How IR Dermal Heat and LED Red Light Help Take Years Off
IR Dermal Heat and LED Red Light are light-based treatments that encourage the cells in your skin, muscle tissue, and other parts of your body to heal. This technology uses low levels of red or near-infrared light, a type of energy that we are unable to see with our eyes. These light rays heat up the cells under our skin and promote cell regeneration. This leads to cell turnover, revealing new, healthy skin cells and giving the face a tighter and more youthful appearance.
Before you begin exploring red and infrared LED devices, it’s important to understand the difference between the two.
What is IR Dermal Heat and What are Its Benefits?
IR Dermal Heat is also known as “infrared technology,” and is fairly common in the world of cosmetic light technology. Light in this infrared range of the spectrum is able to penetrate the skin deep into the muscle tissue and nerves. They also have longer wavelengths than red light, so they target issues deeper than just surface-level skin concerns. As the muscles absorb this light, they heat up and blood flow is increased.
This increase in blood flow has been proven to reduce inflammation and promote healthy cell regeneration. This can also promote faster wound and injury healing. This makes infrared light technology good for the muscle recovery process, and is suitable for people who struggle with sore and tight muscles or achy bones.
What is LED Red Light and What are Its Benefits?
In contrast, red lights have an ideal wavelength for treating more surface-level issues such as wrinkles and fine lines, as well as the colour, texture, and overall complexion of the skin. Since it doesn’t penetrate the skin as deep as infrared light, red light therapy is commonly only seen being used in skincare devices.
Red light therapy helps to promote blood circulation, which brings more oxygen and nutrients to the skin’s surface, resulting in a radiant glow. Increased blood flow contributes to collagen and elastin production which can help minimize signs of aging such as wrinkles and fine lines.
Combining the Two
Red and infrared lights can and should, in most cases, be combined. The two types of light therapy, when combined, form a power couple. One example in which these two work hand-in-hand is anti-aging light therapy devices. The most effective anti-aging solutions will likely include red and infrared lights. This is due to their powerful wrinkle-reducing powers and ability to improve the skin’s overall texture and complexion.
Benefits
Some benefits to red light and infrared therapy include:
- It promotes healthy skin.
Light therapy is useful in healing your skin and treating multiple different skin concerns and conditions. It protects and boosts new collagen production, stimulates healing, helps repair sun damage, promotes anti-aging, reduces scars and stretch marks, reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, helps cure acne, and can treat other skin conditions such as rosacea and eczema.
Light therapy is completely natural. The same way your skin needs air and water, your skin needs light. Unlike chemical solutions, light therapy penetrates deep into the skin to better your skin at a cellular level.
- It promotes healthy sleep.
Red and infrared light promotes the adjustment of your body’s circadian rhythm. This is the counteraction of overstimulation caused by devices that emit blue light, such as cellphones and laptops, that affect our ability to sleep. Red and infrared light technology encourages deep sleep, combats overstimulation from blue light, and promotes melatonin production.
- It improves cognitive performance
The light waves from red and infrared light penetrate deep into the skin to provide benefits at a cellular level. It also stimulates brain cell function, improves mental acuity, encourages clearer and sharper thinking and executive functions, leads to faster learning, better reasoning skills, and increases your mood.
- It enhances athletic performance and muscle recovery
Even if you aren’t an athlete, red light and infrared light therapy can help speed up your muscle’s recovery process. Since the light penetrates down to the tissue and muscle, it can act as a pain reliever and light muscle relaxant. Over time, this can improve your strength, muscle definition, speed, endurance, and muscle recovery.
- It reduces inflammation.
Light therapy reduces inflammation by boosting cellular energy and cutting down on oxidative stress. It speeds up tissue healing, increases blood vessel formation, helps fight disease, increases blood circulation, and alleviates chronic inflammation.
- It boosts energy levels.
One of the biggest benefits of light therapy is the increase in energy production by strengthening the mitochondria. Often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell, strengthened mitochondria can help fight fatigue. Light therapy increases energy levels, fights nitric oxide and oxidative stress that slows us down, and leads to more efficient cell production.
- It increases libido.
Red light and infrared light therapy increases blood flow and has been proven to enhance fertility. In many studies, it boosts testosterone levels, lessens the effect of menopause and andropause, increases blood flow, and leads to an enhanced sexual performance and enjoyment.
- It combats anxiety and depression.
Light therapy has major effects on mental health. It has been proven to help with major depressive disorder and reduces chronic stress and anxiety. It has been recommended by both psychiatrists and doctors.
Anti-Aging Properties
While red and infrared light isn’t exactly the fountain of youth, there is plenty of evidence that proves this type of light therapy can help manage and minimize signs of aging. As we age, we lose our skin’s elasticity thanks to the reduction in collagen production. With lower levels of collagen production, our skin loses its ability to bounce back and stay in place. Unfortunately, this is caused naturally over time with aging and genetics. While we don’t have any control over how our bodies age, we can influence our skin to stay looking youthful for longer.
