?
The National Institute of Health, defines “circadian rhythms” as “physical, mental and behavioral changes that follow a roughly 24-hour-cycle, responding primarily to light and darkness in an organism’s environment.” This involves cyclical changes your body undergoes through hormone changes, environmental factors and more. However, circadian rhythms are mostly associated with our bodies natural sleeping and waking schedule. When an individual's sleeping schedule is disturbed their natural circadian rhythm is compromised. Research has pointed to the cause of these disturbances to be associated with the lighting we keep in our homes. Take for example, static lighting from our iphone, televisions and desktops. Lighting solutions that help us stay aligned with our natural circadian rhythm can increase sleeping benefits and productivity during the day time.
How lighting impacts your natural circadian rhythm
Warm, natural lighting at night increases melatonin production and induces a peaceful, well-rested night time sleep. Likewise, cooler blue colored lighting in the morning can inhibit melatonin production and can lead to an increase in motivation, cognition and productivity. According to National Geographic, the way our eyes respond to lighting and set a natural circadian rhythm for our day, is based on small light-sensitive eye cells called “intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells” (ipRGCs). In these tiny cells is a protein called “melanopsin.” Melanopsin (not to be confused with melatonin), creates input from various lighting that activates signals in our brains nucleus to produce more hormones like melatonin to tell us when we’re sleepy and when we’re alert.
For instance, melanopsin is most sensitive to blue lighting that is why in the morning it is best to surround yourself with naturally blue-lit lighting to alert your brain that you’re awake.
More importantly, dimming your lights will give melanopsin the response to produce more melatonin making you feel relaxed and tired. Helping you with a peaceful and beautiful nights rest.
Schedule your natural lighting with ilumi
Although, certain types of lighting at the wrong time of day can hinder your sleeping schedule and productivity. ilumi offers ways to create lighting that will allow you to pick out specific shades of white lighting ranging from cool whites to warm candle light in the evenings.
Using the new ilumi app, you can now schedule your lighting brightness and color setting to help with productivity, cognition and sleep disturbances with either ilumi natural bright whites and or rich colors. These can be setup so that when you turn on the light from your standard light switch, the light shade, brightness, or preset color can be different depending on the time of day.
Learn how to schedule your lighting to help improve your overall productivity, cognition and natural circadian rhythms.
Sources:
- National Institute of Health, Circadian Rhythms Fact Sheet, http://www.nigms.nih.gov/Education/Pages/ Factsheet_CircadianRhythms.aspx.
- http://www.brainscienceinstitute.org/brain_talk/light_exposure_at_night
- http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/how-smartphone-light-affects-your-brain-and-body/
- http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/13/how-light-wakes-up-the-brain/
