Transcription
This man did red LED light therapy on his entire body for one year, and this is what happened to his physique, his skin, and his mood. I've shared quite openly before about LED products that I love and those that I don't necessarily think are worth it. What's the actual science behind red LED? How does it work, and what specifically happened to this man when he tried to do red LED therapy on his entire body? This is Pygmy, who is an amazing YouTuber you should absolutely subscribe to. I came across him when looking for different reviews of LED full-body panels. I am actually trying my own little experiment on LED for my entire body to see if it does or doesn't work because there's tons of data for face masks and for these other things, but I actually want to see if using it on my entire body and using professional-grade equipment makes a difference in the way that I sleep, in the way that my skin heals, and even potentially in my mood.
Fun fact: there may even be new information on how LED light, specifically red LED light, can impact your eye health. Dr. Eye Health is another amazing content creator, and he recently spoke about some potential benefits for the eyes, although more research is needed. But let's actually talk about red LED benefits and see what this guy is getting up to and what happened to his body after one year.
Some of the main benefits of red LED for the face are specifically for collagen production. We have these special cells in our skin called fibroblasts, and they are the predominant cells that create collagen, or the strong stuff in our skin. There are other endothelial cells that can create different types of collagen in the body, but the fibroblasts are the main ones. Using the right wavelength and the right power of red light has been medically proven to stimulate collagen in the skin. It's also shown to decrease inflammation.
I've had these breakouts right here, kind of on my neck and by the back of my ears. I have a red LED wand that I can hold right here to help heal them, and that is actually part of how I got rid of a curling iron burn. Does anyone remember this video? The time that I burnt my freaking chest open with a curling iron? I thought this was going to leave such a huge scar. I mean, look at this! I shared it in that video, but there's literally no curling iron scar at all to be seen. Not to mention this dress—who is she? She's the girl that kicks over her own film setup. Obviously, I am feeling it today.
What I'm also feeling is a little bit of curiosity around some of these full-body panels versus the face ones. Obviously, red LED for the face is kind of how I got introduced to these products. It was literally years ago in aesthetic school, and I remember the teacher bringing out an LED face mask that looked something like this and telling us about the benefits and how it's used in clinic. I also remember being like 16, struggling with my acne, and going to a dermatologist where they took out these large LED panels and put them on my face. At that time, it was too expensive for me to go into the dermatology clinic and actually get those panels done because my insurance didn't cover it, unfortunately.
But that's why in aesthetic school, when I learned about these, I was like, "Oh, I recognize that. I've heard of that. How do I use these at home?" However, now as I continue to explore and learn new things and have income that I can put into different places or partnerships with brands like Best Cool, where they can actually provide products for me to scrutinize and review, I'm able to actually put some of this stuff to the test. There are some large panels that I've seen many YouTubers, many fitness enthusiasts, and even many doctors and scientists recommend, but I wanted to try them for myself.
So guess what arrived in the freaking mail? Yes, this came from Amazon, and it was a huge, relatively heavy box. But I'm a big, strong girl. You can't see the guns in this dress; let me reveal them for you. I hope I don't get demonetized for these weapons! Anyway, that's not even my strong arm, but I decided to put these up, and I'm actually going to be trying these over an extended period of time. For now, I'm going to share with you my initial response, my initial body changes, what's been happening, and how I think they compare to face masks. Because honestly, face masks you can wear; you can kind of go around the house and do multiple things while wearing these, whereas this panel is way more intense. I feel like it works way better because it's so much more powerful, but I'm not as mobile around the house. We're going to talk about that, but first, let's see what happened to this guy anecdotally when he used red LED for a year.
You'd be shocked at how many products you buy and don't actually work. Okay, for instance, this literal trash. If you don't know the lore behind this, this is an LED face mask that is not an LED face mask; it shocks my face and leaves imprints on you. This is absolute trash. It's not even the right wavelength; it doesn't even do anything for the skin. If you actually look at the battery pack, they market it as skin whitening. Excuse me? Miss me with that colonial nonsense! Sorry, she gets a little heated, a little passionate, red and fiery, maybe at like 650 nm, if I do say so myself.
