Many ways of LED light therapy

Types, Effectiveness. LED for treatment and Motivation

In LED light therapy light helps treat problems and motivates with some remarkable results. For SAD and other mood problems; muscle and joint pains; and some circulation and skin irregularities.

Proper recovery will connect the right source of light (and or heat) with positive energies you can gain from them.

Learn which device is best and what alternative light source is as good or better as LED for some purpose.

Will also look at some light box rating problems in light of the history of the treatment.

The Role of Motivation in therapy

Many consider the most important for healing to occur in therapy is the feedback loop between your subconscius and conscious self. You need to keep wanting to get better on both levels.

In other words: something must trigger and then motivate your body to take care of itself.

Motivation in therapy with LED light

LED light then is uniquely positioned to supply a good deal of motivation in that healing loop for these known therapeutic uses:

• circulation problem
• muscle and joint pain
• seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
• skin disorder, including some Acne
• regulate emotions, lift mental conditions

In the following I will outline what I mean by those motivational roles in more detail.

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General Advantage and How it Plays out

The #1 general motivational advantage of LEDs - lifting your mood - pretty much applies to all therapeutic solutions with LED -- direct or indirect LED light therapies.

That effect is connected either to colors (also known as frequencies, wavelength or spectra) or light intensity (we commonly call brightness.)

So first we look at the result of the various LED light therapies and then what role motivation plays in how a therapy can actually work with LED.

Various Colors, Brightness

Bright LED light therapy (or LED phototherapy) to treat circulation problem or skin disorders can use red (or IR) or blue hue -- or it can utilize a whole array of colors called chromotherapy.

And in advanced light box therapy that also includes dawn or dusk simulation it can even mimic gradual changes in daylight intensity.

Bright blue light (called bluwave in the Apollo Golite products pictured) are used on winter blues and for dawn simulation.

Red hue alone, or often in combination with blue, are for muscle and other deep pain recovery as well as for circulation improvement. As to deep pain, I found someone succesfully reducing the period of recovery from bone bruise pain using just GoLite.

Color therepy is a special field where a combination of colors is used to regulate emotional mood and lift mental conditions.

Using LED ligth in those therapies can have a broad based advantage. They have a narrow enough spectum to give off the exact kind of light needed.

But they can also be color mixed to give you the exact color needed required by your condition. And because no filter is needed to regulate light, LED light therapy is much more effective. -- No loss of light happens on filters as there are NO filters used at all.

LEDs pack huge punch in terms of intensity and brightness that in turn come from a great number tiny units. Yet a package of a large array of them is still relatively light and can have a very compact design -- so it may be easily made in a portable variety.

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Blue and Red LED light therapy - the origins

When LED light therapy employs blue light it is designed to alert your body pretty much as the bright blue skies of daylight does. This has been the discovery sponsored by a company with a long term interest in commercialising light therapy products called Apollo.

So the motivational effect of using blue light is really like:

Hey body, wake up! the sky is just so blue, come on and enjoy it!

On the other hand an independent research organisation found that red light also has profound effects on the body. According to them IR light or red light could or should be employed to regulate your body's circadian clock (the biological clock in you) that is otherwise done by the rich daylight of the sun.

Again: - Hey body, the sun is out and shining bright! isn't that just great!

The interesting thing is that with both cases - blue or red light - ancient systems are at work that subconsciously regulate your body.

And the problem is that those systems are poorly triggered by the lack of sun and blue sky at the exact time your body would otherwise anticipate.

There are three examples I find particularly fascinating:

1. The leap year system messes up your even internal body clock synchronised to the sun sycles, so occasional adjustment is necessary.
2. Night shift workers may find it particulary hard to stay focussed and motivated - even if they are well rested - if they are not given enough blue sky boost.
3. Color blind people may need an enourmous need for registering the effect of blue sky using the third sensory light receptor not related to color vision as they can not appreciate that from seeing blue light.

(The last one is my own theory supported by the discovery of an unknown light receptor in the eye.)

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There is this truly amazing discovery that is about ...

The 'Uknown' third light receptor

It is little known that aside from the rods and cones that sense light intensity and colors in the back of your eye, there appears to be a third sensory system at work. And that is there also for all kinds of animals needing the benefit of a proper alert to say:

- Hey mate, morning is coming!

Yes, that third light receptor sensor is there to detect UV, or more generally bright blue light. It is likely that we 'see' morning even if we can't see light - provided that we wake under the open sky. That is beecause by being indoors glass in domestic windows routinely filters out UV light.

At any rate, it is the blue component that LED light therapy may use, and just because you see white light, the blue spectrum is still present to have those beneficial effects.

What is the other upshot, you aks?

Well, I'm not sure if it is a a positive, but UV light is also used as party light can make you feel much more awake than you really are -- precisely for the same reason it seems.

Mental and physical damage is possible from UV light

And if strobing is added - which is designed to be overstimulating - you get carefully mixed light and function in a 'performance enhancing' light cocktail. In fact, rapid enough pulses of any light are known to be so overstimulating as to even induce coma. (Looks like a pretty similar effect to what chemically induced overstimulation may cause.)

And we know that UV light can damage skin and longer exposure is not healthy for the eye.

For this reason UV light is now removed from all reputable LED light therapy products.

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When your 'alarm' clock is a gently waking light ...

What better way to be motivated to start the day than with waking up naturally! Unfortunately, the lack of the rising sun can inhibit that greatly.

And the reverse effect you can greatly improve your sleeping habits.

That's where LEDs come in ...

