Low-level red light therapy is a scientifically backed solution for problems like joint pain, slow wound healing, and even aging skin and acne. It helps collagen production in the body and may possibly increase speed of healing.
In fact we’ve even been using it for my husband after a recent hernia surgery, and watching the results I just knew I had to find out more about how this technology works!
I’m so glad to have Justin and Melissa Strahan, the husband-and-wife team who started a great company called Joovv that specializes in red and near infrared light therapy. They know this therapy inside and out and explain the science behind the great results.
Red Light Therapy: What It’s Not
So what is light therapy, and why does it need to be red? Although your local tanning salon may offer red light therapy services, it’s not tanning and it’s not a sauna.
Unlike a sauna that creates beneficial effects with heat, an LED (low-level) red light therapy device targets the body with specific wavelengths of light, actually penetrating the skin with photons and changing cell function.
To date there is no known downside to red light therapy, so it’s definitely worth checking out!
In This Episode You’ll Learn
- the story behind Joovv from founders Justin and Melissa
- what makes red light therapy different from tanning beds or infrared saunas … and how the body reacts differently too
- clinical evidence showing red light therapy speeds muscle recovery, aids wound healing, diminishes signs of aging, and provides a better night of sleep (and the list goes on!)
- how you can receive the benefits of red light therapy without going to expensive salon appointments
- the connection between red light therapy and mitochondria, the body’s cellular powerhouse
- an introduction to ATP in the body and why we can’t be healthy without it
- the “near infrared window” – what it is and how it works with red light therapy
- Justin’s prescription for how often and how long to get treatments
- suggestions for how to choose the right device for you
- how I’m using red light therapy in my home right now
- and more!
Resources We Mention
(Use the code WELLNESSMAMA for a free gift)
Article: Saunas vs Light Therapy
I also sauna daily. This is the type of sauna I have.
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Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
Katie: Do you love the taste and the benefits of bone broth but don’t love how time consuming it is to make? With the time you spend sourcing the best ingredients and then simmering it for hours on end on the stove. Kettle and Fire solves that problem with their bone broth. So they use only bones from 100% grass-fed pasture raised cattle that are never given hormones and antibiotics. It’s also unique because they focus on bones that are especially high in collagen, which is one of the healthiest things you can put in your body. Another great thing about them is that they use really eco-friendly minimal packaging and their bone both is non-perishable. So unlike many bone broths on the market, it ships without the need for refrigeration, which is also much more eco-friendly. It is available in many stores, so definitely check your local area. But if it’s not, like it isn’t for me, you can order it online and have it shipped to your door, which is what I do. So to check it out and to find out more about why their bone broth is so wonderful, go to kettleandfire.com/wellnessmama
This episode is sponsored by Plant Therapy. There are so many options out there when it comes to essential oils and I’ve used a lot of them over the years. Now I most often turn to Plant Therapy because they have a large assortment of organic oils and a whole lot of kid-safe blends and they also have really good prices. The cool thing is their oils have no additives or synthetic ingredients like a lot of oils do. And they publish their testing results for all of their oils so you can verify the quality. I’ve talked a lot about the safe use of essential oils and their kid-safe blends are formulated by Robert Tisserand, who is largely considered one of the foremost experts in essential oil safety, so I feel I can trust him. If you want to check them out, especially right now they’re running some big sales that are changing daily. Go to wellnessmama.com/go/oils to get all the current discounts.
Katie: Hello, and welcome to the Healthy Moms podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And I’m here today with Melissa and Justin who are co-founders of a company called Joovv. And I recently found out about this company from a friend of mine, Ben Greenfield, and ordered one of the products that I’ve been using with my husband in his surgery recovery. And I’m excited to jump in today and talk to them about Light Therapy and about a lot of things related to the benefits of light therapy, and about health. Melissa and Justin, both have a background in health and a mission to share this with the world and I can’t wait to jump in. So, welcome you guys. Thanks for being here.
Justin: Thanks so much Katie. It’s an honor to be here.
Melissa: Yeah, it’s an honor to speak with you today.
Katie: Likewise. I can’t wait to jump in. So, to start, can you guys give us a little bit of your back story and how you came to learn about light therapy, to begin with?
