Hey, Betty's welcome to another episode of geeky magic. And today we are talking all about red light therapy, so red and near-infrared light. And we are going to be talking about some of the benefits, how you can use red light therapy for many different conditions in the body, or as a prophylactic strategy. For example, for skin, for helping with athletic performance, for helping with some of the symptoms that are associated with perimenopause, for fat loss, all of the things.

Dr. Stephanie (01:07):
So this is going to be a really great episode. I think this is going to be valuable for anybody who wants to improve their energy to get rid of brain fog. If you are looking to lose weight and you have started a nutrition and exercise protocol using red light therapy can be a wonderful adjunct to that. And, uh, we are going to talk about all the things, how it works and then how you can dose. And just before I get into all of the particulars, I just wanted to let you know that I have a, if you are interested or shopping for a red light device, I would love to point you to Orion red light therapy. They have, they are a Canadian company, so I love supporting local, but you're, if you're American, you can buy from them as well. And if you look at and they have three products, three skews, there is a small, a medium and a large red light device.

Dr. Stephanie (02:09):
And for each of them, you can take 10% off with the coupon code, Stephanie 10 that's, S T E P H a N I E. And the number ten one zero. All right. So let's get into what is near infrared and red light. And before we have a constructive conversation around that, it's I think that a lot of people don't necessarily realize that there's actually a lot of different kinds of light. And each of these, uh, wavelengths, each of these lights have different effects on our biology, right? So, um, there are a couple of them that most people have some familiarity with. So for example, you know, everybody knows about you V light, right? UV light comes from the sun. That's where vitamin D comes from, you know, the UV light hits our skin, right then Cree, you know, through a series of biochemical reactions results in cholesterol, sulfate, which eventually is turned into vitamin D.

Dr. Stephanie (03:12):
Now, of course, vitamin D this is a separate podcast, but it's not really a vitamin more of a hormone. Um, but this, you know, vitamin D has it, it controls the expression of thousands of different genes in our body, right. And D has been shown to be intimately involved in things like amplifying immune function, uh, the, the maintenance of our bones, our sex hormones, like, Oh, anything that you can imagine, almost anything that you can imagine in the box vitamin D is associated with, and that a large part of that, or a large part of our natural synthesis of vitamin D comes from you. The light. Now, of course, we have been taught as a society to book a UV light, right? So you can block UV light with sunscreen. Um, you know, and again, this is a separate podcast, um, but I'm not a huge fan of always blocking out all these different wavelengths of light, including UV light.

Dr. Stephanie (04:10):
Um, I don't think that the claims hold up that, um, that it causes like premature aging, but I'll, I'll, I'll just dangle that carrot. And we can, we can come back to it another time. Um, but you can essentially, you can block UV light out, right? Like, so if you put on a sunscreen, whether it's a chemical reflector or a mechanical refresh, a reflector like zinc, zinc oxide, um, that can block UV light from penetrating the skin, right. Melanin levels at, you know, as you have a suntan through the summertime, that will also naturally, yeah. I have a UV blocking effect as well. But when we talk specifically about red yeah. And near infrared light, they are, um, distinct from UV light in that they cannot be blocked by the skin. They actually penetrate very deeply, um, into our bodies and by some estimates as deepest too, or three inches beneath the skin, now we can very easily test this out.

Dr. Stephanie (05:16):
If you were to take your iPhone, let's say you were to open up the flashlight. And if you shine it, let's say through the distal tips of your fingers. So just on the distal phalanges, you will see light popping through, um, your, the distal tips of your fingers. And the light that you're going to see is red, right? So if you flash a white light, like a flashlight, and of course, if we look at the flashlight on our phone, it's going to have all or any flashlight, really not just your iPhone, um, it's going to have all colors, right? It's going to have all the colors, the broad spectrum, the Roy [inaudible], uh, if you will, the, if I can remember that accurate red, orange, green, yellow, Roy G, and then blue Indigo and violet. Right? So Roy G Bev, um, but what's going to shine through your fingers is what it's going to be red, right?

