How to Choose Lights for Yoga Studio?

Lighting plays a big role in setting a relaxing mood for your mind and body. Since Yoga is essentially a practice of relaxing the body and improving focus and concentration, lighting can directly affect the results.

Is your next gig lighting up a yoga studio? Or do you want to create the best experience for yourself at home? Either way, this article will help you select the best lighting to enhance your daily yoga practice and increase your visitors in the case of a commercial yoga studio.

This article is about how you should light up your yoga studio, what lights are the best for this purpose, and what you should avoid.

Importance of Lighting Design in Yoga Studio

An excellent and well-thought-out lighting design in your yoga studio can improve your patron’s experience by a hundredfold. Lighting has a significant influence on a person’s mood and body. It can boost mood, energy, and even metabolism.

Much research explains how bright light can make a person feel warmer, more energized, and active, while dim light diminishes brain activity and relaxes the body.

The color of the lights can similarly affect the overall experience. Brilliant white and blue light (3300-5500K) signify alertness, while yellow and orange hues (2700-3300K) will calm you down.

In a yoga studio, lights combined with special background music and visuals can create a highly immersive sensory experience while meditating, exercising, or practicing Yoga.

Yoga Studio Lighting Ideas

Here we will cover all the essential factors to consider when designing your yoga space’s lighting.

1. Size and Layout of Your Yoga Space

The first thing that defines what types of lighting, lighting fixtures, and colors you’ll use going forward depends on the size of your space. Yoga studios can be of any size.

• Small studio

If your yoga studio is small or comprises only one room that can hold a maximum of 10 people, your first approach should be to utilize natural light and incorporate windows.

Avoid big and bulky hanging overhead light fixtures that occupy a lot of space on the ceilings. Low-hanging lights are a big NO-NO. Of course, it’s also advisable to refrain from placing unnecessary table or floor lamps.

Instead, go for the “wall-washing” effect that lights up the walls homogenously, giving an illusion of spaciousness. Use uplighting and backlighting to create depth in the room and make it look larger. You could use either single or multiple lights to illuminate a small area.

• Big studio

Big rooms require multiple light sources, but not too many, to cover the space coherently. Use a combination of lighting like ambient lights, wall washers, recessed lights, and uplights to give it a dynamic touch.

Since you have ample space, include architectural features like fountains and sculptures and light them up. Use table or floor lamps to beautify the overall look.

• Ceiling height

For low ceiling heights (8 ft), never use hanging fixtures. Yogis need an open space to stretch their arms above their head. You don’t want their hands, legs, or heads coming in contact with your hanging lighting fixtures.

• Wall materials

Is your ceiling made of plasterboard, T-bar, or cement? The answer defines what lighting fixture you need. For cemented tops, go for surface-mounted institutions. Plasterboard ceiling can hold any fixture so you can choose any type. T-bar ceilings have low tolerances, so you may want to use troffer lights.

• Colors of walls and complementing light hues

Make notes of the wall and floor colors to use lighting colors that complement the wall colors. For instance, in the case of wooden floors, you don’t want to go with bright white lights, or they’d reflect off the surface.

2. Color and Brightness of Lights

The color of the lights in a yoga studio is somewhat subjective and dependent on the mood of the yogis. It can range anywhere between 2200 K to 6500 K.

But the best practice is to use white lights when performing dynamic Yoga, as this lively exercise style pumps up the mood. For a more relaxing and meditative type of Yoga, you can opt for slightly warmer hues to match the slow mood.

Use dimmable and bright lights that can change the brightness levels and color temperature according to the time of the day.

3. The Use of Natural Light

The importance of natural light in a space where a person engages in a mindful activity like Yoga or meditation can not be stressed enough. Just the soothing sunset can provide the optimum light for your studio.

But this can only be achieved in an outdoor yoga platform. If you own an indoor studio, your best bet is to incorporate windows so the sunlight can shine through.

Sunlight regulates our circadian rhythms, thus improving our focus during the day and helping us sleep better. Yoga performed in sunlight is many times better than Yoga in artificial light.

You can mimic sunlight by using LED lights of CCT 5000-6000K. Note that this range is quite bright, so adjust the color accordingly. Besides that, you can use bright lighting that changes color according to the time of the day.

Types of Lights Should You Use in a Yoga Studio

Out of so many lights on the market, only LEDs can provide you the ultimate flexibility and control over your lighting. LEDs will use less energy and power and help you save money in the long run because of their minimal maintenance cost.

Here are a few types of LED lights you can use in your yoga studio:

1. Indirect Light Fixtures

During the session, there are many instances during the exercise where yogis look upward toward the ceiling. Direct light over their heads can disturb their focus and feel unpleasant to their eyes. Especially if there are bright lights in the studio, direct light fixtures can cause eye strain and headache, which is the last thing your patron wants.

Using indirect lights covers the wall softly and homogeneously. Plus, it creates an illusion of spaciousness and reduces glare and shadows

Example:

• Uplights Lights

Uplight fixtures shoot up the light toward the ceiling, creating a homogenous soft cast on the top and eliminating glares. These fixtures wash the walls with light and are not harsh on the eyes of the people in the room.

