Years ago when cartoonist Matt Groening had not yet burst onto the national scene with The Simpsons, his work was featured in alternative newspapers around the country. His main feature was a strip called Life In Hell, which the the cartoonist recently retired.

The highly quirky strip featured characters such as highly anxious rabbits who question everything and pair of fez-wearing fellows whose questions about life were seldom solved, but always insightful.

In one strip titled “When are you going to quit your lousy job?” the one-eared rabbit stood pondering all the strange little things that happen in the workplace, that we ignore, and possibly shouldn’t.

“For whom does the fluorescent light hum…” one section asked, “It hums for thee.”

Hummmmmmmmmmm

Until that moment in time (admittedly years ago) I had never considered the fact that fluorescent lights do, indeed, hum. All manner of things hum in the workplace, a chronic problem recently documented in an edition of This American Life with Ira Glass. Some musician traced all the notes from hums in his office space; computer, copier, light; on and on, until he put them all together to compose music.

But it was lighting that caught my particular attention once I’d read that comic strip. And I began to wonder what other effects lighting might have on the mind and soul.

Better lighting = better life (and performance)

Most recently I read about an experiment in Europe where the lighting in airliners was changed to better reflect time of day and natural light. As you may know, people on long-distance flights often have trouble sleeping, which worsens many aspects of the trip. In place of traditional fluorescent lighting the scientists in charge of the experiment installed full spectrum LED lighting that can be made warm and soft for the periods when most people try to go to sleep, and cool, blue and bright upon wakeup.

And it worked. People slept better and woke up in a better mood than when exposed to flat, single spectrum lighting.

The sick piss orange of sodium vapor lighting colors our world.

The sickly sodium vapor light

The type of lighting I have always hated is sodium vapor lights. Those orange hued streetlights you see in towns across America are sodium vapor. They bath our streets in a hideous orange glow. They project into the sky and turn the clouds at night into an orange glob. When there is snow on the ground, the whole world turns orange. If you can call it that color. It’s really kind of a sick piss orange or a hopeless brown.

If lighting effects mood, as has been demonstrated by the burgeoning business of selling lamps to help combat conditions such as seasonally acute depression (SAD) and other emotional afflictions, then what the hell are we doing with our streetlights? Specifically, what effect is running and riding around under these ugly monstrosities having on our psyches?

Orange is not organic

The sky over the University of Chicago is transformed into a sick piss orange by the nightly glow of sodium vapor lights.

Think about it: You head out for a workout on a crisp winter night or a muggy summer evening and what do you get? A light bath in sick piss yellow lighting. Not exactly the training ground for mental health, now is it?

Want proof? A study on the effects of lighting on the health of children published on e-How Health had this to say: “Dr. Hathaway further reports that natural lighting improves the learning abilities of children, enabling them to absorb material more easily, while artificial lighting can hamper education. High pressure sodium vapor lights are the worst of the lot in their effects on children, with students under such lighting scoring the lowest when tested for academic achievement. Sodium vapor lights also have been linked to higher absentee rates from school.”

Orange Stop lights

So if you’re wondering why you lack motivation to go out and run or ride at night, the fact of the matter is that the nighttime streets of America have progressively become an unhealthy environment thanks to the installation of sodium vapor lights, which are everywhere it seems. It’s like we’ve constructed a giant social experiment that says STOP! Don’t go outside! The orange glow of hell is going to depress you and eat your soul!

A lighting tarsnake

Sodium vapor lights are the tarsnakes of public lighting. They were apparently considered cost-saving compared to traditional fluorescent street lighting. But in terms of healthy lighting, we were essentially taking a step backwards, not forwards, in supplanting fluorescent lighting, which  weren’t much better for you than sodium vapor in terms of healthy lighting.

We know streetlights are installed for public safety purposes, for better driving conditions and other reasons. But it appears that until recently our society has not really considered what effects our casual use of such lighting may be having on the culture at large. That viewpoint is changing rapidly.

More natural lighting

There are cities taking steps to fix this problem and save money on lighting as well. The City of San Francisco is experimenting with LED lighting that not only falls into the range of the moon–only a bit brighter–but will also be controllable through a sophisticated grid that controls all the wired and electronic equipment in the city. In other words, the lighting of the future is a lot more like the lighting of the past. Natural light, or as close as we can come to it using technological means. Better in the long run, or ride.

Like GO lights for the brain.

The good news for people who run and ride in cities like San Francisco is that better lighting will make for a better environment in many different ways. Those who run and ride at night will no longer be exposed to sick piss orange lighting, for one thing. Which, as we’re learning, is no good for the brain.

Stuck in an orange world for now

In the meantime, we’re stuck living in a mostly orange world come nighttime. Someday that will likely change, but in the meantime find yourself some lighting indoors that promotes health and helps you learn like a kid again. For starters, try visiting this website for better, more energy-efficient and diverse lighting: www.gogreenledbulbs.com.

You’ll thank yourself for it. If you own or run a company, you might even want to consider replacing your fluorescent or sodium vapor lighting for better lighting and the fact that it can save you gobs of money. The government will even incentivize your efforts.

The case is growing increasingly clear that we need to pay more attention to how we light up our lives. For runners and riders, the benefits of natural sunlight is crucial to overall health, as long as you protect your skin from harmful UV rays. But the emotional effects are also to be considered, and the day when we don’t have to train in sick piss orange lighting at night will be a blessed one indeed.