#253 Benefits of Red Light Therapy - Bryan Gohl

Bryan Gohl (0:00)

Everything matters, you know, and some things can improve our health and longevity and our feeling of wellness and other things take away from that. This is some kind of a threat. This is some kind of a threat because we haven't had any calories for a certain amount of hours. Let's get stronger, let's get healthier. So the next time we run out of food, which we have more energy, across all the systems, everything gets better. You know, when people first learn about red light therapy, it does seem quite like almost extraordinary. It's like, wait a second. Why does everything get better? Because with increased mitochondrial energy, everything does get better.

Siim Land (0:40)

Welcome to the Siim Land Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land. And today I'm replaying you an old episode with my friend, Brian Gohl. Brian is one of the founders of Red Light Rising, which is a UK based company that sells red light therapy devices. Red light therapy or photobiomodulation has a lot of research on improving skin conditions, reducing inflammation, muscle soreness, and even raising testosterone. If you want to try out Red Light Rising's red light therapy devices, then head over to redlightrising.co.uk and use the code REDSIIM for a 5% discount. That's REDSIIM at redlightrising.co.uk.

So, Brian, welcome to the show.

Bryan Gohl (1:17)

Thank you, Siim. So good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Siim Land (1:20)

Yeah, and I'm pleased to have you here as well. And why don't we just start off like what is photo biomodulation and like how does it relate to red light therapy?

Bryan Gohl (1:31)

Cool. Okay. Yeah. So photo biomodulation is kind of like a scientific, a very fancy word just to kind of say light therapy. You know, it kind of breaks down into photo meaning light, bio, of course, our biology and modulation is kind of changing. So it's just really the study or the therapy of using light to affect the body. Now, photo biomodulation, of course, includes all light. So UV light, blue light, green light, red light.

And of course, what we're talking about today is red and infrared light.

Siim Land (2:09)

Yeah, that's indeed like a very common thing to use very scientific jargon to explain a really simple thing.

And I believe it's been around for quite a while as well, even since the last century. But recently it's become only very popular amongst the biohacking scene.

Bryan Gohl (2:30)

Exactly right. I mean, red light therapy, it's kind of, I think, to the mainstream, to the people outside of our circles, outside of the biohacking circle or the health optimization, or even in the wellness circle, which is kind of a little bit different, in my opinion. Red light therapy does seem a bit like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? This is a little bit weird. But as you say, it's actually been around for a long, long, long time. We first kind of discovered the unique benefits of red and infrared light in the 1940s. Of course, they discovered it by mistake.

But once they realized that something very special was going on, that's when the studies really got going.

And I think it's important for people to understand that red and infrared light comes from the sun. You know, it's not this crazy man-made therapy that we've invented. It comes from the sun. And what we've discovered through science kind of getting better and better is that red and infrared light is very unique amongst the colors that come from the sun because it has a very unique ability to penetrate the body much deeper than other colors of light are able to do. And that's what makes it really unique.

Siim Land (3:49)

Yeah, like most of the benefits have to do with...

Yeah, well, at least what I've heard is that most of the benefits are related to like improved skin health and improved energy production and things like that. So it's like a great anti-aging technology, in a sense.

Bryan Gohl (4:08)

Exactly, exactly.

The crazy thing is about red light, when we talk about it, and when we really talk about the benefits, it benefits almost everything. And that's what kind of makes people a bit suspicious, you know, because when you come up to someone and say, oh, it's good for your skin, it's good for your hair, it's good for your muscles, your joints, your blood, your bones. People are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, how can this, you know, shining a light on me be so beneficial? But, you know, we know now from the science, there's like, last time I checked 3000 scientific papers looking at the beneficial effects of red and infrared light therapy on the body. And like you mentioned there, what red light and infrared light is actually doing is they both kind of do the same thing, but they do it at a different depth. So an easy way to remember it is that red light, which coming out of, you know, a red light device, manifests as red. So you see it as red, the color red. And that is really good for your skin and your hair and for the cells of your body about 5 millimeters into your skin. That's how deep red light can penetrate. And now when the red light hits your skin and it hits your hair, it hits your eyes, your teeth, everything that it penetrates up to that depth. Two very important things are happening there. And these are the two most beneficial things that we know so far about this light therapy.