Red Light Therapy, Lights, Supplemental Lighting

[caroline]

Confused re: light issue. Narouz brought this point up earlier, and I am still wondering. He questioned whether Peat meant for people to shine the light directly in their face, ie. having it pointing on you, versus whether it was meant to just heat the top of the head.

Further, re: sleeping. Last night, I tried sleeping with the light on. If one uses a mask, then what would be the point? I did not and managed to sleep fine. However, even with this: does one use their overhead light? Or just shine an incandescent light away from you? Can anyone tell me what is supposed to be the protocol? It is very unclear to me. Thanks.

 

[caroline]

One other thing: if one has plenty of natural light coming in, wouldn't it be preferable to get this rather than by light bulbs? (I do remember seeing Peat mention avoiding noonish light due to UV).

Thanks for help on this one. I am working my way through the protocol and want to try this but am not sure what the "this" entails.

 

[j.]

Pointing to the head is better, but to the rest of the body has a positive effect as well.

Both the sunlight and light bulbs are good. Both have their advantages. The sun helps you produces vitamin D, while the bulbs have a better ratio of red and blue frequencies.

 

[caroline]

Thanks, J! Do you mean so it is shining on your face? That is how I always have done it, even prior to Peat. I had a friend joke (she was from Eastern Europe) that I would be quite comfortable in interrogation b/c I purposely shines light right in my eyes. Is this okay, b/c this is what I actually like...

 

[charlie]

I have one shining right on my face and upper body. Then I have one behind me shining on the back of my head. Ray Peat said in an interview hitting as much area of the skin as you can with the light is what you want to do.

 

[mariange]

I've been talking with some friends about red light / LED therapy, and one of them popped up and gave me an old Light Relief unit that she's not using anymore. According to their marketing information, there are 24 infrared, 31 red and 4 blue LEDs.

I actually took a pair of scissors and cut open one side of the rubber pad to see how they LEDs are attached. They are mounted on small boards in rows, but unfortunately each LED looks soldered in pretty tightly.

Obviously, I want to get rid of the blue LEDs. Do you think it's possible to just cover the LED (say, with black electrical tape or paint?), or would the effects still penetrate the masking?

Any thoughts on the infrared ones? Keep / get rid of?

If I can't find an easy hack, I'll probably skip using this one but just thought I'd put out a call for suggestions.
Thanks for any ideas!

Mariange

 

[Mittir]

RP mentioned that ratio of red to blue is the deciding factor.
Since there is way more red light than blue, the end result is the
net effect of red light. Red light cancels out the effect of blue light.

 

[tomisonbottom]

I've been using 2 of the 250 watt red lights on in my room daily and it seems to really be drying me out. I have dry skin and my nostrils are really dry, sometimes to the point of hurting. No nosebleeds yet, but it feels dry enough for that.
Does anyone else have this issue and is there anything do be done about it other than not being under the lights as much? I'm using a humidifier and drinking when I feel thirsty but not any more than that. I eat a lot of salt.

If anyone has advice, I'd be grateful.

 

[Mittir]

@tomisonbottom
RP has mentioned that light increases the need for vitamin A.
I have to have regular beef liver to feel good. Before light therapy
i was eating 4 oz of liver a week. Now i am having 8-12 oz a week.
Dry skin is one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism.

 

[fyo]

I had dry membranes too for a while, but it stopped as my health improved. I don't know what exaclty helped.

In the meantime, you could use short sessions of light (maybe like take a nap in front of them) and still benefit.

 

[tomisonbottom]

@tomisonbottom
RP has mentioned that light increases the need for vitamin A.
I have to have regular beef liver to feel good. Before light therapy
i was eating 4 oz of liver a week. Now i am having 8-12 oz a week.
Dry skin is one of the symptoms of hypothyroidism.

Ok, thanks, I didn't realize dry skin was a hypo symptom, that makes sense.
What symptoms did you have that indicated to you your need for more vitamin A?

 

[Mittir]

@tomisonbottom
It is usually low energy , lack of calmness, feeling stressed.
I start craving liver and it picks me up within hours.

 

[stressucks]

Is there anything I can put into a normal light bulb socket and achieve benefits?