Melissa: Sure. I originally found light therapy because it was the middle of winter in Minnesota, and I thought I’d just up my vitamin D a little bit and purchased a few tanning sessions at a local salon. And as I was looking for a salon, I saw that this particular one I was interested in offered something called Red Light Therapy. And I thought, “Huh, I’ve never heard of that.” And being the researcher that I am, I thought, “I’m gonna look this up.” So I looked it up and immediately I saw that it’s really great for gut inflammation which I was experiencing at the time and so I thought, “What do I have to lose? I’m not gonna tan, I’m gonna try this red light therapy instead.” So I purchased some sessions and really, really thought it was incredibly relaxing. And within about four weeks I could tell that stretch marks I’d had from my oldest son were starting to fade on my stomach and within six weeks, I noticed that eczema that I’d had in my armpit making it really hard to wear deodorant, was fading away. And so by that time I was like, “Okay, there’s something to this therapy.” Because I knew that the way it works is it heals the inside of your body out. And so I was pretty excited because I thought something is healing inside my body and it’s working its way to the outside.
Katie: That makes sense. So for anyone who is not familiar, can you break down the difference between light therapy and for instance like heat therapy with the sauna or with tanning, obviously like the vitamin D component, like what are the differences and what are the similarities?
Justin: Sure, I’ll field that one, Katie. So the main differences with infrared heat therapy as far as infrared saunas, is basically you have a wide range of wavelengths similar to the Sun where you have everything from UV light into the visible light spectrum, and then beyond with much farther…much longer wavelengths in the near and far infrared range. And the main purpose of infrared saunas is to create a heat stress on the body that has proven benefits for the cardiovascular system. And with red light therapy, on the other hand, the main purpose is, its mechanism of action if you will, is mitochondrial health or cellular health. So, those are some of the main differences.
Katie: Got ya. And when it comes to light therapy, there also kind of a lot of different options I’m guessing. My audience is relatively familiar with like the impact light can have as far as blue light at night, and wanting to be careful with what light spectrums you’re getting, what time of day, as far as how it affects cortisol. But you guys are looking at mainly red light therapy. So what are some of the very specific benefits of that particular type?
Justin: Sure. Well, when you…First of all, when you start explaining some of the benefits of red light therapy, it almost sounds too good to be true. And because that it goes and it actually feeds the energy that’s in our cells and really helps our mitochondria which are essentially the engines of our cells, it has a wide range of benefits. So some of the ones that were more familiar to people maybe things such as skin health, increase collagen production, and those sorts of benefits for your skin. But what we found is, in addition to that, there is a wide range of other health benefits. In fact, if you do a study or if you do a search for red light therapy for almost, it seems like just about any kind of health condition, you’ll find that there’s been research conducted on it. So, some of the common ones that we’ve seen that our customers and us personally have benefited on, would be things like reduced oxidative stress, reduced joint inflammation, increased muscle recovery, just to name a few.
Katie: That’s amazing. And I’m guessing anyone listening especially maybe honed in on the whole getting rid of stretch marks and also eczema, because those are two big complaints I hear a lot from moms and from children. So, let’s go a little deeper, explain how the mechanism of this works because it’s definitely amazing. And I’ve seen some the studies as well. But what’s actually happening biologically when those changes occur?
Justin: Sure. So when you get into the cellular tissue, basically, in our cells as I mentioned, we have these mitochondria that basically act as the engine of the cell tissue. So with these mitochondria over time their function degrades as we age, as part of the aging process, and also with the various stresses that are put upon our bodies in terms of things as you mentioned such as blue light, EMFs, those are stresses on our cells and really can reduce their function. And what red light does is, it delivers a specific wavelength in specific wave links, which I can get into as well, that are most effective at regenerating or boosting that mitochondrial function. And the result of which is something called, cellular respiration, and the production of ATP or adenosine triphosphate, and it’s basically the energy that the cells produce to perform their given functions.
Katie: I know ATP has been in the media a lot lately. There is a lot more…we’re starting to learn a lot more about it and how important it is. So that’s obviously a huge thing. Anything that increases ATP in a healthy way is awesome. What about the difference between the wavelengths? So there is blue versus red versus infrared.
Justin: Sure. That’s a great question. So part of the natural light spectrum of sunlight is there are obviously a wide range of wavelengths. And one of the things that we found is, they are given in certain dosages. So you’ve probably heard about blue light being hard…hard for your body to process and having adverse side effects, and that’s true because our bodies are really designed to absorb blue light in specific times of the day, and night time, as you mentioned, isn’t optimal for that specifically as it comes to how our eyes take in blue light.
