How Natural Daylight Elevates Occupants’ Health and Productivity

Americans spend up to 90% of their time indoors, according to a recent report, a metric that only climbs this time of year when people gravitate indoors during harsh winter weather. Indoor-centric lifestyles unfortunately take a cumulative toll on humans’ psychological and physical wellbeing. Research-driven data reveals that lack of sunlight exposure from excessive time indoors leads to sleep disruption, reduced cognitive function, and increased anxiety and depression.

This underscores the imperative for buildings to deliver consistent access to daylight that is paramount for human health. A host of research confirms that natural daylight promotes a myriad of benefits for occupants’ mental health, cognitive and physical performance, and overall wellness. 

With more people spending nearly all their time inside, it is incumbent on architects to design human-centric environments that distribute abundant, high-quality daylight indoors, in order to alleviate the negative effects of indoor lifestyles and directly supply daylight’s quantifiable advantages for health and comfort.

Daylight Benefits Both Brain and Body

Natural daylight plays a critical role for human health at a biological level.

Exposure to natural daylight triggers the body’s release of serotonin, a neurotransmitter responsible for elevating happiness and overall calmness. Increased serotonin translates to superior overall health outcomes, according to the Cleveland Clinic, including improved digestion and bone growth.

Natural daylight also significantly supports mental and emotional health. Daylight exposure heightens the body’s cortisol level, a crucial steroid hormone involved with maintaining blood pressure and alleviating stress and anxiety. Electric lighting doesn’t achieve the same result. A study reported that 75% of individuals with anxiety disorders found fluorescent lighting negatively affected their mental state, especially triggering memories of past unpleasant environments.

An additional study reveals that natural daylight also regulates and maintains consistent circadian rhythms, the body’s internal mechanism for critical sleep-wake patterns throughout a 24-hour cycle. This leads to more robust sleep quality, which not only enhances mood and focus, but also lowers the risk of chronic health issues such as heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

These findings strongly indicate that increasing occupants’ access to natural daylight actively contributes to their physical and mental health.

Improved Productivity in Offices and Schools

Natural daylight exposure also promotes success in two settings where humans spend most of their lives: work and school.

From offices to warehouses, daylight plays a pivotal role in employees’ performance and comfort. The human eye sees better in natural daylight because it offers a full spectrum of light that improves eye focus, supporting workers with critical visual tasks. A study even discovered that workers in daylit environments reported an 84% drop in eye strain, headaches and blurred vision symptoms.

Bright light additionally activates regions of the brain that elevate alertness, memory and cognitive function, all funneling into enhanced and more effective job performance. In fact, workers with greater exposure to daylight reported heightened vitality and better sleep quality than those in windowless spaces.

The absence of natural daylight can conversely hinder work performance. A lack of daylight exposure disrupts night shift workers’ circadian rhythms and impairs overall cognition.

Research further links naturally illuminated settings to improved academic performance. In a study of 21,000 American elementary school students, those exposed to more daylight daily demonstrated 26% higher reading results and 20% higher math results than students exposed to less sunlight.  

For work and learning environments, this research clearly illustrates how daylighting strategies enhance occupants’ engagement and comfort, enabling them to deliver optimal performance.

Supporting Recovery

Whether struggling with a cold or recovering from surgery, natural daylight can help expedite healing.

As natural daylight impacts the body’s melatonin production throughout the day to promote optimal sleep patterns, this delivers undisturbed, healthful sleep that plays a significant factor in superior patient outcomes. Health care professionals cite high-quality, natural sleep as vital for muscle and tissue repair, as well as cell regeneration and immune system support.

Natural daylight’s promotion of serotonin production further accelerates healing, by advancing blood clotting and stimulating skin cell growth for tissue repair.

Healthcare facilities observe this pivotal effect among patients. A study based on 15 years of medical data found that hospital patients with beds next to a window had shorter hospital stays than those with beds located by doors, potentially due to increased daylight exposure.

This research-driven data reveals that maximizing natural daylight in settings with ill or injured occupants can measurably bolster the healing process.

Benefits to Athletic Performance

Natural daylight exposure can even improve athletic performance.

Whether in gyms, arenas or recreation centers, natural daylight provides a marked edge for those engaged in rigorous exercise. Daylight triggers nitric oxide release, a gas molecule that signals blood vessels to relax and widen, leading to heightened cardiovascular function, accelerated recovery and sharper reflexes. Daylight further optimizes athletic achievement in driving serotonin production, directly elevating focus and mood that fosters superior physical effort.

An additional study found higher exposure to morning light resulted in significantly greater sleep time and quality among professional athletes, which directly benefits athletes’ energy restoration and recovery from injury. A consistent internal clock also ensures athletes remain alert at peak competition and training periods.

Studies even link daylight exposure to healthier metabolism, providing important nutrition and energy to fuel rigorous physical activity.

These studies reveal the significant and layered effects of delivering natural daylight indoors to promote and enhance high-energy movement.

Building Healthier Communities with Daylight

Whether a structure is intended for work, study, exercise, or healing, distributing abundant, high-quality daylight indoors will result in healthier, more productive environments. Daily exposure to natural daylight delivers a wide range of measurable benefits to occupants’ mental and physical wellbeing, including heightened mood, improved sleep and accelerated recoveries.

Applying strategic daylighting designs can deliver these advantages to structures across commercial, civic, education, retail sectors, and more, fostering vital and healthy communities for tomorrow. With the merits of daylight becoming more widely recognized and championed in the building industry, daylighting design will increasingly serve as a cornerstone of human-centric architecture.