Daylight Savings Lighting Tips
The dark has once again encroached our afternoons, heralding the end to daylight savings. It’s funny how we tend to get caught unawares, forgetting how much of an effect the change of time and daytime sunlight can have on our lives. We may relish that extra hour of sleep for a moment, but the lack of sunshine wreaks havoc on more than just our afternoon activities.
Brightening up your home can help, and to that end, we’ve come up with a few tips to help light up your life.
Outdoors
Getting off work at 5:30 pm means you’re probably coming home in the dark. If you start work early and have a long commute, you may be leaving home in the dark as well. Light up your driveway and outdoor walkways with solar outdoor lighting so you can see to get inside. They are easy to install and affordable, plus, they don’t require batteries or a switch to work. Powered by the sun, they come on when the light fades, ensuring your way is always lit.
Indoors
In the kitchen:
Coming home to a dark house is not the happiest of homecomings. By installing timers on your lights, you can pre-program when they turn on and off. Smart light bulbs and switches also help. Using connected switches and bulbs, you can turn your lights on before you get home or program an on-off schedule that you can control from your smartphone. Being able to control your lighting remotely also makes your home safer, alerting thieves to the fact that there may be somebody home.
Hallways:
Your inside and outside stairways could all benefit from motion-detection lighting, reducing the potential for a slip and fall accident and helping you avoid injury for yourself and your family as well as safeguarding your guests – remember, the holidays are coming! Rope lighting can also be installed on your outdoor handrails to light the way on stairs, or it can be run along your baseboards to gently light the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Bathroom:
The shock of a bright light in the bathroom can be blinding in the middle of the night. Consider instead a motion-detection night light that can gently light the area when you enter. Amber-colored lights are less jarring to the senses and won’t disrupt your sleep patterns as much if you have to get up in the middle of the night.
Bedroom:
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of being on standard time is finding the energy to get going in the dark of the early morning. If this resonates with you, consider a light-therapy alarm clock. Their purpose is to gently wake you as if it was the rising sun. Called sunrise alarm clocks, they are thought to reduce stress and help with seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
Do you have any great tips for coping with the time and light changes during the winter? We’d love to hear them. Post comments here and come back often for more great safety tips from Safety Workwear, your flame-resistant and safety apparel experts.