Anyways, I started to set these up. I did my blood work to actually see if there are any major changes in my body. I'm tracking my sleep with my ring, with my Apple Watch, my heart rate, my health—even my mattress tracks whether or not I have sleep apnea. I set up my Best Cool for my full body for when I wake up in the morning so I can do a little bit of red LED therapy, as well as at night when I go to sleep. Let me tell you, I'm just at the beginning, and in like a month or so, my sleep and my ability to fall asleep have already gotten better. That is so interesting to me because I've shared openly about this horrific experience that I've had and how it has really negatively impacted both my mental health and my sleep and all these things, right? When the time comes, I'll finally be able to talk about it and open up about these things.
But I noticed that I was sleeping better, and that's when I actually started looking into some medical studies for red LED and sleep. What do you know? Some people are using red LED lights and lamps for sleep. I decided, okay, instead of just doing this in the morning for like 5 or 10 minutes, it has settings so you can go all the way to 30. I was like, let me do this at night. Let me tell you, maybe it's a placebo effect; maybe it's the fact that I read a medical study and my brain is powerful and has convinced me that I sleep better. But when you actually look at my sleep data as per my aura ring and my mattress that track my sleep and my movement, I sleep so much better. This is insane!
Unfortunately, not all red LED light works. For example, I've shared this terrible mouthpiece from Dr. Dennis Gross. This is a waste of money; it is trash. Please watch these shorts if you haven't. Hit subscribe and hit all; you've probably missed the 60-second skincare reviews that we do. It's hard for me to produce a lot of videos with these medical studies and with these deep dive analyses at this capacity, especially if I'm sharing a first impression of a product or a quick review. So if you don't want to miss the 60-second little skincare takes, make sure that you're subscribed to actually see the shorts because YouTube promotes or populates them differently. Just because you're subscribed to the long videos doesn't mean you see the short ones.
Okay, anyways, let's dive into a couple more medical studies. Actually, put our little nerdy glasses on. If you didn't know, she actually needs glasses. She doesn't need them to drive, but her vision is not 20/20. Let me talk nerdy to you, baby. Let's look at some of these studies, and then let me share with you my initial results as to what using this LED has done to my full body so far and exactly what happened to this man after his one year of testing full body LED.
When I'm talking about red light therapy, I'm specifically talking about red light and near-infrared light around 850 nm and 660 nm. I love that he's actually mentioning the wavelengths when it comes to LED light therapy for the skin. There are two very important things: number one, how many nanometers that wavelength is, basically what color of red that light is; and then number two, how powerful that light is, making sure it's actually penetrating into the skin or the body. He mentions the perfect nanometers: 850 is near-infrared; it's a little bit more of that heat, whereas the 660 is fantastic for the skin and body. There's actually some research around 630 and 633 that's also really good, and I love that he actually did his research in regards to this.
It is thought that these light wavelengths stimulate the mitochondria in the cells and also stimulate ATP production and essentially just stimulate recovery. But rather than getting into the deep science, I'm just going to get into the results and share with you guys what I experienced over this last year. So he doesn't want to get into the science, but I do. There's definitely lots of studies and paperwork on this that we're going to talk about in a second, but I love that he mentions this. The bottom line is that yes, it's been medically proven to work at the right wavelengths and at the right power, and it can help with everything from stimulating your cells to create more collagen to hair growth. But I'm really interested in the one-year results on his entire body since I've done skin and hair, but I'm just now starting my journey with doing these full-body LED panels using this pro device.
Over the past several months, my red light therapy sessions have only been around three to five times a week, about 10 to 15 minutes, with the occasional 20-minute session if I have an extra minor injury or something that I want to treat, and I'll get to that later in this video. So let's dive into the results. When it comes to things like moles, cherry angiomas, wrinkles, and even acne, I haven't experienced any significant differences.
So first off, I love that he actually knows what a cherry angioma is. Correct red LED light is not proven to help with moles or cherry angiomas or even acne. Acne is more treated by that blue light, which can be beneficial for some but not for others. Now, when it comes to red light therapy, the wrinkles, the scars, the wound healing—that's where the actual medical research has been done and shown amazing improvement. That's why LED light is used in dermatology.
For the longest time, I've had pretty bad stretch marks on the side of the hip right here. Now, before I started this red light endeavor, I took a picture of these stretch marks, and after a year of this red light therapy, check this out! I did my best to keep everything consistent here, but obviously, there could be some variation in lighting that could be causing this difference. It does look like there's some improvement, and when I look at this, I definitely see changes in the elasticity of the skin and lighting.
