The Impact of Optimized Daylight and Views on the Sleep Duration and Cognitive Performance of Office Workers

Mohamed Boubekri, Jaewook Lee, Piers MacNaughton, May Woo, Lauren Schuyler, Brandon Tinianov and Usha Satish
Additional contact information
Mohamed Boubekri: School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
Jaewook Lee: School of Architecture, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
Piers MacNaughton: Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA
May Woo: View Inc., Milpitas, CA 95035, USA
Lauren Schuyler: View Inc., Milpitas, CA 95035, USA
Brandon Tinianov: View Inc., Milpitas, CA 95035, USA
Usha Satish: Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 9, 1-16

Abstract: A growing awareness has recently emerged on the health benefits of exposure to daylight and views. Daylight exposure is linked to circadian rhythm regulation, which can have significant impacts on sleep quality and cognitive function. Views of nature have also been shown to impact emotional affect and performance. This study explores the impact of optimized daylight and views on the sleep and cognitive performance of office workers. Thirty knowledge workers spent one week working in each of two office environments with identical layouts, furnishings, and orientations; however, one was outfitted with electrochromic glass and the other with traditional blinds, producing lighting conditions of 40.6 and 316 equivalent melanopic lux, respectively. Participants in the optimized daylight and views condition slept 37 min longer as measured by wrist-worn actigraphs and scored 42% higher on cognitive simulations designed to test their higher order decision-making performance. Both sleep and cognitive function were impacted after one day in the space, yet the impacts became more significant over the course of the week. The positive effect of optimized daylight and views on cognitive function was comparable for almost all participants, while increases in sleep duration were significantly greater for those with the lowest baseline sleep duration. This study stresses the significance of designing with daylight in order to optimize the sleep quality and performance of office workers.

Keywords: daylight; views; health building; cognitive function; productivity; sleep (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3219/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/9/3219/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:9:p:3219-:d:354376

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().