Why Use Red Light Therapy?

Jan 08, 2026

Andrew Hasty

Why Use Red Light Therapy?

Red light therapy is a natural way to help your body get the sunlight it needs. Imagine getting all the benefits of sunlight without ever having to leave your house on a cold, dark day. Explore the science and benefits below.

Introduction

Nowadays, red light therapy is (almost) considered a mainstream, standard practice for elite professional athletes, world-class training centers, and the leading medical experts. Vital Red Light devices are now being used by guys like Tony Robbins, Odell Beckham, Equionx Gyms, and over 30,000 others who are looking to perform, look and feel better. But what exactly is this tool?

First things first. We need sunlight to be healthy. You already know that. That’s why you are reading this. We all remember that one day where we spent the entire afternoon basking in the sun — it’s INVIGORATING! The problem is, you can’t bask in the sun every day. You work. You support a family. You go to the gym. You are striving for more out of life in this life. And laying out in the sun isn’t a reality for you (right now at least).

This is where red light therapy comes into play. Red light therapy harnesses to specific wavelengths of the sun, red and near-infrared light. You can think of it as a “sunshine supplement“. With red light therapy, you get a predictable dose of natural light anytime, anywhere — regardless of the weather.

In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about red light therapy. What a clinical science says. And how could benefit everything from your energy levels to T-production and other benefits such as:

Skin repair and anti-aging
Muscle recovery and endurance
Pain and inflammation
Boosted test and libido
Cognitive function
Sleep
Mental health and stress

What is Red Light Therapy?

The key point: Your health depends on your mitochondria — also known as the powerhouse of the cell. Mitochondria create energy to fuel the body. Scientists have discovered that when red and NIR wavelengths penetrate the skin, they stimulate the mitochondria, and help them produce energy more efficiently. In essence, mitochondria can use Red Light as an energy source. Pretty cool right?

Here’s a bit more detail on the mechanisms at play: red and near-infrared light have a particular resonance with a key enzyme during cellular respiration—cytochrome c oxidase (CCO). Cellular respiration is the process of converting food, water, and light, into energy. This process happens within the mitochondria. Think of ATP as the gasoline to your car, it is the energy source for all that you do. And red light therapy directly increases ATP production (more below).

The Science of Red Light Therapy

The key point: Your health depends on your mitochondria, the cell in your body that converts food into energy. When they’re stimulated by the red light therapy, they work more effectively and boost your overall health.

Scientists have discovered that when red and NIR wavelengths penetrate the skin, they work in particular on the cell’s main energy producers, mitochondria. Red and near-infrared wavelengths stimulate mitochondria, causing them to produce more of the compound known as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the source of energy that’s used and stored at the cellular level.

Red light therapy is an innovative way to optimize your sleep and energy levels. The use of red light therapy has been shown to improve melatonin secretion, which can help with falling asleep faster and maintaining a healthy sleep cycle. It can be used for 10-minutes either in the morning or evening to promote better sleep.

In the morning: Using red light therapy in the morning, similar to the sunrise, suppresses melatonin (the sleep hormone) and gives you the energy to start your day.
In the evening: Using red light therapy in the evening at least 60 minutes before bed (1-2 hours before seems to be optimal) can help improve sleep quality by helping your body prepare for rest.

What Are The Benefits?

Like we touched on above, red and near-infrared light trigger a cascade of beneficial chemical reactions throughout tissues that stimulate the body’s own healing and protective processes – which can lead to improved overall skin health, reduced pain and inflammation, better sleep, and enhanced muscle recovery.

A common question we get is this: how can red light therapy help with so many things? It comes down to this. Every cell in your body has 20 to 30 mitochondria. Some parts of your body like your muscles and brain – have a higher concentration of mitochondria because they demand more energy. Since red light therapy it works directly on your mitochondria, wherever you shine the light, whether it’s your face, back, neck, or limbs — The Mitochondria in that area are receiving energy to do their jobs more efficiently. Whatever the light touches – it influences. (That’s why we encourage using red light therapy while naked).

Muscle Recovery & Performance

Red light therapy basically gives you the power to work out harder, faster, and with less pain. By getting your cells to create energy on a high octane level, you can achieve maximum performance.

Muscle tissue (including your heart) has more mitochondria than any other place in the body because it is used to power all sorts of movement. This means that your muscle tissue is particularly responsive to high doses of red and infrared light.