One thing you'll notice about his stretch marks is that they are horizontal and they are more white. This usually means that they've been there for a long time. Stretch marks, when they're fresh, can be red or purple, and they're much easier to treat when they're fresh than once they've kind of whitened over. It's not a major, major improvement, and it doesn't sound like he was initially treating this area specifically, but I see minor improvement, and it's really that skin elasticity that you can tell really seems better. Yes, red LED light is used for stretch marks and for scars and for specifically new or open wounds. Various studies I looked at have been showing a potential increase in collagen production using this red light therapy.
Looking at this study right here, after 30 treatments of red light therapy, this is apparently an ultrasound of collagen production or collagen density. It looks like there's more collagen. So now regarding scars, I started using this red light therapy device, and after just the first 10 days of using this, I noticed a significant reduction in that area when it comes to just how contrasted it looked compared to the rest of my skin in that area. Over the next 100 days, I noticed a significant reduction in the visibility of this scar, and now after a year of doing this red light therapy, I have to say pretty much the scar is like just pretty much completely gone.
When it comes to this scar that he's talking about, it sounds more like an open wound, and that's when LED is fantastic—for wound healing. We know this time and time again, so yes, the fact that he started treating this immediately is amazing so that it doesn't end up scarring. So what about just skin elasticity overall? I feel like my skin is just as elastic as it was before I started this. It's hard to tell; I don't feel like my skin has gotten any looser per se. You can see this mole corresponding to the other mole right here, these same shadows. There are a few marks missing; I think these were just maybe like acne that may or may not have been gone whether I did the red light therapy device or not.
However, to me, when I really look into this closely and I notice the skin right here, it seems like it's tighter in the afters right here—like it's a more smooth, less cottage-cheesy looking skin. Also, it does look like I may have a little bit more back hair in the afters. Moving on to hair results, this gets a little interesting. I was actually surprised myself looking at the before side profiles. This is the right side before, on the left after. On the right, before, after. I mean, I know that red LED light works for hair, so I shouldn't be this impressed, but like those are fantastic! Look at that hair density! This is fantastic to see that he got this density in his hair just from red light panels.
In my opinion, I'm not seeing any significant what looks like, "Oh my gosh, there's hair growth!" It looks denser, thicker, anything like that—pretty much the same, which actually might be a good thing. Alright, no more regression in hairlines. But once again, remember, like I did mention, I really don't often do front upper half red light therapy consistently. I'll do it here and there, but it hasn't been as consistent as the other quadrants of the body.
So this is before on the left, after on the right. I don't know; it might look a little bit thicker and even just more luscious in this after one right here. I tried to keep everything consistent from the lighting, the hair length, etc. It looks like it could be a little bit thicker in this after one right here. I've also experienced acute injuries here and there, like on the knee, the ankle, the calf, muscle aches, etc. Now, I have to say when it comes to these acute annoying injuries—you know the ones that pop up where it's like, "Oh, I kind of tweaked that, and it's probably going to be about a week, 10 days before that goes away." Red light therapy seems to make that turnaround in like less than half the time. It's literally like 2-3 days at the most for what used to be like a 7-10 day process of just that nagging pain that just lingers around.
I love that he's sharing his anecdotal results for this. I am someone who, if I sleep wrong, I'll have back pain, or if I'm driving really far, I can't wait to try this for like a year and see how it works for me. Based on his personal experience and the research, it makes sense that this would help accelerate wound healing and actually improve recovery from fitness and athletic endeavors. It's just his opinion, his anecdotal experience, but this is fantastic to see.
What about chronic, deep injuries? For instance, my shoulder—I mean, that thing's kind of messed up. I do notice that if it ever is aching after a red light session, that aching pretty much seems to go away within about 8 hours after the session. That's one more thing I should say: I don't notice that it just makes these injuries feel better immediately after every red light session, those micro injuries. But I feel like it's later in the day that they feel better, and if I didn't do the red light therapy session, then it would just continue to ache throughout the day.
LED is not going to be a replacement for physical therapy or if you need surgery, but for aches and pains and for wound healing and recovery, we've seen data around this. So it's really cool to hear that this worked for him. When it comes to these chronic deeper injuries, I feel like it can help, but for me, it didn't absolutely heal the entire thing. Let's just put it that way. Maybe over the long period of healing, it could speed that up; I just don't know. It's only been a year in that case.