Dr. Stephanie (06:11):
So it's the red light that actually gets through the blue light. You don't see coming through through the other side because the blue light is getting absorbed right into your skin. It's the red light that makes it through. And the near infrared light also makes it through. But, um, near infrared light is invisible to the human eyes. You can actually see it. So, okay. So this is a different spectrum of light is separate and distinct from UV light, but why do we care? Right? Like why do we care about red light or near infrared light? Like, what is it doing? That's conferring any of the health benefits that you see companies touting that it does? Well, it turns out that they do many things. Uh, there's many mechanisms of action, which we'll talk about today, but primarily what's going on. One of the big reasons why we see these systemic effects in many different systems, tissues and organs is that they stimulate the mitochondria in our cells.

Dr. Stephanie (07:15):
And of course we have mitochondria in everywhere, right? With every system, every tissue. And if you cannot recall what a mitochondria is, if you cannot, if you've blocked out nightmares from high school biology, these are ourselves, uh, you know, they're referred to as the battery packs or the energy generators of the cell, they are what make the currency, the energetic currency, every single second of every single day, it's called ATP or adenosine tri phosphate. And, you know, it's basically your mitochondria are responsible for generating all the energy that is needed by yourselves to function. So, you know, if you think about your brain cells, you think about your heart cells. You think about your muscle cells. You think about your skin cells. You think about your liver cells, you know, every organ, every gland, you know, your thyroid like a dream. I was like every organ gland in your body, every cell depends on the energy that is produced by the mitochondria that those cells that those tissues or organs have.

Dr. Stephanie (08:24):
And of course, when your mitochondria are not performing at an optimal level, then your energy levels are going to drop. And we will start to see energy drops in our energy levels. We will start to see disturbances in our sleep. We will start to see inflammation and brain fog and aging skin and accumulation of adipose tissue and poor recovery after workouts. Like there's the, you know, the knock on effect is huge when the mitochondria are not working at an optimal or even just at a base rate functional level. So some of the things that red light therapy has a lot of great data on is the things that we've kind of been alluding to like the anti-aging effects on skin on performance, right? If you are either someone who's training in the gym, or if you're an athlete, performance is going to be really effective for you, muscular recovery, right after the performance being, if it's, whether it's training or it's, you know, your hockey player, or you're a soccer player, or what have you, tennis player, you want to be able to recover.

Dr. Stephanie (09:35):
You want to have an a, you know, an, an unfair advantage in some way, in terms of recovery, it's also been shown red light therapy has positive effects on fat loss, reducing brain fog, improving systemic pain and inflammation, tendonitis, ligamentous injuries, which are notoriously difficult and slow to heal because of the blood supply. Like typically when we look at a ligament, you know, versus a tendon, the ligament is supply the blood supplies, like, you know, poor in comparison. So that's why ligamentous injuries take so long to heal. Um, even things like hair growth, right? And like literally dozens and dozens of other different types of effects. Red light therapy can be used for it. And for my, for my skeptics, if you are thinking like, okay, like this, come on Betty, like this is too good to be true, how I'm gonna do all of these things.

Dr. Stephanie (10:27):
Well, first I applaud you for having that, um, for having that thought. Um, but the reason why we have the systemic broad effects, you know, whether it's a Glen or an organ, you know, muscles to your skin, uh, to the health and integrity of those cells, it depends on the efficacy and the efficiency of the energetic production in the mitochondria. So, you know, very simply good energy production. Let's say inside the skin cells are going to, um, mean healthier skin, right? It's going to stimulate collagen and elastin, which is going to help prevent fine lines and wrinkles or sagging, right. Or good energetic production in your brain cells is going to mean reduction in brain fog, reduction, inflammation, and, you know, augmentation of your memory sleep. Um, same thing with your heart cells, right? If you can get, um, a powerful enough light, and we'll talk about, you know, some of the parameters that I like to look for in a, in a device that's also going to help with, you know, improving the energetic capacity of your heart.

