1. Make sure to get enough natural light (i.e. sunlight) during the day – Do you want to feel as happy as often as you can without relying on artificial uppers or chemicals? Just expose yourself to sunlight. Lots of it. Exposure to sunlight is said to increase levels of serotonin which is a hormone in the brain thought to be responsible for boosting our mood. A lack of exposure to sun lowers the level of serotonin in the brain which can lead to serious conditions like seasonal affective disorder (SAD) which tends to affect people more when nights are longer and days are shorter, usually around wintertime. That’s why people like working next to windows, eat meals on a rooftop deck or outdoor patio, or sleep in bedrooms with large windows. Having natural light is just a huge energy booster for many people, which is why summer tends to be a favourite time of year for many as there’s the added benefit of being able to get together with other people, play games outdoors, or simply be able to sit on a bench in a park or a garden to relax and enjoy the sun on your face. Which is why you need to put your desk closer to a window in case you work from home, rather than putting it inside a closet or den that doesn’t have any windows that let in natural light. Having sunlight exposure is great for just making you feel happier and more energetic. Except if your bedroom is facing east, which can wake you up with the morning rays (which some people like while others don’t) or if your work area faces south (or west), which means that you’ll be roasted alive at midday in the late afternoon. So a bit of sunlight is good, but not too much that it affects your sleep, your work or your day to day existence.
2. Check to see if you have too much white light at home – Cool white lights with a bluish tinge are associated with workplaces, as they exist to help you stay awake and be as productive as you can be. Which is why having them in places where you’re supposed to relax can make it difficult to be able to do so. Wondering why you can’t slow down and disconnect at the end of a long workday? Check your living room lights in case that’s where you try and unwind. Maybe you have too much white light that makes your body and brain feels like it’s still at work. Make sure to change them to warmer (i.e. more yellow) colored bulbs. White lights are also effective in retail environments like clothing boutiques, supermarkets and electronics and appliance stores as you need to be able to see what you’re buying. When you have them in dining rooms, they can be a bit too bright. Think about restaurant lighting. That’s the same colour (i.e. yellow) and intensity that you should be using in your dining room as you’ll be having members of family sharing stories, relating future plans, events of the day, exchanging ideas, or just trading gossip. It’s much harder to just relax and feel at ease when you’re using factory-grade (i.e. bluish white) lighting. Bedrooms are another place where you want to relax and be able to sleep quickly, so unless you like to read a lot or have weak eyesight, I like to recommend yellowish light in this area rather than cool blue light like the one pictured below emanating from a CFL bulb.
3. Get more sunlight when the skies turn grey and the weather turns cold – Does the cold weather and grey weather get you down? Don’t worry, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) affects only 9.7% of the population as the lack of sunlight can affect people’s sleep patterns and can have an overall negative impact on their well being. One of the ways that people deal with the winter blues is to buy a SAD lamp or light box to help ease any depressive tendencies. A client of mine moved back permanently to Cagayan de Oro in the Philippines as he really couldn’t stand the cold winter months in Vancouver, B.C. where he and his wife had lived for almost 3 decades. If you find relocating a bit too extreme, you can always follow the annual winter migration of snow birds who spend a few weeks (or the entire winter season) in a warmer locale like Hawaii, North Africa or Southern Spain. People get a huge boost from being exposed to warm, sunny weather that being deprived of it continuously for several months can really cause a severe mood change. Another way to combat depression during the winter season is to lace up those running shoes and go for a brisk walk or a run. Research shows that physical activity outdoors can help control SAD. My wife and I walk twice a day – once after lunch and again after dinner – to give ourselves a natural mood boost. And we do this regardless of the weather as we have an established daily routine that incorporates walking. We also have lots of ceiling and table lamps that use yellow-tinged bulbs that we keep on throughout the day (especially during winter months) to simulate natural daylight. It goes a long way in helping us fight off the blues especially between November to February when the nights are longer and temperatures hover close to zero degrees celsius.
4. Use the right light for productivity – What kind of light are you using for your work area? Is it a ceiling mounted white light? That may not be enough. Make sure that you have a desk lamp with a 75W – 100W equivalent LED bulb, which are more energy efficient and long lasting than any incandescent or CFL (compact fluorescent) bulb. And then you can even add a floor lamp that sits on a corner behind you for good measure. When you have all three (ceiling, desk, & floor lamp) switched on, especially in the early morning while it’s still dark and during evenings when the sun has gone down, you’ll be assured of having enough light to guide you through your work. Once the day unfolds and more light streams through your windows, you can switch off the ceiling light and floor lamp in one corner and rely solely on your desk lamp. If you like to do a bit of work in the living room, make sure that you also have two lamps positioned at both ends of the sofa that you can switch on so that you’re not relying solely on the blue light of your laptop screen to work. I actually recommend having up to 4 table lamps in a living room (or a combination of 2 table lamps and 2 floor lamps) in addition to recessed ceiling lights. One can never have too much light in any room, in my professional opinion. If you find the room too bright, you can always lower the wattage (or lumens) from 100W equivalent to 75W if you find the room to be too bright when everything is switched on. Or you can just switch on as many (or as little as you want). When you have a vareity of light fixtures at your disposal, you can always control how many of them you want turned on as opposed to not having enough light available and ending up with a room that is too dim, which can have a negative impact on your mental and physical health. Underlighted work areas are a common problem not just in homes, but in schools and offices and cause eye strain and headaches, which in turn lower productivity.
5. Do you have enough windows to let in natural light – Want the best source of light that allows you to pay less in electricity bills? Choose a space that has a lot of huge picture windows, with one window on every wall preferably. There is no better cure for depression than having lots of natural light. If you have few (or no windows) you will to rely more on artificial sources of light to illuminate different rooms of your house. When you’re sleeping it’s important to have one or two windows for good cross ventilation and also to help regulate your body’s circadian rhythm to enable you to sleep more soundly. Not having any windows, or having too-small windows is akin to being in a jail cell. Sunlight is one of the cheapest and most effective sources of Vitamin D, which is why exposing ourselves to as much of it as we can is good for our mental and physical health. Living rooms feel more spacious and more open when you have expansive views of the outdoors via huge picture windows like in the space pictured below. A number of downtown condo apartments feature floor to ceiling (or almost 8 feet high) windows which makes a space feel like to stretches out to forever. In fact, my first apartment as an interior designer after moving out of my parent’s house was a 500 sqft one-bedroom one-bathroom apartment in Milan that I shared with a roommate. It was small but didn’t feel that way as it had 12 foot high ceilings that featured walls with 8 foot high windows. It’s a useful camouflage (apart from higher ceilings) that builders all over the world employ to hide the fact that the space that they’ve created is a lot smaller than it really is. And the interesting thing is that it works quite effectively. People feel happier in small spaces that feature large windows compared to large spaces have have few and/or small windows, which can make any space feel dark and oppressive. You’d have to be using lots of artificial light to illuminate the entire place, making it feel like a factory or retail space, which are fully enclosed boxes that overrely on man-made light fixtures to simulate daylight. If you’re in the process of shopping for (or building) a home, you may want to consider putting in as many windows as you can in as large a size as you can for the sake of your mental & physical health.
