Disclaimer: I am not a health care practitioner, nothing herein is considered medical advice. If you have questions, please consult your medical provider.
If you’ve been paying attention to the health sphere in the last few years, it’s likely you’ve encountered folks talking about red light therapy. Is it worth the hype? How exactly does it work? What are the benefits? What are the different kinds of lights out there? What’s the difference between red light therapy and infrared? I’m going to tackle this and more so that at your next office or friend gathering, you’ll be fully prepared to share some helpful pieces of knowledge about this new age health tool.
Table of Contents
What is Red Light Therapy?
Red light therapy (also known as RLT) is a kind of treatment that uses low-wavelength red light to promote cellular health, specifically those little mitochondrial cellular workhorses. The wavelengths are generally between 600 and 1,100 nanometers, though my personal favorite brand crafted their red light at 660 nm & 850 NIR. While you may find that RLT is offered in some clinical settings, the at-home devices are becoming increasingly popular. RLT home devices are now offered to help target everything from pain relief, muscle health, skincare treatments, and hair growth.
How Does Red Light Therapy Work?
First, we need to understand that the cells in our bodies respond to light. Think of flowers that open and close with the rise and set of the sun, the trillions of cells in our bodies are small, receptive biological units that are also influenced by our light environment. Cellular “health” usually speaks to how well (or how efficiently) the mitochondria are operating. You might remember from high school biology, but the mitochondria in our cells are the little factories that produce energy. The energy, adenosine triphosphate, or ATP is the fuel for all of our bodily functions. As we age, encounter stress, and live in a world of toxins (they are everywhere!), our cells can get bogged down and don’t the mitochondria stop producing energy efficiently. When our mitochondria stop being quite as efficient (or we can even think of them as sick), we can experience things like: fatigue, pain, inflammation, and brain fog.
Red light therapy works to help heal those mitochondria by dosing them with light at a very specific wavelength that they love. Once they start to heal, you may experience:
- Reduced inflammation and thereby, a reduction in pain: reducing the oxidative damage of stress/the world we live in, the mitochondria can get back to doing what they do best.
- Improved energy production: that ATP!
- Improve circulation: a byproduct of both the reduction of inflammation and the increase of ATP.
- Improved collagen production: the most abundant protein in the body, it gives our body elasticity, skin structure and strength, and healthy joints.
Why You Should Start Using a Red Light
If you’re looking for an extra tool to add to your health belt, one that can help reduce inflammation and support your efforts in the gym and kitchen, a red light might be a great consideration. One of the reasons I appreciate the red light technology the most is that it’s a single use tool with many benefits. If you’re looking for help with muscle recovery, it will also benefit your skin. If you’re looking for improvements in collagen production, it can also help reduce inflammation. They’re very user-friendly, have nice aesthetics (look great), and are an easy integration into a daily or weekly routine.
Red Light Therapy Benefits
Red light therapy is believed (and well documented in many cases) to support the following:
- Improved skin health: red light therapy is believed to improve skin health to include the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, texture, puffiness, and tone. It does this by healing the small muscles, reducing inflammation, and by increasing collagen production.
- Improved muscle recovery: red light therapy is believed to help improve muscle healing and reduce inflammation, therapy assisting with a reduction in pain, both localized and generalized.
- Increased hair growth: red light therapy is believed to help improve hair growth in people who are experiencing hair thinning or loss.
- Pain relief: by assisting in the healing of muscle tissue and in the reduction of inflammation, red light therapy is believed to help reduce pain in some individuals who stick to a regular use protocol.
Red Light Therapy Risks
In general, red light therapy is considered a relatively safe and benign treatment. That said, there are a few things to consider:
- Protect your eyes: protective eyewear is easy to come by and will keep your eyes from direct exposure, which is not always recommended. Whether or not to wear eyewear depends on the treatment guidelines for your specific device (my Joovv device is actually safe to use without eyewear and can even be used to treat the eyes, when the near infrared function is turned off.)
- Skin sensitivities: in some cases, people experienced redness and irritation, especially with extended use.
Different Types of Red Light Devices
I think it’s incredibly cool that we now have access to several different kinds of in-home red light therapy devices! Here are a few you might consider:
- Panels: these are great for treating the whole body or just larger portions of your body (think bigger muscle groups). I personally own a red light therapy panel device, I keep it in my bedroom and will use it after the shower. Sometimes I’ll also wear a face mask while I enjoy the 10 minutes of red light therapy as a way to habit stack.
- Handheld wands: while these might sound like a good entry point for someone looking to dip their toe into red light therapy at a lower price point, targeting smaller areas, I argue that the exposure doesn’t quite make sense. I recommend waiting until you can invest in a device that will cover a larger area.
- Red light masks and caps: these are nearly always marketed for their skin health benefits and are usually strapped onto or lay on top of your face. There are also masks that cover the neck, upper chest, and even those that can sit on you head like a hat. I like that these are portable, easy to use, and target a consistent large area.
- Floor mats: though we don’t hear of these as often, there are some floor mats that you would lay on top of.
Red Light Therapy Frequently Asked Questions
If you have any concerns, please consult with your healthcare provider before investing in and using a red light therapy device. For the most part, it’s considered generally safe, there are a few populations I want to especially encourage to check with their medical team first:
– Individuals who have light sensitivity or are on photosensitive medications.
– Pregnant women: there doesn’t seem to be enough data supporting the safety of red light therapy for pregnant women, so please consult with your doctor before starting use.
– Individuals who have open wounds or skin disorders should also check with their healthcare provider first.
For more on this, check out Joovv’s complete breakdown of contraindications and precautionary warnings HERE.
Red light therapy is generally considered a benign treatment tool (negative consequences are infrequently documented). That said, it is believed that a sign of overuse could present as skin irritation or fatigue. Most medical practitioners recommend 2-3x weekly sessions between 10 and 30 minutes at a time.
Infrared light therapy and red light therapy are mainly differentiated by their wavelengths, which are different.
– Red light therapy is visible to the naked eye (it’s red!) and will penetrate the skin by about 1-2 inches, making it ideal for treating the skin, collagen, and more superficial muscle and inflammation.
– Infrared light therapy is not visible to the naked eye and will penetrate the skin more deeply (believed to go several inches). It’s generally a better consideration for larger muscle groups and pain management.
Note that there are some red light therapy devices available to us now that offer both red light and infrared light therapy concurrently.
Which Brand Do I Recommend?
After pouring over the options available to us for in-home use, the Joovv devices (use discount code fedandfit for $50 off) really stick out to me as superior. Their safety standards and performance tests put them in a league of their own, which is important as there are MANY devices on the market that I suspect to be gimmicks. On a technical front, Joovv not only offer red light at 660 nanometers, but they also integrate near-infrared light (invisible to the human eye) at 850 nanometers, thereby creating a 1-2 punch of healing wavelengths sent into your body at medical grade settings.
