Red Light Therapy Explained: What Triathletes Need to Know

TriDot Podcast Episode 349

Red Light Therapy Explained What Triathletes Need to Know

Vanessa Ronksley: We are diving into a topic today that I think a lot of endurance athletes have heard about, but may not actually understand. I think I fall into that category as well. We are going to be talking about red light therapy because it has absolutely exploded in popularity from recovery studios, wellness clinics, home devices, panels, beds, creepy masks. But what does the science actually say about it? I have here with me two outstanding individuals who always brighten my day, because not only do we love nerding out about topics, but more importantly, we have a lot of fun doing it. Taryn Richardson is the founder and CEO of Dietitian Approved, creator of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy and creator of the all-new Red Light Therapy for Athletes Evidence-Based Masterclass. Which, by the way, looks absolutely amazing, and is sitting in my cart as I am talking. We also have with us pro triathlete and TriDot coach extraordinaire Elizabeth James. With both of these guests today, we will be getting to the science side and the practical athlete perspective of red light therapy. As always, we'll get started with our warmup question, settle into our main set conversation on red light therapy for endurance athletes, and then we'll cool things down with a question from the audience. Lots of good stuff! Let's get to it.

Announcer: This is the TriDot Podcast, the triathlon show that brings you world-class coaching with every conversation. Let’s get started with today’s warm-up.

[Transition Sound Effect]

Vanessa Ronksley: Taryn, Elizabeth, welcome to the show. I'm Vanessa, your average triathlete with elite level enthusiasm. And we're going to start off our warmup question for the day with this. If you had an unlimited budget for one piece of endurance tech, what would you buy? Taryn, let's hear from you first. What would you spend all of the money on?

Taryn Richardson: Can I have two or do I have to choose one?

Vanessa Ronksley: You're our special guest, so you can have 2.

Taryn Richardson: Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me back again. It is good to be back on the TriDot Podcast talking about something that I'm really excited to share some more about. I would choose either a new bike because my bike is very, very old. And if we have unlimited budget, then I'd probably go down that route. I have my roadie, it's carbon fiber, doesn't have anything cool like disc brakes, or Di2, or it doesn't have a power meter or anything like that. So I'd fully upgrade that. But if I could have 2 things, I would put an infrared sauna in our home.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes, okay, I need both of those things too. So I don’t know.

Taryn Richardson: We can share.

Vanessa Ronksley: Do you need those things too, EJ, or do you have something different?

Elizabeth James: I'll be honest, I just got a brand new bike, so I feel really good in that realm right now. But I could piggyback on that infrared sauna. That sounds good. Although what I'm gonna say- and I don't even know what the exact name is for this- it's one of those swim lap pools. So it's your own personal small little pool, it's got the jet stream so you can change the pacing, but it also has the mirrors so you can look at your technique, and it has the camera angles already embedded in there. So I don't know exactly what you call that, but it's the pool with the stream and the mirrors and the cameras because I gotta keep working on my swim technique. So if we've got that unlimited budget, that's going in the backyard.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right. That is also a top notch answer. Okay, so now I'm going with 4 things. One, a new bike. Two, an infrared sauna. Three, the pool thingy, whatever that's called, EJ. I want one of those too, the pool thingy. But it would have to go in my house because it would freeze in the winter, so I might just need a whole new house.

Taryn Richardson: You'd have to heat it. You'd need a heater. Add that to the list.

Elizabeth James: Well see, you need the new house for the new sauna and the swim, and to house the bike. So boom.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes. Right. Unlimited budget. But I haven't even got to my own thing yet, so thank goodness someone with a lot of funding is managing all of these things here for us. I wanted to spend my money on something that doesn't actually exist yet. So I would have to have a whole development team, and I don't even know if it's possible. But I want a switch that shuts my brain off that I that I can access when it's time to go to bed. So the switch is like, “it's bedtime!” ,and then I have literally like 3 minutes to jump into bed and then everything is fine. Because I'm really, really good at falling asleep. I'm just really, really bad at getting into bed to fall asleep. Because there's just so many wonderful things to do- like I want to learn, want to read, I want to write, I want to do all these things. And so I just get sidetracked and so my bedtime gets pushed. So I need a switch that someone else controls, that's just like, “it's go time, get in there and go to sleep”. So I'll pay for that. I really just want the switch. So, this can be part of the whole new house with all of the things listed above and you can all just come and we can live together and have a good old time.

Taryn Richardson: I think we'd never go to sleep though. We'd be too busy talking.

Elizabeth James: Yeah.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, exactly. So, I think we need to throw this question out to the audience because then we'll have this gigantic house with a thousand things in it of all the new tech gear. So audience, what do you have to say? If you had an unlimited budget for one (or four) pieces of endurance tech, what would you buy? Is it going to be something like the red the infrared sauna, is it going to be a brand new bike, or is it going to be something like mine that doesn't even exist yet? What are you going to say? So just find us on our socials or on YouTube and let us know what you would spend your unlimited funds on. I can't wait to hear what you have to say.

Announcer: Let’s go

Vanessa Ronksley: I love that warm up question.

Taryn Richardson: That was epic.

Vanessa Ronksley: That was great. I think that endurance athletes are constantly searching for tools that are going to help them train better, recover faster, feel better. And one piece of technology that has absolutely exploded in popularity recently, as we have discussed here, is red light therapy. So I think that we need to start from the very beginning. Now, if you haven't already looked at Taryn's Masterclass website, it's very amazing because it divides the population of people into 3 personas. And we're gonna start with persona number 1 here from the very beginning. This athlete has never heard about red light therapy before. They don't know what it is. They don't know how it works. So Taryn, let's start from the beginning. What is it?

Taryn Richardson: What is red light therapy? So red light therapy is not actually the correct term, because it only talks about the red wavelength of light, and we'll get into different wavelengths. But in the research, it's called photobiomodulation, which is a tongue full. So I think it's just evolved over time in marketing and they're like, let's just call it red light therapy because it's way easier for people to pronounce and understand. It can also be called low level laser therapy, or cold laser or light therapy, but really, it's a device that shines a particular wavelength of light at the body, and it has these biological processes that it stimulates. That's the fundamentals of what it is. And there's lots of different devices, like you said- there's full body panels, there's those creepy face masks, there's little shiny torches, there's all sorts of things. I've seen some weird and wonderful things on the internet in my research, like undies. Like men's G-strings with red light therapy panels in them, like it's gone wild. I don't even know what happened. I don't know why you would want to shine red light there, but you know, whatever. It'll stimulate biological processes, produce some more ATP down there. And that's kind of the crux of what it is. It's a light therapy that has been around for a long time. There's 6 decades of research in this space, which is why I'm here to talk about it.

Vanessa Ronksley: So 6 decades worth of research and we're just starting to hear about it in the mainstream. That's kind of crazy. So is this the same thing as an infrared sauna?

Taryn Richardson: No, infrared sauna is different and they do often get confused. So when we talk about long wavelength light therapy, we're talking in wavelengths up to 1000 nanometers, really, not too much further than that. Whereas an infrared sauna, it heats up the body using infrared radiation, but it's far infrared. So if we talk about the visible light spectrum that we can see, we can see that beautiful rainbow of colors, but light goes in the complete other direction of really short wavelength light. So X-rays and UV sits down there. Then we've got our little visible light spectrum that runs around the blue violets at around 380 nanometers, all the way up to the reds and infrareds at around 750-ish. And then we go into infrared and far infrared. And then we've got microwaves, and radio waves, and long radio waves, way up in the other direction of really long wavelengths. Now I'm not an expert in light, I've had to really dive deep into that. People like astronomers and astronauts are really nerdy and technical on light, but that's all you really need to understand is the wavelengths and that we don't need any more short wavelength light. We get a lot of that with all of the LEDs that are in our current built environment. We need more long wavelengths of light in our life, which we would normally get from the sun. The sun is a full visible spectrum, but we tend to not spend so much time outdoors anymore. And if we do, we're quite sun safe, particularly here in Australia, where we've got a hole in the ozone layer. So we're just not getting anywhere near as much long wavelength light as we did 100 years ago. So there's these devices that have been made to try and meet that gap and provide long wavelengths. Now, an infrared sauna is that infrared radiation, and it's heating the skin surface. It's a longer wavelength, further out than our red and infrared. And so, it's not penetrating deep into the tissue like a long wavelength of light will. So we're not getting that stimulation of biological process that we get with red light therapy. So, it's completely different. So if you're sitting in a sauna and it's got a red light, it's not actually penetrating deep into the skin and firing those biological process like a longer wavelength light will.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay, so the infrared sauna is heating you up. And I can attest to this because my mom has an infrared sauna, and it heats me up. However, the long red light, the long wavelength, is what you said is photo biomodulation. Is that what it is?

Taryn Richardson: Well done!

Elizabeth James: Gold star, gold star.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, my brain is just eating everything up that you're saying.

So the long wavelengths is this what we refer to as red light therapy?

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, long wavelengths. Red light therapy. So it's a visible spectrum that's red, that you can see. That's why if you go into an infrared sauna, it might have a red LED. It doesn't mean that the wavelength of light is within that red spectrum. And then we've got infrared light, which is a bit longer wavelengths. So, a wavelength of light is an up and down wave. The gap between them is further apart. We cannot see infrared. It's outside of the visible spectrum.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay. That's a really good way of picturing it then. It's not visible despite the fact that they put those red lights into the infrared.

Taryn Richardson: That's just a red-colored LED. It doesn't necessarily tell you that it's the right wavelength.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right, it's a trick for the mind. Okay, this is very good to know because as you're saying, a lot of people might think that they're going for red light therapy and when they're purchasing an infrared sauna and it’s a completely different effect on the body.

Taryn Richardson: No, the wavelengths are too long and it's not penetrating into the skin anymore. So, it is still beneficial. An infrared sauna has a different benefit heating up the skin, but it's not the long wavelength of light that is “red light therapy” that we're trying to get those biological processes to happen.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right. Got it. Okay, now we're talking about this photobiomodulation- that's a tongue twister everybody-

Taryn Richardson: Call it red light therapy, but technically it's wrong.

Vanessa Ronksley: - which we will now forever call- yeah, we'll call it red light therapy, despite the fact that I always want to be correct in what I'm saying. So this one here, what is happening physiologically when the light hits the body?

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, so cool. This is so cool. So back 60 years ago, they thought something happened, but there's a new paper that's going to be published hopefully later this year that will go into the specific mechanisms for action with what we know now. The main thing it does is it enhances our ATP availability. So the energy currency of all of ourselves. It also increases nitric oxide bioavailability, which is a vasodilator, and does another cascade of events to help with inflammation and anti-inflammatory processes. So if you want to get really nerdy, it's lubricating the electron transport chain. But the easiest way to understand red light therapy, because I'm a practitioner, right? I go deep into the research and I understand what the F is going on. And then I translate it into something that's practical that an athlete can actually understand. If you think about it as recharging your batteries, that's the simplest and easiest way to kind of get what it does. So you have a battery, your body's got batteries in every single cell. Our long wavelength light can help recharge those batteries. On the flip side, short wavelength light, so things like the LEDs that we have, or UV, discharges the batteries. So we want to avoid that as much as we can. Sometimes it's unavoidable because of where we work, and our built environment. All of our lights now are LEDs, because they're cheaper and they're more efficient, that's gonna discharge. And so we need to make sure we've got more long wavelength lights to recharge the battery. And as a triathlete, you are decharging your battery all day, every day. Every time you train, you decharge your battery. So it's about recharging it again so that you can recover and train again better the next time.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yep. Okay, so this makes total sense than why it has become so popular recently. Because...

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, it's just exploding at the moment. Like I said, there's undies with red light therapy panels in them. So I'm sure there's use cases for all sorts of things out there.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right. Okay. So EJ, I'm going to throw this out to you. Before learning about it, what did you think red light therapy was, and how did you hear about it, and what did you use it for? And I think you started using it quite some time ago, if I remember correctly?

Elizabeth James: I did, yeah. It was probably about 4 or 5 years ago that I had first started using it.

Vanessa Ronksley: She's a trailblazer!

Taryn Richardson: Early adopter.

Elizabeth James: Well, I've always been surrounded by such great coaches, and mentors, and people that have been kind of on the forward edge of some of the research in our sport. And I was just coming off of an injury. And I was training out in Boulder, Colorado with the pro squad there. And one of the clinicians that we were kind of partnering with and seeing had recommended that I go and do red light therapy. And at that point I had never heard of it. And I was like, what are we doing? And I mean, honestly, they showed me a picture of it and I was like, it looks like a tanning booth! I was like, no, I’m outside enough. I'm getting plenty of vitamin D. My skin is already probably headed down a bad path. And I mean, that's a whole other podcast episode there about skin health. And I was like, there's no way I'm jumping in a tanning bed type situation here. I mean, they really had to explain what this was. And Taryn, I love your “recharging the batteries” because that's kind of the explanation that they gave for me too. They're like, you are training hard every single day with the squad, you're coming back from an injury, so you're already at a little bit of a deficit here. At the time, I was still working and coaching and they're like, “I don't know how your batteries are not dead. We need to put some systems in place so that we are supporting all of these biological functions that you are pulling from on a constant basis”. And so yeah, I started- and I mean we started at 5 days a week doing red light therapy, and then after a few weeks we had just kind of bumped it back down to 3 times a week. But I was doing that consistently for the entire time I was there in Boulder, and then when I came back in the fall to Texas I was trying to find a place where I could kind of continue that practice. And I mean I was fortunate enough to get some good recommendations, and there's a place just 5 minutes from my house. So that's been part of my continued practice. I'd love to say I'm super diligent about it and get in 3 times a week every week, but it hasn't always been like that. But yeah, when I'm good about it, it's a regular part of my practice now.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay, that is really good to know. I didn't realize that there were actual beds that you could stay in like a tanning bed. That's really cool, because it hits your entire body all at once instead of having a- We're gonna get into this, Taryn, because I have questions. I have questions about these panel things here.

Taryn Richardson: I know you do. Let's do it.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay, so we now know what it is. We know that it's light, it's not heat, it's part of the visible light spectrum, long wavelengths, et cetera. And we know that essentially what it does, recharges the batteries. So we're good on these 2 fronts. What does the evidence say about the benefits of red light therapy? Why would someone want to do this? Let’s hear it. What are the benefits?

Taryn Richardson: This is what surprised me the most when I started digging into the literature, because I tend to look at all things that are being shoved down triathletes throats. And I saw a device on the feed and I'm like, it's coming. If it's on the feed, it's definitely coming. There are so many benefits, and actual evidence-based benefits. You might hear the surprise in my voice. So many of these things are just marketing BS and people trying to make money out of nothing. But this has been around for a long time, and it originally started as an injury treatment, like EJ said. Physios have been using it for a long time with little laser lights, or chiropractors, or even people have been using them in horses- racing horses that have injured knees or something that will shine red light therapy on them, to help them get back to exercising and running faster. But there's research using red light therapy or long wavelength light therapy in all areas. From disease to health. So things like increased collagen production in the skin, which is where those creepy face masks have come from. There's some really good literature in those. It's for about 12 weeks though, and it's only a couple of times a week. But we will talk about the details of that. Tissue repair for injuries or wound healing, backing up from surgery and trying to recover fast. I recently had Emma Jeffcoat on my podcast, and she had a full ankle reconstruction in January, silly injury. She did something silly. But she's been using red light therapy, and she is back running and skipping 10 weeks later. She blew the recovery timeframe out of the water. She was weight bearing within 2 weeks, just crazy recovery and return to training. Now she's an elite athlete. She has all of her sleep right. She has her training right. She has a full support team around her. Her nutrition is dialed in. So she laid in red light therapy to that and has had a rapid recovery after that. It's really good for thyroid function. It's one of the reasons I went down the rabbit hole. Anybody with Hashimoto's, you should definitely look at long wavelength light therapy. Cognition, mood, delayed onset muscle soreness. There's good stuff in eyes and vision. Blood sugar level control, Alzheimer's. There's a guy doing a lot of research here in Australia and he's trying to build a device that'll shine it into the brain. Cause there's some really good stuff in Alzheimer's. Like there is pretty much no disease state left untouched in the red lights therapy research space. There's so many different benefits.

Vanessa Ronksley: And this is legit research that has decent sample sizes and methodologies that are scientifically sound. Because I know you, Taryn, and I know that you look at all of that.

Taryn Richardson: I'm a total nerd. Yep.

Vanessa Ronksley: And that when you say something, I trust you implicitly. Everyone who's out there, you can listen to what Taryn says because she knows what she's talking about. And you can be absolutely certain that she has done her research with a fine tooth comb. There's no question about that. So, this is amazing that you're saying that it can affect all of these different things. Were you slightly skeptical at the beginning when you started looking down the rabbit hole?

