How sunlight affects human productivity?

still from the animated series "Rick and Morty"

How well a person thinks and feels as a whole, largely depends on the surrounding conditions. Imagine that you daily have to work in a stuffy basement with the usual incandescent lamp — once it becomes somehow not on itself, isn't it? That is why large companies like Facebook are trying to provide its employees a clean and well-lit offices with large Windows. In multiple studies, scientists have found a strong relationship between the level of natural lighting in offices and productivity of people. As the results of new scientific work conducted by scientists of the U.S. state of South Carolina, of natural light not only helps to quickly and efficiently deal with the work, but also greatly improves night sleep. But how does the sun glow so to affect us?

Use of the sun

Basically, sunlight is useful because it helps our body to produce vitamin D. Getting on our skin, ultraviolet radiation from the sun run into the human skin, the chemical processes resulting in the formation cholecalciferol (the vitamin D). In itself this substance is not active — at first it penetrates through the bloodstream to the kidneys and liver, and then converted to the active substance calcitriol.

the Sun is so distant, but we really need the star

The above calcitriol plays a key role in the uptake of another important day in our body substance — calcium. This chemical element is responsible for bone strength, and speed of information transfer in the brain. As a result, staying in conditions of natural lighting people are more physically strong and understands better than those who work in enclosed spaces and rarely sees sunlight.

sunlight strengthens not only the body but also the spirit.

In the course of scientific studies, scientists have found that in rare contact with sunlight, people are more suffering from high blood pressure and joint pain. Calcium, of course, you can obtain from foods such as milk, eggs and fish, but this does not relieve a person from having at least a few hours in the day to be on the street. Excessive consumption of dairy products or special preparations, can occur an excess of calcium, which leads to intense thirst, nausea, weakness and frequent urination. Generally, it is important to know the measure.

How to improve sleep?

Recently, American researchers found that in addition to productivity at work, natural light also provides people longer and more sound sleep. According to the data, this was proven in the course of a little experiment conducted in one of the offices of the English city of Durham.

Here is one of the premises of Google's headquarters. Cool Windows, right?

The Researchers chose two equal size office spaces and made two changes. On Windows first office was established blinds that prevent sunlight to enter the room. At other office Windows were covered with a special film that freely passes solar rays, but prevent to form glare, which can interfere with when working with computers. We had two offices: one dark and the other light.

If you long to work in an office with artificial light, it is possible to become like the character in "Fight club"

Two groups of office workers have worked in these areas for one week and the second week changed offices. All this time, the researchers carefully monitored their health. Basically, they were interested in how long and how soundly they sleep. In collecting these data helped them bracelets to monitor physical activity of people during the night.

After the experiment, and compare the performance of sleep, scientists made a very interesting discovery. It turned out that while working in a bright room, people slept every night for 37 minutes more. No, they're not late for work — just their sleep was much deeper and allowed the organism to better prepare for the new day. Also, in the course of the study, employees daily to solve puzzles — the staff of light office has improved its results every day. Overall, by the end of the week, their mental abilities improved by 42%.

the quality of sleep is influenced by many factors, including the amount of sunlight received by the day

Here you have two evidence that natural light is beneficial to human health. Just remember that sunlight can't be long, especially between 12 and 15 p.m., when ultraviolet rays are particularly dangerous. Under the open sky definitely need to wear sunglasses and cover most of the body clothing, headgear is also required.

Scientists often conduct research on the effects of light on the human body. There is a myth that blue light from the screens of smartphones can greatly affect the mode of the day. Recently, my colleague AlexanderBogdanov dispelled this myth, but spoke of another danger of blue light. Recommended reading was very interesting.