LEDs response very smoothly to dimming (up or down.) But more importantly, and unlike other kinds of domestic lights, they don't wear out from frequent dialling on the dimmer. Also, dialling can be automated as is done in so called LED lighted gentle alarm clocks or dawn simulators.

There are two basic types. One can wake you up more gently and more thoroughly without the use sound. You just need to set them to the right time, and presto.

These are just special alarm clocks, really. But there is another kind.

This one would normally have a light sensor and a small computing program. If there is little or no light outside but your body clock would need more of it, a sensor tells that to the program which then tells the lamp just the kind of light you need.

Then the lamp would simulate a gentle and gradual brightening of the light akin to simulating dawn. Or, alternatively, when they simulate the reverse, we call it dusk simulation. This would give you the perfect feeling of wanting to get asleep exactly as nature intended for you.

Learn more about Dawn and Dusk Simulation

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Light Box Therapy ...

When you mention LED light therapy, many automatically think light box therapy. It is essentially what you need during the day if you feel that the lack of daylight makes you feel a little depressed.

This usually sets in for a fairly large percentage of the population during winter on lower latitudes living on the northern hemisphere and during summer on lower latitudes on the southern part of the globe - which is the same time of the calendar year.

It has many names and many guises, from seasonal affective disorder (or SAD), to winter blues to delayed sleep phase syndrome.

The latter can happen to anyone due to the shift leap year calendar counting causes in our circadian clock. Because that clock is thought to be naturally tuned to the sun cycles otherwise. In the old times sun threapy was used to achieve a good balance. This was achieved by going out for sunning, or via an intricately constructed timber framed box.

The light box therapy in today LED light therapy is the direct descendant of that sun threapy of the old.

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The full spectrum controversy

Considered a remnant from the times when only fluorescent light was available for light therapy, some vendors still consider it useful to point out that their product uses full spectrum light. -- Often, this is put forward as an important big plus. But you will see that the fact that some light box therapy units are full spectrum may not be the best guide to choose a device. 

Compare light box devices and ratings accordingly

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------------ As an aside
In medically important frequency calibration precision, only laser beats LED lights. And that narrow frequency or vawelenght can make a big difference in the effectiveness of your LED light therapy.
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Consider Some Safety Precautions

To stay motivated you need to consider what to expect and avoid unwanted side effects.

If you have a history of eye disease (such as macular degeneration) or recently had eye surgery, or if you are currently taking any medications that would make you oversensitive to light - some antibiotics can have that effect for instance - please consult with your ophthalmologist or health care provider before using a bright light therapy product -- that includes LED light therapy or any of the listed alternatives.

In general, do NOT look directly in a bright LED light therapy device. Position such unit at the distance recommended by the supplier, but offset slightly from center -- this will reduce the glare. This is especially so if the treatment specifically requires keeping your eyes open.

When to stop Treatment

Typically, you will recognize when to stop LED light therapy treatment if you've received sufficient light even before the period set for it expires. By then, you will feel a heightened level of alertness, energy or mood. (If you are not sure how to recognize that, consult your physician or the many good books available on the subject.)

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treating muscle and joint problems ...

We consider LED light playing a very interesting part for the reward part in the feed back loop outlined before to motivate the body to self-heal such problems.

In particular, rewarding the body with growing intensity of bright blue light could be a particularly strong motivator. (Just read the passages mentioning the role blue LED in the various LED light therapies discussed.) Not to mention that this can be great fun too.


We are very proud to have been one of the first contact for review and suggestions for a successful motivational product where LED light plays a significan motivational role.

It helps with circulation and gripping difficulties, joint and muscle problems in arms and waist form finger to shoulder; it has now made the top 10   New York Times most promising product of the year (2008.)

LED comes to play in the motivational reward for the workout, where you get a self powered light source either as flashlight or backlit display of practically anything. (It could even be a feedback or some motivational game-play. That's what I like about this product, that the possibilities for a true fun-led-light are almost limitless.)

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treating Cold and Similar Inflammations

The real gift here is the lack of heat coming from the light source.

IR lights have been used for many years to treat cold by opening blood vessels, increase circulation that promotes healing of nasal and other comparable inflammation -- I frequently do that to the whole family myself. But for children in particular, it is quite uneasy to have the old large heavy bulbs that are really extremely hot. (They also heat up conventional sockets too much.) Also, heat dries the erea, whic, in order to heal better, would have to be nice and moist. LED light therapy with IR LED diode is cold, so it should certainly help there too.

Skin treatment with LED ligth

There are also known benefits of LED light therapy for those wanting skin rejuvenation. This is likely because all cells respond to the level of IR light, remembering -?via cell memory - how beneficial rich sunlight has been for us since times immemorial. They may help to reset the body clock cell by cell.

In treating skin disorders such as acne or psoriasis, there are two important advantages to using LED light therapy. First, because it is cold light, it can be placed right on the skin surface giving it a very deep effect. Second, the precisely calibrated wave length (or frequency) can have just the desired effect -- not to affect any other part of the skin or even the skin cell.

Skin temperature warning!

I've found this important temperature limit for when applying LED light therapy up close: - Never let your skin heat above the safety limit of 41 C (105.8F.) Higher temperatures may cause unwelcome damage.

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Related Articles:
Light therapy devices - the various types of portable LED light therapy

Light box therapy. Before and after LED light therapy

LED light and the dawn simulator

Learn about compact fluorescent lights and their impact

Related Resources:
The amazing third light receptor discovery in the era of LED light (2001) tuned to sense only blue light. 

Self assesment test to discover your own circadian rhythm





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