Taryn Richardson: I'm always skeptical. I have a very critical mind. I think it's one of the best parts they teach you in dietitian training at university, is to look at something critically and assess it based on lots of different measures. So there is really good quality research, and we can talk about some of the limitations a little later if you like. I don't know, maybe a little bit skeptical. It is definitely the wild west out there though. In terms of devices, and parameters, and marketing messages- it is the wild west. So if you are looking at getting a device, I definitely would suggest educating yourself a little more before you do make that leap, because they can be very expensive. And we've got people like- I'm probably gonna get shot for this- but Huberman is sprucing a particular brand. And I've lost all credibility of that dude to be honest, since looking at this research. So. I'm not going to say any more than that, but you need to understand yourself rather than just blindly follow people that get millions of dollars to market a particular brand.

Vanessa Ronksley: Right. And when they are associated or sponsored by that brand, we have to be a little careful. And you are not sponsored by any brand.

Taryn Richardson: No, and nor will I ever be. I'm Switzerland when it comes to products. I don't get commissioned to recommend anything. And I put my foot down about that, because if an athlete wants my help, I need to give them the best thing for them, not because I'm being paid to recommend something in particular. So that goes with all sports nutrition products, and gels, and sports drinks and stuff. You have to, I don’t know- it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm Switzerland. I love to stay Switzerland. So I'm not getting paid to talk about red light therapy by anybody, although that'd be nice.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, would be nice. So EJ, I'm going to throw this one back to you a little bit because Taryn mentioned all of these different things that it can affect in terms of DOMs, and recovery rates, and cognition and all of the different things. When you were using it on that consistent basis, when you were in Boulder, what did you notice specifically and when did you notice it? Was it immediate or was it after more consistent use? What happened?

Elizabeth James: Well, I would say that I was very skeptical of it at first because I had never heard of it. I didn't know what it was. I hadn't taken the time to do any research prior to that recommendation. And so, I certainly trusted the people that were giving those recommendations, but I was like, “yeah, we'll see”. So, follow through, started doing it, the 5 days a week , and didn't notice anything at first. And so I'm like, this is taking extra time, I'm not sure if this is really benefiting me. And I remember distinctly a week and a half in, one of them asking, “well, how do you feel?”. And I was like, no different. And I think that that's one of the things that I would just recommend to athletes too. It's not an end-all be-all. Other things need to be in place too. It’s not gonna be an immediate miracle cure and fix. And if you don't have other things in place, it's probably not going to highlight these benefits. And so, if you have an athlete that is only getting 4 hours of sleep and feels like they're just so doggone tired and their batteries are low, spending 10 minutes 3 times a week in red light is not gonna fix the fact that they're sleeping 4 hours a night. But... speaking of sleep, that's actually one of the things that I noticed first, and I was very surprised by it because I didn't make any connection to this. But for me, all of a sudden, about 2 and a half weeks into it, I was noticeably sleeping better. And at first, I just attributed it to I'm finally acclimated to the altitude, and I'm not getting the headaches at night. And maybe there's a little bit of a correlation there too. But I was happily surprised at how consistently my sleep scores were in the upper 90s. And for me, sleep is very difficult. So Vanessa, you talk about having no trouble falling asleep, I'm the complete opposite. I struggle to fall asleep, I struggle to stay asleep, I am up many times a night, and if I got a 60 sleep score, I'm like- all right, we're doing a little better this week! So for me to all of a sudden see these scores in the 90s- and consistently- was one of the biggest shifts that I noticed right away. And then as I started researching more, , kind of as Taryn was saying, there's so many processes that this influences. And that has been one of the additional things that's been researched in terms of helping establish a circadian rhythm. I mean, the production of melatonin and... I can't tell you exactly what it was for me, but sleep was one of the first things that I noticed. And when I'm sleeping better, then I'm able to function better in all things. Yeah, cognitive function went up, athletic performance was better. But for me, it started with sleeping better.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay. I think this is- you've both mentioned something that I think is really, really, really important. And Taryn, before, when we've talked on our nutrition podcasts, you've talked about big rocks and little rocks. And EJ, you just referred to the same thing, by saying it's really important to have other things in place. And so Taryn, what size of a rock is red light therapy? We know that sleep is a big rock, right? And so how would you classify this, and where would you stick it in as part of the process if you wanted to move forward with something like red light therapy?

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, it's a really good question. It is not something that is a magic bullet, as EJ said. You have to have all of the other foundations in place first before even looking at layering it in. Because it's not going to fix a 4 hour sleep night. It's not going to fix poor nutrition. It's not going to fix a poor training program. So you have to get those big rocks right first. You could maybe call red light therapy maybe one of those little rocks? I don't think it's sand. I don't think it's the sprinkles on the icing on the cake. I do think it's probably one of those little rocks that you can layer into your whole wellness routine as an endurance athlete. And it's not going to make you a faster runner, if that makes sense. It's not a direct performance enhancer. There's a lot of research in exercise performance and red light therapy. And in endurance sport in particular, it doesn't seem at this point that having red light therapy right before a session is gonna make that session any better necessarily. I think there needs to be more research in red light therapy after training to help with recovery and DOMs and as I said, recharging the battery. Whereas at the moment, a lot of the literature is in exposure pre-exercise. And it can help with those short, sharp, high intensity sports. Weightlifting and strength training and stuff like that. But in terms of cycling, swimming, running, triathlon, there's a couple of papers that it can help with increased time to exhaustion in cycling. But running seems to have no effect, and swimming seems to have no effect with exposure pre-exercise. So it's that exposure after exercise that I think is more useful. And then in terms of fitting it into somebody's program, a couple of times a week is all you need. Because one of the things that I learned in speaking with experts in this space in my multiple months of deep, get nerdy into the research, is that our mitochondria- so that's our powerhouse of the cell. Might remember that from grade 10 biology- it's our battery. They have a communication pathway all around the body. You shine the light on one part of your body, say you shine it on your knee, it'll directly help the little batteries in that knee. So you would do that if you had a knee injury. But within 24 hours, they communicate with each other and they're like, “Hey dudes, we've got long wavelength light going on, let's produce more ATP”. And so within 24 hours, your whole body's mitochondria has a party and recharges all of the batteries all around your body. So it's not something you have to do whole body for that reason. And you don't need to do it every day either, because more is not better. So it's like a switch. They've got the time down to I think about 60 seconds to turn on the switch. A few years ago it was 3 minutes, but I'd just stick with 3 minutes as your minimum time for now until that research kind of explores that time frame a little bit further. But they think it's about 60 seconds where it turns it on. To go, all right, we've got this long wavelength light now. Let's start to do some of these biological processes. But then more just makes it soggy. So you don't want to be lying in a full body bed for any more than 30 minutes, I would say, because it just de- I don't know what the right word is, but it just down regulates everything and it's too much. They just kind of switch off. Are you with me?