Red light, on the other hand, as I mentioned, has been proven to be most beneficial for stimulating that mitochondrial function in the ATP production. And specifically, as I dove into the research I was pretty amazed to find first of all, that there is literally hundreds and hundreds of studies on a wide range of topics of the health benefits, and it was quite fascinating to me. So as I dug into the research, I discovered that there is something called, the near-infrared window. And what that is, is it’s basically a range of wavelengths of the natural sunlight spectrum that have the ability, a unique ability, to penetrate human tissue.
And this near-infrared window is roughly between 600 nanometers which is in the red spectrum all the way up to about one thousand nanometers which is in the near-infrared spectrum. And these particular wavelengths, as I mentioned, have the ability to penetrate the human tissue. So wavelengths that are above a thousand nanometers interestingly, are blocked for the most part by moisture or water in our tissues, and wavelengths that are below the 600, particularly below 400 into the UV range tend to be blocked by the blood that is in human tissue.
So in this near-infrared window, they discovered that there’s two specific ranges that are most effective at boosting mitochondrial function. The first of which is between 630 and 670 nanometers in the red range, and the second range that also is beneficial is between 810 and 880 nanometers.
And the difference between these two ranges or two peaks, if you will, is that the red light spectrum is optimal for skin health, and the reason why is that, that wavelength is more quickly absorbed by the outer skin tissue. Whereas the near infrared range between, as I mentioned, 810 to 880 is much better at penetrating the upper skin tissues. So those wavelengths are really powerful for deeper healings such as a joint or muscle recovery.
Katie: That makes sense. Ideally, you could use both of these in different ways. And to make sure I understand, so I talked a lot about avoiding blue light at night and I wear orange sunglasses to do that for my eyes. So it sounds like a light like cures like red therapy light like Joovv would be safe at any time of day including at night. Am I understanding that correctly?
Justin: Yes, absolutely. In fact, we actually just got a review today and that’s one thing, by the way, that never gets old hearing from people that are impacted by red light therapy. And one of the things that she mentioned that we hear quite common, is that she’d struggled with poor sleep, and struggling to be able to get a good night’s rest. And something that we commonly hear is with red light therapy, as it reduces that oxidative stress and it really helps the body to relax and recover from the stresses that it’s been through for the day, and it has some amazing benefits for sleep.
Katie: Got it. So you also mentioned with near verses far infrared and the difference in the wavelengths. And I’m curious, I know this isn’t necessary specifically what you guys focus on. But, how does that apply to saunas as well? Because that’s a question I get quite often about near verses far infrared and saunas and is one superior to the other? Does the same kind of breakdown apply there?
Justin: Sure. So, the best way I would describe that is they’re basically just different types of therapy. So we don’t look at it as something that we’re in competition with, it’s just a different type of therapy that has…plays a different role in health. So with infrared saunas, the main mechanism of action is producing heat specifically radiant heat that our body is felt and it basically puts a stress on our tissue and it basically helps our cardiovascular system very similar to exercise does, in fact. There have been proven benefits with saunas and by inducing that heat on the body and it’s usually over, you know, a sustained length of time, typically at least 20 minutes and there’s certainly research that has proven that there’s benefits with that. With red light therapy and the wavelengths that we’re talking about, it has…there’s different types of benefits because primarily we are targeting cellular health and as I mentioned, that mitochondrial function. And so for those reasons, you know, we’re pretty excited about the different health benefits that we’ve seen.
Katie: Yeah. So I’m curious…So with saunas, there is all kinds of recommendations across the board as far as how long you should stay in one, I heard people saying that 30 minutes is the max, some people saying hours a day like they do in Finland and Sweden. With red light therapy, are there guidelines as far as that? Is there like maximum doze or a minimum doze? Or how long are people seeing the most benefit from?
Justin: That’s a great question. When I dove into the science of red light therapy, I found that there is two things that were critical to having a successful treatment. The first of which being wavelengths which I’ve already spoken about. And the second important factor is the amount of energy that’s delivered to the cells. And the main way that that’s described or the units that are used are joules. And if you break that back and see how that it’s delivered over time, if you’re comparing red light therapy devices, for example, you would want to be looking at their irradiance or photon flux, which is essentially a measure of the delivery of photons over a specific surface area of the body.
