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In October we were interviewed at the occasion of mental health day. This interview is now online! For mental health it’s important to have significant light levels indoors since we nowadays spend most of our time indoors at work or at home. We have to compensate the lack of daylight indoors by mimicking daylight with artificial lighting or by working or staying close to a window. The intensity should by at least five times higher than we usually get indoors. Daylight is the best light. During the time humankind evolved we lived most of that time outdoors. Even our ancestors, only a couple of 100 years ago did! Light can be an enormous help to prevent getting mental issues and seasonal effected diseases. A way to prevent this is by getting enough Good Light each day. Light triggers your biological clock which makes you feel energetic or sleepy, if you don’t get daylight your biological clock starts running free. After a couple of days without getting sufficient daylight you start having kind of a jet lag feeling which means your quality of sleep is going down and you’re not energetic during the day. The rods and cones in your eyes take care of the vision. There are also spheres as well, which need blueish white light with a higher intensity (melanopic intensity). The more blue the light contains the more the percentage of the melanopic lux increases. If you go outdoors you easily get 50.000 to 100.000 lux in your eyes. Research has proven a minimum of 1000 lux is enough, so make sure you get those 1000 lux in your eyes when you are inside during the day and of course at night it should be dark! You can now watch the full interview here

Our board member Marijke, an expert on Chronobiology, was invited for the Dutch tv show ‘de Slapelozen’, translated it’s called ‘the insomniacs’. They talked about our biological clock which always ticks with a rhythm of approximately 24 hours a day and tells you when it is time to sleep. Some reasons to be unable to sleep are a disrupted clock or not listening to your clock. Your biological clock is not the same as our regular time. The time which you see on your watch is your social clock, which is used to bring order to your day and to make appointments. But your biological clock is telling you when it is appropriate to make these appointments and when it is your biological night and you better go to sleep. The clock reacts to daylight. Light entering the eye not only allows you to see but it is finetuning your biological clock to the natural light dark-cycle. It may signal to the biological clock in your brain that it is running out of phase and should speed up or delay. By synchronizing the rhythms, light has a positive impact on your health and well-being too. That’s why it’s so important to be outside during the day so our eyes can signal the right sign to our brain. Being inside all day is often too dark which results in a disrupted clock which may make you sleepy during the day and sleepless at night. Besides discussions about the biological clock, the TV program also interviewed people who suffer from sleep problems related to the biological clock. Like what to do when you work nightshifts, how to cope with such a demand of working against the biological clock? And what it’s like to live with a delayed sleep-wake phase disorder, the result of a disrupted clock? You can watch the full episode in Dutch here

You can now read all about Katia Kolovea’s 30 days of Good Light experience! Every day she worked with a Good Light Lamp on her desk. The lamp is programmed to mimic sunlight and therefore the light-dark cycle. So it’s very bright during the day and less bright during twilight. Katia will tell you everything about her views on Good Light, the positive and the negative aspects of her experience and the two questions that came to mind during these 30 days. Some of the outcomes and reflections of Katia: A full experience of what Good Light actually is Productivity boost Improvement of her sleep Her eyes were having trouble adapting to the Good Light lamp. Read all about her experience here

We wish you a happy New Year! May the coming year enlighten your life with lots of good light, good sleep, energy, happiness and health! We challenge you to adopt the 20-20-2 rule and feel the difference! Good light is essential for our wellbeing. Especially in the wintertime we spend most of our time indoors. We need light to feel happier, more energetic, healthier and we sleep better with the right light at the right time. It makes sure our biological clock is in sync with the 24-hour day. So, this is what you need to do: If you are inside, measure the light that’s entering your eye with a lux meter app on your phone (the light should be at least 1000 lux during daytime). Make sure you have Good Light while working. Locate your desk within one meter from a window or increase the electric light level to 1000 lux entering your eyes. Live by the 20-20-2 rule. After every 20 minutes of screen time, look at the sky for 20 seconds. Spend at least 2 hours outside every day, preferably in the morning. For more information see our infographic of download our Good Light Guide.

It’s not uncommon to feel a bit down during these cold and short days. You might have the winter blues. But what can you do about this? Psychologist and sleep expert Annelies Smolders talks about this subject in the Belgium tv show ‘Laat’, translated in English it’s called ‘Late’. Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash It’s cold, raining or snowing and the days are short. It’s winter which often comes with a winter depression. Even Mick Jagger suffers from it, since he wears light glasses. These glasses will increase your daily amount of light. It helps because light is XTC for the brain. You wake up, get energy and are happy because of daylight. When daylight enters your eyes, your production of serotonin and cortisol increases. Serotonin is the hormone that makes us happy and cortisol makes us feel energized. If it gets darker your eyes signals to your brain it has to produce melatonin, the sleep hormone. So light is very important for our sleep-wake cycle. The consequences of biological darkness are big! In the winter we spent more time inside, the light inside is often to dark which means that our eyes tell our brain it has to produce melatonin and makes us feel sleepy during the day. So, the winter blues actually is a shortage of light. You’ll feel a bit down and melancholic, you’ll eat more and even your libido will decrease. To get your recommended amount of daylight you’ll have to go outside at least two times a day, each time two hours, preferably in the morning. For most people this is impossible. What also works is moving your desk in front of a window or Good Light lamps. Source VRT Winterdip

We want to let all people know they should enjoy Good Light. So everyone becomes aware about the difference between biological darkness and good light and how “vitamin-L” affects your health. You can now support our message and become our friend! Photo by Helena Lopez for Unsplash You can donate once or monthly and help us spread our message! Let our organization grow. Friends will receive the Good Light Group newsletter on a regular basis and can participate in our public and web events. Let's be friends