Dr. Stephanie (11:36):
And that's why it can impact all of these systems because there's something, you know, basically universally consistent between each of these systems or these cells, is that if a cell has the capacity to produce more energy vis-a-vis, um, mitochondrial ATP production, it is going to work better. Let's, let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics here. So, um, I have a lot of women that will come to me because they want to, um, lose weight. Um, and specifically when we say weight loss, of course, we're not referring to we don't to lose muscle mass or organ, and we want to lose fat, right? So we're going to talk about this in the context of fat loss. Well, there's a lot of research and I'll pop some of these studies in the show notes for you to take a look at that red and near infrared light therapy can enhance fat loss.

Dr. Stephanie (12:30):
And there's also research that when we look at, when you have red and infrared light therapy paired with, um, an exercise program, it is going to greatly enhance the fat loss benefits compared to, um, cohorts where the, the only intervention was the exercise of you have two groups of people they're both exercising and you with one group you add in red and near infrared light therapy, you can augment their fat loss in some, in some studies by up to 200%, which is not an insignificant number. And of course, you know, when you're looking to lose weight, like every little bit counts, right. Especially when we're thinking about adipose tissue, like we want to be able to find like the minimum effective dose in terms of what's going to work, and we want to do it in a safe way, another, you know, body composition, um, example in terms of how red light and near infrared light work is, you can, and I mentioned this before, but we'll talk about this in the context of muscular performance and adaptations to exercise, right?

Dr. Stephanie (13:38):
So imagine somebody is weight training, and if you're a Betty, you know, maybe you're doing one of my programs, um, or you're doing your own, you know, weight training program or you're doing cardio or something. There, there are studies that have looked at these exercise interventions within, without doing near infrared light. And you see much bigger improvements in parameters like insulin sensitivity in terms of greater gains in strength over the same Delta T over the same amount of time. Or if you're, if they're looking at cardiovascular endurance, you see greater gains and endurance in the cohort that used the red light and near infrared light therapy, as compared to those who just did the exercise or the intervention alone, same thing with recovery, right? All of my Betty's know, those heavy leg days. Like you want to use red light therapy. I do this myself.

Dr. Stephanie (14:34):
I use red light therapy immediately after a training session so that I can enhance the speed of my recovery. So there's like, um, I'm reducing, what's called Dom's or delayed onset of muscle soreness. So the duration and the severity of the soreness can be altered. And that naturally of course is going to mean that you can get back into it, the gym sooner, right. Than you otherwise might have. Like, I there's been times when, um, I've used, I've done like a really crazy leg day and I've been out like I've been, I have not been able to do anything three days, but when you, um, when you use red light therapy or near infrared light therapy, then you can, you can shorten that window between, you know, between leg days, let's say, for example. So those are just like two examples, two, um, ways that we can augment body composition.

Dr. Stephanie (15:27):
But of course, like I mentioned, there's so much any other areas of the body. Like when we think about the brain and using red light therapy and near infrared light therapy in the brain, there's been studies looking at depression, like treating, using it to treat depression and anxiety, Heidi, um, neurodegenerative diseases, uh, cognitive live performance, focus, mood, and even traumatic, uh, brain injuries or TBIs. So in my practice, I would see a lot of concussions and, you know, so often the traditional recommendation is like to wait it out, right? So like rest your eyes, don't read, stay in a dark room, don't exercise all these things. And while I don't necessarily agree with the not exercising, um, peace, the other ones like resting your eyes, don't read don't overstress. The, the cortex that maybe, you know, Sage advice in some instances, depending on where the, uh, the injury in the, in the brain was.

Dr. Stephanie (16:24):
But generally, um, I would use red light therapy or recommend that these patients get red light therapy as a way to reduce brain inflammation. Right. Okay. Um, that happens post concussion. And there's a lot of specifically with concussion, some evidence that we see that once some of these inflammatory pathways are activated, it's really hard to shut them off. So when we overexcite our astrocytes or microglia, they can really wreck havoc on brain metabolism on brain structure and brain function. So if you're someone, for example, who suffers from seasonal affective this order, or, you know, even just with what I think the, the bigger pandemic, uh, of 2021 and beyond is going to be, which has mental health crisises, um, with, um, depression and anxiety and just the stress of everything that has happened in the last, um, year and a bit. Now, I think that, I mean, we've, I've talked on previous podcasts about how, you know, prolonged exposure to cortisol can have deleterious effects on, uh, hippocampus in terms of, um, learning and memory, in terms of both encoding new memories and, and inhibiting and prohibiting new learning, but also retrieving the old stuff, stuff that you've learned.