Now, when it comes to muscle recovery, soreness from the gym, I do feel like it helps as well, but overall fatigue to the body—if I fatigue myself, I don't feel like the red light therapy helps the fatigue go away. But I do feel like it helps mitigate that soreness, that extreme soreness as well. Now, muscle growth specifically, I haven't noticed like all of a sudden I'm just absolutely huge or anything like that from doing red light therapy. But there have been a few studies looking at potential muscle recovery, photobiomodulation, and human muscle tissue and advantages in sports performance.
PBM, or photobiomodulation, or red light therapy, can increase muscle mass gained after training and decrease inflammation and oxidative stress in muscle biopsies. Wow! I'm not familiar with this study. I know that red LED light can be beneficial for muscles, but I don't know anything about muscle improvement in strength and density. Look at these guns! How do they let me exist?
Anyways, I wonder if I could anecdotally test this or actually speak with someone who does this kind of research to find out more. This is actually really interesting, and again, my focus is usually the skin and the hair and the beauty stuff. Really fascinating! If you're trying to get more out of your muscle building, what about sleep, cognition, mood, circadian rhythm, overall health, etc.?
For me, when I do red light therapy on days where it's not sunny and I don't get enough sun exposure outside, I feel like it helps me set my circadian rhythm. I feel like it's easier for me to go to bed rather than on days—and yes, there are still days, even though I know—when I don't do the red light therapy, I don't get outside, or it's very cloudy outside. Those days seem to be worse for me when it comes to going to sleep. For me, it seems to help substitute for that lack of sun exposure regarding circadian rhythm.
Now, is it optimal for setting circadian rhythm? I don't know. Could it be more optimal if I had a full spectrum, like mimicking sunlight? From my experience, though, when I do use it when I don't get enough sun exposure outside or light outside, I feel like I do sleep just as well as if I did go outside that day. I still don't sleep the absolute best; in fact, I still sleep pretty poorly overall as someone who's also struggling in the sleep department.
There have been medical studies showing that red light can actually help people go to sleep and have benefits for mental cognition. This is so fascinating! I'm really excited to hear how this works for him and see what happens to me over the next year because I do notice that something about that LED light helps me go to bed. You know how doctors and derms and professionals say don't bring your phone to sleep with you because the blue light keeps you awake? You know, basically, the rods and cones in your eyes stop you from being able to fall asleep because it stimulates your brain. The red light doesn't do that because remember, red and blue are almost on the opposite sides of that spectrum. Therefore, it can actually help you go to sleep a little bit better.
I love that he's actually bringing this up. I want to see what he says about mental cognition as well. Is this going to make me an A+ girly? Is this going to make me a genius? Am I going to be intellectually gifted?
So cognition, mood, etc. Overall, day-to-day, do I feel like I'm just way more happy of a person, way more energetic of a person? I mean, it's hard to say since I started using this, but I do have to say every time, every single time after I'm done doing a red light session, I've never been like, "I can't believe I just did that; that's so annoying." No, I've always been in a good mood after I've done a red light session.
Looking at this other study, it found that there may be potential benefits in treating anxiety and depression-like symptoms with photobiomodulation. Sure, all of this is like a big maybe, so maybe it improves your mood. Again, this is not going to cure your depression, at least based on the studies that we currently have. And again, is it kind of a placebo effect? It's like, "Oh, I feel like I'm doing something good for my body." We know that exercise releases endorphins, which makes you feel good. Is it like that?
I would be very interested in speaking to an expert, like a neuroscientist or a psychologist duo, about how this might actually be working or the mechanism of action. Sounds a little bit of a stretch to me, but again, I'm going to be testing this, and I'll let you know how it goes.
Weird bonus: improvement in digestion, specifically constipation. If I ever do feel like I'm kind of constipated for some reason, I feel like if I just have a red light session, it helps with it. It helps get things moving—not all the time; I'm not constipated all the time. I just mean like those times when I have been, I feel like it has helped. Whether it's maybe because it helps me relax or it's actually doing something on a deeper level.
So glad to hear that it helps his constipation anecdotally. I don't know of anything scientifically that would corroborate that, but I can look into it. I have the opposite issue of diarrhea, bubble guts. I have so many stomach issues, and they've gotten better over the years, but I still am sensitive to certain things. I wonder if LED light is going to change my digestion.
