Insomnia affects about 10 percent of Americans, making it the most common sleep disorder in the US.
Many readers have looked to numerous solutions for their insomnia.
Medical sleep aids don’t work for everyone, and pharmaceutical ‘solutions’ often lead to addiction. So, it’s often recommended to look for treatment and lifestyle choices that are sustainable over the long term.
Red light therapy is a natural, safe, non-invasive treatment you can use to soothe your body and mind and help improve sleep quality.
Read on to learn more about red light therapy and how the BIOMAX Series red light therapy panels may be able to help.
What is Red light Therapy?
Red light therapy uses powerful LED devices to shine specific wavelengths of light onto your skin. The interaction of light photons and light-sensitive chromophores stimulates the mitochondria, resulting in beneficial biological processes across the board.
Some red light therapy devices also use near-infrared, blue, or other wavelengths in addition to red light.
Red and near-infrared light are components of natural sunlight.
They have significant therapeutic effects. This is largely because they absorb deep into the skin and underlying tissues. The list of benefits of using red light therapy is quite long. Aside from better sleep, it can include things like pain relief, more youthful skin, faster recovery from exercise and injury, and many more.
Red light therapy is an ‘inside-out’ approach to wellness because it influences the body at the cellular level.
The best results of using RLT come over time with consistent use. This may also help with getting to bed earlier and making your Circadian Rhyhthm more consistent.
Red Light Therapy and Sleep: Does it Help?
Here, we address the key question. How does red light therapy get you quality sleep?
This partly has to do with how light can positively impact sleep when you get sufficient exposure ideally early in the day and at the right wavelengths.
Light is a key factor in your ability to fall asleep and sleep soundly. We know that certain types of light are energizing and others are soothing. While blue light tends to be energizing, red light is more soothing. Red light therapy should typically not be used in the evening. Although, some studies show that when used early in the morning, it can have significantly positive effects.
Below is a depiction of the Circadian Rhythm, depicting when melatonin release takes place before bed, in relation to getting sun and RLT exposure early in the day.
As you can see in this diagram, red wavelengths are most prominent in the evening. However, red light therapy treatment is typically most effective as treatment when conducted early in the day.
In one case, researchers note that red light treatment resulted in an improvement in circadian rhythm, resulting in improved sleeping patterns. Another provided conclusive findings that, as a result of using red light therapy during the day, “Adolescents had improved sleep timing, SOL and daytime functioning post-treatment.” A third study showed that over the course of two weeks, “red-light treatment improved the sleep, serum melatonin level, and endurance performance of … elite female basketball players.
We may have yet to see a large therapeutic clinical study, but what we have seen so far gives promising indications that RLT could give its users a significant advantage in getting to sleep more easily. However, this could also be related to the numerous other holistic benefits it provides, such as faster recovery from exercise, pain reduction, and its treatment of inflammation.
It is not as if red light therapy is a magic pill to make users fall asleep but rather that the stimulation of the mitochondria has powerful healing properties that can make the attempt at sleep more comfortable.
The treatment guidelines are basic. The RLT Panels just have to be used for 5 to 20 minutes per day, ideally in the morning and on a consistent basis.
How Red Light Therapy Treats Insomnia
The key to this is its ability to treat the mitochondria at various depths in your body.
Mitochondrial treatment isn’t about de-activating your body when you’re ready for bed. Really, it’s more about making RLT users overall healthier by energizing the fuel cells of their body.
In turn, this helps address nagging issues that could otherwise keep them awake at night.
Pain Relief
It can be difficult to sleep when you’re in pain. Red light therapy has an analgesic effect to help reduce pain. The treatment can be used for osteoarthritis joint pain, low back pain, muscle pain, and nerve pain.
Red light therapy is used to promote healing at the cellular level by reducing inflammation, increasing collagen production, increasing blood flow, and stimulating cellular energy production.
Tissue Oxygenation
Improved blood circulation is one of the hallmark benefits of red light therapy. As more blood flows to your muscles, they relax. More oxygenation of the brain may help with sleep apnea, especially at high altitudes, where many people have trouble sleeping until they become acclimated.
The BIOMAX Series
If you suffer from insomnia, red light therapy for sleep could be a game-changer.
The BIOMAX Series panels are powerful FDA-cleared medical-grade red light therapy devices.
They are the only devices on the market to feature six therapeutic wavelengths. Included in the red light wavelengths are the following: 630nm, 660nm, 810nmm, 820nm, and 850nm. And meanwhile, there are traces of 480nm blue light for surface level skin treatment.
They come in various sizes, including the BIOMAX 300, BIOMAX 450, BIOMAX 600, and the BIOMAX 900. Take a look to see which size might be right for you.
Or, if you enjoy a soothing sauna before bedtime, you can add red light therapy with the SaunaMAX Pro, a heat-resistant panel that’s safe to use in a traditional or infrared sauna.
Home red light therapy remains the easiest, most convenient and cost-efficient way to get regular treatment. Take a look at the BIOMAX Series to enjoy the most advanced consumer red light therapy panels on the market.
