Which Colour Night Lamp Is Best?
By Metify Homes
Red or amber. If you want one answer, that is it. A dim red or deep yellow light is the kindest to sleep, and blue or bright white is the worst.
The second half of the answer matters just as much: whatever the colour, keep it dim and keep it low. A bright red lamp at eye level will still keep you awake.
Why colour makes a difference
Your body uses light to decide what time it is. In the evening, as light fades, the brain releases melatonin, the hormone that prepares you for sleep. Light at night holds that release back, and the body is far more sensitive to some colours than others.
Blue light has the strongest effect. That includes the blue hidden inside white light from cool daylight bulbs, phone screens and televisions. Red light has the weakest effect. Amber and warm yellow sit close to red. This is why the same room can feel wide awake under a daylight tube and sleepy under a warm lamp.
The colours, ranked
| Night light colour | Effect on sleep | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Red | Least disturbing | All-night light, children’s rooms, night feeds |
| Amber, orange, deep yellow | Very low disturbance | All-night light, corridors, the walk to the bathroom |
| Warm white (2700K), dimmed | Low if kept dim | Reading before sleep, then switched off |
| Green | Moderate | Better avoided for all-night use |
| Cool white or daylight (6500K) | High | Not for bedrooms at night |
| Blue | Highest | Avoid |
The zero bulb problem
Most of us grew up with a small coloured “zero bulb” in the bedroom, and in a lot of homes it is blue or green because those look calm. They look calm, but blue and green are the colours your body clock reacts to most strongly.
If you use a zero bulb, switch to the red or yellow one. It costs the same and it is the single easiest change on this page.
Brightness: dimmer than you think
A night light has one job: let you see the edge of the bed and the way to the door. It does not need to light the room. If you can read a newspaper headline by it, it is brighter than it needs to be.
Practical ways to get there:
Use the lowest wattage available. For an LED night lamp, 1 watt or less is enough.
Choose a lamp with a dimmer or more than one brightness level.
Put the lamp behind something, a chair or the side of a wardrobe, so you get its glow and not the source.
Position: low, and out of your eyes
Light that enters your eyes directly does the damage. Light that falls on the floor does much less.
Place a night lamp below the level of the mattress where you can: a low socket, the floor beside a wardrobe, under the side table. In a corridor, plug-in lights at skirting level show the floor without lighting your face. For older family members who get up at night, a low amber light along the route to the bathroom is safer than switching on a bright tube light, which leaves you half blind when it goes off again.
Night lamps for children
Babies. They do not need a night light. You do, for feeds and nappy changes. Use a dim red or amber lamp you can switch on with one hand, and switch it off afterwards.
Toddlers and young children. If a child is afraid of the dark, a night light is a reasonable comfort. Keep it red or amber, keep it dim, and put it across the room from the bed and not beside the pillow. The projector lamps that throw blue and green stars on the ceiling are fun at bedtime and a poor choice for the whole night. Use the timer if the lamp has one.
School-age children. A warm white reading lamp for the bedtime book, switched off at lights out, works better than a coloured light left on.
What about reading before sleep?
You cannot read comfortably by red light, and you do not have to. Use a warm white bulb, 2700K, in a bedside lamp with a shade, at 5 to 7 watts. It has far less blue in it than a daylight bulb, and you switch it off when you are done. The shade matters: it keeps the bulb itself out of your eyes. Our side table lamp size guide explains how to set the height so the shade does that.
The phone is the bigger problem. A night-mode filter helps a little. Putting it down half an hour before sleep helps more.
Is complete darkness better?
For sleep itself, yes. A dark room is the ideal, and thick curtains do more for sleep than any lamp. A night light is for safety and comfort: children, elderly parents, guests in an unfamiliar room, anyone who gets up at night. Where one is needed, make it red or amber, dim and low.
This is general guidance about lighting, not medical advice. If poor sleep goes on for weeks, speak to a doctor.
A quick checklist
Red, amber or deep yellow for anything left on all night
Warm white, shaded and dim, for reading, then off
No blue, no green, no daylight white in the bedroom at night
As dim as you can manage
Below eye level, never facing the pillow
For bedside lamps that take a warm bulb and keep it shaded, see our table lamps collection.