Introduction to Light Therapy
Description
This article is from the Alternative Medicine Therapies guide.
Introduction to Light Therapy
Light therapy is the use of natural or artificial light to treat various ailments, but primarily depressive and sleep disorders. It may be administered by a physician, physical therapist, psychiatrist, or psychologist--or done on one's own with proper instruction from a trained professional. While exposure to the full-spectrum wavelength of natural sunlight is considered the best form of light therapy, it is not always possible for many people to get outdoors. Therefore, light therapists often recommend treatment with simulated sunlight from light boxes.
The form of light therapy most commonly used today is known as bright-light therapy. It requires that you sit near a special light box fitted with high-intensity light bulbs, which may provide either full-spectrum or white light. This type of light therapy has been proven to be particularly useful in treating seasonal affective disorder (SAD), also known as the "winter blues," a form of depression that occurs as the amount of daylight wanes with the change of seasons. It has also been shown to be effective for some sleep disorders.
For SAD, practitioners usually recommend sitting for 15 to 20 minutes in front of a light box with 10,000 lux capacity (a lux is the international unit of illumination, one lumen per square meter). This light is about 15 times brighter than normal home or office lighting. You can also receive light therapy by installing full-spectrum bulbs in place of incandescent or fluorescent room lighting. This method is less effective for depressive disorders, however, because they tend to respond better to intense rather than dissipated lighting.
Two other types of light therapy are:
- Colored-light therapy. This type of light therapy utilizes filtered floodlights or small beams of light to bathe the skin in different shades of color (usually red, but also white, blue, violet, and occasionally other colors), sometimes in flashing patterns. Advocates suggest that different colors of light affect the body by altering production of neurochemicals in the brain. While more research needs to be done in this area to prove the therapy's effectiveness, some early studies show promise. In a preliminary study in the journal Headache, patients with migraine headaches were treated with goggles that alternately illuminated the right and left (closed) eyes with red light. Of 50 headaches, 49 were helped and 36 were stopped by the treatment. In another preliminary study, red light was emitted onto the knees of 50 patients with osteoarthritis of the knees. Those who received the red light therapy reported that their pain was significantly reduced as compared to the group that had placebo light therapy (in which the same machine was used, but unknown to the patient, no light emitted was from it).
- Cold laser therapy. Also known as soft or low-level laser therapy, this type of light therapy focuses a beam of low-intensity laser light at a particular area of the body. The treatment is thought to initiate a series of enzymatic reactions and bioelectric events, which stimulate the natural healing process at the cellular level. Supporters suggest that cold laser therapy is useful for relieving pain, reducing inflammation, and helping to heal wounds, however there has been no scientific proof of this.
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