How Red Light Therapy Helps You Achieve Full Body Wellness
Wellness—it may seem like a trend these days, but the idea of treating oneself holistically is an ancient practice in many cultures. Wellness is a journey that helps us better understand ourselves as well as prevent disease instead of waiting for a problem to intervene.
There are plenty of ways to go about your wellness journey, and there are a variety of products and treatments out there claiming to be part of a wellness lifestyle. Wellness is different for every person, so what works for some may not be the best for you. If you’re looking to get started with wellness, you should look at treatments that are safe, effective, and treat the cause instead of mask symptoms.
What is Wellness?
Wellness is an approach to health that starts with holistic care and relies on making active choices to prevent illness rather than reacting when something’s gone wrong. The World Health Organization defines wellness as, “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
A holistic approach to health and wellbeing is vital for wellness. Holistic care accounts for our health in more than just physical, including:
- Mental: Engagement with the world through learning, problem-solving, and creativity
- Emotional: Being in touch with, aware of, and able to express one’s feelings
- Spiritual: Searching for meaning and purpose
- Social: Connecting and interacting with others and our communities
In addition to caring for all these aspects of ourselves, wellness is progressive. That is, wellness is an active process that continually improves our perception of ourselves, our needs, and the world around us. So, what wellness looks like for someone should change over time as their situations, relationships, and perceptions change.
What are the Benefits to a Wellness Mindset?
By taking a holistic approach to care, a person can see how the different aspects of their self interact with each other, and make decisions based on those interactions. The goal of a wellness mindset is to see and understand oneself wholly, and therefore live life as full as possible. There are several benefits to this perspective:
- Positive outlook on life
- Proactive about solving problems relating to the aspects of wellbeing
- Balance in life
- Self-responsibility for one’s health and self awareness
Individuals who embrace a wellness mindset have more control over their long term happiness and tend to lead happier, healthier lives.
How Does Red Light Therapy Factor Into Wellness
Red light therapy, such as from an LED light bed, can easily factor into your wellness journey. This therapy uses red LED lights in specific wavelengths that have been shown to target the mitochondria of our cells, boosting energy production and transport that promotes cellular health. There are a few ways red light therapy can enhance your whole body wellness:
Reduce Harm from Environmental Factors
While wellness can give us more control, we often can’t have control of environmental factors, like pollution. Pollution, especially in densely populated areas, contributes to oxidative stress, which can cause harmful inflammation. Red light therapy helps improve cellular health and increases cellular energy to fight oxidative stress and diminish the effects of harmful inflammation.
Correct Sleep Cycle Disruptions
A good night’s sleep is essential to our wellbeing, and red light therapy can help us wind down at the end of the day. Often, sleep is disrupted by our exposure to non-natural lighting such as overhead fluorescent lights and blue light emitted from our phones, computers, and tablets. This can send mixed signals to our brains, making it harder to fall asleep at night. Red light therapy in the evening hours before bed can help correct for overexposure to blue light and realign our circadian rhythm.
Improve Mood
An additional effect to reducing harmful inflammation and improving sleep is improved mood. Wellness is about the interconnectedness of the different aspects of our being, and improving physical factors has a positive impact on our emotional and mental states.
Additionally, red light therapy sessions are a good opportunity to practice important mindfulness steps like deep breathing. You can use a ten minute red light therapy session to step back, relax, and soak in all the healing benefits of red light.
Treat the Cause, Not Symptoms
An important aspect of wellness is prevention, which means targeting the cause of illness or unhappiness instead of treating the symptoms. Red light therapy targets the underlying inflammation that is one of the causes of many chronic and serious diseases such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, and neurological diseases like dementia.
Wellness is a journey, and the first step may feel like the hardest. If you’re interested in getting started with wellness, our TheraLight providers are happy to answer your questions and help you on those first steps. Click the link below to find a TheraLight provider near you.