Vanessa Ronksley: OK, this is very important information.

Taryn Richardson: It is.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes, I had to process that for a second because I'm like, hold on.

Taryn Richardson: I'll give you the summary. Couple of times a week is enough, 3 times a week. Give it at least 24 hours in between exposure times. And then anywhere from 3 to, probably max 30 minutes of exposure to the light is how you would fit it in. I personally, based on what I've seen in the research, would do it after exercise to help with recharging the batteries. And then the time of day… all the research in mitochondria health has been done before lunchtime because that seems to be this window where they are awake, in a way. So try and fit it into your rhythm or routine in the morning after exercise if you can. Although I know a lot of people that might be hard. A lot of people do use it right before bed as like their wind down, and get rid of the short wavelengths and screens and blue lights and all that sort of stuff that we don't so that our whole circadian rhythm can be balanced. So some exposure before bed can help reduce that shorter wavelength light exposure to help with the process to get into sleep. So I don't think the time of day is as important as not doing too much. And then we also need to talk about the wavelengths because that's really important as well.

Vanessa Ronksley: OK, can I ask one question before you move to the wavelengths? OK, so a lot of people have a smaller- maybe not access to the full bed, but they have a smaller unit. We're not talking about the face one either. We're talking a little panel or maybe a wand or something like that. So if you're doing one part of your body, like 3 minutes. Your legs or something, or your quads or your hamstrings. Would you only need to do 3 minutes, and then if you're doing your quads turn around and then do your hamstrings for 3 minutes? Or is it, as you said they have a communication process so as soon as you've done your 3 minutes is that good? And it's literally a 3 minute fix?

Taryn Richardson: If you have an injury, I would shine the light on the injury. So whether that's a tendon or a muscle or a bone, shine it on the actual spot that's a problem. And then if it's just general muscle soreness, then you could just do one site for a few minutes. I don't know, if you do one site for 3 minutes and then do multiple sites of the body, as long as it doesn't extend beyond 30 minutes, I think you're okay. So personal preference.

Vanessa Ronksley: That's great. And now we can talk about the wavelengths because you've kind of alluded to the fact that there's a difference between the wavelength that you might need for bone, muscle, or maybe something a little bit more superficial. So hit us with the wavelengths.

Taryn Richardson: Yep. Okay. You ready? Brace yourself.

Vanessa Ronksley: I'm ready. I'm getting my notepad.

Taryn Richardson: So more superficial wavelengths are lower numbers. So if we're trying to hit something superficial like the skin, and you want to increase collagen production, then you'd go for around 660 nanometers. Because it's not going as far into the body. If you want to hit something deeper, like muscle, like bone, then you want to go longer wavelengths of light. So like 750 to 850 nanometers. You could push it up to about 900, but so much of the research is in about 850 nanometers. If you are beyond that though, like beyond 900, over 1,000 nanometers, then you're getting in the realms of infrared sauna and it's not actually penetrating that deep into the body anymore. It's more so creating that surface heat. It's heating up the water in our cells on the surface and making you get warm, but it's not actually penetrating deep like we want it to.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay, this is very good news. I would like to say, Taryn, that you seem to have more knowledge than the little pamphlet that came with my panel.

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, and that does not surprise me. Like I said, it is the Wild West, and people are getting LEDs from China or eBay or Amazon and putting cheap panels together. So you do need to understand how it works, and then do your research on the actual product that they've put together as well. Because I think the barrier to entry to create a red light therapy panel is super low.

Elizabeth James: As you mentioned, unfortunately, I've seen a couple products too that are a red light. Not red light therapy. It's just a red colored light. And it is, I mean, giving no biological benefit at all. And people are being ripped off of their money because they think that they're doing red light therapy, when really they just have a red colored light or panel or wand that they've purchased thinking that they got this fantastic deal because, “I got red light and it was only 40 bucks!”. And then they're not going to see the benefits of that because it's not the wavelength that they think that they're getting.

Vanessa Ronksley: That's a really good point to bring up. And I think a question that a lot of listeners might have, including myself. When you're looking at purchasing a product, is there a difference between the number of spaces between the lights and how that affects the outcome in terms of the wavelength? There's something called near? Near and far? Those are sometimes built into the product as well. So can you explain how you would go about selecting something and knowing that it's a good product versus something that's- aside from the price, of course.

Taryn Richardson: You should take my masterclass because I do a whole session in there around assessing products. And I walk through websites and show you what to look for on the website because there's so many different products. I don't recommend one in particular either. I show you how to assess for yourself to go, is this good or is this just BS? You need to have a look at, I think the first thing is wavelengths. What wavelengths are they offering? Do you have control of that as well? Can you choose whether you want to go a bit deeper, and go more 850 nanometers? Or do you wanna go a bit more surface- skin collagen production- so you look so beautiful and go more 660? Or if they got crazy numbers where they've- I've seen products that have even shorter, like 300 nanometers, which we wanna avoid. And also too long, over 1,000, which we wanna avoid as well. So looking at the wavelength of light is important. And then you want to have a look at the power of those LEDs. They are really cheap LEDs also. The amount that you spend on a panel compared to the LEDs and then the bit of metal that goes into it is just insane. It probably costs them $10 to put these things together. Have a look at the power of the LEDs. And you also need to check that they've tested the LEDs with the right thing. So a light spectrometer, rather than just going, okay, we've done some maths and this is what this is. So you want a company that's checked the light exposure and has given you some power and a radiance data as well. And then the other thing I think you need to think about is just go something small. You don't need anything big. You don't need a full body panel. You definitely don't need those UV like beds that look like you're tanning. Just go something small, even just one little torch light is going to be effective.

