February 2024

The surprising benefits of incandescent light bulbs

I used to have two 100W incandescent light bulbs above my desk. I replaced them already five years ago with LED lights. The LEDs had a more white light and it was actually better when working with small and delicate items.

I get sometimes a sore and stiff shoulder when working on the laptop at the desk especially when typing for a few hours. I have tried different seating positions but ultimately the best solution was always to use a heating pad or to take a break and sit for a 15min in the warm sun.

Since I had still some old spare 100W incandescent light bulbs, I decided to use them this winter. The house is anyhow heated with electricity and there is no overall saving when using LED instead of incandescent bulbs.

an incandescent light bulb: a strong source of infrared and near infrared light

The stiff shoulder problem stopped!! I never made the link between the LED bulbs and the start of this stiff shoulder problem. I just thought that I am getting older.

It turns out that there is really a significant cardiovascular and mitochondrial health benefit to infrared or near infrared light. Incandescent light bulbs emit a lot of infrared light. I am surprised that it works even when sitting about a meter away from such a 100W incandescent light bulb.

LED lights are probably useful in the corridor or in the bathroom but consider going back to 60W or 100W incandescent light bulbs at your desk or any place where you spend a lot of time near the light. If stores don't have regular 100W incandescent bulbs then look for rough service bulbs with 100W.

Update 2025-07-14

There seems to be a new study out the confrims my findings regarding the benefits of infrared light. It was done with sunlight but the emphasis was on 830-860nm range. You can read more about it at:
https://www.thefocalpoints.com/p/new-study-sunlight-penetrates-the, article by Nicolas Hulscher

Update 2026-01-12

Do you find LED car lights blinding? There are more and more people speaking out against LED lights and there is an interesting site about the difference between LEDs and other light sources such as incandescent light bulbs:
https://www.softlights.org/why-is-led-light-different/ (local copy: Why_is_LED_Light_Different_Soft_Lights_Foundation.pdf).