If you have a tight schedule during the day and are a passionate reader, you probably do most of your reading at night. For this reason, you need adequate lighting for better visibility and eye health.
While looking for reading bulbs, you may notice that the light emitted appears different. Based on the color temperature, some bulbs will give you a daylight feel while others offer a darker glow.
It’s therefore challenging to choose the best option for reading in the dark with various colors available. Keep reading to gain more insight into what is the best color for a night time reading light.
What Is The Best Night Reading Lamp Color?
The most straightforward answer to ‘what is the best color for a night time reading light’ is the 3000K color temperature. It has a yellowish tone that won’t strain your eyes or disturb your sleep.
Since your reading needs may differ, here are various other colors that you may consider.
– Warm Yellow
The color temperature scale runs from yellow to bright white lights, measured in kelvin (k). Warm lights appear around 3000K and create some relaxing effects on your eyes.
Therefore, it works best for a regular or leisure reader, and you can go forth reading for an extended period with no strain on your eyes.
After the reading session, the warm yellow lights allow you to fall into sleep naturally without struggles since it doesn’t interfere with melatonin production.
It’s merely a hormone responsible for rest, and the more its production, the better your sleep and vice versa. Your brain naturally perceives the warm color as nightfall as the sky shifts from blue to a yellow color at sunset.
– Sunset White
It’s a 1800K color temperature that brings about beautiful and warm vintage lights. As a result, it creates an atmospheric ambiance that helps you relax in a vintage style. The light color doesn’t irritate your eyes and makes your sleep much more comfortable.
– Warm White
It ranges from 2000K to 3000k and creates a warm, inviting glow. Although it might seem a little cooler than vintage, it’s ideal for reading situations. It still feels warm and provides a relaxing tone.
The warm illumination soothes you creating a cozy reading environment. Additionally, you can have hours of sound sleep since it doesn’t interfere with your sleeping patterns.
Best with Warm White Glow – Brightech Standing Lamp for Your Bedside
– Orange
Orange color helps you relax and also keeps you warm. It suits you best if you wish for better visibility and controlled brightness intensity for better sleep.
– Blue
If you want to engage in some demanding study that requires high alertness levels, then go for cool lighting. Around 3100k to 4100K will keep you awake and gives you full visibility.
These illumination forms appear more energetic and will help you grasp and memorize detailed information. They achieve this by inhibiting melatonin production that may delay your sleep for around three hours.
When your eyes detect the blue light, your brain interprets the visual stimuli as though its day time. As a result, it improves concentration levels and agility. No wonder there is a strong link between higher academic performances and cooler lighting.
However, prolonged exposure to blue light may stress your eyes and delay your sleep. Hence, it would wish to invest in some good blue light blocking glasses that support long reading sessions with no eye discomfort.
Best for Studying – TaoTronics LED Table Lamp with Adjustable Brightness and Kelvin
– Red
It’s an ideal solution for an individual who wants to maintain the night vision. It makes the area significantly darker and works well mostly when you don’t need to gather too many details.
Your body senses this color better, making it easier to master the sequences and patterns that keep you awake when required and sleepy when necessary. However, it might not be a better choice when you need to view images and smaller fonts.
Best for Sleeping – Elsent Plug in Red Night Light
– Green
While reading map-related content, you may want to try out green. Besides, it’s linked to positive energy and will help you relax, giving you a calm feeling throughout.
It enables you to see most details, letters appear visible, and maps clearer when pointed directly to a page. Additionally, it facilitates rapid sleep once you finish reading.
Tips While Selecting Night Reading Light Color
After knowing what is the best color for a night time reading light, you may start to pick your own lights. Here are extra tips:
1. Choosing the right lighting will help make your reading experiences more comfortable and relaxes your mind for better sleep. If you experience some constant headaches after reading, change the color temperature, and buy a less-powerful bulb.
2. Note that halogen lights produce better illumination than incandescent bulbs that yields brighter lights. Also, LED lights have a more radiant glow and consume far less energy compared to others.
Besides, the LEDs have various light colors with varying intensity to meet diverse reading needs.
3. Remember that the light’s brightness is equally important as the color, since too dim or bright bulbs may also affect your reading. For an elder individual, choose brighter ones than your younger counterparts.
4. Additionally, short-sighted individuals require brilliant lights with a color that matches natural illumination. Also, keep in mind that battery-powered lights may dim with usage as they exhaust the stored energy.
Hence, charge them when they begin to faint for optimum performance. Beware that dim light may also damage your eyesight.
5. The most commonly considered night reading shades are cool white, warm white, or artificial light that closely matches those options.
If you live in areas exposed to warmer colored lights, you may need artificial lights similar to those. On the other hand, if you reside in regions illuminated with whiter lights, choose artificial lights identical to your natural realities.
Conclusion
Reading a book before bed is a great way to end your day by calming your mind to enjoy some relaxing sleep. However, the wrong light color may cause short-term effects like a strain on the eye or headaches.
Hopefully, the above guide will help you choose the most appropriate light color, depending on your needs.
If you frequently fall asleep while reading, it would be best to consider warmer hues that facilitate good night sleep. On the other hand, if you have to grasp some dense concept, cautiously use cooler, brighter lights.
