When catching up with a colleague this morning, I mentioned how much I can't stand the fluorescent lighting that permeates most of our work and school environments. Being a chronic migraine sufferer, I've always hated the way this cold, white light has triggered painful migraine episodes for me.
My colleague brought to my attention that not only can fluorescent lighting trigger migraines (see http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/do-fluorescent-lights-trigger-migraines/ for an interesting article on migraines and fluorescent lighting) but it might also deplete a person's ability to solve problems and think creatively.
A 2010 study by Michael Slepian at Tufts University suggests that people working under fluorescent lighting are less effective at thinking through the kinds of problems we may encounter at work and school. Slepian proposed that not only does the presence of fluorescent light affect creative thought negatively, but that exposure to incandescent light- even images of "old-school" lightbulbs- increased subjects' ability to solve problems:
To see if light bulbs could actually promote insights, Slepian and his colleagues next gave college students spatial, math and verbal problems to solve and had either a bare light bulb or an overhead fluorescent light turned on in the room partway into the problem. The volunteers either solved the problems faster or more often with the light bulb than with the fluorescent light.
Read a more detailed description of the study here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905814/
