Red Light Therapy Panels and Bright Light Therapy Lamps (SAD-lights)

“So it’s like one of those ‘bright lamps’ people use in the morning?”

Many people mistake red light therapy for bright light therapy (or even for UV-lamps). Red light therapy is neither, although it is preferably used in the mornings and although it has the same effect on seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which is also known as ‘winter-depression’.

As a Scandinavian company, we understand far too well the challenge of combining a geographical placement that severely limits the amount of light the sun provides each day, and a modern lifestyle that severely limits the amount of time we spend outside during these few hours each day.

The difference between one’s mood in the winter and summertime actually tells us a lot about the importance of light to our combined physical-psychological state. If one thinks that the change in mood, energy, and overall thriving all comes down to simply ‘seeing less light’ (or ‘feeling more cold’), one could wonder, why sitting under sharp artificial lights (and putting on a sweater) isn’t just as good – which most of us still do, when we’re inside at our jobs or universities during the winter months.

The fact is, that not only do we need to ‘see’ more light quantitatively, but we need the physiological exposure to particular parts of the electromagnetic radiation that the sun provides. The most obvious example of such a ‘need’ is the crucial lack of vitamin-D that most of us suffer from in the colder months of the year, when we do not get sufficient (invisible) UVB radiation.

A ‘bright light therapy’ lamp helps you wake up by providing a powerful white light (10.000 lux of white light). A RLT-device such as ours doesn’t just help you wake up and set your circadian clock with the strength of the light (about 25.000 lux of red/NIR light), it also gives you the particular electromagnetic frequencies that your cells are designed to receive in the morning from the sun.