6 Lighting Hacks for a Healthy Lifestyle

Chances are, you put in the time and effort to make your home a comfortable, healthy, and relaxing space. But one thing that can often be overlooked is lighting for the home. Healthy lighting not only makes your home look better, but it can actually help improve circadian rhythm, reduce stress, and boost overall personal and home wellness.

If you’re looking to improve the lighting in your space, we'll help get you started with these home lighting ideas:

1. Use dimmable lights

The intensity of your lighting can have a bigger impact on how you feel than you may realize. When light is set at higher intensities, it can be stimulating, which is great for day, but bad for night. Most SAD (seasonal affective disorder) lamps use light intensity because of its stimulating properties. So, if you want your body to wind down, dim the lights and use a light designed for evening use.

2. Distribute light evenly

In order to avoid tiring out your eyes, it’s important to distribute light evenly throughout your home. It takes some time for your eyes to adjust to light, so keeping one room dark and then one room bright will cause your eyes to work harder.

Instead, choose to light your home the same way throughout. Once again, dimmable lights are a good option to help with this. If you choose not to use dimmable lights, add more lighting in rooms of the house with fewer windows and less natural lighting to help distribute the light evenly.

3. Choose energy efficient bulbs

If you’re not currently using energy efficient bulbs, this should be one of the first lighting swaps you make. Energy efficient bulbs not only reduce the amount of energy you’re using, but also last longer and shine brighter.

All of Brilli’s lights have the Energy Star rating for energy efficiency. By choosing energy efficient bulbs, you’re not only improving your home’s lighting, but putting more money in your wallet which can reduce financial stress and help the environment.

4. Coordinate your lights for the time of day

Your circadian rhythm is your internal clock that controls a variety of functions—your sleep, metabolism, and much more. Most importantly, it’s cued by sunrise and sunset. To help our circadian rhythm, it’s a good idea to create circadian lighting for the home. This can be done with lighting that changes color and intensity throughout the day.

Look for lighting that mimics the sun, with cool light in the mornings, warm light in the afternoon, and amber light in the evening. Our Get in Sync collection simulates the effects of sunrise to sunset, making it a healthy home lighting option.

5. Avoid eye strain with focused lighting

When working from home, doing your makeup, or focusing on a certain task, you want to make sure you’re in a well-lit area. By working in bright light, you can help reduce eyestrain.

Brilli’s Well Bright Spectrum also helps you focus on these tasks by providing the right type of blue light to increase activity and improve productivity at home. The Charge Up collection would be a good option to light your desk or vanity, as these bulbs provide natural energy, focus, and alertness. You could place these bulbs overhead to illuminate the entire room, or simply put them in a desk lamp or other small lamps throughout your space. All of Brilli’s light bulbs also reduce flicker, which helps decrease eye strain and minimize headaches.

6. Reduce blue light at night

These days, we are exposed to endless amounts of blue light from our phones, computer screens, and even the natural daylight. The eyes are not very good at blocking out blue light, which can negatively impact our circadian rhythms. High energy visible light (HEVL) is the blue light emitted by most electronics, and can contribute to eye strain and premature aging.

Another type of blue light, in the 450-500 nanometer range, suppressed Melatonin, and is fine during the day, but not good at night.

At Brilli, we’ve designed our Wind Down bulbs so that they can help reduce blue light exposure. At 2700K and below, our lights have lower levels of blue light. This can help reduce stress and create a more relaxing environment and reduce melatonin disruption, prompting your body to prepare for sleep.