Translator: Maria Pita Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
Hello people, good afternoon.
Do you remember this light bulb?
This incandescent light bulb which was in our homes for a very, very long time?
Do you remember their colour?
That yellow colour?
Well, this bulb was replaced by the fluorescent light bulb
because it used too much energy to generate light.
90 to 95% of the energy it consumes goes to generating heat and not light.
Just imagine!
I even joke that it's really a source of heat
which, by chance, also generates light.
But it is obvious that when it was created,
it transformed the way people lived,
especially at night.
But the fact is: it was replaced by the fluorescent lamp.
What colour was it? Do you remember?
Wait! I guess a lot of you thought about the white colour,
which is plausible because, when that lamp was marketed,
it was available mainly in white,
and that created a collective consciousness
that in order to save energy, the colour of light must change,
which is not true.
And which ignores a fundamental question
that is the impact of illumination in our life,
in our body, which is prepared for natural light, that sunlight
which, when one looks at it at noon, is quite white.
Why is it white?
Because it contains red light, yellow light, green light, violet,
blue light ...
Has anyone heard anything about blue light?
That is a fundamental light for us.
Although we don't perceive it with our eyes,
it impacts our body
and stimulates it to produce a hormone called cortisol.
This hormone stimulates activity.
It is fundamental for the equilibrium of our biological clock,
that which is technically called the circadian rhythm,
which makes us wake up in the mornings,
and makes people tend to get tired in the evenings.
But the thing is that this blue light is not only present in natural light.
It's also present in electronic equipment,
like in some lamps,
in our computer screen, in our cell phone screen.
And that's why using your cell phone in bed, before sleeping, isn't recommended.
Did you know that?
Because while your body is wanting to relax,
in order to have some good quality sleep,
the cell phone is sending it a signal
saying: "Generate cortisol, generate the hormone for activity!"
And that prevents you to achieve deep sleep
which is essential for restoring your energy.
Who hasn't slept for eight or nine hours and woken up still tired?
In the medium and long term, this leads to chronic chronic fatigue.
It increases our chances of suffering depression.
As Augusto Cury calls the "evil of the century",
it increases the possibility of having anxiety crises.
Therefore, once we understand the impact of light in our lives,
we can think about the psychological aspect:
for example, how is our workplace lit?
It's usually like this: a white, homogeneous light.
It's a light conducive to stimulate us to concentrate, to be productive.
Great!
For this, we have a behaviour which is more impersonal,
more rational, colder, often imperative to giving orders.
And unconsciously we link that ambience
to the need for that behaviour.
And that becomes extremely dangerous when we take that light
and take it home.
We may have a nice, well laid-out space,
but when we get home the first information received
is not good day, good afternoon, good night.
It's, "What kind of environment am I in?"
So, when we get home and have that ambience,
we tend to keep that impersonal behaviour,
which increases the chance of being impatient in our relations
with our wife, our children.
Imagine arriving home
with this environment
and it is lit this way.
Immediately you receive a message that says, "This is a family environment,
it's an environment of warmth, of love, where I can relax."
Carry that to your bedroom.
Imagine you enter your bedroom and you see your husband, your wife
in an environment lit like that.
Watch how much nicer and even more romantic it looks
if you are in an environment like this
And it's not only when we're with someone, even if you are alone,
at a time like bathing, which is objective, to be washed.
Instead of lighting it simply in an objective way,
like that,
we can light in a more pleasant way, like this,
and make bathing a time for visual rest as well,
for mental rest, even for reflecting.
And if light impacts a home in this way,
just imagine what it does, for example, in a psychologist's office.
Usually environments are lit like this:
a central, general light.
In an environment like this, any patient, any person
feels watched, analyzed,
and that's terrible for such a treatment.
Notice how a simple, cheap lamp, placed next to the armchair,
affords an environment like this,
much more conducive for the person to open up.
Much friendlier.
This is quality of life for the professional as well as for the patient,
because the treatment moves forward, it accelerates.
And to arouse your curiosity, do you remember this lamp?
In fact, first I want to do an experiment.
Look at this environment, which is lit in this way.
It's conducive for you to pay attention to the message that's being given here.
Imagine if this environment were lit in this way.
Several people straightened up in their chairs.
You can return.
It's so that you're more comfortable and you pay attention to this message,
which is meant to be important.
And something curious.
Imagine this lamp, which is really pretty and bought in markets all over.
It has a way of being placed, in architecture.
in this way, like a star-lit sky.
And there was a situation in which a mom needed to change her daughter's nappy;
the child was one and a half years old, crying and wouldn't allow the change.
When they went into an environment like this, the child became like that.
Then the mother was able to place the child on the bed
and change her nappy easily.
This brought quality of life both for the mom as well as for the child.
It made that moment less traumatic.
Anyone here who has a small child knows how difficult changing a nappy can be.
Now, even if we don't use such a creative technology
we have information which can make us choose a better lamp.
When we read a catalogue, it may be written like this:
colour temperature.
It can actually be written as "warm" or "cold"
or numerically as 3,000 K or 6,500 K.
With this information we can decide,
when we get to a store and pick up a package with the following label:
"Cold light", is that white light.
Or it could be written in numbers: 6,500 K.
With this information we know that the decision is not sales talk.
The salesman doesn't know what we like best.
We may choose between a warmer light or a colder light,
understanding that lighting isn't here just to illuminate,
but that, in fact, it transforms our experiences.
Thank you.
(Applause)