Dr. Stephanie (17:44):
So cortisol short-term good. Did you know, the sort of the short, uh, answer is, you know, cortisol, short-term brilliant. Long-term like the stress that most of the world has endured as a result of the pandemic in the past year can really have deleterious effects on our brain. So this can be one of the ways in which there are other tech, you know, there are other things that we can do, but, uh, of course, but I think that red light therapy is one of the easier ways that we can bring about a decrease in, um, neuroinflammation and skinny jeans. So, you know, I freely admit I can be a vain woman and, you know, we can also red light therapy here as well. So, and you, and you sort of see this happening, right? Like you see these anti aging, like Medi spa clinics and spas that are kind of popping up everywhere and they all use red light therapy, and they'll kind of charge you, you know, 75 bucks to like, I've seen it up to like 200 bucks per session to sit in front of these red light therapy devices, um, or, you know, lay under them for a period of time.

Dr. Stephanie (18:56):
And as I mentioned before, why it's such a potent anti-aging, um, um, mechanism is that it stimulates collagen and elastin production. And this is of course, primarily as a result of enhancing that mitochondrial energy production in the cells that produce collagen and in the cells that produce elastin and of course, research around in decreasing wrinkles and in enhancing skin firmness and decreasing cellulite and like all the things. Right. And if it's for me, when I, when I see a tool like this, and it's so beneficial across all systems in the body, like I want it in my home. You don't like, I want to do it myself, and I want to be able to control how I do it. So let's just get a little bit geekier for a moment. And then we can get into dosing in terms of what are some of the appropriate things to look for in a red light therapy device.

Dr. Stephanie (19:54):
Cause there's many of them, you can get them all the way from, you know, ones on Amazon, too. Um, the ones that I recommend like the Orion device, but when we think about, we've been talking about the way that red light and near infrared red light work as a, a mitochondrial like we're augmenting or improving the mitochondrial efficiencies, uh, in the cells of whatever tissue or organ or gland that we're targeting. One of the other things that it does. And this is from my good friend and colleague Ari Whitten. So, um, I'll just give a quick plug to his book here. So it's called the ultimate guide to red light therapy. So that's what we're talking about today. He wrote a book on it, how to use red light and near infrared light therapy for anti-aging fat loss, muscle gain, performance enhancement and brain optimization.

Dr. Stephanie (20:43):
So Ari and I are kind of like twinsies, but he wrote the book on it. It's an excellent book, highly recommend you pick it up as well. If you are in, if you're researching some of these different, um, ways and Ari talks about in his book about, uh, you know, another mechanism that's facilitated by red light therapy, which is building out something called the antioxidant response element, or a R E. So this still is in our mitochondria, right? And this is an internal system that we have that helps to basically, um, quell excess antioxidants, right? Uh, these inflammatory compounds that are in the cell and kind of around the cell. So it's sort of like in an outside, like inside and outside of the cells environment. And when we think about this are it's, it's, it's this antioxidant response element. It is very closely intertwined with glutathione.

Dr. Stephanie (21:41):
So if you've heard of glutathione before, uh, hopefully you have, but if you haven't, it is like the master antioxidant in the body. And as we build up our are what's going on in part is that we are building up our internal stores of glutathione, this master antioxidant. And it's also involved in the detoxification process. You know, even though there's not a lot of data on, you know, I, at least I haven't seen it and I'd be happy if someone has seen it to send me some papers, but I haven't seen any data on red light and near infrared light on detoxification, or like the detoxification pathways. But you can sort of, in some ways indirectly see that there may be the, there may be benefit to some of these mechanisms, you know, for like, even though we're not directly, you know, amplifying phase one detoxification or phase two detoxification, you, you can see that by building up your glutathione, the process of glutathione ization is going to be amplified, which is a part, a piece of the detoxification pathway.

