Compared to dark boutique studios, commercial gyms can be overly stimulating. They’re brightly lit, with graphic posters on the walls, adverts playing between chart-pop songs, the echo of class in the thin-walled spinning studio.

“From a sensory processing perspective, gyms tend to draw your attention externally and pull your attention from what you’re doing,” says Lee Chambers, an environmental psychologist and wellbeing consultant. “Reducing light down to a level that’s considerably less intense means we naturally can’t focus on the external environment. That in itself will ultimately narrow our focus, make us more likely to internalise what we’re doing and how we feel.”

This impact might not only be drawn from the darkness. ChromaYoga studio uses colour to enhance similar effects, drawing on research that shows different colours have their own specific light frequency, and those light frequencies also have physical and emotional benefits on the body.

Exercise in the dark: do you work harder in ‘nightclub’ boutique studios?