Sustainable development blog : ecology and humanitarian aid

A guest post by John Lovell.

Picture from Climatelab.org

Have you ever been sitting in a classroom, or your office, and you just don’t feel right? You feel kind of depressed, your eyes are strained and aching, and you get that overbearing, glaring feeling and a headache as the icing on the cake?

I know I’ve felt this way, numerous times. Whenever this happens, I am always under the bright, lifeless glare of fluorescent lighting. Strangely, when I leave the area, I no longer feel depressed, I’m happy again, my headache dissipates, my eyes feel fine and I am 100 % normal again. Coincidence? No, I don’t believe so. I believe that fluorescent lights have real negative effects on people, on a physical and psychological level.

Fluorescent lighting is everywhere, and I do mean, EVERYWHERE. They are used by schools, offices, and megastores alike.

They are used for a few reasons, one of them being that they are cheap. They are cheap to produce, last a long time and are energy efficient, so power bills are reduced. Now I’ll admit that fluorescents (especially since the introduction of compact fluorescents) are a fairly efficient step forward in lighting. But this step forward may have landed us in a hole.

Yes, they’re efficient, but lots of people are sensitive to bright, powerful light, which can hurt their eyes, or give them headaches. Even non-sensitive people have reported headaches, as well as feelings of anger and depression whilst working under fluorescent lights.

The idea to use fluorescence as a source of lighting was originally put forward by French physicist, Alexandre E. Becquerel in 1857. As the technology became refined by other scientists, it eventually began to be used inside buildings, but the very intense light it gave off made people squint or irritated their eyes and the early fluorescent lights used to flicker a lot, which triggered seizures in some people.

Certain people have a weakness to bright, flickering patterns and lights which affects certain areas of the brain and causes “photosensitive seizures” (the kind that video game manuals always warn about Although in recent years flickering has been reduced, even modern fluorescents make me feel “off” and lots of others too. So how do fluorescent lights work?

picture from : How Stuff Works

The diagram above shows your average fluorescent light. It is composed of a tube, with electrodes on either end, filled with argon gas, a bit of mercury and a phosphor coating. When the electrodes send electrons into the tube they ionize the argon gas particles, causing them to emit light.

According to some scientists, headaches from these lights are caused by the bright light being picked up by sensory nerves and our eyes and causing an adverse reaction. It has been proven that a bright glare is not good for tasks like writing or reading text as the glare on the small text can strain your eyes, leading to headaches or watery eyes. And there are some people who actually get physically sick from fluorescent lights.

The problem is that the ionized particles don’t always stay inside the fluorescent tube. They can escape and get picked up by the human brain and nerve endings. Since all nerve endings and the brain synapses run on charges of electrons, ionized electric particles can definitely throw things out of whack. This can cause the same symptoms as a migraine or sunstroke such as slight fever, runny nose and nausea. However, depending on the amount of particles, as well as level of exposure, these symptoms can be much more severe. The symptoms are not permanent and, if experienced, the person should leave the fluorescent lit room immediately and the feelings will pass.

Some people are more susceptible to this than others, such as people with sensitive nerves or bad eyesight or those prone to migraines. I also have felt sick under these lights. And I am not alone. A recent BBC study showed that use of fluorescent lights in schools is “ill advised”, which is a bit of a problem, since almost every school uses them. According to this report, the powerful glare of fluorescent lights makes students lose focus is class and miss vital information. The discomfort also makes them rush through their work or do it poorly.

I recommend that we cut down on the use of fluorescent lighting in our buildings. But how do we do this? I can think of a solution, it’s called a WINDOW. Put more windows in rooms, so more natural daylight gets in. And if not that, then at least make the fluorescents less bright and intense with possibly tinted tubes, or just use less of them. More natural light would let students focus better and workers produce to greater capacity.

Another alternative would be to switch to full spectrum lights, like those developed by Dr. John Ott, (Ottlite) which are very similar to natural daylight and in studies have been shown to improve student performance.

Full Spectrum Light Ott Lamp from OttLite

Following is an excerpt from a research paper published in 1985 in the International Journal of Biosocial Research Volume 7 1985 by Dr. Ott, a US scientist who is famous for his research work into light spectrums and their effects on human health. His research demonstrated that lighting intensity, colour and heat has an effect on people’s health and that full spectrum light (such as natural daylight) has a positive effect on physical and mental health, whereas single spectrum light (such as that given off by fluorescents) has the opposite effect.

“Full-spectrum, radiation-shielded, fluorescent light fixtures were installed in two windowless classrooms, and in two other identical windowless classrooms standard cool white fluorescent fixtures were used as controls. The results showed that several extremely hyperactive children with confirmed learning disabilities calmed down completely and rapidly overcame their learning and reading problems while in the full-spectrum lighted environment. The overall average academic achievement level showed significant improvement.”

If we were to remove fluorescent lights, or at the very least reduce the amount of time spend under them, there is a good chance that grades and also the behavior of students would improve. I believe fluorescent lights really are negatively affecting us, both physically and psychologically. I believe that they are used too much in our everyday lives and we should greatly cut down on their use.

People say they use them because they want to “go green” or be “more natural”. Well what sounds more earth friendly to you, using a bunch of bright glaring, unpleasant lights full of chemicals like mercury that endure in the environment for years, or using the light from the sun and natural daylight? After all, isn’t going “green” about using the natural world?

On related note, I think school boards and governments should stop worrying about their wallets and try to get more windows in buildings, or more natural forms of light. It would sure as hell make me happier and probably thousands of other students as well. After all, we have a sun and it gives us comfortable, free light, so maybe we should use it.