Dr. Stephanie (22:51):
Okay. So let's talk a little bit about dosing because I think that, um, one of the things that many people get wrong is that they, they think that you can, you can, and you should just treat all areas the same, and that is incorrect. So let's talk a little bit about how we can dose appropriately. So when we're, when we're using this from a more superficial standpoint, so let's think about this for skin, right? Um, or like surface treatments. You may also apply this to adipose tissue because a lot of times we, I mean, there's, of course there's visceral adipose buildup, but a lot of times the adipose tissue that most people are concerned with is, um, is, is more superficial. So with skin and adipose tissue treatment, you actually want to be further away from the light than you would if, um, you wanted to let's say, treat your muscles, or if you wanted to treat, uh, Oregon's right.

Dr. Stephanie (23:57):
If you wanted your adrenals or your thyroid, or, or what have you, or your breast tissue. And when we, when we are further distances away, and when I say further distance, I'm talking about like 12 inches from the light up to 36 inches. So, you know, a foot to three feet away from your body, this is going to be ideal for treating skin. And this is going to be ideal deal for those anti aging purposes. So for stimulating the collagen and the elastin for reducing fine lines and wrinkles for, um, for improving the appearance of cellulite, right. And when with deeper tissues. So like with the muscles, with the organs, you want to be closed, like you want to be super duper close to the light, um, which is going to increase the light yeah. Intensity. Uh, and it's going to give you an overall, it's going to be able to penetrate deeper into the skin.

Dr. Stephanie (24:50):
So closer distances. I like to call it like six to 12 inches away from the light source, because that's going to facilitate that greater depth of penetration. Okay. So generally skin and superficial adipose tissue, a little further away. Yeah. Deeper tissues. We want to be closer. Now I have, of even, even when we just make that distinction, we also want to get a little bit, uh, we also even want to get a little bit geekier. So for example, with our skin, we actually don't want to be sitting if we want, like anti-aging benefits. We actually don't want to be sitting in front of the, uh, in front of the light source for like 20 or 30 minutes. We actually don't need that much, like a maximum maximum of, you know, seven to eight minutes in front of, you know, at that at least 12 to 36 inch distance from the light source.

Dr. Stephanie (25:44):
So let's call it, um, you know, I like to call it anywhere between four to eight minutes, um, for deep tissue. So like the muscles, the tendons, the ligaments, your bones, your glands, your brain, you, you want a muscle higher dosage, so you want to be closer. And then you also want to stay in front of the light for a longer period of time. So what this means, you know, as I'm kind of describing the two of them, yeah. I might be like, Oh, like I don't want to buy two devices. And this is why I prefer a high power device. Like you can go on Amazon and kind of get these like, you know, devices for like 70 bucks, 150 bucks or whatever. Um, but a high power device is going to facilitate both a six to 12 inch depth where you can get some of these deeper tissue, uh, therapeutics as well as being able to step away away from the light, um, and still be able to treat the skin without too much degradation of ability for that light to penetrate the skin.

Dr. Stephanie (26:46):
Right. So for those back to those kind of deeper tissues, so six inches we've said for the, um, at least, uh, like six to 12 inches for those deeper tissues. And then I like there to be, you know, somewhere between seven and, you know, call it 12 minutes. Um, it depends on the severity of the, uh, issue and what, what you're trying to treat. So for example, you might want to treat tendonitis. You might stay six inches away, or maybe a labral tear or something in the shoulder. You may want to stay six inches away and hang out for seven to eight minutes there, maybe for something deeper. If you want to be able to treat the brain. Of course, now you have to be at least six inches away from the light, but the, obviously the skull is very thick and you want to have to penetrate that in order for the light to get to the brain.

Dr. Stephanie (27:43):
So you would be on the higher, uh, time spectrum here. So if you want it to help with your focus and your, you know, if there's mood disorders, depression, anxiety, you know, any cognitive skills that you're going for, like, or reducing neurodegeneration or cognition issues, you want to be there 12 to 15 minutes at six inches away from the, um, from the light, same as true for if we're looking at concussion or TBIs, right? Because there's that neuroinflammatory component. And we want to be able to penetrate the thicker bone of the cranium. So let's think about, you know, when you're shopping for a red light therapy device, I've already said this, but I'll say it again. It's really important to get a high powered light, so that can still deliver both from closed distances for those deeper tissue, uh, therapeutics, as well as further distances.