 

[charlie]

This is the kind I use in my regular light sockets. They also have 150 watt ones which I use.

http://amzn.to/182DlrC

 

[jyb]

I've been reading more of http://heelspurs.com/led.html, which is mainly about LED but also has a section on halogen. I hadn't really realized the pros and cons of LEDs. Although LEDs doesn't have a continuous spectrum, since it emits little heat you can let the lamp contact the body, and in terms of W/cm^2 you then get something higher than any incandescent/halogen out there (with those, one is limited by the max 3000W household circuit breaker - and price!), so something that goes quite deep in the flesh.

Power LEDs cost a lot more compared to their halogen/incandescent counterparts, but they consume less electricity for the same benefit (in a given spectrum), which is why the plant growing community finds LEDs more cost effective.

For an individual, its easy to source powerful LEDs (usually either flood lights or plant grow lights), but the flood lights are usually white (not red), and the plant grow lights have a array that includes red but also unwanted stuff like blue. It is however not too difficult to get much less powerful red only LED arrays - I think 10W or 15W (equivalent to 100 and 150W halogen?) - there's a previous post on this thread linking to such array - those seem typically composed of lots of low wattage LEDs (about 200 LEDs at 10/200 = 0.05W). The power LEDs don't necessary have more LEDs, but each LED has a lot more wattage (a few watts). The really expensive grow lights for example can easily reach 500W (imagine the equivalent of 5000W halogen without any heat so you can have it sit on you - maybe the light would go right through you...).

My understanding is that for general purpose mood (circadian rhythm, reducing of some stress hormones throughout the day, repair of some but not all type of skin damage), the usual halogen/incandescent/heat lamp of a few hundred watts are appropriate, and the benefits cease after a certain amounts of watt. But the LED can help with some other stuff due to the possibly of going deeper. LEDs might be more appropriate for inducing sleep as you can have it target only the essential spectrum (a handful of nm here and there in the red), not anything that affect melatonin.

 

[aguilaroja]

I've been reading more of http://heelspurs.com/led.html, which is mainly about LED but also has a section on halogen. I hadn't really realized the pros and cons of LEDs. Although LEDs doesn't have a continuous spectrum, since it emits little heat you can let the lamp contact the body, and in terms of W/cm^2 you then get something higher than any incandescent/halogen out there (with those, one is limited by the max 3000W household circuit breaker - and price!), so something that goes quite deep in the flesh.

Power LEDs cost a lot more compared to their halogen/incandescent counterparts, but they consume less electricity for the same benefit (in a given spectrum), which is why the plant growing community finds LEDs more cost effective.

For an individual, its easy to source powerful LEDs (usually either flood lights or plant grow lights), but the flood lights are usually white (not red), and the plant grow lights have a array that includes red but also unwanted stuff like blue. It is however not too difficult to get much less powerful red only LED arrays - I think 10W or 15W (equivalent to 100 and 150W halogen?) -

Yes, LED’s offer the advantage of low wattage while being theoretically able to tailor the spectrum, to specify, and, where applicable, mix the variety of wavelengths.

The inexpensive LED “regular” light bulbs tend to be toward the yellowish white spectrum. The majority of the plant grow lights are mixed grow and bloom/ red and blue.

I have only used the red only grow lights so far. They are pricey-about two U.S. dollars per watt (though as is mentioned, a watt goes farther in LED illumination). Red LED light has relieved the stress of darkness for me, particular when daylight is scarce while the temperature is high enough that filament bulbs cause high heat. RED LED’s also help in combination with wavelengths from other bulbs.

The grow and bloom bulbs don’t seem to be dropping as fast in price as the general bulb replacement LED’s. If others have good sources for economical red LED bulbs, I’d appreciate hearing about them.

 

[superhuman]

This is an awesome thread.

Im currently using 400W Halogen lamp over/before my head shining down on me.
Is this enough or do i need more for more effectiveness? what should i buy?

 

[charlie]

Haidut mentioned recently about halogen lamps and some studies with cancer. I turn the halogen on occaisionally but for some reason I do not like to have it on long.

Ray Peat suggest this light below, its pretty pricey on Amazon but you can find it cheaper in other places if you search around:

Heat Lamp 250-Watt BR40 Clear Flood Light Bulb

With something like this to hold the light:

Bayco SL-302B3 10-1/2-Inch Brooder Clamp Light with Porcelain Ceramic Socket

 

[jyb]

Haidut mentioned recently about halogen lamps and some studies with cancer.

Where? I don't recall anything that's specific to halogen, so I'm curious.

 

[charlie]

Where? I don't recall anything that's specific to halogen, so I'm curious.

viewtopic.php?p=34656#p34656