And what the research has shown is that to get mitochondrial function boosted, you want to be delivering at least five joules of energy. And what that does is enough energy to really boost that mitochondrial function that people are able to see results in a short amount of time. And then, in addition to that, there’s been studies that have shown for deeper tissue healing because the outer skin layers can absorb a vast majority of the light that’s delivered, you’ll see that for deeper penetration I’ve seen studies where it’s recommended where they use total energy delivered nearing one 100 joules. So for that deeper healing and deeper health for joints and muscles, for example, and even organs, what the research is showing is that it does take a high amount of energy to produce those type of results.
Katie: Okay. But in other words, no one…It’s not like a tanning bed or a sauna, you are not gonna overheat or get sunburn from red light therapy so you kind of could spend a lot of time in front of it. Is that what you’re saying?
Justin: Yes. And the main trouble or the main challenge honestly with most red light therapy devices is, the treatment area is so small and the intensity of the light is so weak that people don’t have the patience to sit in front of something like that all day to treat their entire body. So that was one of the things that we focused on early on is to be able to treat a much larger area of your body. And, as you mentioned, because there’s not the heat that you have with saunas you’re not having that stress that’s put on the body and also additionally, compared to tanning for example, you don’t have the ultraviolet rays that would be, you know, have their own set of issues that can come along with that, you know, the least of which tanning or even getting burned like I did when we spent some time out in the sun here recently. So with red light therapy, there really are no…there have been no proven side effects to be concerned with.
Katie: That’s really fascinating.
Katie: Do you love the taste and the benefits of bone broth but don’t love how time consuming it is to make? With the time you spend sourcing the best ingredients and then simmering it for hours on end on the stove. Kettle and Fire solves that problem with their bone broth. So they use only bones from 100% grass-fed pasture raised cattle that are never given hormones and antibiotics. It’s also unique because they focus on bones that are especially high in collagen, which is one of the healthiest things you can put in your body. Another great thing about them is that they use really eco-friendly minimal packaging and their bone both is non-perishable. So unlike many bone broths on the market, it ships without the need for refrigeration, which is also much more eco-friendly. It is available in many stores, so definitely check your local area. But if it’s not, like it isn’t for me, you can order it online and have it shipped to your door, which is what I do. So to check it out and to find out more about why their bone broth is so wonderful, go to kettleandfire.com/wellnessmama
This episode is sponsored by Plant Therapy. There are so many options out there when it comes to essential oils and I’ve used a lot of them over the years. Now I most often turn to Plant Therapy because they have a large assortment of organic oils and a whole lot of kid-safe blends and they also have really good prices. The cool thing is their oils have no additives or synthetic ingredients like a lot of oils do. And they publish their testing results for all of their oils so you can verify the quality. I’ve talked a lot about the safe use of essential oils and their kid-safe blends are formulated by Robert Tisserand, who is largely considered one of the foremost experts in essential oil safety, so I feel I can trust him. If you want to check them out, especially right now they’re running some big sales that are changing daily. Go to wellnessmama.com/go/oils to get all the current discounts.
So I want to go back to the beginning and talk about it. So you guys run a company called Joovv, which provides red light therapy devices. So I’m curious, how did you guys get into this? And when you started researching, what led you to start a company? How do you guys stand out?
Melissa: Well, that’s a really great question. I did about three months at a tanning salon doing this red light therapy, and I knew I was absolutely hooked. And then I also talked my sister into trying it and she loved it and my oldest son, William, has had horrible eczema his whole life and I thought, “Hey, if it helped the eczema in my armpit, I’ve got to take him.” But the caveat with it all is you had to go at least four times a week for 15-minute treatments to see results. Well, I’m a pretty big overachiever so I made it the goal to go every single day, every week, just because I thought, “Hey, if you gets results in four days, my results are going to be even better in seven days a week.” So I started, my sister going, I got my son, William, going.
And after the second round of three months, I thought, this is way too hard on my schedule. I can’t do this and I don’t have the money to keep paying for these packages because it was quite expensive. So I started researching online to see if there was any kind of a unit I could buy that we could use at home. And I was very disappointed to see that all I could find online were small little handheld devices or the biggest device I could find would be just a square that could treat your face. And I was used to treating my entire body so this was very disappointing to me and I honestly just gave up and left red light therapy treatment for a while.