So in conclusion, for me, using red light therapy, I found the most benefit when it comes to treating those micro, around-grade one strains. I noticed the faster recovery; it made me feel better. Now that plus the potential for it to potentially be stimulating healing on a deeper level is why I'm going to continue using this from here on out.
Secondary to that, looking at the studies and my results after this one-year experience, there may be benefits to skin health, hair health, collagen production, scar reduction, etc. Fascinating! When I look at his review of his experience, I will say that I don't notice a lot of changes in his physique. I agree that like the sleep and the digestion and the mental health—it's like, is that placebo? Is that not? But when it comes to athletic recovery, the skin benefits specifically for collagen, for wrinkles, for wounds and repair, and for actual hair stimulation, I've seen data that supports that, and I see it in his before and afters.
Here's the question: how is it going to work for mine? I'm so grateful that he shared his story, but I'm about ready to start my one-year journey. I'm going to try to take before and after photos and see how this works for me. I'm excited, but I don't want that excitement to give me like a placebo bias, do you know what I'm saying?
Anyways, this coffee is done, so let me use the restroom, recycle this, and let's go back to the white background. I hope that you are ready to talk nerdy to me because I have been going through so much research, so many studies, and there's actually way more than I anticipated. I know a lot about the skin, but even diving into some of these placebo-controlled, triple-blind—not just double-blind, but literally triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trials—some of the things that have happened to people's bodies, to athletes, this is insane! I am so excited to do my own journey using these LED panels.
Now, let's break these down into categories. I feel like the main category is skin, then we have kind of body, and then we kind of have mental health. There is so much to go over here. First is something I knew about the skin, but actually seeing some of these images is insane. Right here is a study that was done split-face, meaning the actual participants had half of their face treated with red LED therapy and the other half was untreated. Look at this collagen induction—absolutely magnificent!
This was a controlled trial looking at fine lines, wrinkles, and actual roughness and texture of the skin. Instead of just testing one or two people, they literally tested over 136 volunteers. Again, it was half-face, so they could actually see what was or wasn't working. There were four different treatment groups, and they were given professional photography and actual collagen density measures. After only 30 sessions—which again, in my mind, I'm thinking to myself, "Okay, I could do this once a day for 30 days, like for a month, literally 30 sessions in one month"—here were the results: the treated subjects had significantly improved complexion and skin feeling. Their skin looked and felt better, and the researchers specifically looked at the skin's roughness as well as ultrasonography measured collagen density.
They confirmed not just a little bit, but statistically significant improvements in these people's skin for the ones that actually used the LED therapy for the 30 days. They specifically saw skin rejuvenation and intradermal collagen increase, meaning the strong stuff in our skin that literally is what we lose as we age and as we are in the sun. They saw a major increase in that compared to controls—really amazing! I mean, just look at some of these images; the collagen density is actually amazing. This is literally only 30 days.
As you probably know, a lot of medical research was historically done on men and not men of color or different backgrounds, so it's really nice to see. And then look at some of these wrinkle photos; the before and after of these wrinkles are fantastic. This was a 64-year-old, and then the other one was a 41-year-old. You can see that the lighting here is consistent, so the way these researchers actually took these photos isn't trying to manipulate the lighting or anything like that. Have you ever held a light on top of your face and it makes your shadows look different? Uh-uh, they're not pulling that stuff here—absolutely amazing!
Another study was a randomized controlled trial, and this was done on 137 women for 4 weeks at 660 nanometers, which, as you probably heard me speak about, the 660 is normally what I look for. Something closer to like 830 or 850 is near-infrared, so the more of the heat, it's a little better for the body, and then the 630 also seems to be pretty promising. But they specifically did the 660. I know those numbers probably maybe do or don't mean a lot, but 660 is looking real freaking good for wrinkle reduction—specifically, a 30% wrinkle volume reduction!
Literally, the researchers saw this in 10 sessions, so not just 30, but 10 sessions with a 30% reduction in wrinkle volume—amazing! They also said that it has potential for helping those with conditions like diabetes and other conditions of the skin that are highly inflammatory. You know, where there are other rejuvenating treatments, like maybe micro-needling or something that these patients or these people couldn't do. This was also done split-face, so like one on each side of the face—absolutely fantastic to see this!
