Introduction – The premise of this article is to explain how beneficial Red Light Therapy and light hygiene are to health management.
Red light is a health technology that saw its advent in 1967 by Endre Mester at the Semmelweis Medical University in Hungary when in trying to replicate an experiment utilizing a ruby laser, previously done by another researcher in Boston named Paul McGruff, his lower energy laser did not cure the tumors in his rats as he’d hoped but instead another outcome resulted: increased rate of hair growth and robust wound healing in rats that had surgically placed tumors. Knowing what I know now about it, it is something that I can sincerely say that I wished that I could afford during my high school athletics days. After suffering a debilitating stress fracture, my life had never been the same. But now this technology can be seen in health and wellness spaces as well as in the beauty world with devices created for the use of everything from skin improvement to hair growth, red light appears to be everywhere. I’ve used it myself for gut health and the recovery from a recent abdominal surgery this past fall. As my own n=0, I can’t say the same for anyone else, but I can attest to the fact that it was a useful tool for those things and continues to be as far as my gut and general health and wellbeing.
Most know or have at least heard that nutritionally dense foods, doing purposeful movement as much as possible, and quality sleep lead to good health. What about if we incorporated light hygiene and light therapy at least in the form of red light. More and more it has been observed that increased screen time with the use of light-emitting electronic devices can impair sleep and even lead to or at least impair our mental health. This is due to the interruption of the body’s circadian rhythms that come from electronic devices. This blue light or short-wavelength enriched light is noted to be present in not just tablets, but cell phones as well and using them in the evening especially before bed has been noted to increase the time that it takes to fall asleep.
Which suggests, what can one do when they can’t sleep? It is tempting to reach for the phone again but it has been found that with reduced melatonin, this may not be such a good idea especially because it has been noted that chronic sleep deprivation can cause distractedness, memory problems, and potentially depression and anxiety. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve fallen to the temptation to scroll at night but after learning this, I’ve since instituted for myself that 30 mins before bed, the phone must go off and my sleep has been much better since this intervention.
When you read up on red light, you can’t help but not run into the story of Circadian rhythm and light hygiene. It has been noted that light can influence the human microbiome. Photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT), which uses red (630nm -700nm frequency), and near-infrared light (700 and 1200nm frequency) can encourage healing, provide pain relief, reduce inflammation, affect circadian rhythm and have positive effects on the gut microbiome.
Working in front of my computer, I now don blue light blocking glasses that are the yellow lensed type that are helpful in blocking out a certain percentage of blue light. This light, which is a frequency on the visible spectrum of light that the human eye can see, exists at wavelengths at 440 nm. Blue light in its natural form from the sun is helpful to us as a signal of when to wake and sleep but overtime, especially from unnatural sources (i.e. cell phones, tablets, etc.), can case retinal damage especially because blue light is close to ultraviolet light on the spectrum of visible light which moves at a higher frequency and cannot be blocked so most of it goes to the retinas of our eyes. Over time, damage retinal damage can happen, as can conditions like cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.
Living in Seattle, a city above the 37th parallel, has taught me that I must be especially mindful of light hygiene as cloud visibility tends to be high in this region for a large part of the year, however UV is noted to be able to sift through clouds so even though the days may be cloudy, one can still get minute amounts of precious UV light whenever they venture outdoors. The use of a vitamin D lamp along with going outside as much as possible has been especially helpful in keeping my mood up in the winters since moving here. If babies with neonatal jaundice are made to lay under UV lights to clear the excess bilirubin from their bodies, why then should light hygiene not receive more attention? It should not come as a surprise that such an intervention could be of use to all.
To take it a step further, blue light blocking glasses and even blue blocking coating are even becoming options for prescriptions glasses. There are blue light filters that can be applied to digital devices to reduce the amount of blue light that our eyes receive when we use them. I hope to see the day that more of these technologies and interventions will be prescribed along with medications for enhanced healing and or recovery.
Conclusion – Red light is a helpful treatment modality for many illnesses as well as for the maintenance of general health. Together with adherence to light hygiene, one can also achieve better health.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22114-red-light-therapy Assessed and Endorsed by the MedReport Medical Review Board