Understanding Red Light for Recovery

How red-light therapy works, why it works, and how I've been using it to heal a tiny bit faster.

Of all the spacey new-age treatment modalities out there, red light was always the one I was most skeptical of. Like, bro, how is light supposed to fix you?

But a few weeks ago, after spraining my left ankle and then developing tendonitis in my other foot that made it difficult to walk, I decided to try red light therapy at home in earnest, hoping to speed up my recovery time and preserve my sanity.

I’ve used the red light bed plenty of times at MOCEAN, and my wife has a red-light face mask that I’ll wear once in a while in hopes of waking up a pimple-free baby, but I’d never attempted to use it specifically to heal an injury. But desperate times call for a little woo woo, and I’m happy to report that red light, in this instance, has been working really well. (I’m kidding, mostly. Red-light therapy as a real-deal healing tool has been studied since 1960s.)

Specifically, I was using a Mini Red Light Therapy device from Bon Charge, which the nice folks at Jack Taylor PR were kind enough to let me try. At night, after putting our kid to bed, I’d put the box on the ground and let it shine directly onto the tender parts of my ankle and foot for 10 to 20 minutes, which noticeably brings the inflammation and pain down. On the nights I’ve been lazy and skipped red light? The pain is way more noticeable. So consider me among the converted.

Here, as I understand it, is how red-light supercharges your cells and primes your body for healing. (Special thank you to Helen Rosner for tipping me off on a whole community of red-light heads on Reddit.)

How red light gets under your skin

Light waves, as we know, all vibe at different frequencies 🤙 🤙 🤙

Blue light, like the kind emitted from all the screens we’re all addicted to, emits waves that are shorter and more energetic. (Annoying lol.) The waves of red light, meanwhile, are more elongated and slower, with a far mellower amplitude. This figure illustrates the difference well: