Let There be Light

 

Written by Jenny Catton

 

If you want to reduce the negative environmental impact of your home, one good place to start is by looking at how you light your house.

 

Making small changes to your lighting could save energy and reduce your bills.

 

Here are some things to try:

 

• Try break the habit of automatically switching on a light when you enter a room. Think about whether you actually need the artificial light first? Perhaps just opening the curtains a little wider or sitting closer to the window will give you all the natural light you need.

 

• Think about the light bulbs you use. Standard light bulbs create a lot of heat making them incredibly inefficient. Switch to energy-efficient light bulbs and you could significantly reduce your CO₂ emissions.

 

• Decide whether you need to light the whole room. This is particularly important in large rooms or offices. If you are the only person using the room, it may be more practical to use a small lamp rather than switching on the main lights.

 

• Look at how the layout and decoration of your room affects the natural light available. Replacing thick curtains with blinds, or painting the walls in lighter colours could improve the light levels without having to resort to artificial lighting.

 

• Finally, remember to turn the lights off when you leave a room.

 

For more tips on how to make environmentally-friendly changes within your home, take a look at The Eco-Living Handbook by Sarah Callard and Diane Millis, published by Carlton Books.

Categories: bulbs, catton, jenny, Light, light bulbs, Natural Light, nbsp, reduce, room, written

How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep, No Matter the Obstacles

A bad night’s sleep is one of the most common health concerns of modern life, but what can you do about it? Instead of reaching for your sleeping pills, try enhancing your night-time wellness with these top tips:

 

1. Dealing with noise: If noise is keeping you awake, David Neubauer, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Centre, in Baltimore, recommends adding white noise. ‘Background noise is good for two reasons,’ he says. ‘It helps block outside noises, like road-repair workers and your neighbour’s stereo. Beyond that, psychologically, it’s soothing.’ Try anything that drones continuously, such as a fan or air conditioner. You can also get sound machines if you’d rather hear chirps, croaks, or rushing water.

 

If that sounds a little too dull for your liking, James B. Maas, PhD, a professor of psychology at Cornell University and a co-author of Power Sleep: The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance, advises playing music or talk radio, as long as you use a device with a timer so that the noise shuts off within an hour or so and doesn’t wake you later, when you’re in a lighter phase of sleep. Other than that, good old-fashioned ear plugs are a great option, as they enable you to hear enough to have a conversation if need be, but the sound is muffled and unlikely to dampen your night-time wellbeing.

 

2. Dealing with light: If light keeps you awake, ‘Limiting your light exposure in the evening tends to transition you into sleep,’ asserts Helene Emsellem, MD, an associate clinical professor of neurology at George Washington University and the director of the Centre for Sleep and Wake Disorders, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. If you like to read in bed before you go to sleep, for example, don’t use a bright bedside lamp but, instead, encourage your brain’s shift to sleep by using a low-power book light. ‘I recommend the kind that clips onto books,’ says Emsellem.

 

During the night itself, make sure you’re not exposed to any niggly LED lights around the room. You may not realise it, but even the little light on your TV or alarm clock can be a big issue when you’re trying to fall asleep. Maas points out, ‘If you have a clock with an LED dial, you should turn it around so that the light, however dim, doesn’t get through your eyelids and interrupt sleep.’ This will also help you to stop checking the time every time you wake up, which will reduce the anxiety you feel about the sleep you’re not getting. Maas adds that sealing off the windows can rid your room of early-morning sun or streelights: ‘the best thing you can do is get darkening drapes or blackout shades.’

 

3. Dealing with Agitation: If you can’t seem to relax, a study published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, found that background music seems to do the trick. The researchers gave senior citizen calming music to listen to for 45 minutes before bedtime, and these participants ended up having a longer and more deep sleep than those who didn’t hear the music. The study used harp music by Georgia Kelly, quiet jazz by Paul Desmond, and synthesized sounds by Steven Halpern, but you should try whatever music you find soothing and relaxing.

 

There’s also the classic option of warm drinks, such as chamomile tea and hot milk. Emsellem explains, ‘Some teas have mild soporific effects. When you warm milk, it releases tryptophan [which is an amino acid your body uses to make sleep-promoting neurotransmitter serotonin]. But over time the body can develop an immunity to tryptophan, and its sleep-promoting properties dissipate.’ Still, when warm milk stops working there’s always caffeine-free herbal tea, or hot water with lemon and honey.

Categories: Light, music, nbsp, Night time, noise, sleep, sleep promoting, time, warm milk

Rise and Shine: Getting Up For That Morning Workout

There’s no two ways about it: getting up in the morning and forcing yourself to go out and do some exercise is really hard work. No matter how devoted you are to the cause of your wellness and wellbeing, fitness and weight loss is not necessarily your top priority in the bone-chilling wee hours of a winter morning. Throwing off the covers can actually feel quite torturous, especially when you know that what lies in wait is a sweaty Zumba class or a tedious session on the treadmill.

