Summary
This systematic review demonstrates that lighting conditions — particularly timing, intensity, and color temperature — measurably affect thermoregulatory physiology and subjective thermal comfort, with evening light delaying core body temperature decline and warmer-spectrum light creating perceptions of a warmer environment. Lighting designers and building engineers should consider light parameters as an integrated component of indoor climate design, not just visual comfort.
Key Findings
- Evening light exposure reduces melatonin secretion and delays the natural decline in core body temperature (CBT) while slowing the increase in distal skin temperature.
- Morning bright light accelerates melatonin decline, enabling a faster rise in core body temperature — relevant to workplace and healthcare morning lighting protocols.
- Light with color tones toward the red end of the spectrum produces a warmer thermal perception compared to bluish light tones, suggesting CCT can influence perceived thermal comfort independently of actual temperature.
- Many findings on light's effects on thermal responses remain inconclusive, and a unifying theoretical framework is largely absent.
Categories
Sleep & Circadian Health: Light exposure affects melatonin secretion, core body temperature decline, and distal skin temperature changes across morning and evening conditions.
The Science of Light: Examines how light intensity and correlated color temperature (CCT) influence thermophysiological responses and thermal perception through non-visual pathways.
Author(s)
K Tuip
Related Publications
Sleep & Circadian Health
- Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock
- The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks
- The two‐process model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal
- Melanopsin is required for non-image-forming photic responses in blind mice
- Strange vision: ganglion cells as circadian photoreceptors
The Science of Light
- Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock
- Color appearance models
- The mammalian circadian timing system: organization and coordination of central and peripheral clocks
- Diminished pupillary light reflex at high irradiances in melanopsin-knockout mice
- Melanopsin is required for non-image-forming photic responses in blind mice