A survey released this week by the prestigious Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute confirms what DRA has been advocating for years—basic health is dependent on home access to daylight.  This research comes just as life-giving light is becoming scarce for many downtown dwellers.

Spurred by the quarantine, the Institute’s Lighting Research Center polled 600 people working or staying at home due to COVID-19.  The data was analyzed to understand how indoor light exposure and time spent outside affected sleep quality and sleep-related impairment, anxiety, stress, depression and mood.

The results were illuminating. Respondents showed higher scores for anxiety due to the “extraordinary nature of the current times.” But light made a difference.

Those with “somewhat to very bright” lighting, including access to windows that open or were free of window coverings, reported fewer sleep disturbances, less anxiety and depression and increased happiness.

Study authors explain the light-health connection goes beyond feeling good. Bright morning daylight is needed to support the circadian sleep cycle. Lack of it causes sleep disturbances that weaken the immune system and can lead to obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Regular outdoor exposure to sunlight is a great alternative but not available to all.  Even before quarantine, the study reports people weren’t getting enough light. The majority of the population spend 90% of the day indoors.  Adequate indoor light is essential.

Companies in Seattle and nationwide say the work-from-home option is here to stay.  That means all dwellings, office and residential, need to be designed to support life and light—both for their occupants and neighbors.

In recent years Seattle Design Review has defied these truths by approving tower designs that result in dramatic loss of daylight to their neighbors and in some cases, their own occupants. Using a straight zoning metric, the priority has been financial return not human and environmental health.

That’s got to change.  As one Renesselaer doctor put it, ““Lighting isn’t just for vision anymore. It’s high time we had a valid, agreed-upon metric and some basic guidelines so that healthy lighting can be effectively delivered to benefit society.”

The question is, when will Seattle see the light?