Light therapy powers up the cells that release adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which leads to increased metabolism, cell regeneration, and cellular processes. This release of energy helps our skin absorb nutrients, oxygen, promotes detoxification, growth, and repair. It also stimulates blood circulation which helps for the development of new capillaries. With this, more nutrients and oxygen can be delivered to the skin, resulting in a more radiant look to the skin.
Red and infrared light also helps increase lymphatic system activity to reduce puffiness and swelling. Since it increases blood circulation, the lymphatic system works more efficiently to remove excess fluids and waste from the skin. These results are instant and can be seen after the first treatment.
This technology also boosts the production of collagen and fibroblasts, which help to achieve a youthful appearance over time. Collagen paired with elastin is what gives your skin its elasticity, firmness, and fullness that disappears with age. An increase in collagen and fibroblasts help to reduce pore size, smooth out fine lines and wrinkles, and improve and smooth out the texture of the skin.
How to Get Light Therapy
Red and infrared light therapy is available at most dermatologist offices, medical spas, or beauty salons. Many spas offer full-body light therapy beds, sometimes called “Red Light Tanning.” By doing a full body treatment, you can dramatically reduce the look of cellulite as well as stretch marks. With professional treatment, the whole process can be administered quickly. While you can see some results immediately after treatment, it is recommended to go for several treatments to see the best results. It is also suggested that you go for maintenance treatments to prolong the results you want.
Red light therapy can also be used at home. Due to it being so gentle and non-invasive, there are many devices on the market that deliver the same results as professional light therapy devices. Hand-held devices are available from many different brands and are quite popular.
Introducing Silk’n At Home Anti-aging Devices
If you prefer a device you can use in the comfort of your own home, Silk’n has two proven and popular anti-aging devices that utilize IR and red light technology, the Titan and the FaceFX.
The Titan is one of our most innovative skin tightening and lifting devices. It uses harmonized energy to repair collagen from the inside out. Unlike other devices, it works deep below the surface to awaken our internal restoration process. The result is tighter skin and a reduction in wrinkles, fine lines, sunspots and generally improved skin structure.
The Titan works by revitalizing collagen-producing cells to rebuild skin’s plumpness and elasticity. By completing treatment, slack skin will defy gravity and look visibly younger. The Titan combines the benefits of three cutting-edge technologies: Bi-Polar RF energy, LED light energy and IR heat energy, making it the envy of competitors and the most sought-after answer to the problem of aging.
The Titan anti-aging device will deliver noticeable results in only five weeks with the best results coming after only 10 weeks of treatment.
The FaceFX is another anti-aging marvel. It allows users to enjoy fast and long-lasting results. Using a technology called photo-rejuvenation, the FaceFX returns a youthful look to skin, reducing common signs of aging, including crow’s feet, bags under the eyes and fine lines and wrinkles. Additionally, it reduces pore size and can help get rid of those nagging frown lines. In only eight weeks you can make your skin look ten years younger.
The Silk’n FaceFX attacks the factors that diminish our skin’s youthful appearance. Using Home Fractional (HF) technology, the red light produced by this anti-aging device improves skin tone and texture and targets wrinkles and age spots. In no time, this red light and healing dermal heat remodels collagen and revives skin.
A complete treatment for The FaceFX takes eight weeks. Both will make you look and feel better than any other treatment!
Learn more about how Silk’n at home anti-aging devices work.
How to Prepare for Light Therapy
Whether you’re doing it professionally or at home, always check with the manufacturer’s instructions to make sure you are preparing the skin properly for treatment. With that said, here are some tips that could help the process.
- Wash your face to remove any dirt or oils from the skin. You want the light to penetrate your skin, and don’t want anything getting in the way of those light rays.
- Depending on what device you are choosing to use, read the instructions and ensure you are only doing the procedure for the specific recommended time frame. Too little exposure won’t give you the best results, and too much exposure isn’t good for you either.
- Depending on the device, check to see how often you should be completing treatments.
- Different people experience light therapy in different ways. Some people feel a pulsating effect, and others feel nothing at all. There is no wrong or right way to feel when it comes to light therapy. However, it should not cause any discomfort while in use.
- There is no downtime with light therapy. After treatments, you can apply any serums or moisturizers as well as makeup as desired.
- Since light therapy improves blood circulation and nutrition to the skin, try applying a good quality serum or antioxidant to maximize the benefits of light therapy.
Get Ready
Now that we’ve gone through what it is, light therapy doesn’t sound so scary, right? Red and infrared light therapy is great for your skin, and targets it from a cellular level. While it can’t completely eliminate all signs of aging, it’s a great non-invasive way to manage skin conditions that are related to aging.
For a more youthful appearance from within, learn if the Titan, or FaceFX anti-aging devices might work in your anti-aging skincare regimen.