And it was later on that Fall that I was reading some healing protocol online, and I can’t even tell you what website it was on, but I was struck because the guy, one of the things he said was super important in that his healing protocol was light therapy, and I thought, whoa. So that really is something. If this guy is calling for light therapy along with the other things he’s doing, and I just was convinced I had to get back into my routine somehow and get into my family’s routine as well.
And so I noticed that he had a design that you could make your own kind of light therapy box at home using heat lamps screwed into brooder lamps, that you could clip to a piece of wood or anything, and stand against a wall. So I talked my husband into taking me to buy some of these things and it took me a few days to talk him into it because he was pretty skeptical on the whole thing. But he finally made me a light that had four of these heat lamps screwed into it and I propped it up in my shower. And right away I thought, “Okay, I need a second one of these to put behind me because I’m used to getting all my body at once and I want it to be just like the salon.”
So a couple weeks later, I finally talked him into making me another one and I propped it up behind and we could take it in and out of the shower easy and I was really happy because I thought I had my setup. But then I did what I love to do which is research, and I looked online again and I found that there was other kinds of bulbs you could buy that said they were therapeutic grade red light therapy bulbs and I thought, “Oh, my bulbs are just from home depot. Are my bulbs good enough? Am I gonna be getting the best results I can here?” Because that was the whole point of making this. So I went back to my husband for a third time, and by this time he was starting to get rather annoyed with me, and I was like, “Justin, could you just research these bulbs because I’ve just been thinking what if these bulbs we have aren’t therapeutic enough? I found these therapeutic bulbs and I’m wondering if they would be better.” And so I’ll let him take the story from here.
Justin: Sure. So when she brought this to me as she mentioned, and initially I was very skeptical and really knew nothing about red light therapy. But after she brought this to me I said, “Sure.” You know, I reluctantly agreed, “I’ll dig into this and see what I can find out.” So I looked at these bulbs that were marketed as being for red light therapy and I tried to dig deeper to see what the specifications were, was there any kind of a certification? What was the wavelengths? How intense were they? And I quickly realized that they were no different than the bulbs that we had purchased at the hardware store, and they were simply just being marketed and it was really nothing more than marketing fluff. So at this point, I really went to the drawing board, so to speak, and really started to dig in to red light therapy and the research that was behind it. And I was absolutely stunned to find that there was a ton of clinical evidence and literally hundreds of published studies.
So I dug into it and I dug into one of the initial studies that was funded by NASA that used LED-based red light therapy. And, as I mentioned previously, I found that there’s these two important factors, wavelength, and light intensity. And through investigating that and reading through the research, I discovered that the infrared heat lamps that we were using, while they would have some benefits for generating heat, and that there were some beneficial wavelengths, I found that because of the wide range of wavelengths and particularly the amount of energy that had wavelengths much longer than the thousand nanometers, as I mentioned previously, with that near-infrared window, that there was only a very small portion of that energy that was really being utilized by the body for mitochondrial function, with the rest being produced as heat. So as most I mentioned with these…with the infrared heat lamps that we had set up, it generated a ton of heat. And she also wasn’t really noticing quite the same therapeutic sensation that she had previously. So at that point we really…I really dug into the research to dig into the LEDs and what some of those benefits were.
Katie: Got ya. So talk a little bit more in depth about the product you guys ended up creating and like the specific wavelength and how your system…I know I have one and it’s a much bigger model than…like she mentioned, she was trying to find one and it was just the size of your face. So how did you get from there to the model that exist today?
Justin: Sure. So we thought about what was on the market and what we were looking for, something that you could really treat your whole body with. And so we came up with some design goals and some things that we wanted to utilize. The first of which and most importantly it had to be clinical grade intensity. So with the research that was out there, it was very easy to see the amount of light intensity that was required to get good results, particularly for deeper tissue healing. So that was something that was really at the top of our list. Second of which would be the wavelengths. And we came across these two ranges and we decided to focus first of all with our first design with red light at 660 nanometers, mostly because there was just an overwhelming amount of research that supported that wavelength.