Again, we've known that LED actually works, but seeing some of these images, really digging into the studies, this is fantastic to see. Now, as an aesthetician, I always use the little face masks, but again, these Best Cool ones are huge. I stand in front of them, so I'm like, "Okay, if we know based on the research that this works, imagine what's happening to the skin on my chest and my back." I never treat these with LEDs because my LED panels, my little face ones, I can't shove a face mask on my chest. It doesn't work that way.
Seeing this, I'm like, "Okay, I literally need to stand in front of these Best Cool panels with my back." You see all this back acne? Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for this not to mention the potential for things like cellulite and stretch marks and then just overall body texture and tone. When I rub my fingers kind of across certain areas of my body, I definitely feel the skin texture. The idea, the understanding based on this research that that could potentially be improved is amazing!
Let's talk about the body specifically—muscles, endurance, etc. Some of the studies here that were done on athletes are also pretty mind-blowing. Specifically, let's look at this one. This was a randomized triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Like, this was actually done extraordinarily well. It looks like it was 2017. They took a group of 77 healthy people and basically gave them red light therapy and tracked how fit they are, their bodies, and how their bodies performed over 12 weeks with only three sessions per week.
So again, my LED light panels, ideally, I'm doing this almost every day. They only did this three times a week for 12 weeks, and they tested this against placebo so that if the athletes think that the light is giving them some sort of a benefit, that's all accounted for, which is fantastic—the way they actually designed this study. Now, what they looked for was after these athletes did the red light therapy, how long did they have to exercise before they were exhausted? They also looked at a secondary outcome that measured oxygen uptake of body fat and basically wanted to see what happened if they did the LED before exercise or after exercise.
After 12 weeks, did it make any difference? You won't believe these results! This is actually really amazing. So those who did photobiomodulation therapy, aka this red light therapy, before and after the exercise sessions for 12 weeks saw an increase in their time to exhaustion. So basically, the time that they were able to exercise before they got exhausted and couldn't anymore—they were able to exercise longer after doing the LED treatments.
There was a decrease in body fat in healthy volunteers when compared to the placebo before and after exercise sessions. This is really fantastic! You know, I was kind of wondering, it's like, "Okay, well, if you exercise for 12 weeks, you're just going to lose body fat. Are you going to increase your endurance?" But again, because this was randomized, triple-blinded, and placebo-controlled as a clinical trial, they accounted for all of these really well.
Basically, they concluded if you do red light therapy before and after training in these exercise sessions, it can lead to an improvement of endurance and how long you can exercise and potentially body fat as well. Absolutely fantastic to see! For those who are athletes or those who are trying to be more active, the idea that using this red light could potentially help you in muscle recovery or in the way your cells process oxygen—again, all of this is just fascinating to me.
There's also a study that was done on female soccer players. Now, this was super cool as well because the first thing that these researchers noticed is that the soccer players that used the LED light therapy actually slept less. We know sleep is good, and this is kind of where it gets into the mental health aspect as well. You would think, "Okay, why are people in the red light group sleeping less?" Well, it seems that their cardiovascular or heart health actually improved, and perhaps they're sleeping less because the red light is helping them recover faster. At least that's what might be going on here.
This study specifically says that cardiorespiratory indicators of recovery following this LED light therapy, despite the reduction or the less amount that they were sleeping, suggest that this may be an effective modality for maintaining adequate recovery from the high stress experienced by elite athletes. Again, this was done by professional female soccer players, so it's not like you and me going to the gym—unless you're a professional female soccer player. If so, super cool!
Seeing them use some of these things on these athletes and seeing that, okay, they slept less, potentially because they didn't need to work as hard to recover because the LED light was helping, they looked at their REM sleep, which are those deep levels of sleep. I mean, it's just fantastic! Over and over and over again. Not to mention the hair—look at some of these images! These are eight different patients, and their hair growth is actually amazing. Some of these before and afters after 6 months and 12 months compared to baseline. Knowing how difficult it is for those who have lost their hair, this is really, really amazing.
This study happened to be placebo-controlled as well. We can talk about hair forever in a different video, and again, in full transparency, I am using an LED and laser hair helmet. But the idea that maybe my Best Cool is also helping with my hair is really fantastic. With the Best Cool, I can choose if I'm doing 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes, etc., and I can choose between the red light and then the near-infrared, which again, closer to that 830 is that near-infrared, meaning it's a little bit warmer on the skin—probably better for that muscle recovery and for the health and endurance benefits as compared to the 660 that we saw for the skin.