Uplights come in many forms. The most common are sconces available in multiple shapes and sizes to suit your needs.

Half-moon-up light wall sconces are stylish and complement any interior. They are widely used in many applications requiring a wall wash effect. Similarly, you could use candle sconces as well.

• Cove Lighting

Cove lighting is indirect light formed by placing strip lights inside the coves and ledges on ceilings. It directs rays toward the top, washing the wall with a soft light while giving it a stylish look.

• Wall Washers

You could go for wall washers as well. But since they are generally placed on the ceiling to wash the side walls, they could shine in people’s eyes if not installed carefully.

• Recessed Lights

Use recessed lights to fill the yoga studio with light that is not too bright or shiny. Recessed lights come in a variety of designs. You can change the beam angle to adjust to your needs.

• Swing Arm Wall Lights

Swing arm wall light can be tilted and moved in any direction to create your desired light. This also gives the yogis the liberty to choose wherever they want the light.

• Backlighting

Backlighting can create decent illumination in the room. These are typically used to highlight an architectural feature on walls, TVs, panels, or frames.

• Accent Lighting

Accent lighting is created by hiding the light source behind or at the wall’s edge. You can achieve this light from wall to wall, wall to floor, or wall to ceiling.

• Flush Mount Lights

Flush mount ceiling lights are another great way to create a soft glow in the yoga studio. As the name suggests, they illuminate a room and are not too bright on the eyes.

• Floor Lamps

Another great way to add aesthetics to your studio is to include floor lamps. Adding plants and other decorative elements to the room can create amazing shadows on the walls and floors, enhancing the calming experience.

2. Dimmable Lights

Instead of investing in simple LEDs, try dimmable lights. They will pay you off significantly in the long run. Dimmable lights give you more control over your lighting. You can adjust the dimmed light anytime, even through your smartphone. This allows patrons to adjust the lights according to their wants during a yoga session.

3. Galaxy Light Projection

If you want to go ahead and create an even higher immersive experience for your visitors, try a galaxy light projector that shines stars and galaxy patterns on the ceilings. You can change the colors to suit the mood. Create a dreamy atmosphere in your yoga studio with soft light.

4. RGBW Lights

You must play with the lighting, audio, and visuals in a yoga space for an immersive experience. You can use RGBW lights that change hues of blue and green with the soothing background music of ocean waves or birds chirping.

You can apply color psychology and change colors according to the type of exercise performed. To create a relaxing mood, use the hues of the earth, for example, creams, light browns, pale blues, grey, taupe, pink, and greens.

Nature’s colors can trigger a sense of peacefulness and relaxation in our minds. So, why not use it in your indoor yoga studio?

What to Avoid in Yoga Lighting?

Even a tiny tweak in lighting can dramatically impact the overall experience. Here are a few things to look out for and avoid while lighting a yoga studio:

1. Direct Lights

Direct lights/downlights such as wall hangings, chandeliers, track lights, tube lights, and neon lights can be harsh on the eyes, cause headaches and eye strains, and make the yogis uncomfortable. Avoid the use of light fixtures that shine light directly in the eyes. Instead, opt for indirect lights.

2. Glare

Glare is usually caused by combining high brightness and direct light. Although you need a certain brightness level in the room, it can become too much if not controlled.

Glare can be avoided by using indirect lights. If you can’t lower the brightness level, use diffusers, louvers, and special lenses to soften the light output.

You could also change the position of the lights and design them better. Glare can be the result of two light beams overlapping each other. Adjusting the space between adjacent lights can mitigate glare.

3. Flickering Lights

Flickering lights are the last thing you want in a yoga studio where people come to relax. You can eliminate flickering by scheduling regular maintenance of your fixtures and choosing LED lights with a long life.

4. Fluorescent Lights

Gas-based bulbs like fluorescent produce visible bright ultraviolet light by heating up and ionizing the gas inside. LEDs are about 80% more efficient and cost-effective than fluorescent lights. Plus, fluorescent lights flicker a lot and produce noise that can annoy the yoga participants.

Final Thoughts

The best yoga studio lighting has flexible light fixtures that users can adjust and control. Since yoga lighting targets the mood and emotions of the yogis, these lights must change colors and brightness levels according to the feeling in the room.

Different exercises stir different emotions, so yoga lighting should be designed to cater to everyone in the room.

RC Lighting is Your One-Stop Shop for Yoga Studio Lighting 

RC Lighting has helped many businesses and projects with their lighting needs. You can be next. We have a team of designers and experts who know precisely what you require for your yoga studio. Our team combines different lighting features and styles to create a customizable design that matches your requirements.

Made with top-quality and top-performing components and raw materials, our lights will stand the test of time.

You can choose a combination of lights from our massive catalog of LED downlights, LED uplights, LED wall washers, LED floodlights, and much more.

Order today and receive your lights at your doorstep in the shortest lead time.

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