Lack of light in the workplace reduces efficiency

Artificial lighting does not give enough light to keep the brain functioning: biological rhythms begin to work on dim office lighting like at dusk during sunset, reducing work capacity and increasing lethargy.

To maintain a working atmosphere in the office, cut through it additional windows.

Researchers from the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (Switzerland) have proved the hypothesis that the feeling of vivacity or drowsiness is dependent on the illumination of the room. Therefore, higher cognitive functions also depend on this: if you want to work energetically and with a spark, try to ensure the greatest inflow of light to your workplace.

It is known that biological rhythms are dependent on the change of day and night. In the eye of a person there are unique photoreceptors with pigment melanopsin: unlike rods and cones, they are not needed to transmit visual information, but to measure the degree of light around us. In particular, these receptors are sensitive to the blue spectrum of light; and it is precisely from these structures that the correspondence of the biological clock and the daily time depends. It would be logical to assume that the amount of light that enters our eye through the circadian rhythm is able to influence the work of our nervous system. However, can in this case an artificial source replace natural?

For the experience, scientists invited 29 young people. During the study, they were wearing bracelets with light sensors and motion sensors that recorded the activity of the participants in the experiment (speed of movement, overall mobility). In the first case, a person was placed in a room with an illumination of 1,000-2,000 lux, which corresponds to the natural dose of light. In the second case, the illumination was only 170 luxes - as in a room without windows, lit only by lamps. In addition to taking the readings of the sensors, the scientists were also interested in the subjects themselves, to what extent they are feeling brisk. By the end of the stay in the room, young people were almost completely disconnected from the light: the intensity of light fell to 6 lux. During the last 2 hours in a semi-dark room, volunteers took saliva samples in order to analyze the content of cortisol and melatonin hormones in them, the products of which are subject to circadian rhythm. In addition, in the course of the experiment, participants had to perform research for memory.

According to scientists in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, those who were in a more lit room were more energetic and mobile than those who sat in the room with artificial light. As soon as the illumination fell 10 times, people began to sleep, they became less energetic and performed cognitive tests worse. The authors of the work emphasize: it was not at all that the participants in the experiment were given or did not get to sleep. That is, even a well-rested person will feel apathetic if he has to work in a semi-dark kennel: his internal biological clock will see it as twilight and will prepare the body for sleep.

This result was not accompanied by changes in the level of hormones; in other words, illumination exerted a great influence only on certain functions of the organism, the daily rhythm of others remained the same. Of course, each of us can sometimes notice something like it - when after a long time in the twilight begins to tilt into sleep, and the hypothesis corresponding, as it was said, exists in science for a rather long time. However, paradoxical as it may seem, so far no one has been engaged in rigorous experimental confirmation of this theory.

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