Homes protect us from unfavorable outdoor weather. But at the same time, it should operate according to our natural biorhythm. Smart lighting can change to either boost or calm a person at the right time. The human body produces various hormones.
Serotonin is thought to be active in constructing muscles, and it contributes to wellbeing and happiness, among other things. Melatonin is often called the “sleep hormone”, as high levels help you fall asleep. It simply lets your body know it is night-time so you can relax and fall asleep easier.
For a moment, please forget which time zone you are in and focus only on your mood. What activity would you prefer to do right now? Do you feel refreshed mentally or physically? If you'd rather relax, don't mind, any honest answer is correct.
Now look at the clock and compare your mood with the following schedule.
(Source : Lékařská fyziologie, Ottomar Kitnar a kolektiv, Published by Grada Publishing, 2011, Prague)
According to a leading Czech physician from Charles University in Prague, a typical healthy human organism works like this. We are all a bit different, of course, so you're not the most awake at exactly 10:00 am, but sooner or even later. Some are ‘morning people’ who feel most active at that time of day whilst others are more active in the evening and at night, like an owl. The problem arises when we have our natural biorhythm completely thrown out.
Blue Light Disrupts Your Sleep and Affects Your Productivity
Unfortunately, excessive fatigue belongs to specific professions or comes from family responsibilities. For example, parents who are awakened many times during the night for their babies, workers in three-shift operation, or pilots and staff who frequently change time zones.
These people often suffer from sleep deprivation and the so-called disorder of the natural daily cycle. (It's more demanding to have to speed up biorhythm than delay biorhythm - that's why one can better tolerate long air journeys to the west than to the east.)
Passive houses disrupt our biorhythm because they operate in very limited modes . At night they shine either with bright white light or not at all. But nature, which has shaped us for millions of years, goes through a much wider variety of colors. In the morning and evening, daylight tends to be "warmer" (tuned to yellow or red), while in the middle of a cloudless day, "cooler" colours (white to blue) dominate.
The light color temperature is measured in Kelvins. For example, glowing coals can reach 1,200 K, while bright noon light is about 6,000 K. These "colours" affect our biorhythm and the production of hormones. Playing an important role in our mood is the above-mentioned serotonin and melatonin (although it also depends on the cortisol that wakes us up in the morning).
- Serotonin helps regulate mood and social behaviour, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory, and sexual desire and function.
- Melatonin levels start to rise in your body when it is dark outside, signaling to your body it is time to sleep. Conversely, light suppresses melatonin production. This is one way the body knows it is time to wake up in the morning.
The Smart Home Respects Our Biological Hours
There are many light colours between midday and night, our lives cannot be simply divided into waking and sleeping. We need a little time in the morning before we are ready for a quicker pace. And we usually rest in the evening even though we don't want to close our eyes yet. The Smart Home respects our natural “biological clock”. It changes the color temperature depending on whether we need to cheer or calm down. It takes care of its inhabitants automatically, intelligently, and tirelessly.
For example, when we wake up at night because we need a drink, we have only two options in an old passive house:
Stumbling through the darkness, and risking tripping or bumping into over something
Or turn on lights, with strong color, which affects our hormone production, and once we return to bed we find it hard to fall asleep.
In a smart home, you only need to lower your feet to the ground, where light-emitting diodes with the right color temperature will light up. Subtle lights will direct us to the kitchen, but will not disturb our biorhythm. So when we return to bed we fall asleep easily.
The smart house is not limited to bright light or full darkness, open windows, or exhaled air, AC x hot temperature. It responds to the challenges by intelligent integration. It protects us from outdoor weather, mimics natural light, air quality, or temperature that are natural to our body.
Smarteon's Tip: Rather LED than RGB lights
The theory looks simple, but in practice, it also depends on the technology used. For example, the so-called RGB model combines three colors: red, green and blue (RGB). So, even if we see a "warm" colour, it may include a "cool" blue component that inhibits the production of melatonin in our body.
For sensitive night lighting, let's use LED technology, which works as it looks (Light-Emitting Diodes). Yellow, orange, or reddish colour soothes because it does not contain hidden interfering elements. This technology can have various designs, for example in the form of flexible LED strips.
Blue light, which is emitted from smartphones, computers, and bright lights, may inhibit your sleep if you’re exposed to it at night.
If you have a history of sleeping problems, try reducing your exposure to blue light during the evenings.
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