Vanessa Ronksley: Now, in terms of we touched on a little bit on sleep. And this was one thing that I put a pin in my mind because, EJ, you had said that you notice that your sleep had become better after using this on a consistent, regular basis. And we know that sleep is one of those really big rocks, Taryn. And so now I'm thinking, well, if we have this thing that's bigger than sand and is a little rock, but that can possibly influence that big rock, what can you tell us about sleep and recovery? And how it affects that circadian rhythm? Go into it a little bit deeper about this red light therapy influencing sleep.

Taryn Richardson: You're right, sleep is a big rock, and red light therapy can be complimentary to that, but it's not gonna fix root causes of problems, right? If you have sleep apnea, if you don't know how to shut down your brain at night, if you work late, on a computer with the blue light, red light therapy is not gonna fix those things. It's not a magic bullet, but it can help you in the process and compliment what you're trying to do. Every day we have this natural circadian rhythm, our wake and sleep hormones. And fun fact that your gut has its own little circadian rhythm, your little gut microbes in there follow the same little path. It's very cool. Yeah, I love gut health.

Vanessa Ronksley: That's so cool.

Taryn Richardson: . So to wake up in the morning, we use light and ideally sunlight. If you can get out in the morning and get some sunlight into your eyeballs. That can help with your circadian rhythm to wake you up. And then as we're winding down at night, we wanna minimize light as much as possible and ideally also minimize those short wavelength lights and blue lights in that spectrum, because they can keep your little circadian rhythm guys awake as well. So minimizing lights, if you've got a phone or a computer or a TV, do what you can to turn it on to night mode. Phones are naturally built with that these days, but you still have to download an app to do that, to turn the blue lights down and make them more orange and amber. And same as your LEDs in your house, try and get rid of them as much as you can. There's some cool little products that Block Blue Light for reading and just getting ready for bed that are in the longer wavelength light spectrum of the reds. So you've got them in your bathroom when you're brushing your teeth at night, or they've got little book lights that you clip onto your book for reading so you're not reading with these short wavelength lights as well that is gonna keep your circadian rhythm more awake. So all these things that you can do to get the body ready for sleep. And it's more than just light exposure and keeping yourself chill and calm. Your core temperature needs to come down as well. So if you are somebody that trains at night, jump in a nice bath. although that's horrible in the winter, or have a really cool shower and try and reduce your core temperature ready for sleep. And then just do a last blast of warm water on your skin so that you're not freezing your tits off, getting out of the shower. But try and get your core temperature down is another big one if you train at night. There's just a couple of strategies to try and get the body ready, but it's about a regular routine. Whatever that looks like for you, whether it's having a cup of tea with your partner or reading a book or doing something that's not running around trying to unpack, repack, do all the things and then you get into bed like, “aaaand… sleep!”. Most people can't generally just go sleep, Vanessa. Most people struggle.

Vanessa Ronksley: That's why you need a switch. You need a switch. Sleep.

Taryn Richardson: Yours is more behavioral though than a sleep problem. Yours, you need your husband to be like, “go to bed!”.

Vanessa Ronksley: True. I do. I need someone to yell at me to get into bed. I literally do need that. But EJ, I feel like I may have overstated that I have wonderful sleep because I don't actually. I fall asleep very easily, but then I wake up and then it's game over. So I hear you with the 60s on the sleep scores. Not that I trust the watches too much anyways, but I hear you about that. So I think It's very, very important to have a very good sleep hygiene process that we follow on a regular basis because sleep is something that needs to be consistent and it needs- your brain literally needs to calm down and it needs to know that these signals that you are giving it, whether that is the reduction of the blue light or whether that is the temperature regulation. It wants to be predictable. Like your brain loves this predictability of this process that you are allowing for. And I had no idea, Taryn, that there were little red lights. You could actually, I've heard of the red light glasses. I think Roka even sells a red light glasses and they look a little bit, you know, weird, but who cares? Cause you're at home and no one can see you anyways. So I was thinking of getting those red light glasses so that I could look weird, but also very cool.

Elizabeth James: They're the cool kid glasses. Both Charles and I wear them, and we've got an alarm on our phone. It's wind down time. Put on my glasses. Full nerd house. And it is it's great I mean, I don't see sleep scores in the 60s much anymore. So I've got a good routine a couple better habits in place and that's one of them so. Hey, as long as my sleep scores are good, I'm going to keep the dorky glasses.

Vanessa Ronksley: Okay. Yes, so project 1 is register for the master class. Project 2 is to put on my birthday list red light glasses or a red light reading light, whatever you fancy, whatever you want. I just think the glasses are portable wherever you go, so it's convenient. Okay, this is very good.

Taryn Richardson: It would help the kids though if you've got a red light thing in the bathroom so that when everyone's winding down and brushing teeth or reading books before bed, I've got one for my daughter. She is a book nerd and she clips it onto her book so she can still read in bed for a little bit longer. And I'm not worried that she's got some sort of LED light on stopping her from going to sleep because I want those kids to go to bed. Be quiet, go to bed.

Vanessa Ronksley: I hear you. Yep, absolutely. That's very important. EJ, I'm just wondering if you can share with us a little athlete story. You mentioned that you use it with some of your athletes. So I'm curious, how do you recommend that an athlete implement this? And at what point would you say to an athlete, hey, maybe you should try some red light therapy?

