What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? If you're like most people, you might go to the nearest window, open the blinds, and let the morning sunshine warm your face. Nothing is more important to us on earth than the sun. Without the sun's heat and light, the earth would be a lifeless ball of ice-coated rock.
The sun is central to our very existence. The energy we receive as sunlight influence our daily rhythms, weather, and the season. If the sun goes away the first thing you best do is take the money you’re packing and start looking for Star Trek Discovery, because things are going to get cold, fast.
Conversations around sun exposure usually involve how best protect yourself from the UV rays. While this is a valid concern and should be addressed, the benefits of sunlight are numerous.
Sunlight and darkness trigger the release of hormones in your brain. Melatonin, a body hormone, controls the body’s sleep and wake cycles. This hormone also acts as an antioxidant and helps fight infectious diseases, inflammation, and cancer, while counteracting for example immunodeficiencies. The production of this hormone is strongly linked to optical exposure to morning sunlight and varies with the seasons.
The production of the hormone serotonin, responsible for overall well-being and happiness, is influenced by sunlight. Serotonin plays an important part in functions such as mood balance, social behavior, appetite, digestion, sleep and memory. Studies show that serotonin levels are directly related to the duration of bright sunlight and vary with seasons.
Also, studies show that having a good circadian rhythm is important for the regulation of sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, body temperature and other important bodily functions.
Thus, everyone thrives in sunlight, but today the most of us spend 90% of our time awake indoors. We often sit deep into the building, far away from windows, preventing us to enjoy the benefits from the healthy natural light. Wellbeing and health are affected negatively, and we do not perform as well as we could.
Today more than half of the world’s population lives in cities and the urbanization creates today a huge interest to densify the cities, and at many places in the world this means that the daylight will be a challenge.
Deep buildings, dens block structure, increased demands on energy efficiency and older buildings to be adapted to new types of uses means that more and more people risk ending up in living and working environments with insufficient daylight. There is thus a need to provide natural lighting into more indoor environments.
Via the Parans system with thin, flexible fiber optic cables you can get sunlight far from windows and deep into the building where the sunlight from windows cannot reach. You are also able to balance the light dynamic in the room with light from the windows.
As common as it is to have windows along the facade and that way bring in the natural light, as common it could be to have sunlight via a Parans system deeper in into the building.
Want to know more about the value of the Parans system? Download our Light Guide.
