Bring More Positive Energy Into Your Life Using Lighting

Positive lighting may sound like a pseudo-science term but what we are going to talk about is simply how you can bring more positive energy into your life using lighting. At the end of the day we are all visual beings, so the amount of light we receive as well as the lighting of the objects around us always have either a physical or a psychological effect on us.

There are lots of people who believe and claim that they feel better in the dark and while this isn’t necessarily always wrong – people can prefer different levels of brightness around them – even the most dedicated goth kid needs a certain amount of natural light in his or her light. And this easily brings us to the first point on how to bring more positivity into your life with lighting:

Maximize your exposure to natural sunlight

Like it or not, sunlight is important for your health. Your personal preferences aside, your physical body simply requires minimal exposure of at least several hours of direct sunlight to function. Sunlight enhances vitamin D, beta-endorphin and serotonin production in our bodies, as well as the nitric oxide production in the brain. It also reduces the excess melatonin production and improves our sleep cycles.

And yes, we realize that “several hours” sounds unattainable for a lot of people – we have to work all throughout the day, usually in offices or in other enclosed buildings, we need cars and public transport to move around since we don’t have time to walk around, and at the end of the day we are often too tired to even just take a short walk in the park. And while all this is true, the fact remains that we need sunlight to live, so even if you don’t have enough time to be outdoors, it’s important to at least have enough direct natural sunlight coming in your workplace. That’s largely why having big, clear windows is one of the best things you can do for your home or office.

If you can’t do even that then you will at the risk of quickly developing any of the numerous different health problems related to not receiving enough sunlight. And while taking vitamin D and other food supplements can help, there is no real substitute for your health and positive mood than direct sunlight.

Positive psychological effects

In addition to our physical need for natural sunlight, light – even if it is artificial – can have a lot of positive psychological effects on your life. A well-managed natural light or cleverly installed artificial lighting can make our homes and workplaces feel more welcoming and comforting. It can give them a more spacious feeling by revealing corners and sides that were before left unlit, plus it can also accent a lot of the great spots and decorations around us that we might otherwise ignore. There is an almost endless amount of possibilities when it comes to this but here are some of the main way lighting can bring more positive energy into your life aside from our physical need for sunlight:

• Both natural and artificial lighting can make our homes or workplaces feel more open and spacious by lighting the corners and ends that would otherwise remain unnoticed in the shadows.
• Cleverly used artificial lighting can give your home or workplace a much richer feeling as the light itself will become a “thing” that’s there. And if said lighting fixtures are actually nice and pleasant to look at that they will be nice “things” to have.
• Accent and decorative lighting can be used to shine a light on other cool things you might have in your living or work spaces. Things such as flowers, decorative trees, paintings, and small statues, as well as other decorative items can often become easy to ignore once we get used to them. Especially after dark, such things can become barely noticeable under a simple ceiling lamp, but accent lighting can bring them back to light, so to speak. This may seem superfluous and insignificant, but the simple fact of the matter is that even if we don’t consciously care for such things, subconsciously we feel better when there are more nice and pretty things around us. After all, a person doesn’t need to be shallow to enjoy looking at pretty things.
• Adding some more lighting fixtures into your home can also improve your mood by making your life easier. Having extra lighting in the bathroom, for example, doesn’t just make it look prettier but it also has the practical effect of helping your grooming and make-up needs. Having a bedside lamp is another great idea even if you don’t have the habit of reading in bed – it gives you the options of turning the lights on in your bedroom without getting up and so on. In short, lighting fixtures can be a great “quality of life” improvements by making our day-to-day activities easier and more pleasant.

Now, obviously, most of these tips will work only if they work in conjunction with an overall good interior design in your home or workplace. You can’t install a good accent lighting fixture below a decorative plant if you don’t have a decorative plant at your disposal. The thing about light is that it reveals the things it touches so if there is nothing pretty or cool in your home to shine a light on then some of these tips might backfire. But while we can’t give you advice on how to design your entire home we can categorically claim that increasing the natural light and adding more artificial light to an otherwise well-designed place can drastically improve it in a lot of different ways.