Elizabeth James: It's actually come much more from the athletes than even myself. I'm definitely one that says, kind of as Taryn mentioned, we have to have those big rocks in place first. And so if there are things that I feel an athlete can be working on prior to implementing that, we're going to take a look at that first. And oftentimes, being very honest, there are those bigger rocks that need to be addressed first. And once those are in place, then we start looking at some of those smaller rocks. But some athletes have come and have just said, “this is exploding everywhere. Is this worth it?”, “It’s at my recovery studio now.”, “Hey, my chiropractor was talking to me about this, when I went in for my shoulder”. So it sparks a great discussion. And there are certainly times where it has seemed more appropriate to recommend that, especially for athletes that are already working with a trusted chiropractor and a clinician that has that available in their office. I mean that is one that I feel very good about telling an athlete, yes if you have the opportunity to go and do that in addition to the chiropractic visits then I think that that is a worthwhile investment, and a worthy add-on to the treatment that you're doing. And so I would say that that's probably been the most that I've recommended it, is with an athlete has come with questions like that, and they know that they already have a place that's available to them and somebody that I would trust in kind of a clinical thing to do that. Other athletes that have said “hey, I saw this on Amazon, do you think I should implement it?”. And it's like, again, now I know that I can just say, actually say to take Taryn's masterclass and then we can talk. And do you think that's an inappropriate use of funds and your time? And for a lot of athletes, the time portion of it is difficult because a lot of them don't plan to purchase something, or don't feel comfortable purchasing something at home. Now again, maybe if they take the masterclass, they'll feel a little better about that. But if they're looking for that clinical setting to go to, that's a time commitment too. And so oftentimes I feel really good about recommending it as an addition to some injury recovery or chiropractic treatment that they're already doing. But I have very few athletes that are doing it as a standalone practice.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yeah, that makes total sense. And I think that's a very wise way of guiding someone to using it. The one thing that makes me think of when you say that is, as Taryn had mentioned, consistent use is important. And EJ, you experienced that yourself, right, with the first exposure that you had. It was the consistency that was what brought on so many of these positive effects. I have to be fully honest that I got this beautiful panel I put on my Christmas list and I was like, as if anyone's going to buy that for me. And then sure enough, it showed up under the Christmas tree and I was like, my gosh, I'm so lucky. And I used it religiously for about a month and I was like, meh, I didn't see any of these effects. I'm not going to, but maybe. Maybe I was seeing the effects and I just didn't know. And so Taryn, I'm just curious. You say that it's consistent use. If someone's using it at chiropractor office, maybe they're not getting enough of that hit that they require to see actual benefits. Like, what would you say about that kind of use?

Taryn Richardson: You do need to do it for a longer period of time. So once you have one exposure, the effect is immediate and it lasts for 5 days. And by then it's gone. So that's why you don't want to do it every single day, because you end up just saturating things and it goes soggy. So one exposure is enough and it'll last you 5 days. But for things like the skin research, they didn't really see an effect in collagen production for 12 weeks. So it depends what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve. But even just once a week or once every 5 days should be enough if you can maintain it, be consistent. If somebody's not experiencing any sort of anything, then I'd probably question the validity of the device that we're using, to be honest. If you've got the right device and it's the right wavelength and it's the right power and you've got the right sight and it's the right distance from you as well, you don't want it to be too far away. You want it to be quite close to your body, then you should have an effect. So I'd probably do a bit more research into the product that is at your gym if you've got the availability to do something for free. Have a look at what the product is, what the wavelengths are, check the products company site, check the irradiance, check the power, check that they've actually checked it with a light spectrometer and not just hash the numbers. And then you'll be able to decide if it's a quality product worth using and investing. Because even going somewhere, you're right, EJ, triathletes have no time. To go and add this extra thing into their schedule. So it has to be really convenient for that consistency and that habit to form. So it might be something that you do look at investing in a small device for home so that you can plug and play it into your regular routine rather than having to drive somewhere else if it's not convenient. But you do need to check the gym, or the chiropractor, or the wellness center, or whatever product it is, and check that they've got the right specs for the product so that you can not waste your time using something that may not work.

Vanessa Ronksley: That’s a very important aspect to bring up because time is something that we all need, and we love, and we have very little of, especially spitting in all of the training that goes along with being an endurance athlete. Taryn when you looked at the research and then consulted with all of the experts- because I know you reached out to so many people- where does the red light therapy appear to be the strongest? And then where does the evidence still need a little bit of attention? I know you said it's been 60 years. Everything under the sun has been tested with red light therapy, but what's your feeling on the strongest case use for red light therapy?

Taryn Richardson: There's so many, I don't know if you can just pinpoint one thing, but I think the longest history is probably injury and surgery and wound healing, that kind of tissue repair side of things. That's been around for a long time, and it's even been used in the animal sense as well. Vets have used it for a long time. So that's probably where some of the strongest research lies. What is lacking is some of the exercise specific stuff. They've been doing red light therapy exposure pre-exercise, and there needs to be some more research done in post-exercise. There is some research though in soccer players for reducing DOMs, and muscle soreness, and the inflammation process that happens after exercise- just kind of dampening down that inflammatory effect to help athletes back up and go again. There's not a lot in triathlon unfortunately, but we can translate cycling, running, swimming into what we need. I think that's probably the biggest area that needs some work because if you think about all of the different wavelengths of light as well, it's really hard to pin down specific protocols for specific benefits, because researchers used all sorts of different wavelengths, and all sorts of different powers and surface areas. So it's going to take a bit of time to really knot out specific protocols for specific benefits. There's some really good research in skin. Which is why those face masks are everywhere. Although one of the experts I spoke to was like, I don't know if I'd put that much power directly onto your face for an extended period of time. We don't have any longitudinal data around what that does to you. Is your face gonna fall off? We're not really sure yet. So being mindful that there isn't long, long studies to know if any of this stuff, what it does over a long span of time. Although there was a really cool paper done in Brazil in Hashimoto's, and they exposed the thyroid gland to long wavelength light. And then they followed them up over, I think 8 years. And those people that had that exposure initially, had- I can't remember how many weeks- 8 weeks or something, 10 weeks of exposure. A lot of them came off their thyroid medication altogether. They had a massive reduction in thyroid antibodies, and then they followed them up in 8 years and a lot of the people still were off medication, in full remission, or their doses of medication were lower. So that's a great example of some of the longitudinal stuff we have, but we don't have a lot of that where they're following them up over a long period of time.

