What is Red Light Therapy?
By now you’ve heard or read about the amazing all natural healing benefits of Red Light Therapy so what’s all the hype about?
Red Light Therapy or RLT, is a form of low level but powerful light therapy that helps accelerate your bodies own natural healing processes without drugs or surgery and the side effects and complications of them.
How it works:
RLT exposes your body to high powered and very safe red and/or near-infrared light. Infrared light produces a type of energy that your eyes can’t see but senses as heat, much like from the Sun but without any UV dangers. Infrared Light is especially effective for chronic and painful conditions like arthritis. On the other hand, Deep Red light is very similar to infrared light with the difference that your eyes can see it and is highly effective for superficial conditions like inflammation and even fat loss!
Other terms used for RLT include Low-level laser therapy (LLLT), low-power laser therapy (LPLT), and lastly photobiomodulation (PBM).
Treatments for red light therapy
Red light therapy has a wide range of applications.
There are studies showing significant benefits for the following purposes:
- Aches & Pains
- Acne
- Anti-Inflammatory
- Arthritis
- Brain Health
- Depression
- Eye Health
- Hormone Optimisation
- Joint Pain
- Mood Boost
- Muscle Recovery
- Physical Performance Enhancement
- Post Surgery
- Skin Rejuvenation
- Sleep Enhancement
- Tendon Healing
- Wound Healing
- Weight Loss
You can find great studies supporting all these conditions on Pub Med.
How does red light work?
Much like plants absorb light from the Sun and convert it to food, with RLT you expose your naked skin to a RLT device and the mitochondria of your body’s cells(your cells powerhouse) absorb it and turn it from a light energy to a chemical called Adenosine Tri Phosphate ATP your body products naturally to repair and heal itself.
Many experts think RLT helps the cells to repair themselves and improve overall health especially in skin and muscle tissue.
RLT uses very low levels of heat therefore it does not hurt or burn the skin.
Does red light treatments have risks?
Red Light is considered a safe form of therapy. There are no specific sets of rules on how much light and for how long every treatment should go for as it really depends on the device and the condition is used for.
Generally too much light exposure could cause tissue damage and too little lightexposure might not be enough to get the benefits.