Is Bad Lighting Hurting You? : How Lighting Affects Athletes

Athletic success is earned with every

ounce of weight lifted, every drop of water hydrated with and every inch of flexiblity your body can unlock. One lackluster practice can determine if you make the crucial play in a playoff game or fall short to the groans of thousands of fans. One missed night of sleep can be the difference in gaining the muscle your body needs or remaining stuck on a plateau. By now you have probably worked out your diet, your workout routine, practice schedule and necessary rest time.

You can monitor your diet down to the last calorie. You can measure the weight you lift, minutes and repetitions in each practice. There isn't much you can't place a number on in your daily habits.

So what is costing your athletic performance that can't be measured?

What's keeping you from the next level?

There's a good chance that the light your body is receiving is costing you more than you think.

Our body runs on an internal 24 hour clock known as our Circadian Rhythm. Through this system the brain uses the light our eyes process to release serotonin, melatonin, growth hormone and many other natural hormones we need to function, recover, react to stressors and avoid illness.

How much light and the quality of that lighting can affect your body more than you realize. The light of the sun changes throughout the day which sends signals to your brain to release or withhold certain hormones. The bright daylight hours produce a 5000-6000K blue light that tells your brain to pause release of melatonin (used for sleep) and to increase the release of seratonin (used for energy and positively effects mood). As the day progresses, the sunlight quality changes from a vibrant 6000K blue light to a richer, 3000K red-based light. Our eyes see this form of sunlight as a vibrant orange. This light relaxes our eyes more and our brain begins to pause the production of seratonin and begins to release melatonin to prepare our body for a long and healthy sleep.

Most home lighting that you buy at the store releases only the 5000K plus blue lighting. This fits in quite well during the high daylight hours when your eyes are already tuned to recieve this light on schedule for it's Circadian Rhythm. But in the afternoon, when your internal clock needs to begin winding down and beginning melatonin production, the blue light continues from your kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom.

Your Circadian Rhythm doesn't stand a chance.

And here's where it could be hurting you.

1. Sleep Loss

When your brain halts production of melatonin, your sleep is affected in three ways:

1. It takes you longer to get to sleep.

2. Your sleep quality goes down.

3. Your sleep duration goes down.

Muscle production through muscle fiber repair , fat loss through your metabolism and mental alertness all plummet when sleep loss occurs. For athletes, who undergo higher levels of muscle damage, stress and calorie intake for recovery, these effects are felt to an even greater extreme.

As many body builders have been known to say : Sleep is the number one necessity to production.

2. Illness and Injury

It doesn't matter how talented you are if you can't stay healthy. Circadian disruption harms your body's production of infection fighting antibodies and immune system response. This opens you up to getting sick more frequently and for longer durations. The same flu that your teammate was able to fight off could have you stuck in bed for half the week and struggling through workouts for the rest of the week. The sleep loss that we discussed earlier causes failure in your muscles to fully recover from workloads. Muscles put under increasing stress with less recovery make the chances of injury increase dramatically over time.

3. Eyesight

The light your eyes take in plays a large role in the health of your vision over all. Theres a reason our parents warned us not to read in the dark or stand too close to the television after all.

High levels of blue light from screens and the average household light causes the eye to strain increasing headaches, blurred vision and can even lead to damaged photoreceptor cells in the retina and macular degeneration over long periods of time.

As an athlete, losing your vision is a costly price to pay for overlooking the quality and amount of light your eyes are getting.

So What Can I Do?

1. Sunlight

Rising early enough to get morning sunlight into your eyes has been proven to wake you up more efficiently and get your body into the right 24 hour cycle to have proper daytime energy and feel naturally tired towards sundown to promote long lasting deep sleep. The natural sunlight will also give your body natural vitamin D which will promote the production of serotonin and fight infection as well.

Multiple studies done by the National Institute of Health and other organizations have proven the positive effects of direct sunlight on overall health and recovery.

2. Circadian Lighting

Circadian lighting in the home is a relatively new technology. Most homes have a standard, LED light that emits a white light that has low color value and is not adjustable in its brightness. Circadian lighting will self adjust according to the time of day by offering a warmer light in the mornings and evenings and brighter blue light in the late morning, early afternoon time to match the light value and brightness that the sun is emitting outside. This allows a seamless transition from indoors to outdoors and gives your eyes the natural circadian rhythm it needs to keep you healthy and rested to perform at your peak.

3. Phones, Computers and Screens

All the good light habits in the world can't help your eyes and health if you lay down in bed at night and scroll on a bright blue screen until three in the morning.

Many elite athletes will "go dark" after certain times of day or even for multiple days and weeks at a time when it comes to blue light emitting screen. Some even go so far as to purchase screen covers and glasses that filter out the blue light from these devices.

Having a routine of when to shut down screentime in the home will help you sleep easier and reduce the amount of bad habits associated with screentime at night such as doomscrolling and other wastes of productivity.

Light Equals Performance

The light your body receives on an everyday basis means more time in the weight room, on the field and in the gym rather than on the bench or in bed.

It means greater performance output based on a strong foundation of muscle recovery, natural energy, better vision and mental alertness.

Get the most out of your body with sunlight, installing better lighting in your house, and setting restrictions your screen use at night!