See the Light when Working from Home

Restrictions due to the pandemic may have eased but more and more people continue to work from home as their preferred environment. As a result, many second bedrooms, kitchen tables and even garden sheds have been turned into office spaces. Hopefully, if this sounds like you, you have in place the correct chairs, desks and other items to ensure you are working correctly, particularly if you are sat in front of a screen all day. But have you thought about the lighting?

Judy Davison from the Light Company shares her top tips for home workers on how to get the most out of their indoor, and sometimes confined, workspaces.

The Importance of Daylight

They may seem obvious but whether you are working, reading or browsing the internet, you need some exposure to natural daylight especially in the morning. It’s not only good for your eyesight but also important for your health.

If you can, position your home workspace near a window with your screen at 90 degrees to the window to minimises the chance of a disabling glare when you take your eyes away from the pc or laptop.

It’s also worth noting that a sixty-year-old, needs at least twice as much light as a twenty-year-old in order to have the same impression of brightness. In other words, we need more light to do the same task as we did when younger. A sixty-year-old person, for example, needs at least twice as much light as a twenty-year-old in order to have the same impression of brightness.

Use of Task Lighting

As the sun sets or if it’s just dark and gloomy outside, you will most definitely need some additional lighting at your home workspace. You may not be aware but there are some general rules when it comes to ensuring the light in your home is providing a benefit and not adding to problems!

As a point of reference, you should try and keep the light source around 600mm above your work surface. If the light you are using over your workspace has a short reach the you should raise it up on a box or a selection of books.

The best thing you can do, particularly if you are planning to work from home long term, is to invest I task lighting. This type of lighting has been used widely in software and hi-tech industries for many years where employees could suffer from eye strain from working in front of screens for long periods of time. Also known as focussed lighting, task lights are an important element when it comes to designing an ergonomic workstation as it relieves eye strain.

Task lights tend to feature LED bulbs that are less aggressive to our retinas. Importantly, most task lights are adjustable, allowing users to position or adjust lights according to their needs and location.

At the Lighting Company, we stock a range of desk and free-standing lamps which are suitable for home workstations with the flexibility of allowing you to move the lights around if necessary. Some of our top sellers include the Frederick floor lamp and the Eunice desk lamp from the Där Lighting Group.

Lighting for Reading

Whether it’s for work or for pleasure, many of spend hours reading either from papers or books or phones and tablets. When it comes to reading, it’s very important to have a good light to prevent eye-strain, particularly those that can be adjusted. This becomes particularly important as we grow older or for anyone with a visual impairment.

We stock a comprehensive range of lamps designed to help you read with ease including the David Hunt Hyde lamp which comes in a array of fashionable finishes or the där lighting Ronda 3 wall light with an LED reading light.

To see the Light Company’s full range of task lighting products click here.