Simple Change Supercharges Hospitals HEALING Power
I have a love/hate relationship with hospitals.
Sure, they provide care that can save your life.
But being in a hospital—especially for any length of time—is horrible for your health.
Once admitted into a hospital, you’re surrounded by bacteria and viruses, fed food with no nutritional value, AND exposed to artificial light 24/7. Not to mention the endless commotion and machinery sounds that keep you from getting any kind of quality sleep.
Fortunately, forward-thinking researchers are taking novel steps to make hospitals safer. And if enacted on a large scale, it might even reduce hospital death rates…
Spending time indoors is a double-whammy when it comes to your health.
For starters, you’re missing out on the natural sunlight that sets your circadian rhythm and supplies your body with vitamin D.
In addition, you’re exposing yourself to artificial light that can make your circadian rhythm go haywire.
This spells disaster for your health, as light impacts your wakefulness and sleep, your hormones, metabolism, neurological processes, your risk of infections, and more.
For patients trying to recuperate—or even to survive—this kind of environment certainly doesn’t help.
But there are people trying to change that—by bringing the outdoors in to hospitals.
There’s new technology that evaluates the daylight entering patients’ rooms and then provides guidelines for ways to improve daylight exposure.
This can include simple changes like installing windows that fully open, adjustable blinds, even “light shelves” (this is a horizontal surface that reflects natural light further into a building).
Previous research shows that incorporating more daylight into hospital wards improves sleep quality, reduces medications, lowers depression, slashes stress, and shortens hospital stays.
Better still, it even reduces death rates.
The healing power of sunlight was once understood by those in the medical community. In fact, hospitals were once built to assure patients were exposed to fresh air and sunlight.
And advocates like Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, advocated for the sick getting direct sunlight exposure.
Sadly, this practice went out of fashion. I’m glad people are finally once again acknowledging the fact that sunlight is a boon to patients’ health (AND to hospital’s bottom line).
Of course, these kinds of forward-thinking design concepts don’t need to be limited to medical buildings. Any office building, school, or warehouse would benefit from better access to sunlight.
These kinds of advancements can take years to put into practice.
But I’m glad people are finally starting to move toward the light.
P.S. If you have to go to a hospital get in and out as fast as possible… because hospital-acquired infections make millions of Americans sick every year. Fortunately, an ancient cure-all could practically eliminate this risk.
SOURCE:
Park MY, et al., “The Effects of Natural Daylight on Length of Hospital Stay.” Environ Health Insights. 2018 Dec 3;12:1178630218812817. doi: 10. 1177/1178630218812817. PMID: 30546262; PMCID: PMC6287302.