And then thirdly, we wanted it to be a convenient design. Because we knew that if you had a large device, you had to find a way that it was…it would be easy for people to set up and use. So with that convenient design, we came up with the idea of hanging the lights on a door. And, in addition to that, with the smaller devices, the kind of what we call our mini and our original size light, we include an adjustable pulley system so the light can be adjusted up and down, so that someone could treat their upper body and then if they wanted to treat something on their legs, or even their feet, for something, for example, as peripheral neuropathy is something that we’ve come across before that people have found it to be helpful with, they can lower it down and treat that area as well. And then fourthly, and what really I think sets us apart from what else is available is just the large treatment area. And basically around the first of the year, we launched our Joovv Max which is the model that you have, where you can literally treat your whole body in one treatment session.
Katie: Got it. So you guys are basically, have the ability to hit like both of those beneficial wavelengths in a single device, is that right?
Justin: That’s correct. So the light that you have, of course, is the all near infrared or all the LEDs are the 850 nanometers. And, as I mentioned, that wavelength is very beneficial for deeper tissue. So we have that option, we have an all red option which works well for general health and specifically for skin health and collagen production. And then our most popular model quite honestly is our combination of those two wavelengths or what we call our Combo model. And so we basically have three different size lights and then we have the three different options for wavelengths, either red, all red, all infrared or the combination of the two.
Katie: Very cool. So you touched on this earlier but I know when it comes to like saunas, for instance, I know people have made their own near infrared saunas with infrared bulbs and a variety of different structure underneath them. So I feel like people could be wondering, is it possible to make your own with just an infrared incandescent bulbs? And why would that not work as well. You touched on it earlier but let’s just delve into that a little more.
Justin: Sure. That’s an excellent question and it’s obviously where we kind of came from initially from one of the things that most I’d found online that there are benefits from infrared saunas. As I mentioned, primarily it’s based on the heat that’s induced to the body. And while there are some beneficial wavelengths, the vast majority of the energy is converted to radiant heat. And one of the easiest ways to describe that is most of us think of light…If you try to think of a way to quantify it, we can relate to a hundred watt incandescent light bulb. Most people can think about that and have an idea in their head of how bright that is. With LEDs, what you’re able to do is to deliver approximately 10 times the amount of light energy with way less of the energy that’s lost to heat. And additionally, with the near infrared heat lamps, most of that energy is beyond that 10,000 nanometers or 1,000 nanometers. As I said, it doesn’t fall in that near-infrared window so it’s not able to penetrate the tissues nearly as much as wavelengths that are in that window between 600 and 1000 nanometers.
Katie: Got it. So I know people listening, these are gonna be the questions I get as follow up. So let’s address them now. So who can use red light therapy? Is there anyone who can’t? What about pregnancy? What about children?
Justin: That’s a great question. So we actually…all of our kids use it. Maybe I’ll just let my wife kind of explain some of the things that she does with them.
Melissa: Yeah, I actually get my kids in the light every day. I have six children and if it’s a sunny day, I try to get them out in the sun and let them run around. But in Minnesota, we don’t get a lot of sun especially in the winter, it’s pretty cold. So I try to at least have them do 8 to 10 minutes of light therapy a day and I try to get that in myself because I feel like the best way that I can counteract my kids using different…their iPads, computer, different things like that, is to get them some light into their cells and I also like to throw them on a grounding pad when I get them in the light just to get some electrons in them. And I just feel like it’s one of the best things I can do to boost their immune system.
Katie: Very cool. Did you use it when you were pregnant as well?
Melissa: I did not have the light then, but we have had several moms use it while pregnant. And one mom afterwards, told us that her milk supply actually increased after using the light. So that was pretty cool. She was using the red light, not the combo light.
Katie: And that’s really interesting because I’ve actually seen some evidence for like infrared sauna therapy for people with low milk supply. So it would make sense that you would see the same effect from just the red light therapy as well.
Justin: Absolutely. It’s pretty incredible when you come across studies like those that you’ve mentioned because I think…at least going back in my background, I really had no idea the role that light plays in cellular health and some of the benefits that can come from not only sunlight but specific wavelengths of light such as red light therapy.
Katie: For sure. And I think if I had to guess, I would say the future of medicine at least maybe a decade down the road. But I hope is that gonna be partially very much personalized medicine as we start to understand genes on a deeper level and epigenetics. But I also think that we’re going to understand the role of light a whole lot more and especially of cellular health and ATP. There’s so much research that seems to be coming out right now about that. So I’m really hopeful that we’re gonna see a lot more and really start to understand it better. What would you say people may want to know if they have one of these devices, how long can they stay in front of them a day? Is there like a point of diminishing returns where it’s less beneficial? Like how close do you wanna be to it? How long do you stay?