 

It’s really worth pushing through the pain, however, because working out first thing in the morning can boost your metabolism, energy levels and mood for the entire rest of the day. Fortunately, there are some little tricks you can try which should make getting up in the morning a bit easier to bear.

 

First of all, try to start your day with a blast of sunlight – when your eye senses light it causes a chemical reaction in your brain which lets you feel more alert and energised.

 

If you stand next to an open window first thing in morning, or even position your bed so that it faces towards an east-facing window, the natural rays of the sun will help you to wake up in the morning. In the middle of winter, however, you may find that it is still dark when you wake up, and in this case you can invest in a light box, to simulate natural light and make you feel better.

 

Drinking coffee might sound like an obvious solution, but a recent study has also found that just the smell of coffee can help to fight off sleep-deprivation and stress, coaxing you into the mood for a workout. If you have a timer on your coffee pot, you can set it to brew for you when you wake up in the morning.

Categories: feel, Light, Morning, nbsp, rise, wake, Workout

Could Light Therapy Improve Seasonal Affective Disorder?

Does winter leave you feeling low and lacking in energy? Do you feel your health starting to slip as soon as the nights draw in? If this is the case, your wellness and wellbeing may be affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is now a well-recognised condition.

 

It is thought to be caused by the human body’s reaction to a lack of sunlight that occurs in certain countries in winter. It affects nearly half a million people each winter in the United States alone and is usually only seen between September and April, with symptoms peaking in the darkest months of December, January and February.

 

The good news is that there is now a lot of help available to sufferers of SAD. There is some evidence that seems to show that the further someone lives from the equator, the higher their chances are of developing the condition.

 

The good news is that the condition is now so well known that a range of treatments are being developed. Some with the disorder are low in vitamin D, for example, so treatment can include a high dose of the vitamin, and can also involve light therapy.

 

This disorder can occur in anyone of any age, but it usually starts when someone is between the ages of 18 and 30, even if they don’t recognise it at the time.

 

Physical activity can help to elevate the mood and reduce the fatigue, but light therapy is one of the primary options available for treating the problem. This usually comes in the form of a therapeutic light box which emits a specially designed light. This is placed close to the sufferer for around 30 to 60 minutes every day. It can also be done through light visors, which the patient wears on their head over their eyes, if they don’t have time to sit in front of a light box.

 

Natural light is the most effective, however, and research has shown that going for an hour’s walk in winter light can be as effective as nearly three hours of artificial light.

Categories: Light, sad, therapy

City of Lights Gets Curfew as France Implements Regulations

As one of the world’s most comprehensive lighting ordinances went into effect last month, France — including the City of Light — grew darker late at night. Between the hours of 1am and 7am, shop lights are turned off, lights inside office buildings must be extinguished within an hour of workers leaving the premises and the lighting on France’s building facades cannot be turned on before sunset. Within the next two years, there will also be regulations restricting lighting on billboards – but why? Excessive use of light makes a deep impact on environmental wellness, not only harming the wellbeing of animals but also adversely affecting our health and wellness.

 

France’s enlightened approach should eventually cut the country’s carbon dioxide emissions by 250,000 tons per year, save the annual energy consumption of about 750,000 households, and slash France’s overall energy bill by 200 million Euros, or 167.8 million pounds. According to France’s Environment Ministry, their goal is to ‘reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment,’ which is a powerful acknowledgement that excessive use of lighting is negatively impacting health and our ecosystems, as well as proving that light pollution is readily within our grasp to control.

 

Paul Bogard, author of The End of Night: Searching for Natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light and editor of Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, explains, ‘Researchers are increasingly focusing on the impacts of so-called ecological light pollution, warning that disrupting these natural patterns of light and dark, and thus the structures and functions of ecosystems, is having profound impacts. The problem is worsening as China, India, Brazil, and numerous other countries are becoming increasingly affluent and urbanised. Satellite views of Earth at night show vast areas of North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia glowing white, with only the world’s remotest regions — Siberia, the Tibetan plateau, the Sahara Desert, the Amazon, and the Australian outback — still cloaked in darkness.’