Using red light prior to working out is a way to pre-condition your body to support increased strength and stamina. While using red light directly after exercise can speed the recovery process, accelerate muscle adaptation during workout, along with reducing pain and inflammation from a strenuous workout. Here you can find a meta-analysis that includes the findings from 46 human-clinical trials as it relates to red light therapy and fitness.
Cognitive Function

Using red light therapy in the morning will make your mind sharp and head clear. New research is also showing how shining red light on your head and brain cells may improve cognitive functions like memory and executive function. The study showed that people were able to perform difficult tests with less cognitive effort and difficulty — meaning that people could be able to perform tasks that require more brain power easier.

Another study found red and near-infrared light therapy also increased executive cognitive function in young healthy adults, providing hope that further studies find that red and near-infrared light therapy may provide a hopeful treatment in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, as well as prevention.
Pain & Inflammation

Red light therapy has shown immense potential as a natural treatment to pain and inflammation without the risks of pharmaceuticals. Red light therapy alleviates chronic inflammation by increasing blood flow and by increasing the body’s natural antioxidant defenses.

Inflammation is natural and can be beneficial, but chronic or uncontrolled inflammation can lead to pain and other problems. Red light therapy sessions help me manage inflammation so that I can heal more quickly and efficiently with every 10-minute treatment.
Hair Loss

Mental health is A huge problem in society today. And many people do not want to take pharmaceuticals, so they are turning to red light therapy. New research is showing how shining red light on your head and brain cells may improve cognitive functions like memory.

RLT can also help eliminate fatigue (partially by working to support the thyroid), support a balanced mood, and even help with depression and anxiety. In a recent study, 74% of participations saw a remission in their depression or anxiety after 30-days of red light therapy treatment.
Stress, Anxiety, Depression

Mental health is A huge problem in society today. And many people do not want to take pharmaceuticals, so they are turning to red light therapy. New research is showing how shining red light on your head and brain cells may improve cognitive functions like memory.

RLT can also help eliminate fatigue (partially by working to support the thyroid), support a balanced mood, and even help with depression and anxiety. In a recent study, 74% of participations saw a remission in their depression or anxiety after 30-days of red light therapy treatment.
Sleep

Ever wonder why you feel so good after watching the sunset? This is because during sunset, the sun is emitting the highest levels of red and near-infrared light. In the evening, these wavelengths signal to your body that it is time to wind down and prepare for sleep.

In clinical studies, red light has been shown to have beneficial effects on sleep and other physical properties that help promote relaxation and rest in the evenings while offsetting harmful blue light exposure during the days. Clinical research is also showing that red light therapy can improve sleep quality and duration and help people produce more of their own melatonin – also known as the sleep hormone.

Vital Red Light devices emit clinically proven red light and near-infrared wavelengths that heal your body from the inside-out.

What to look for in a Red Light Device?

Red light therapy devices come in many forms – from full-body units that expose your whole body to therapeutic red and near-infrared light to smaller handheld devices that are more portable and convenient.

Quality and safety: Settling for a cheap red light therapy device on Amazon can be doing more harm than good. Especially if you are sitting in front of the device naked, you don’t want to put the efficacy up to change. If you do some research, you will quickly realize that most red light products are actually not designed for human use. And use on ethical marketing tactics which reveal faulty measurements. Vital Red Light devices are different. Our devices pass a 19-day testing period prior to being sold & have undergone industry-leading stringent third-party independent tests.

Power: If you do some research, you will quickly see that there are a lot of devices out they are claiming to be the “most powerful”. With red light therapy, more power does not yield federal results. Here’s the deal: you don’t want your red light therapy devices to deliver excess power because of something called the biphasic dose response — which essentially is the law of diminishing returns. Too much light exposure actually negates the benefits.

The Vital Red Light Difference:

Vital Red Light devices, like the Vital Pro, use premium 5 WATT LED, anti-flicker LED light technology to deliver the highest therapeutic power for benefits. The precise therapeutic wavelengths of Red (660nm) and near-infrared (850nm) light in all Vital Red Light devices are comparable to what is used in the clinical studies. Vital Red Light devices are designed and manufacture following strict medical standards and are 3rd party tested.

There is too much junk out there in the Red Light Therapy. That is why we made Vital Red Light.