From the layout of your office down to the color of your walls, experts have recently uncovered the peculiar factors that affect the overall mood – and even productivity – of professionals.

The emergence of shared work areas such as coworking spaces showcased the impact of environmental physical design on an individual’s efficiency rate and focus. Several studies and surveys have highlighted the positive outcome of the movement to its members’ work life. Its open layout gave enough leeway to choose the setting that would work best with them.

In addition to this, trends such as comfort designs and dynamic offices attest to the growing demand of sustainable and efficient workplaces that help employees love their profession even more.

And though our ideologies of where to work are changing and constantly undergoing improvement, there’s one factor that is often treated with indifference by a number of designers and employers – lighting.

Hard to believe but its true – your mood, and even your overall well-being, can change with the flick of a switch. Aside from the common knowledge that reading in dark places can damage your eyes, poor lighting carry even more harm than we know. Well-lit environments can not only improve your employees’ productivity and vitality, it also helps enhance company image and aids you in recruiting new talents as well as retaining high-value workers.

In a recent study presented by Philips System, researchers saw a significant link between lights and circadian rhythms, or the ‘built-in-clocks’ of humans that determine their sleep cycle, stimulation, and relaxation. While another study have said that proper lighting can decrease depression and improve one’s mood and energy as well as their alertness and productivity.

The American Society of Interior Designs further strengthened the aforementioned claims by reporting a total number of 68 employees complaining about the systems of their respective office lights.

These issues serve as proof on the influence a simple light bulb can have to a person’s output. The amount of criticism businesses get with their systems can only mean that majority of them are making the same mistakes.

In order for a company to improve their workplaces and in return, get the most out of their team, it’s important that they understand what drives productivity and the factors that can affect it.

And one of the most notable factor that alter the way an individual works is the color temperature of the office lights they are exposed to on a regular basis.

Those unfamiliar with lighting temperatures, colors and its variations may have a hard time figuring out which would be more appropriate for a work setting.

Measured in Kelvin (K), the temperature of light is a numerical representation of the color emitted by an object under a certain degree. As it increases, the colors will change and will emit light of that color.

Higher color temperatures that measure from 4,600K or more appear blue-white and are often called as daylight or cool colors. Mid-range temperatures within the average of 3,100K to 4,600K emit cool white and lower temperatures that are up to 3,000K materialize red to yellowish-white tone.

Knowing which office lights should be utilized in certain rooms can improve your overall workplace environment and can result to better performance from your team.

According to a study on the effects of high correlated color temperature office lighting on employee wellbeing and work performance, cooler light improves productivity. Using them on brainstorming rooms can help boost alertness and lowers melatonin which can help reduce feelings of fatigue.

Employees who have spent their whole day cooped up in the office can benefit from exposure to natural light. A study from Cornell University conducted among nurses who worked long shifts during nonstandard hours showed that respondents who had access to daylight communicated better with their colleagues and patients. In addition to this, significant improvement was seen in their health.

Stanley Felderman of design studio Felderman Keatinge & Associates suggest using extensive amount of glass to enable light to travel throughout the entire office space. Should daylight be inaccessible, they recommend using “blue-enriched” light bulbs.

Conference rooms can make use of mid-range color temperatures to create a welcoming aura while maintaining cool tones to promote alertness.

As our ideologies in work change, the more we see the power strategic lighting has.

Senior editor of Slate and New York magazine contributor, Dan Kois took quite an interest in a certain study on the effects of prolonged sitting that claimed people who sat down for more than 11 hours a day is 40 percent more likely to die in the next three years.

After reading an affluent number of research, he became convinced that sitting around all day is the worst thing he can do to his body – similar to how smoking increases his chances of dying earlier. He realized that by staying sedentary, he eliminates the many benefits his regular exercise provides.

As he observed that more people are trying to incorporate active habits into their normal workday by using standing desks and even treadmill desks, he thought that maybe it’s time he stopped. He ponders that if it really is bad for his health then maybe it’s only appropriate that he gives it up – completely.

Kois decided to spend the whole month of April 2014, standing. His only exceptions being when he’s driving – but he would try his best to take the train whenever he can – when nature calls, when he’s putting his shoes on and when he’d go to bed. He prepared himself insoles, anti-fatigue mats and transformed his office and home desks into standing workstations. Strapping on a fitness tracker, he plants his feet to the ground during the first day of April.

A few days in, he observes a significant change in his upper body; the tension and pain he feels in his shoulder from hunching over faded away. In addition to this, he seemed to have lost a couple of pounds and have become legitimately more productive. On the flip side, he couldn’t work the rest of the night. As the days go by, he felt more tired and sore. The pain he started to feel in his calves only seemed to go worst as the weeks go by. He started to feel spasms that would last for almost half an hour as he lied in bed at night and spent his following mornings wishing only to lie down for a few more hours.

By the 22^nd of April, Kois went the extra mile to ask for the opinion of scientists on which of the two is more harmful.

Bioengineering professor Dr. April Chambers of the University of Pittsburgh says that science has known that standing all the time is harmful to us longer than we’ve known about prolonged sitting. Chambers has conducted studies on people who are on their feet all day at work; she adds that these individuals have no other choice because their occupations require long hours of standing. Several doctors and scientist have told Kois that finding a balance between the two is the key to a healthier lifestyle. Yet Chambers admit that no one seems to have identified how much standing and sitting is needed to achieve the balance.

Kois said that most of the scientists he spoke to talked about sit-stand tools fondly. Some have said that they utilize alarms and other apps to remind them to stand up for at least ten minutes every hour. He also heard several scientists say that they stand for meetings or phone calls.

Experts from the field of interior design and architecture are also taking this into consideration. Certain offices are either allowing their employees to have standing desks or permitting them to have ample time to take a walk during their work day. The widely popular modern offices such as coworking spaces have open layouts and a variety of work areas that allows its members to switch from sitting down to standing up. It gives them the freedom to go on walks whenever they like. In addition to this, several flexible workspace providers have recreational rooms such as game rooms while others even have their own gyms.

At the end of his article, on the aforementioned experiment, Kois discussed the implications of prolonged sitting that he never would have seen had he not tried to stand up for a month. He concluded that maybe reminding ourselves to stand up for at least ten minutes of every hour isn’t as arduous as giving up the idea of sitting down for a month.