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Lighting and Corporate Wellness | Employee Wellbeing Hong Kong

The benefits of natural lighting to employee well-being | Corporate Wellness

March 19, 2020

How can you achieve Corporate Wellness with correct lighting | Hong Kong

Lighting design in the office effects your employees wellness and performance.

Offices with deficient lighting negatively affect employees, especially when exposed to these conditions for long periods of time.

Light has direct impact on our physical and mental well-being. Inadequate lighting is associated with a range of ill-health effects, such as eye strain, headaches, fatigue, stress and anxiety in more high-pressured work environments and depression.

In humans, the circadian rhythm synchronizes certain behavioral and biological processes through a daily cycle, regulated by sunlight. The processes that the circadian rhythm regulates include sleep-wake behavior, hormone secretion, cellular function, and gene expression.

ipRGCs play a critical role to coordinate the circadian rhythm, ipRGCs are activated by light to release neurotransmitters such as monoamine, serotonin and dopamine. These neurotransmitters are responsible for a vast number of physiological and psychological functions including your mood! Notice how you feel happier on a sunny day? That is not a coincidence. In fact, important mechanisms of modern medicine used in the treatment of depression are made of these compounds.

Corporate Wellness Lighting Design Recommendations

Global physicians and the WELL standard recommend a minimum of four hours of natural sunlight per day.

 

In order to maximize access to natural daylight in office buildings, windowed areas can be used as common spaces such as cafeterias or collaboration spaces so that employees can come and go as they please. Alternatively, you may place enclosed offices along the margin of a floor plan with transparent or low gradient glass walls to ensure daylight may still reach the rest of the office.

 

Artificial lighting not only can enhance a space but if strategically placed and set to automatic adjustment can harmonize with the amount of natural solar glare that is coming in via the windows throughout the day, hence improving productivity by enhancing visual acuity and minimizing strain.

Lighting and Workplace Wellness Facts

Employee well-being can be greatly improved by natural lighting and consciously placed artificial lighting. This will help align employees’ natural circadian rhythms, minimize fatigue during the day, minimize eye tension and head headaches while improving quality of sleep at night.

Reach out to us today to schedule a talk/workshop/seminar with our WELL AP and find out how your organisation and your employees can further improve their health and wellness within you’re office space.

Please email info@livevexia.com for more information.