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Red light therapy for mental health and wellbeing

can red light therapy help your mental health

Index

 

If you’re experiencing depression, mood disorders, and excessive anxiety, you can’t enjoy life to its fullest. Everything seems meaningless and you’re less likely to value anything around you. The dark winter months don’t make matters any easier.

The right treatment can bring you out of these problems. Light therapy is one of the safest modes to treat various types of depression and conditions that are associated with fatigue, anxiety, depression, SAD, and general well-being.

How light impacts your mental health

Light plays so many important roles in the human body and it is vital to our well-being. Everyone needs natural light for our body to be healthy and function properly. Light is as essential to the human body as food and water, yet humans are now indoors more often than ever. In fact, the most dominate element of nature that is always overlooked in the modern health paradigm is – light.

Some of the biggest protagonists in the chronic disease epidemic are blue light exposure (over stimulating) at night and lack of natural light in our daily life.

Why use red light therapy?

When we don’t get adequate natural light, it affects every cell and process within our body. Humans were made to use sunlight for optimal health. Healthy light is essential to every cell’s function, and a lack of light can lead to chronic disease and illness.

Lack of sunlight has been known to cause anxiety and depression because not enough sunshine depletes brain serotonin and dopamine levels, and those low levels can lead to disabling mood conditions. Staying indoors for extended periods affects mental well-being. In addition to clinical depression and anxiety, low levels of Serotonin are also associated with depressive disorders like seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a type of mood disorder influenced by the changing daylight hours.

Red light therapy can specifically:

  • Increase sluggish energy levels
  • Support a balanced mood
  • Improve mental clarity and confidence
  • Improve general positivity, calm, and reduce anxiety
  • Reduce seasonal depression (SAD)
 

While red light therapy devices can have these benefits, it should never replace working with a mental health professional or other treatments for anxiety, depression, or the like.

Using red light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

Seasonal affective disorder is a type of depression that affects approximately 5% of all Americans. Those especially susceptible to seasonal affective disorder, living areas of the country that do not see much natural light during winter months.

can red light therapy help your mental health

You’ve probably heard about “SAD lamps” that mimic the sun with bright, artificial light. These can really brighten a dark space and make it seem like there’s more natural light in your day, but ultimately this is still a hefty dose of blue light, which can throw off your circadian rhythm and cause fatigue and even damage to your delicate eye structures.

Clinical research, in its initial phases, shows that red light has the ability to become a widely used, and safe treatment for clinical forms of depression.

Using red light therapy for depression

Mental health disease such as depression anxiety and bipolar disorder are taking a toll on today’s society. Red light therapy has extraordinary potential in mental health disorders. In a major mental health study conducted in 2018, researchers unanimously concluded that light therapy demonstrated antidepressant properties. These antidepressant properties had a medium to large effect size in patients with major depressive disorder.

In another recent review of all existing studies on red and near-infrared light therapy and depression/anxiety disorders, researchers found that these light therapies offer a “promising treatment” for major depressive disorder, suicidal ideation, anxiety, and traumatic brain injury.

How to use red light therapy?

Red light therapy is safe and easy to use for people of all ages. Remember, you will not sweat or feel heat. All you have to do is bask under the light and let the therapeutic red and near-infrared light do all the work for you. The red and near-infrared light will work with your body to reduce pain.

No prescriptions. No medications. No injections. No surgery. Just safe, natural wavelengths of effective, proven light energy.

Light therapy also starts working faster than most other forms of treatment for mental health problems. As noted above, some people report enhanced mood and generally feeling better after just one to a few sessions, with maximal results usually attained after several weeks of consistent use.

can red light therapy help your mental health

Conclusion

Light is all around us, but most of us don’t really think about it on a day to day basis. We may even take for granted how much light fuels our basic needs and functions. There’s no shortage of reasons why natural light is integral to our health and not getting enough of it can lead to serious health consequences. Using a premium light therapy device from Vital Red Light is an easy way to get a healthy dose of natural light anytime, anywhere

With a red light therapy device from a reputable red light therapy company, you can get more real, natural light in your own home, even when it gets dark before the workday ends. With a quality device, you can get a full day’s worth of natural light in just 10-15 minutes, no matter what the weather is like. Because red light therapy is so easy to use and low to no risk, red light therapy is likely to become a mainstream seasonal depression treatment in the coming years. Forward-thinking physicians agree and are already using natural light to treat depression.

Anyone starting light therapy should monitor how their moods and emotions are impacted and consult their doctor and/or therapist with any concerns or questions.

Citations

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26989758

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15025051/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10739143/

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