Our first infographic is online! It shows in a clear and simple way how light works and which steps you should follow for a healthier and happier life. Good light is essential for our wellbeing, but we spend most of the time indoors deprived of natural daylight. But our bodies need light! Good light makes you happier, sleep better and feel energized. It makes sure your biological clock is in sync with the 24-hour day. So: Start measuring with a lux meter app on your phone (the light should be at least 1000 lux during daytime). Make sure you have Good Light while working. Locate your desk within one meter or increase the electric light level to 1000 lux entering your eyes. Live by the 20-20-2 rule. After every 20 minutes of screen time, look at the sky for 20 seconds. Spend 2 hours outside every day, preferably in the morning. Get the Good Light Guide! View infographic here

Nowadays we live in a 24/7 society. A lot of people often work night shifts. The question is: is it really necessary to work in the night, should those people have a night job? How big of a deal is it if you’ll get your package 12 hour later? Photo by Verne Ho on Unsplash If you work the night shift it means that you’re active while your biological clock signals you should sleep. Our system isn’t made for having to work at night, even eating at night or seeing light isn’t natural for our body. The Dutch health council concluded in 2017 that this affects your health in such way that it leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and sleep disorders. The sleep-wake cycle is regulated by the biological clock in your brain. It differs between people: in some people it runs behind and in others it runs faster, resulting in night owls and early birds. In those extreme chronotypes, their life is often out of sync with their biological clock, but it’s easy to fix! The solution: More light during the day, at least 2 hours of daylight, and especially for the late types way less light during the evening. A regular sleep-wake cycle will make you feel more energized, boosts your immune system and leads to healthy ageing. Source: November magazine Clique media (Page 28) An article by our board member Marijke Gordijn

Nathalie Cijntje, a woman who lives in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, has a hard time living in her apartment, why? She is deprived of daylight because of a huge building wrap advertising hanging outside of her building, blocking both view and daylight. Nathalie hasn’t seen daylight inside of her apartment for one and a half months now. During the day it’s dark, but the advertising is lit up in the evening so it becomes very light in the apartment when it should be dark. She sometimes sleeps somewhere else to escape her overly lit apartment. To compensate her for the discomfort her landlord gave her a one-time 500 euro discount on her rent. But it doesn’t compensate the inhumane living conditions. Due to the lack of light Nathalie feels depressed, her work suffers under the circumstances, she is moody and lacks focus. Our expert Marijke Gordijn regarding the topic: It’s unhealthy to be deprived of natural daylight all day. We need at least 1000 Lux during the day for a considerable amount of time (an estimate of light intensity can be obtained by a light measuring app on your phone). The short-term effects include feeling moody, sleepy and less creative, if it continues the effects will be greater. Long-term daylight deprivation includes a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases, brain diseases such as dementia and sleep disorders. Sleep is essential for your health and wellbeing, if you don’t have a good night rest you often don’t feel fit. Read the article on RTL news

The second deLIGHTed talks webinar ‘wintertime edition’ was a great success! deLIGHTed talks is a free webinar with lighting experts who talk about different aspects of light and our health. We organize the deLIGHTed talks in cooperation with the Daylight Academy, Society of Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms, International Association of Lighting Designers, Luger Research. Two light professionals were invited to talk about the winter blues, daylight saving time and the effect it has on our well-being. You can now watch the lectures online here: ​ Prof. Till Roenneberg – Why shifting to daylight saving time is a bad idea The circadian clock plays a crucial role in switching to constant standard time or continue with DST, it potentially impacts our health and performance. In this talk, Till will give the necessary background to understand how the circadian clock, the social clock, the sun clock, time zones, and DST interact. Dr. Manuel Spitschan - Dim days and long nights: Optimising light exposure during the dark period of the year Manuel will talk about the impact of light on our physiology and behaviour. He will talk about how our eyes and brain process light and what the appropriate light exposure is. Panel discussion Attendees asked questions about these topics which were answered by different experts. Want to read about our recommendations? Get our Good Light Guide, which contains a lot of information about good light. We look forward to the next delighted talks webinar!

In April we developed the Good Light Guide with several lighting experts to spread knowledge and practical advice when it comes to our bodies need for Good Light. You can now read all about it in the new issue of the LED professional Review. Photo by DocuSign on Unsplash We hope that you enjoy this first edition of the Good Light Guide, and it inspires you to join the movement #goodlightgroup and share the knowledge in this guide with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. You can sign up for our newsletter at goodlightgroup.com. If you are interested in participating or joining our movement, please write us an email to: info@goodlightgroup.org. Read the magazine

We all complain during the darker period of the year about tiredness, feeling moody or depressed. Especially after two months of cold weather and nothing to look forward to, except for some more months of darkness and cold weather. It’s a phenomenon which is easy to explain: a lack of light! In the summer the days are longer, the light is brighter and nights are shorter but, in the winter, we usually spend our time inside a warm home or office which are usually insufficiently lit. Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash A short explanation: In autumn we have to deal with a changing day length, we get short stretches of daylight and early sunsets. You spend less time outside and this means a lack of Good Light (daylight). This disrupts your biological clock. Lucky for us, it’s easy to avoid a winter depression, go outside and enjoy daylight! Light has a huge effect on our health and mental wellbeing. Good Light is as important as Good Food, Good Air and Exercise. Good Light makes you feel energetic, alert, concentrated and it synchronized your biological clock, is responsible for your day-night rhythm and it improves your sleep. So, you will feel less moody and more energized. Why the light inside isn’t good enough is because daylight is ten to hundred times brighter than most lightbulbs and at sunset daylight softens and is dominated by orange and red (which naturally relaxes us). So, go outside! Source: wijzijnwyz.nl/blog/mentale-gezondheid/een-winterdip-fabel-of-feit/