Dr. Stephanie (28:39):
This is going to allow you to, um, to treat both the skin and the underlying tissues and do not underestimate how convenient that is. Like you don't want, you don't want to be, you know, spending, you know, 20, 30, 60 minutes being it's just so you can get the right amount of Juul, the right amount of energetic dosage to be able to bring about the, the, um, results that you want. So high powered, um, units. So one of the things that I like to look for is that the hour is at least, uh, 500 Watts. Um, I also like to look for companies that give you a warranty of at least a year, so that you can actually try the unit over the course of a year and see if you're getting the benefits that, um, it claimed that you were getting, you want to look for a lifespan of at least 50,000 hours, because this is going to last you decades, right?

Dr. Stephanie (29:42):
If you think about, you know, your dosing for, you know, anywhere from let's call it like two minutes, all the way up to 15, 50,000 hours can take you a long time, um, to go through EMF. I get this question a lot. What about EMF, radiation? Are you concerned about that? Um, most good companies will, um, tell you what the EMF, um, dosage is. So I actually like it to be zero. When we look at, for example, the Orion, which is the one that I recommend, uh, it has zero micro Teslas at six inches. Um, so even at the closest range you're getting, um, nothing. And then of course, um, the wavelengths, you want both red, which is about 660 nanometers in wavelength and near infrared, which is 850. So the other question that I get is what about the sauna? Right? Does the sun and someone asked this, um, on Instagram the other day, like, what do you want me to talk about, uh, in terms of red light therapy?

Dr. Stephanie (30:40):
And they're like, what is the difference between like a red light therapy device and something like an infrared sauna? And this is a great question. And I would say that I actually love both, right? So I use a sauna myself, but I don't use it for the infrared benefits. I use it for the heat and I'll explain why. So when we're thinking about red light therapy, it can get really, let's call it complicated when you start to use it. You know, when you're starting to use it in a sauna environment, because now you are introducing heat, right? And you're introducing like sweating as well. So that's amazing. Those are great. Like there's a huge amount of health benefits that are associated with saunas. I'm a huge advocate for sauna use. But the problem here is that you can't control the dosing quite as closely as you would with a red light therapy device and the amount of time that you want to sit in front of those heat lamps and sweat it out and get those benefits of sauna use is not the same.

Dr. Stephanie (31:47):
They may not be the same as it might be with red light dosing in front of like a box let's say for the skin and anti-aging benefits on your face, right? Or, or even for treating deep tissue issues like your muscles or tendons, you know, Glen's and so on. And one of the things that I don't think many people realize is in a sauna, you actually, if it's an infrared sauna, you actually need to be rotating your position over the course of your duration in the sauna, because otherwise you are going to be likely getting too much red and near infrared light in one particular area. Like if you just sit and I used to do this too, like, you know, so don't worry, like, don't worry about it. I used to sit for like an hour, listen to podcasts, and I would sit in the same position, um, you know, with my back right over one of the lamps.

Dr. Stephanie (32:39):
And then, uh, I wouldn't really change my position much, but it's really important that, you know, you must imagine yourself as if you are a rotisserie chicken in these saunas, you have to be rotating constantly in order to get those ideal benefits, because you know, the heat lamps as you're sitting, um, you know, the angle of the heat lamps is going to influence how much the penetration, uh, the distance that you have from the heat lamp, you know, what you're trying to achieve, et cetera. So I actually, you know, if you're going to use infrared in a sauna, you absolutely can, but you want to make sure that you're kind of rotating, um, like think of yourself as a rotisserie chicken, like every, or even if you were, you know, if you were to go sunbathing, like you wouldn't just sit under the sun, right?

Dr. Stephanie (33:23):
Like, you'd go on your back for a couple of minutes, then maybe you'd move on your side and then you'd move on your tummy. And then, uh, and then you continue the dance as you were, as you were sunbathing. So, um, love the sauna, but I use a red light box. Um, and particularly the way that I use it is I use it both for skin. Um, and I also use it for muscle recovery. And of course I wanted to have all the other benefits, but those are the two primaries that I use it for. So after a workout typically, uh, it's like a lift session. I'll go, I have it in my bedroom. So, you know, take off all my sweaty clothes and, um, get naked in front of the red light box. And what I'll do is I'll actually do some dry brushing.