I love that, at least the ones that I have, I'm so glad that I got these specific panels. I can toggle between those two settings. And for hair growth, it is different than just shining a light on your skin. If so, we would start growing hair all over our bodies, right? The light needs to penetrate the skin; it needs to be strong enough and actually needs to be at a higher strength than just regular LED that we would use for collagen production or for anti-wrinkle benefits or for recovery of muscles after we work out or something like that.
Can you tell how excited I am about this? Now, what about mental health? So kind of like that third little thing, this is kind of where I start to raise some red flags, and the research isn't as great, and I'm not totally sold on it. But that's also why I'm going to be testing this out, and I'm literally going to share with you in probably a couple of minutes what's happened after 30 days. We're going to see what happens to me after 30 days and then again over a year as well.
So there's specifically one study that was a systematic review that looked at photobiomodulation, or this red light therapy, as a tool in the management of psychological disorders. The ones they specifically mentioned here are stress as well as depression, so that's kind of what they were looking at, and this was done in 2020. Now, for this one, the parameters were looking at wavelengths of 810. So again, not that 660 that we normally use for the skin, but they wanted to see, does this help treat depression, or does it help improve cognitive enhancement—basically how people's minds work?
They specifically did LED light therapy to the bilateral prefrontal area of the brain—basically shot red LED just through people's brains, right? Again, the reason this works is because if you've ever held a flashlight up to your hand and it shines red, that's not because it's showing the blood in your hand or in your ear; it's because the red wavelengths are the longest. So your skin actually absorbs the blue color and the green color and even the yellow color, but the red is the longest wavelength, so it gets through. That's why it penetrates through clothing and stuff like that.
Anyways, they literally just put this in someone's brain, and they literally saw results. They said that it seems to work in some people, but that you have to maintain the therapy—maintain the red light exposure—in order to see results. We do know that in psychiatry and in mental health professional treatment offices, there are what are called light boxes. They are for SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder. Some people get really depressed during the winter, and if you use a light box, it can actually help with depression. We know this is true.
Now, this study and this systematic review, it was not as convincing to me. Definitely, if you have major depressive episodes, you're not going to want to go for this; you're going to want to do some other things. But the idea that if I have it for my body, if it could improve my mood or if it could improve—hi baby, you want to come in? Come here, mama pizza! Come here! Oh, she's such a good girl! She had four kittens from Tiana, aren't you? Oh, oh, are you okay? What happened? She didn't like that; she's from Tiana, I guess.
Alright, well, not to scare anyone, but I think we have my first wound. I'm going to have to treat it with some Best Cool red LED light therapy and see how this goes over time because I just got a cat scratch. She's like a little scared right now.
Anyways, I don't know about the efficacy of this for depression or mood. I will look anecdotally at how it works for me, and obviously, this other content creator, after tracking his results for a year, he kind of said something similar about mood. I'm interested to see what happens, but I'm not really super gung-ho about this.
Now, there was also another article done in 2021, and they specifically looked at animal models. But again, I am not a rat, and I hope you are not either, even if you're having a rat boy summer. Let's leave the rodent out of this, okay? Please! They specifically looked at does photobiomodulation improve sleep? Does red light therapy help you sleep more? They looked at this in mice and rats.
It looks promising. The results they left with is that, you know, it could potentially help, but for me, that's not an absolute. I feel like I have to actually see what happens to me if I do this over time. They're basically saying that the metabolites that build up in our brain throughout the day get cleared out while we sleep, which is true, but that red light could potentially help with this or help people sleep better.
The application of very specific red light wavelengths onto the body at night and during sleep could potentially help with the quality of sleep and then the well-being of individuals. But again, I don't know exactly how great it is, and I feel like I need to continue tracking my body over the next 30 days and then over the next year to see what happens.
So I will link all of these studies below for you. I mean, absolutely phenomenal! I feel like everyone should read these if you want to get a little nerdy with me, and obviously, we did. Now that I have this nice fresh wound, I'm not trying to scare anyone, but it's a little bloody. I'm actually going to see how I recover from fitness. We're going to test all this out, and we're going to see what happens in 30 days.
So thanks for talking nerdy with me! I'll catch you once I TR. Let's chat soon! [Music]