This work is led by Charlotte Roddick, Yuxiao Wang, Frances Chen, Dorukalp Durmus, Michael Royer, Jennifer Veitch, Yeon Soo Seo, Wenjing Cao, and Lorne Whitehead from University of British Columbia, Penn State University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, National Research Council Canada

These findings reveal that the absence of NIR from indoor lighting impacts humans at a psychological and physiological level, with implications for health and well-being that need to be balanced with energy-saving considerations.

Here we examined the acute effects of NIR on cognition, emotional state and cardiovascular health, and found that NIR has beneficial effects on resting high-frequency heart rate variability and responses to cognitive demand, and feelings of pleasure, but reduced performance on a visual search task.

But NIR can promote wound healing, reduce inflammation, relieve pain, improve eye health, treat neurological conditions, enhance cognitive function, and promote psychological well-being. So removing NIR for sustainability reasons may have health, cognitive, and emotional consequences.

As the world becomes more sustainable, energy-efficient lighting (e.g., LEDs) and windows remove near-infrared radiation (NIR, 700-1000 nm) as an energy-saving measure.