If you find your room dark during the rainy season | How to optimize your indoor time and lighting

It's been raining since morning. Even with the curtains open, the room doesn't feel bright and refreshed.

As the rainy season begins, concerns about spending time indoors increase, with comments like, "The room is dark even during the day," "It's hard to see my hands when working from home," and "Laundry is always drying indoors."

This article will explain why rooms feel dark during the rainy season, then introduce ways to adjust indoor lighting for different times of day—morning, midday, evening, and night—as well as for specific situations like indoor laundry and remote work.

Feeling that your room is dark during the rainy season is not your imagination

The Japan Meteorological Agency defines the rainy season as "a seasonal phenomenon from late spring to summer when rainfall increases and sunshine decreases." This means that "rooms are dark during the rainy season" is not just a perception; it is a season when the amount of sunlight reaching indoors inherently decreases.

Specifically, three changes overlap.

First, the actual daylight hours decrease. There are fewer sunny days, and the time the sun is out shortens.

Next, the light coming through windows weakens. Light passing through thick clouds not only diminishes in quantity but also becomes flat and diffused, making it harder to reach the back of the room.

Finally, colors appear dull. In dimly lit interiors, the contrast in colors of floors, furniture, and food is lost, giving the same room a somber impression.

As introduced in What is Healthy Light?, light is not simply about "brightness"; it's a balance of quantity, quality, and timing. The rainy season is a time when this balance tends to be easily disrupted.

The idea of not enduring "darkness"

There are two main things you can do at home to combat the darkness of the rainy season: re-evaluate your windows and your lighting.

Switching to thinner curtains, reducing clutter in front of windows, and incorporating brighter colors into walls and floors. These are improvements on the side of letting light in.

However, on heavily overcast days, there's inherently little light coming in, so efforts to simply let light in have their limits. This is where the idea of supplementing insufficient natural light with high-quality artificial light comes in handy.

With more time spent indoors, the rainy season is a time of year when lighting can significantly impact your daily life.

Indoor lighting for the rainy season, adjusted by time of day

There's no need to keep your room at the same brightness all day long. In fact, by adjusting the light according to the time of day, you can more easily establish a daily rhythm even when indoors.

Morning to midday: Set to a brighter, crisp daylight white color (around 5000K). Even if it's dark outside due to clouds, having your indoor lighting in active mode can help you get into remote work or housework more easily.

Evening: Gradually reduce brightness and shift the color to a warmer tone. By adjusting the indoor lighting to match the darkening outdoors, the transition to night becomes smoother.

Night: Switch to a not-too-bright incandescent color (around 3000K). The approach to lighting before bed is thoroughly explained in our article on sleep and light.

If you have dimmable and color-tunable lighting, you can make these adjustments with a single fixture. Even without it, simply varying the lighting—for example, illuminating only a part of the room at night—can change the feel of your indoor time.

Tips for specific situations

Indoor laundry chores: Drying laundry is about humidity control and ventilation; lighting does not speed up drying. However, handling laundry in a dark room often leads to missed dirt or wrinkles. It's practical to keep the room brightly lit during chores to ensure good visibility.

Remote work: Consider both the overall room brightness and the brightness at your workspace. A large difference in brightness between your screen and the room can strain your eyes. Brighten the entire room with daylight white, and add task lighting if necessary. It's also important to position light sources so they don't directly enter your field of vision.

Children's study: On cloudy days, the area near the window can be surprisingly dark. Increase the overall room brightness and check if any shadows are falling on their hands.

Weekend mood change: Especially on days spent entirely indoors, brighten the room in the morning and dim it at night. Adjusting the lighting creates a clear demarcation for days spent exclusively indoors.

In the case of lipro sunlight ceiling lights

The lipro Sunlight Ceiling Light incorporates the ideas discussed so far as follows:

• Dimming and color tuning: Seamless adjustment from 3000K to 5000K. A single unit can switch between active mode for morning/day and incandescent color for night.
• High color rendering: Ra97+. Even on cloudy days with weak natural light, colors in the room and on the dining table remain vibrant, maintaining clear visibility indoors.
• Light quality: Reproduces a spectrum close to sunlight, certified RG0 for blue light safety, and designed flicker-free to reduce flickering.
• Sizes: Available for 6-tatami and 8-tatami rooms. You can choose the right size for any room, from bedrooms to home offices.

Replacing your lighting won't eliminate all rainy season woes. For humidity, there's dehumidification; for laundry, there's ventilation. Each has its own tools. Beyond that, for the everyday feeling of "darkness," adjusting the quantity and quality of light is the most direct solution.

For more details, please visit the product page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Is it worth reconsidering my lighting just for the rainy season?

A. This isn't just about the rainy season. In Japan, cloudy and rainy days occur throughout the year, and daylight hours shorten in winter. The rainy season is an opportunity to notice "life on days with insufficient natural light," and by adjusting your lighting now, it will be effective regardless of the season.

Q. Is it okay to leave the lights on during the day?

A. There's no problem. LED lighting consumes little power, and making the room properly bright during necessary times will clearly improve the comfort of spending time indoors, compared to continuously staying in a dark room.

Q. Should I buy daylight white or incandescent light?

A. Since they serve different purposes throughout the day, if you can only choose one, we recommend a "switchable" option. Daylight white for daytime, incandescent for nighttime. A light with dimming and color tuning functions can handle both with a single unit.

Summary: The rainy season can be an opportunity to optimize your lighting

Rooms are dark during the rainy season because it's a season of reduced sunlight. It's not something to just endure, nor is it just your imagination.

Keep it bright and clear from morning until midday. In the evening, shift to warmer tones. Prioritize visibility during chores and work.

Guidance on choosing overall room lighting is available in How to Choose Eye-Friendly Ceiling Lights, and nighttime lighting is discussed in Sleep and Light. Try optimizing your lighting during the continuous rainy season.

References

• Japan Meteorological Agency "About the Rainy Season"
  https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/kishou/know/faq/faq33.html
• Japan Meteorological Agency "Past Start and End Dates of the Rainy Season"
  https://www.data.jma.go.jp/cpd/baiu/index.html
• lipro "Sunlight Ceiling Light"
  https://jp.lipro.com/ja-jp/products/ceiling-light-ja