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Reliable Lighting Solutions recently became our new partner, opening our first Working Group in North America. Located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, they are not so much about lighting products as lighting productivity. They joined us to bring our philosophy of creating better lighting environments to more people in North America. Photo by Raj Rana on Unsplash Reliable Lighting Solutions believes: The more people understand how lighting innovation can improve their lives - at home and at work - the healthier we’ll be. The use of Good Light is not about profit or market share, it’s about improving people’s health & wellness. Business leaders need to understand the importance of our relationship to light and its impact on the emotional and biological health of their employees. As the Canadian distributor for BrainLit and BioCentric Lighting lines, they’re passionate about creating lighting solutions that positively impact human development. They have spent the last several years retrofitting buildings to improve their clients’ lighting experience. For more information: linkedin.com/in/corytretiak/

Part of the Good Light guide is now translated into Greek. You can read it on page 42 of the Electrologos magazine. Photo by Leon on Unsplash This magazine is especially created for the electrical and lighting industry, with all sorts of content for contractors, mechanical engineers, architects, designers, decorators, importers and traders of electronic equipment. For the Greek translation (page 42): electrologos.gr/#No-338-1

It’s important to have good light (sunlight or light that mimics sunlight) during the day and darkness during the night, so your brain can sync with the day/night cycle. If it’s too light at night or too dark during the day our brain has trouble syncing with this cycle, this affects your mental and physical health. Photo by Holly Mandarich on Unsplash Not only light pollution at night has an impact on your biological clock, a room which is insufficiently lit during the day or the use of your tablet or phone in the evening too. The BioClock research consortium studies a healthy day and night rhythm for young and old people, people who work nightshifts, in healthcare and the impact on nature. The University of Groningen plays a major role with among others our board member Marijke Gordijn. The Good Light Group is part of the BioClock Consortium. The wrong kind of light doesn’t only have an effect on us, but on nature and our new-borns too. Read all about it in the Dutch newspaper Trouw.

Bartenbach is one of the world’s trendsetting lighting innovation companies and recently joined the Good Light Group. Photo by © David Franck The activities of Bartenbach include individual lighting solutions, lighting design, solution design, R&D, training and further education. The headquarters is based in Austria, with offices in Germany, Swiss and the Netherlands. Bartenbach works together with renowned architect studios to create the lighting design in numerous projects. They always seek to apply the newest lighting technologies to increase the effectiveness of lighting and improve health and well-being of the people that have to work, learn, play, care, heal, etc. in artificial light. We are very happy that the Bartenbach team joins the Group, and we are sure that they will be instrumental to give good light a real boost in the practice of indoor lighting. More: Bartenbach: Homepage

Good light contributes to a good performance. Especially in sports, athletes benefit from the positive influence that light has on mental and physical conditions. The Nationale Sport Vakbeurs wrote an article about how light affects us in sports. The Good Light Group contributed with a spoken article. As they call it: Light, a legal and easy performance booster. Photo by Kate Trifo on Unsplash Light indoors often contributes to a pleasant atmosphere but your eyes interpreted it like biological darkness. The light indoors is far too weak compared to the intense light you get when you would be outside, ‘good light’. Good light has a positive influence on your circadian system, which controls your vitality, fatigue, mood, and mental health. Therefore, it’s important to mimic the outdoor light indoors, especially for sportsmen and sportswomen. If you want to be in the best shape, makes sure you train in good light. This can be done by training a couple of hours in natural daylight. If that is not possible, make sure you train indoors as close as possible to the window in order to get enough natural daylight. Or make sure that the electric light fulfils the requirements of good light and is strong enough to have a positive effect on your biological clock. More information: what is good light Click here for the article

On invitation of the United Arab Emirates division of the international organization Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), Jan Denneman presented the webinar “Good light indoors makes people healthy and happy” on 21 January 2021. The main topics of the webinar are: People need daily good light, like good food and good air, for their well-being. Good light is the most forgotten factor in the design of buildings: the light in buildings is currently wrong for health and well-being of users in the building. The problems of billions of people, who spend their lives in biological darkness. Discovery in 2002 and Nobel prize in 2017: “spheres” (ipRGCs) in the retinae of the eye trigger the synchronisation of the biological clock. What is Good Light? The intensity of the light in buildings needs to be at least 5 times higher than current indoor lighting practice. The history of focus in building design: low cost – sustainability – healthy buildings. How Good Light increases the health and well-being of people in buildings. You can now watch a recorded version of the webinar on: CIBSE UAE Good Light Indoors Makes People Healthy and Happy

We welcome Center for Environmental Therapeutics (CET) as our new partner. CET is paving the way for educating about natural, scientifically based remedies to address mental health issues such as depression, insomnia and fatigue, primarily using light therapy. The use of good light is critical for treatment of circadian rhythm mood and sleep disorders. CET has created a resource for patients, families, and professionals to obtain: - free clinical guides to treatment - free symptom self-assessment tools - free expert advice - latest research reports - design principles for treatment devices To learn more about their activities or just want some information, visit cet.org

