Lighting does affect health and a full spectrum exposure to natural lighting can trigger the best results for an overall health recovery program. So, it’s essential to clear the doubts first.

The subject dealing with this matter is Photobiology. The first application of photobiology was treating SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder; a depression that is common during winters, due to less exposure to light). Scientific studies showed light to be capable of putting right the balance of serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine, the three neurotransmitters that regulate emotions.

They are also the ones that control the intensity of other physiological functions, e.g. reactions to stress, sleep, appetite and sexuality. However, SAD is not a disease, it is how we are programmed, to react at the stimuli of light. The mechanism stays well hidden within the specialized, photosensitive ganglion cells of the retina; it’s the photopigment melanopsin that stays responsible. It’s what that also influences the regulation of circadian rhythms and other non-visual responses to light besides producing the pupillary light reflexes.

Other examples of the healing properties of light are phototherapy administered to jaundiced infants or correcting the sleep patterns of shift workers and long distance travelers suffering from jet lags. Even then, question remains - does light therapy produce electromagnetic field radiation?

Yes and no, i.e. the EMF stays within the 60Hz frequency, much like the household appliances, equipment and home lighting. Then again, distance being a significant parameter, has caused many a storms in the teacup. What’s strange, the creators of these controversies expose themselves to computer screen radiations even without a little thought and these radiations are many more times stronger than the low level ultrasound and radio signals that are emitted from lighting comprising miniscule amounts of radioactive krypton or promethium.

The Federal Communications Commission poses limits to such frequencies only when they are from electronic ballasts. Thus, before getting skeptical to natural full spectrum lamps, think about the strobe lamps we face so often in the discotheques.