Dr. Stephanie (34:09):
So I'll do the, um, this I'll step back from the light box. So I'll have it further. Like I usually stay about 12 to call it 18 inches away from it. And I'll dry brush the, uh, my legs, uh, dry brush all over my body, my glutes, my back, all the places. And then I'll kind of switch. So I do the front of the body, and then I do the back of the body, you know, call it eight minutes and total, uh, like four minutes, four minutes aside, if you will. And then I get closer. So then I will do, you know, I'll do like my morning, I have this like oral care. If you've listened to any of my podcasts with either Trina Felber on oral care or Nadine Artemis, um, on the podcast, I have an extensive oral care regime that I've learned from both of those women.

Dr. Stephanie (34:54):
And so I will oil pull, brush my teeth. Maybe I'll do a little whitening session, I'll start to put on my makeup. But at that point I'm really, really close to the box. Um, and then I can start to do other things. So I'll do that for a little bit longer. And I have, um, I use the Orion, uh, 500, so it's the medium box and I have it, um, standing on my kind of makeup area or like on my counter. Um, so it kind of hits the top, like just right under my chin all, and it'll go like, you know, through my, like a stop somewhere around my abdomen. So like pretty much all of my organs, um, you know, for my thyroid all the way down to my liver are getting some, um, some therapy there and I'm able to, because I'm so close the light, I can kind of do other things.

Dr. Stephanie (35:38):
Like I'm not staring directly at it. Um, a lot of questions around, um, should I open Myers or close my eyes? Um, you know, it came with eye protection devices. Do I use it? No, I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing. Um, I've read mixed reviews. I, I don't really, uh, I'm not really worried about, I don't really think it should hurt your eyes. I also do it summer, but I do it like for like, I work out four times, five times a week, so I'll do it four or five times a week. And that's within the range that I would recommend it like three to seven times a week. Like you can, even though I don't think it's very dangerous. I think that you absolutely can overdo it. Like if you're doing it three or four times a day for like an hour, you're probably doing too much.

Dr. Stephanie (36:23):
Right. And there's sort of a dose response curve. There's like, you know, too little of it, not to, you know, not a lot of benefit, but you know, too much of it, you can also overdo it just in the same way that you can do that with exercise or nutrition, right? So a little fasting, maybe not enough middle of the road, fasting, you get the most benefit too much fascinating. And then you have deleterious effects, same with exercise, right. Too little exercise, not enough benefit, too much exercise, deleterious effects, same as true with any, any, you know, lifestyle hack, if you will. So that's my little soap box on red light. I absolutely love using red light therapy. I think that for the amount of benefits that it confers, you know, the opportunity costs, you know, the age to call it, you know, 15 minutes that I spend in front of the red light, uh, box is well worth my time, especially because I'm an efficiency freak.

Dr. Stephanie (37:14):
And I do other things while I'm, um, uh, while I'm in front of it. But I think that the ability to produce more energy vis-a-vis better functioning. Mitochondria is a game changer. And I absolutely love this. So, like I said, I'll throw some studies in the show notes for you to geek out on, and I hope that you enjoyed this geeky magic. And if you are looking for a red light device, I love Orion. I have just fallen in love with them, super competitive pricing. Like when you sort of look at some of the other bigger, more well-known red light companies, like very, very attractively priced, and they really do measure up in terms of the quality, the warranty, the jewels, and the Watts that they put out, all of that. So can't say enough good things about them. And like I said, if you are interested in purchasing one, I have a 10% discount for you and a, you can save a little bit of extra money there as well. All right. My Betty's, this has been a slice and we will see you very soon for a, another geeky magic episode on better. I hope you enjoyed today's episode for those of you who want to continue on this week's geeky magic carpet ride with me, visit better show.co forward slash show notes. You'll find research links, summary notes, musings that I prepared in preparation for the podcast. And I often throw in some of my best practices, bonuses, and links.