The human biorhythm and daylight
With the first rays of sunshine in the morning, the day begins regularly for billions of people. Man has become accustomed in his evolution to the daylight and its very different effects as well as to the natural day-night rhythm. Many processes in the organism were adapted to this tact. In the annual time change, each of us can empathize with our own body, how much this rhythm defines our well-being. Our organism is depending on this circadian (daily rhythmic, well-rehearsed) rhythm and acts accordingly.
Hormone levels, blood pressure, mood and motivation change according to the internal clock and thus influence our health and well-being. In the past 100 years, humans have created a global 24-hour society, contrary to the natural day-and-night rhythm. In our modern civilization, the light no longer ends in the evening and the electric light defines our lives to a very high degree today. This apparent independence of time of day is, as we know today, extremely critical. A problem that is being dealt with in “Human Centric Lighting” or “biologically effective light”.
So light seems to be the clock of our biological clock. But how does it assert its influence on humans?
Since the millennium we know that light affects us even more than we thought until then. Lighting should therefore always be oriented to the natural daylight and be integrated into the course of the day. The essential aspect is the biological effect of light on our biological clock and the associated emotional and psychological effects on our body.