We talk a lot about brightening up your living room or bringing fresh air into your kitchen and bathroom with skylights, but what about the other areas of your home? How could a skylight benefit say, your kids' rooms?
Believe it or not, it'd be more than just a cool new window with which to view the world. Skylights bring in an abundance of natural light, an essential component in your child's development.
It's important for everyone to get outside regularly, but natural light has an even bigger effect on us when we're growing up.
First to get an idea of how much natural light we're exposed to on a daily basis, let's look at it in terms of lux, the unit with which light is measured. A typical clear, sunny day may exceed 100,000 lux. And a cloudy day can still be as bright as 10-40,000 lux. Gloomy, overcast days in Seattle can even reach 1,000 lux. Coming inside, however, the light gets much dimmer. A brightly lit classroom may only reach about 500 lux. And in a room where your only light source is the TV, you're only exposed to about 50 lux. Truly, interior lighting cannot compare with the brightness of natural light.
Increasing the lux levels in your home, especially in the areas where your kids spend the most time, is a serious benefit for their development. While researchers haven't quite pinned down the reason why, studies have shown that daily exposure to very bright light - 15,000 lux or higher - lowers a child's risk for developing nearsightedness. Regular sunlight exposure also helps children produce adequate levels of vitamin D, which helps bone and heart health as well as muscle function. Numerous studies have even found a link between lots of sunlight exposure during childhood and a reduced risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life.
Pivoting from physical health to focus on kids' mental well-being, it's worth mentioning that bright light enhances mood and studies have shown that bright light therapy is an effective depression treatment. There's also been evidence to show that children read more fluently and perform better on math tests in brightly-lit classrooms
So, with children spending less time outside (we all are), one solution for regular daylight exposure is installing a skylight!
The most popular of our skylights for kids' rooms is the VELUX Fixed Skylight. Compatible with solar-powered, remote-controlled shades, the Fixed Skylight allows bright, natural light to flow into your kids' room whenever you'd like.
You could also up the ante with a VELUX Solar Powered "Fresh Air" Skylight or, depending on your child's room, one of our roof windows to provide fresh air to their room as well as natural light.