ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
Designing for calm: exploring the impact of colored light on autonomic regulation and anxiety in patients awaiting cataract surgery.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Objective: To explore whether immersive colored light can be used as a design intervention to reduce preoperative anxiety and modulate autonomic nervous system activity in patients awaiting cataract surgery. Background: Preoperative anxiety is common and often underestimated. Environmental factors such as lighting may influence patients' emotional state and physiological stress responses. Integrating light-based strategies into preoperative spaces represents an opportunity for evidence-based design. Methods: Thirty patients awaiting cataract surgery were exposed to immersive colored light (blue, green, purple, red, orange, and yellow) for 10 min each in randomized order, with ambient light serving as the control condition. Anxiety was assessed before and after each exposure using a verbal analog scale (VAS). Autonomic regulation was evaluated using heart rate variability (HRV), measured as the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) with a wearable sensor. Subjective color perception and color preference were also recorded. Anxiety and autonomic outcomes were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models including lighting condition and color preference as fixed effects and participant as a random intercept. Results: Baseline anxiety and RMSSD under ambient light conditions were 5.6 ± 2.1 VAS points and 24.8 ± 9.3 ms, respectively. Linear mixed-effects modeling demonstrated a significant effect of lighting condition on both anxiety and HRV (both Conclusions: This exploratory study suggests that immersive colored light may influence both subjective anxiety and autonomic regulation in patients awaiting cataract surgery. Blue light was associated with reduced anxiety and enhanced parasympathetic activity independently of color preference. These findings support the potential of adaptive lighting design as a non-pharmacological strategy to improve the perioperative patient experience.
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