Justin: Sure. That’s a great question. So I would say, there is a point where you would have diminishing returns. As I mentioned, there’s no dangers that have been documented with red light therapy especially when you take out the heat component. So what I would say kind of the upper limit for a treatment time for a certain area would be maybe 15 minutes. But I would say a common treatment would be 8 to 10 minutes, approximately 6 to 8 inches away from the light. And most of our customers really experience some pretty amazing benefits when they stay true to that and I think the most important thing with red light therapy is really consistency, and if you can’t use it every day, that’s certainly understandable, but if you do it at least four to five times a week then you’re gonna see the long term benefits as well as even just the initial benefits of using it even from a single session for things like reducing stress and inflammation.
Katie: That makes sense, how many things in life would we see the most benefit if we’re consistent with. Who are buying these the most? Or who do you feel like, from your customer base, is seeing the most benefit?
Justin: Well, it’s funny that you ask because when we started this, we really had the idea that this would be for skin benefits, and collagen production and some of the things that most I mentioned that she noticed as far as helping to clear up eczema and stretch marks, and those types of things. So in our mind when we got started, that’s really what we thought this would be for. But since then, you mentioned Ben Greenfield, and some of the things that he’s discovered with red light therapy and in terms of testosterone production. We’ve had some amazing things that we’ve learned about muscle recovery and joint inflammation, and just a host of other benefits as well. So I guess, to expand on that, what we found is it’s just a really broad market. There’s really no demographic that can’t benefit from red light therapy.
Katie: Got it. So to make sure I’m clear on this as well, so those getting the higher wavelength one, that would seem like it would be more efficient for joint problems or for in Ben’s case, recovery after really a lot of exertion, athletic stuff or the skin benefits would come from the lower wavelengths? One of the combination. Do you see any crossovers? So for instance if someone is trying to figure out which one to look into if they have mainly skin issues, would they look at the lower wavelength one and if they had joint issues, maybe look at the higher wavelength one or? You mentioned the combination for the most popular. But for someone with a specific problem, how do they know which one to look into?
Justin: Sure. And that’s something we can certainly help people with. And it really comes down to what specific health benefits they’re looking for. If their primary or even exclusive goal is skin health and collagen production, then the red light is really the optimal device for that. If however they are like most of us, they’re interested in deeper tissue healing and whatever form that takes, most of our customers are finding that they’re interested in supplementing that with our Combo model that can provide both of those wavelengths. And with the all infrared model, it’s really for people that are focused on that deeper tissue healing. You would still get some benefits for the skin tissue but those longer wavelengths of the 850 nanometers that we use can penetrate much better to deeper tissue.
Katie: Got it. And I’ll make sure that there’s links to both of those. You guys have some really informative stuff on your website explaining red light therapy in depth and also helping people choose which one. But for anyone who is just listening, where can they find you guys and where can they learn more about this?
Justin: Sure. Our website is www.joovv.com. That’s J-O-O-V-V.com.
Katie: Perfect. And I think I wanna make sure we mention that if they use the discount code “wellnessmama” that they can get $25 off, is that right?
Justin: That’s correct.
Katie: Awesome. So of course, that link will be in the show notes. But any like parting words you wanna leave? Someone who’s like still curious about red light therapy, as far as where to start on your website, or where to start with researching?
Justin: Sure. Well, our website has some very informative ways to learn about red light therapy. We have blog posts and even some whiteboard video that kind of breaks down the science of what’s going on. So, that’s a great way to learn and we also have a chat function and are easy to reach by e-mail as well, and are happy to dig into some of the questions that people have about their personal situation, and how they could be helped with a red light therapy.
Katie: Awesome. And thank you guys for being here. Like I said, I really hope that light and especially cellular health and ATP is gonna be kind of the future of medicine which is why I’m excited that we got to chat about this today and to share it with others. And anybody who’s interested in this I would definitely, again, recommend your website because you guys do you have some great resources on it.
Justin: Excellent. I appreciate your help.
Melissa: Thank you.
Katie: Thanks, guys. And thanks to all of you for listening. And I’ll see you next time on the Healthy Moms podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
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Have you received any form of light therapy before? What was your experience? Would you give red light therapy a try?
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