On 28 January our board members and participants met online for the second Participant Council meeting. Representatives of 15 companies / universities were present: Bartenbach, Eindhoven University of Technology, Fluxplus, Chronowear, L+RC Consultants, Loerakker Lighting, Luxlight, Medilux, Seaborough, Signify, Sparckel, Stoane Lighting, Toshiba Materials and the University of Groningen. The board presented an overview of the results of 2020 and the strategic plan of our vision for the future. Detailed ideas for the year 2021 were explained and discussed in an online brainstorm session. Many useful ideas and suggestions were contributed . The participants elected Maarten Voorhuis for the second year as chair of the council.

The Algmeen Dagblad asked Jan and Marijke to test different light therapy lamps. Nowadays a lot of people suffer the winter blues. A daily portion of good light makes you more energetic, happier, and healthier. Make sure during the day that you get a healthy dose of good light. Especially when working indoors. Photo by Jean-pierre Jans for Algemeen Dagblad People will be a lot happier and healthier if we recognize the importance of good light. "Good light is just as important as healthy food and healthy air. You have more energy during the day, your mood will be lifted and you will have a better night's sleep." According to Jan Denneman, it's important to get the right light at the right time. Those who can not be outside all day can purchase a light therapy lamp, but does it help? Test panel Jan and Marijke tested five light therapy lamps. Read the full article here: Algemeen dagblad Light therapy lamps The story is also picked up by the Belgian newspaper HLN. You can read this story here: "In three quarters of the cases, light therapy lamps are an effective treatment for winter depression."

Board member Marijke Gordijn with more than 30 years of experience in chronobiology and sleep was interviewed for an article in the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant. In what way will lighting help you get out of bed fresh and relaxed in the morning but also to wind down in the evening? Image Sophia Twigt for Volkskrant Your vitality is controlled by your circadian system and sleep. But the circadian system doesn't quite keep up with the real daytime automatically. Some people’s system is more off than other people’s system. If this isn't corrected most people will go to bed a bit later every day and wake up a bit later as well. But if you make sure you get enough natural light during the day, especially in the morning and keep it dark in the evenings, your circadian system will adjust to the real day rhythm. Read the full article here: Volkskrant How do you ensure you get out of bed feeling energized during dark days?

Luxlight has been actively working for 20 years to bring daylight into the lives of its customers with its products. Based on their passion for people and the importance of good lighting for people, products are developed for flat roofs of homes. With its New Illumy products, Luxlight has made a combination of daylight by adapting a flat roof window, supplemented with artificial light in the right colour, to the right time of the day. The natural daylight lamp.

The holidays are over, it's cold and dark, we prefer to sit inside. Nevertheless, you need a daily portion of good light: it makes you more energetic, happier, and healthier. Make sure that you go outside for a good time every day and that you also have enough good light indoors during the day. Daylight is best, but there are also good alternatives with LED lighting and light therapy lamps. Photo by Sasha Freemind on Unsplash Especially at this time of year, this can help prevent the so-called winter dip. A quarter of people in the northern hemisphere suffer from winter malaise. A winter dip has specific symptoms such as being unenergetic, not enjoying regular activities, and sleeping longer. Fortunately, the winter dip only leads to winter depression in four percent of people at which point medical attention is needed. By the time the new year rolls around, everyone has already had a long period of very short days and new year's resolutions are proving to be a lot more difficult to achieve in practice. The endless lockdown due to COVID 19 doesn't help improve our moods either. The sun shows very little, it is cold and gloomy. The mood of many people falls to a low point. We are in the most depressing period of the year and the third Monday of the year is a symbol of this and aptly named “Blue Monday”. What can you do about this? In the first period of the year, people really fall short of daylight. If you don't get enough daylight for a day, your biological clock will be about 10 to 15 minutes behind on average. Eight o'clock in the evening feels like quarter to eight. It works cumulatively: those who stay indoors for a week and don't see daylight are an hour and a half behind. You get a feeling similar to jet lag. You're tired, less alert, and your mood is down. In short, light is needed to keep the biological clock in line. In the eye, on the retina are receptors: rods, cones and spheres. Those spheres are important for correcting your biological clock. The spheres are sensitive to the cyan blue part of the light spectrum and pass the information on to your biological clock in your brain. A large part of the world's population lives and works in biological darkness. For the record: normal electric light in your home and also the lighting in companies and offices equates to biological darkness. The light enables visual tasks, but is too weak to positively influence the biological clock. Fortunately, nowadays there are lamps and luminaires that imitate daylight as effectively as possible. They can't fully mimic daylight, but being exposed to enough intense light in the house can help protect you from experiencing the winter dip. Author: Jan Denneman Chairman and founder of the Good Light Group, non-profit organization promoting the use of good light for health and wellbeing