When people think about upgrading their house, they usually think about renovating a room, adding new fixtures, or modifying a specific wing. But certain changes to your environment can make a much bigger impact on your daily life for a much smaller investment.
Most notably, millions of homes in our country suffer from poor lighting. It’s the type of problem you may not even notice if you’re not paying attention, but it can profoundly impact your life in different ways.
Why is lighting so important? How is bad lighting holding you back? And what can you do about it?
Lighting Is Everywhere
In your bathroom, light illuminates your daily morning tasks and responsibilities, guiding you as you prepare to leave the house to start your day. This is also a place of comfort where light can comfort you and help you cool down. In your office, light is responsible for directing your eyesight and allowing you to reach peak productivity. In your kitchen, you need bright, focused light that can help you chop vegetables safely, but also dim, ambient lighting that can help you enjoy the pleasure of company without obnoxious brightness in everyone’s eyes.
Accordingly, whether lighting is good or bad depends entirely on the context. But we’re willing to wager you have bad lighting in at least one room – and you probably have it throughout your house.
The Problems With Bad Lighting
What are the problems associated with bad lighting?
· Safety. For starters, low or inaccessible lighting can represent a safety issue. If your lights are too dim to sufficiently illuminate your surroundings, you’re likely to trip or stub your toe on something. If a light switch is too hard to reach or if your lights are otherwise inconvenient, the problem grows even worse.
· Task visibility and focus. Lights are critical for illuminating various tasks and allowing you to focus. Without ample light in a given room, there might be certain tasks that you either can’t do or can’t complete at maximum productivity. This is especially important for offices, kitchens, living rooms, and bathrooms.
· Eye strain. Bad lighting can cause eye strain. If there isn’t enough light to illuminate your space, your eyes may have to strain too much to focus. If there’s too much light, your eyes can similarly become overwhelmed, making it difficult to focus appropriately. You need a balance to maintain your eye health and personal comfort.
· Aesthetics and comfort. Don’t neglect the subjective effects that lighting can have. The brightness, color, intensity, and positioning of your lighting has a massive effect on the overall aesthetics and style of your space. You can use lighting to showcase highlights throughout your favorite rooms and set a mood for different experiences. But if you don’t put any thought into your lighting, it could have a negative effect on the aesthetics of your home.
· Home value. Lighting doesn’t directly influence home value, at least not significantly. But better lighting can greatly improve the photography of your house when you move to sell it. Good lighting can help you fetch a higher sale price and sell your home faster.
· Costs and upkeep. Certain types of lighting are more expensive and require more upkeep than others. If you’re still using incandescent light bulbs throughout your house because you’re somewhat old-fashioned, you should know that you’re spending much more on light bulbs per year than you have to – and modern LEDs can often go many years without needing to be changed.
· Personal health. Sunlight isn’t just good for your health; it’s arguably necessary for it. Sunlight is a great source of vitamin D and can stave off depression, so it’s important to get as much natural light as possible throughout your house.
· Sleep and wellness. Light also influences our circadian rhythms, which means the quality and type of light in your surroundings can influence your sleep. Overexposure to bright or blue-tinted light, especially close to bed, makes it harder for you to get to sleep and stay asleep.
· Mood and disposition. On top of all that, light influences your mood. Harsh lighting that causes strain, as well as lighting misaligned with your aesthetic preferences, can cause you to become irritable or make you more likely to feel depressed.
Fixing Things, One Room at a Time
The solution is to correct your lighting issues, one room at a time.
The following variables are some of the most important to identify and work with.
· Light source. Natural light is the best light for most applications. Failing that, LED lights offer high efficiency, low costs, easy maintenance, and almost unlimited versatility. You can find a form of LED light for almost any purpose.
· Brightness and color. Bright, cool colored lights are good for illuminating tasks and simulating natural light. Dim, warm colored lights are good for establishing ambiance and relaxing at the end of the day. Different contexts require different approaches.
· Positioning. You’ll also need to consider positioning and the relationships between lights. In some rooms, it might be favorable to have both indirect and direct lighting, as well as lighting options you can toggle between as necessary.
Lighting is much more important to our health, wellbeing, and mood than we like to admit. These simple strategies, from letting in more sunlight to repositioning artificial lights, can make a major difference in how you work, think, and feel every day. At the very least, they’re worth trying.