Infrared Light Therapy Benefits

The health benefits of traditional sauna therapy are well documented. Steam saunas can open your pores, induce a detoxifying sweat, and help to soothe sore muscles. However, infrared light therapy has become more popular in recent years. Infrared light therapy is relaxing, invigorating, and ideal for busy individuals looking to maximize their wellness.

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You might wonder what the infrared light therapy benefits are and whether they compare. Today, let’s break down infrared light therapy’s benefits in detail.

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How Does Infrared Light Therapy Work?

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Infrared light therapy uses a specific type of light to warm your body and encourage a variety of other physiological effects. For example, an infrared light sauna uses infrared light emitters that are positioned logically around an area where a person will sit or recline.

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A person steps into the infrared light sauna and turns it on. Infrared light, which is not visible since it’s one of the shortest wavelengths of light, then saturates the area. Because of its wavelength, infrared light can potentially more easily penetrate the upper layers of skin and tissue, reaching muscles and deeper bodily cells.

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Although infrared light is invisible, it is still tangible. It can quickly warm bodily tissues or the surrounding area, creating a sauna environment without the use of steam or other heating elements.

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Since infrared light can penetrate deeper into the skin and tissue of a person, skin health can potentially react more directly to cells and could induce more significant benefits than steam saunas.

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Benefits of Infrared Light Therapy

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Infrared light therapy is known to potentially provide several benefits according to clinical trials, especially for those who enjoy it regularly.

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Fat-Burning

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For starters, infrared light therapy causes your body to burn more calories. While this calorie-burning effect is not significant compared to exercise, it can help with weight loss or fat-burning efforts to some extent.

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Whenever your body heats up, it also burns calories as your heart rate increases and as blood flow improves. Combined with an excellent exercise session and a strong diet, infrared light therapy could help you meet your weight loss goals.

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Cardiovascular Boosts

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As touched on above, cardiovascular improvements usually occur in tandem with infrared light therapy sessions.

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As your body warms, your heart rate increases and your blood vessels dilate. By forcing your cardiovascular system to work harder, you improve its overall health just like you can by practicing some light cardio exercise.

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While infrared sauna light therapy cannot fully replace exercise (nor should it), it can be a valuable additional source of physical wellness to your life. Infrared saunas can help alleviate joint and muscle soreness and provide increased athletic performance.

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Help With Inflammation and Pain

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Perhaps most importantly, infrared light therapy is scientifically known to assist with inflammation and pain reduction.

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Inflammation often occurs post injury or when one area or another of your body is irritated for some reason. For example, if you injure yourself at the gym by pulling a muscle, an infrared light therapy session could help you minimize your pain and discomfort over the long term.

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There are several reasons for this. Infrared light therapy can help activate certain cellular activities, such as ATP production. Infrared light therapy can also help to release endorphins. These are feel-good hormones are known to reduce pain signals throughout the body.

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Furthermore, infrared light therapy opens up your blood vessels and stimulates cardiovascular flow. This, in turn, results in nutrient-rich blood reaching affected areas more easily.

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The warmth, as well, helps soothe irritated muscles, tendons, and other inflamed or pained tissues. There’s a reason why many athletes use heat packs or similar tools to soothe injured parts of their bodies after a workout or game. The same principle applies to warming infrared light therapy.

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Some people believe that conditions that cause chronic pain such as osteoarthritis, back pain, and more can all see improvements thanks to the benefits of red light.

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Skin Detoxification and Appearance Improvements

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On top of that, infrared light therapy can provide major benefits to your skin. Specifically, it can help to detoxify your skin by inducing sweat.

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When you experience infrared light therapy, your body begins to sweat to cool down. That sweat carries not just water and salt but a variety of harmful toxins and chemicals that might build up in your skin over time. For example, environmental pollutants can concentrate in your skin depending on where you live and what you eat and drink.

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Sweating regularly is important for skin and overall bodily health. After showering and washing away all that sweat, you might find that your skin looks and feels better than before. Your pores might be more open, as well, to serums or other skincare products.

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Infrared light therapy – and the regular sweating it induces – may even help you reduce incidences of acne outbreaks if you struggle with this. Since the improvements occur at the cellular level, you may see a reduction in fine lines, a faster healing process for skin, and even better hair growth.

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Muscle Benefits

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Infrared light therapy may have specific benefits for muscular injuries. Because infrared light can improve mitochondrial actions within your bodily cells, and activate ATP (or the energy within your bodily tissues), you might also experience better and faster growth and/or repair of muscle tissues and cells.

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For example, you might want to enjoy an infrared light therapy session after a long workout at the gym as you build muscle. By providing your muscles with stimulating infrared energy, they might grow more rapidly, especially when combined with positive lifestyle changes and other wellness tactics. This wound healing effect can also be seen in other places, such as in the mitochondria of blood vessels and key cells around the body.

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Stress Reduction

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Lastly, infrared light therapy can oftentimes help with stress reduction. Simply put, basking in warm infrared light is relaxing and calming for many people. This is doubly true if you read a good book or listen to music during your infrared light session.

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Stress reduction is highly important. Over time, we can build up stress hormones like cortisol in our bodies. Stress is bad not only mentally but physically; too much of it can cause our bodies to degrade or experience secondary side effects.

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Relieving your stress with an excellent workout, a good diet, and red light therapy can do wonders for your overall wellness and your mental health. Many people enjoy steam saunas for this reason alone; infrared light saunas can be even more effective given how quickly they warm up your body and how they can affect your deeper tissues.

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When To Use Infrared Light Therapy

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Infrared light therapy is best enjoyed in similar contexts as steam saunas. For example, you can enjoy infrared light therapy:

• After a workout, especially if you really work your muscles
• After sports activities
• After a long and stressful day at work
• As part of a longer sauna experience or relaxation session

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More research is needed to see what other systems may react positively to infrared therapy.

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Next Health’s Infrared Light Treatments

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Because we believe in the benefits and efficacy of infrared light therapy, Next Health offers not just one but two different types of infrared light treatments.

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The first is our infrared light bed therapy. Next Health’s infrared light beds are designed with well over 13,000 high-intensity LEDs. Clients can lay on these beds with the lights positioned close to their skin to maximize the potential beneficial effects.

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Over the course of a single session, these LEDs can stimulate white blood cells, boost collagen production, and can help to release endorphins that may help minimize chronic and acute pain alike.

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The second is our infrared light sauna therapy. This takes place in proprietary Next Health infrared sauna capsules. These capsules are so effective that they are about 30% more detoxifying for your skin and body compared to traditional, steam-based saunas. Jade stones combine with both near and far infrared light to distribute heat evenly throughout your body.

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Either way, both of our infrared light therapy options are powerful, positive, and ideal for a variety of needs. You can sign up for an appointment today. Alternatively, you can contact one of our wellness specialists if you have questions or if you want to know more about how the process works.

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Summary

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Ultimately, infrared light therapy can provide many benefits — even after a first visit. That’s why it’s a good idea to sign up for an infrared light sauna or infrared light bed appointment at a local Next Health location today.

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Contact one of our wellness specialists and ask any questions you might have. Our infrared light therapy appointments are comfortable, consistent, and focused on your benefit above all else. Contact Next Health today to learn more.

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Sources:

Infrared and Skin: Friend or Foe - PMC | NCBI

Biological effects and medical applications of infrared radiation - PMC | NCBI

Far-infrared therapy for cardiovascular, autoimmune, and other chronic health problems: A systematic review | NCBI