Recently I came across a news article about plans in New York city to switch off lights at night (LAN). http://luxreview.com/article/2015/05/new-york-mulls-nighttime-lighting-ban-for-40-000-office-buildings. It was heartening to read that article, but the reasoning for this move is an absurd one. For saving energy! If that is the case, it will not be long when some authority will talk about switching off lights even in daytime.

The real reason for switching off lights at night should be that it is beneficial to our health and that of our children. What we do not realize is the fact that light is an electromagnetic radiation from the sun.

Every photon of light that reaches our eye was born in the core of the sun and 'cooked' in the sun's core for millions of years before escaping the sun's surface. Though it takes only 8 minutes for every photon of light to travel from the sun's surface to earth, it takes millions of years for these photons to travel from the core to the surface. So every ray of light that we see today was created millions of years of ago and for every second we absorb this potent radiation through our eyes, skin and breath, we would only be increasing our health manifold.

In ancient times, we were under the sun for most of the day absorbing around 100000 units of light, every second. Even today, the same 100000 units of light is still shining outside but we are indoors under 500 units of light every second and trying hard to stay awake!

And at night we used to have only 0.1 unit of light and now are exposed to more than 200 units of light at night.

We are being herded into buildings, by fear mongers, scaring us about UV radiation. For centuries, farmers of every skin type and color have toiled under the sun without any adverse effects, because they slept well in the night, which helped the body repair itself of any damage from UV radiation. But today, there is a thriving economy of creams and cancers to prevent us from absorbing this life nourishing source. Lower lighting levels in the day and higher lighting levels at night is creating poor sleeping habits for many of our generations. Our poor sleeping habits, nowadays, are the main cause of health issues rather than being under the sun, as our body is unable to repair itself.

What did we do before the invention of electric lights? How did we welcome the invention of electric lights?

History is always distorted for political, religious and commercial compulsions of that time in history. In spite of Arctarius proposing a heliocentric model, with the earth rotating the sun, for more than 1500 years, the geocentric model, with the sun rotating the earth, was the belief system. And the supporters of heliocentric model like Kepler and Galileo were persecuted.

Our current belief system that light does not impact our health seems to be a similarly forced misconception. We had to be convinced that electrical lighting is not harmful to humans nor does it affect the soundness of sleep. The "Electric Light History" (http://www.iar.unicamp.br/lab/luz/ld/Hist%F3ria/Electric%20Lighting%20History.pdf) vividly captures this propaganda through decades, slowly making us believers in indiscriminate use of electrical lighting. After positioning the electrical light bulb as a replacement for the Sun through various ads, (refer the link above), finally, the use of light at night is promoted through this advertisement below.

I searched the meaning for "recondite", and in the context of the above ad, it means           "incomprehensible to one of ordinary understanding or knowledge". A doctor is portrayed as a person of "ordinary understanding or knowledge" while the customer who is using the bulb to read a book in the night is portrayed as an intelligent person. Fast forward this belief system to our current day and we do not even think twice, when we switch on a light at night (LAN).

Being a lighting consultant, I do understand the contribution of electrical lighting to the prosperity of many generations. But what is disturbing is the fact that we were made to believe that lights at night (LAN) is not harmful for our health and that artificial light is a true replacement for natural sunlight. Every research is implicating inappropriate lighting levels and color tones at inappropriate time of  the day and night as the main cause of many of our lifestyle diseases like obesity, stress, ADHD, depression, diabetes, heart problems etc.       

In spite of knowing intuitively from 1900s that light affects our circadian clocks and sleep, we have continued to use light only to light up our tasks, completely ignoring its impact on our sleep and health.

Notable among many researchers who argued against the use of light at night (LAN), is Dr. Charles Czeisler, who is a Baldino professor sleep medicine at Harvard medical school, sleep consultant to NASA, CIA among other positions. He testified in the Michael Jackson death case that, loss of sleep over 60 days could have eventually proved fatal for the singer. http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/21/showbiz/jackson-death-trial/

In his article in May 2013 issue of Nature, Dr. Charles Czeisler says, "It is time to reassess the early assurances of Thomas Edison that using electric light “is in no way harmful to health, nor does it affect the soundness of sleep”.

I was curious about the time when electric lighting could have proved to be too important for political and commercial reasons. It is during this research that I came across the electric lighting history pdf and other resources. I also chanced upon this below picture.

Edison is supposed to have remarked several times about the time we waste in sleeping. Though he worked late nights, he also seems to have had 2 power naps of 2 hours each during the daytime. Looking at the body language of these three personalities, lots of conspiracy theories were running through my mind, but I prefer to keep it to myself. It is not fair to judge them from a single photo and I am not a body language expert. You draw your own conclusions.

What matters most is the fact that most of us cannot afford two power naps in the day, that the inventor of electric bulb could afford. So, most of us reach out to coffee or energy drinks to drive away our sleep deficit only to add fuel to the fire.

It is in this context that the decision to switch off lights at night in buildings seems to be a step in the right path. I hope that as a society, we respect our biological day and night and plan our activities accordingly.

This is possible, even for shift workers, when they create a lighting stimulus around them, which signals the time of the day and night, but in reverse. Just like being someone on the other side of the earth. There could be several offices and hospital that need to work at night, penalizing them for using lights at night for wasting energy, would be downright hilarious.

Instead, educating people to avoid inappropriate lighting conditions at inappropriate times of the day and night could prove effective and beneficial  to all stakeholders. 

So, go New York! Lead the world.

What do you think? Share your comments below.

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I aim to spread awareness on the subject of Healthy Lighting designs to facilitate co-creation of healthy lighting at home, work and other social spaces. My posts can be accessed at Archinect  and Linkedin Group. I also have a self published book "Healthy Lighting of your Homes" at Amazon.