Do kids need daylight? Studies confirm that kids benefit when they are exposed to outdoor levels of illumination — levels that far exceed the lighting of a typical classroom.
Bright light boosts mood and concentration. It may help prevent disease, circadian rhythm disorders, and near-sightedness. And new research suggests that bright light has a crucial impact on the brain: It may foster the formation of new synapses, and enhance our ability to learn.
Let’s start with a basic observation. It’s very bright outside, even when you compare a brightly lit classroom to a relatively dark, overcast day outdoors. Measured in units called “lux,” a typical, cloudless day may exceed 100,000 lux. A cloudy day may still be as bright as 10,000 to 40,000 lux, and even a rather gloomy, overcast day in Seattle is likely to reach 1,000 lux. By contrast, the lighting we encounter indoors is much dimmer, ranging from about 50 lux (watching TV in the living room) to 500 lux (a brightly lit classroom). So we encounter radically different lighting conditions when we spend our lives indoors, and that’s worrying. The bright light levels found outside aren’t just beneficial to photosynthesizing plants. They are also crucial for human beings. And this is true for children as well as adults. Consider these benefits.
Bright light improves mood
You’ve probably noticed that bright light has a cheering effect.
It improves mood and studies show that bright light therapy is an effective treatment for depression.
Daily exposure to very bright light (e.g., 15,000 lux or higher) might protect kids from developing near-sightedness.
As I note opens in a new window elsewhere, research has found that outdoor play lowers a child’s risk of developing near sightedness. Researchers haven’t yet pinned down the reason, but experimental studies point to the effects of light. Animals raised under controlled lighting conditions are less likely to develop nearsightedness if they are exposed to daytime light levels exceeding 15,000 lux.
Sunlight helps children produce adequate levels of vitamin D, and vitamin D sufficiency protects kids from a variety of undesirable health outcomes
Kids with low vitamin D levels are at increased risk for poor bone health, cardiovascular disease, and reduced muscle function. There is also evidence that low vitamin D status could be a trigger for early puberty in girls. And vitamin D deficiency has been linked with inferior mental planning skills.
Sunlight appears to protect children from developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life
Numerous studies have reported this link. Lots of sunlight exposure during childhood reduces an individual’s risk of MS, and this appears to be true regardless of an individual’s vitamin D status. The sunlight itself seems to be helpful.
Morning sunlight exposure can help prevent delayed bedtimes (and sleep-related behavior problems). Staying up late might not matter if you also wake up late. But when children have to wake up early for school, delayed bedtimes can take a toll. Studies suggest that delayed bedtimes — without opportunities for catch-up sleep — are linked with poor school performance and behavior problems.
But why don’t kids go to sleep on time? For many kids, part of the problem is lighting: They get too little sunlight during the day, and too much artificial lighting at night. As a result, their “inner clocks” get out of sync with the natural, 24-hour day. Their circadian rhythms are out of whack.
And what about mental performance? Does bright daylight make kids smarter?
We’ve already noted that vitamin D levels have been linked with mental planning skills, and late bedtimes can contribute to attention problems. So exposure to bright light might boost mental performance by these indirect routes.
We’ve also seen that bright light enhances mood, which could be an important motivator at school. In a study of more than two hundred 10-year-olds, researchers found that kids preferred classrooms that were very brightly lit (1,300 to 4,400 lux) to classrooms that were lit at much lower, more traditional levels (250-740 lux).
But it’s likely that bright light has additional benefits. For example, there is evidence that children read more fluently in classrooms that are very brightly-lit. (Parenting Science)