 

Italian astronomer Fabio Falchi, a creator of the World Atlas of the Artificial Night Sky Brightness, the computer-generated maps that dramatically depict the extent of light pollution across the globe, comments, ‘We have levels of light hundreds and thousands of time higher than the natural level during the night. What would happen if we modified the day and lowered the light a hundred or a thousand times?’ He concedes that this would be much worse, but his point is that ‘you cannot modify [light] half the time without consequences.’ Few countries and cities are doing anything to lessen their light pollution, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

 

However, the approach of using LEDs may be doing more harm than good to the planet. ‘Technological advances such as LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, can improve our ability to reduce and better regulate lighting,’ says Bogard. ‘But these same new lights may actually make things worse because they contain heavy doses of a “blue-rich” white light that is especially disruptive to circadian rhythms.’ This was the conclusion of Falchi and others in a recent article from the Journal of Environmental Management, which noted that LEDs could ‘exacerbate known and possible unknown effects of light pollution on human health (and the) environment’ by more than five times.

 

Bogard asserts, ‘Scientists are investigating new ways to provide society with the lighting it demands for security, commerce, and aesthetics, while greatly reducing the flood of light that is increasingly interfering with human health and the ability of many creatures to function.’ Explaining France’s new lighting rules, Delphine Batho, who was, until recently, France’s environment minister, described the government’s desire to ‘change the culture’ to include responsible use of light. Bogard comments, ‘This change is to be applauded, for what increasing numbers of studies — as well as our own eyes — tell us is that we are using far more light than we need, and at tremendous cost.’

Categories: Excessive Lighting, France, human health, Light, light pollution, lighting, night, pollution, Regulations

Early Bird Energy: How to Get Up and Go, Go, Go

Maybe you’re a morning person, and maybe you’re not, but chances are the first moments in which you open your eyes aren’t your best. According to Matthew Edlund, MD, the director of the Gulf Coast Sleep Institute, in Sarasota, Florida, and the author of The Power of Rest: Why Sleep Alone Is Not Enough, ‘It can take up to two hours to get the brain fully alert.’ Still, your early morning energy levels are an important health concern, so let’s take a look at a few strategies to help you get going with a lot less grief.

 

1. Here comes the sun: While wandering around in the dark may seem preferable to assaulting your eyes with the vicious daylight, exposure to light tells your brain to stop producing melatonin – a hormone than induces sleepiness. Sunshine also helps your morning wellness because the light resets your brain’s suprachiasmatic nucleus, which controls your body’s circadian rhythms or 24-hour biological clock.

 

2. The long stretch: A few stretching exercises are always a good idea for your wellness, but first thing in the morning is really their time to shine. Edlund says, ‘the first physical activity of the day raises the body temperature and increases blood flow to your brain,’ so, once you’ve opened the curtains, try a few stretches in front of the window. (Make sure your PJs are presentable, just in case the neighbours see!)

 

3. Move along: As well as stretching, a good morning workout – including cardio and strength training – can help your energy levels soar. Gregory Florez, a spokesperson for the American Council on Exercise, in Salt Lake City, says, ‘Morning exercisers tend not to have midmorning slumps and are sharper mentally than if they hadn’t exercised.’ This is because a morning workout triggers feel-good endorphins and lowers elevated stress hormones, and this feeling can last you for up to eight hours.

 

4. The look of love: Jim Loehr, EdD, a cofounder of the Human Performance Institute, in Orlando, Florida, says that you find mornings especially difficult because your body is in survival mode; meeting basic needs of hunger and thirst. This makes your body feel like its under threat, which saps your energy. However, you can counteract the primal messages that you’re in some kind of danger by looking at something you love. Experience positive emotions, like hope and gratitude, by having anything you’d be grateful to see next to your bed, such as a treasured photo or flowers.

 

5. Shake it: While a regular routine seems like a good idea for that time of day when your brain isn’t functioning properly, shaking things up a bit can get your brain into gear. When you have novel experiences, your brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, which make you more alert. You don’t need to go bungee-jumping in your PJs; just do your ordinary activities with a twist; use your left hand to brush your teeth instead of your right, for example.

 

6. Heaven-scent: In your morning shower, get a bit scents-ual (sorry, I couldn’t help myself) with products containing citrus, eucalyptus, or mint aromas. Ann Marie Chiasson, a Tucson-based integrative-medicine physician, explains, ‘When you smell these scents, a surge of energy flows through the body, which clears the mind of clutter and gives you a quick lift.’ In fact, you can take a little bottle of peppermint oil to work, and put a few drops on a tissue and sniff later in the day for an energy boost.

 

7. Limit your options: According to a 2008 University of Minnesota study, students faced with multiple choices had less physical stamina and were more likely to procrastinate. So when choosing your outfit for the day, Barry Schwartz, PhD, a professor of psychology at Swarthmore College, in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, recommends limiting yourself to fewer than 10 options. Even better; pick your outfit the night before.

Categories: body, Brain, Early Morning, energy, energy levels, Light, Morning, morning workout, nbsp