Vanessa Ronksley: That's fascinating. I'm guessing that gets into, when you're talking about Hashimoto's, we're talking about hormone effects, right? So does it influence your other hormones as well? Can it pass- is there a lot of research on hormone regulation?

Taryn Richardson: Not in hormones, maybe that's a gap that we can start seeing if people can study for us for women in perimenopause and menopause. But if it's going to increase ATP, so our energy currency of our cell, if it's going to increase our nitric oxide production, and have global sort of anti-inflammatory- and antioxidant in a sense- effects, because we're mopping up those free radicals, then that's going to benefit so many people, not necessarily hormone specific.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yes, yep. What's the most realistic place to start with red light therapy for someone who, they've listened, they've done a little bit of research on their own? What would you suggest that they then do to start possibly implementing this into their routine?

Taryn Richardson: I would get a small device. It could be a torch. It could be a small panel. There's lots of good battery operated handheld devices that I would start with and they'll set you back a couple of hundred dollars. I looked into trying to make my own panels.

Vanessa Ronksley: I was going to say! You should go into business.

Taryn Richardson: …and it was the Wild West. So I decided against it, because to get a light spectrometer to test the product to see whether it was actually legit or not is far beyond the cost of a few LEDs. So I would start with a small panel. Don't buy yourself a full body bed or anything like that. Do your research on the actual company. And the master class does go into those in a lot of details, but making sure they've been around for a while, because the barrier to entry is very small. So you don't want to choose a company that's very young, and very new, and could fold next month. And then if you have a warranty claim or something like that, then you're stuck with your hundreds of dollars of device. I would do it in the morning if you can, when the mitochondria are awake, sometime before lunchtime, after your training session, and just do it twice a week to start with, and see if you notice a difference.

Vanessa Ronksley: That sounds very doable. It sounds like it's not too costly on the budget, in terms of the time savings that you could have if you were going elsewhere to use that. Not only the time, but the money to use someone else's equipment. So my last question is, do you have one? And what is your system for using it?

Elizabeth James: As I mentioned, I started in one of those full body panel bed things. And then as I've researched more and more, I found out there is great communication within the mitochondria within the body. Shouldn't be that surprised. Our body has great communication pathways, but it was an “aha” moment for me, of we don't need this full thing. So the clinic where I go right now just has a smaller panel. And I use the smaller panel, do that 2 to 3 times a week. It's perfect because it's on my way home from the gym. And so it's close to my house, get done training, make a quick stop for 5 to 10 minutes on my way home, and then I'm home. And so it's part of my routine, super easy to use. Meets the criteria for me to fit it in easily. I mean, for me, that's cost effective and it worked better for me than trying to find a device for my house. I'll be honest, there's so many things going on at home most of the time that I do better if I could implement that as a routine outside of the house for me. So, that's my routine.

Vanessa Ronksley: I love it. That's perfect. It's very EJ. That's a very EJ routine.

Taryn Richardson: Yep, doable, consistent habit.

Vanessa Ronksley: Yep. Absolutely. How about you, Taryn? I don't even know if you have one. I'm guessing you do?

Taryn Richardson: Yes I do. Come on, of course I do! I just have a small desk stand , a little panel that I use 2 or 3 times a week in the morning. Generally when I'm sitting at my desk, I don't work every day. So I'll plug it on for 20 minutes in the morning when I'm sitting at my desk. I've had some postpartum hyperthyroid issues. And so I put it on my thyroid. And because I'm a total nerd, I've done a thyroid ultrasound, and done my bloods ,and I'm gonna redo those again 12 weeks after exposure to do my own N=1 study to see if it has an effect. And I'm not changing anything through that time. So I'm part way through that. Like I said, my daughter has a little clip on her book reading light. And then the next step would be for me, I think, is adding a little- they're stick on the wall, battery powered lights that I'm. considering putting in both of our bathrooms for the nighttime routine and just get everyone to wind down a little bit.

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Vanessa Ronksley: All right, welcome to the cool down everybody. We have an audience question that we are going to ask to Taryn, and thankfully it is on the subject of red light therapy. And potentially, this question was what spurred us on to having an entire episode about red light therapy. So thank you athletes for submitting your questions. We really appreciate it. And sometimes you get a whole episode instead of just a short, one-line answer. However, George has asked us here, “I had a road cycling accident and received a fair bit of road rash. Will red light therapy help my wounds heal faster?”. So Taryn, what do you think?

Taryn Richardson: Yeah, I would give it a go. If you have easy access to a panel or you've got one yourself, red light therapy or long wavelength light exposure is going to help with tissue repair, and wound healing, and scar reduction. I would pick a wavelength of light that's fairly superficial though. So sort of 600 to 660 nanometers. So it's getting in that top layer of the skin rather than going too long and going too deep.

Vanessa Ronksley: Perfect. I think that that's excellent advice. I love that you've given the wavelength of light. I think that this is definitely going to help George with his road rash. And hopefully there's not too many of you out there that have road rash, but if you do, then this is some way that's going to help you get back on the road faster than you would have before.

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