ow to Use Red Light Therapy for Mental Acuity and a Sharper Mind

Mental acuity refers to your cognitive performance and sharpness. It comprises things like memory, focus, and speed of reactions. It is commonly confused for intelligence, and thought of as something you are born with. However, mental acuity can improve or deteriorate depending mainly on lifestyle habits as well as other factors.

What Factors Affect Mental Acuity? There are many factors that can contribute to the deterioration of mental and cognitive functions. One of the most commonly mentioned factors is age. Cognitive deterioration is often associated with old age.

However, other factors can also affect mental acuity. For instance, overall health, diet, activity levels, and many socioeconomic factors.

How Can You Improve Mental Acuity?

Several simple lifestyle changes can help you improve your cognitive function.

Eat Smart: It’s no secret that a healthy diet can have a huge impact on overall health as well as brain health. However, did you know that there is a specific diet, called the MIND diet, that can help boost brain power and prevent declining mental acuity, especially age-related cognitive decline?

This diet combines the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet – a specific diet created to manage high blood pressure. A recent study has shown that the MIND diet prevents the appearance of symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Even the subjects of the study who had brain pathologies associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease never developed the usual symptoms such as brain fog and memory problems.

Exercise Your Body : Multiple studies proved the connection between physical exercise and brain function. As it turns out, the sedentary lifestyle affects the mind, and not just the body.

One controlled study has shown that children who did thirty minutes of aerobic exercise showed significant improvements on cognitive function tests as compared to the control group who watched TV during that time.

Another study has posited that the effect physical exercise has on improving mental acuity is due to certain physiological changes that happen in the body when you work out. Improved blood flow to the brain and a change in the way neurotransmitters work probably play the biggest role in post-exercise cognitive enhancement.

Exercise Your Mind : According to multiple studies, mindfulness meditation can have a powerful impact on your cognitive and executive function. In particular, at the beginning, meditation mostly affects your focus and executive function, whereas later phases in the training mostly support unfocused attention.

Use Red Light Therapy

Low-level light therapy has steadily risen to the top of the list when it comes to methods for improving mental acuity as well as mental health. This kind of treatment, also known as photobiomodulation or low-level laser therapy, uses LED light diodes that emit red and near-infrared light. The wavelengths of light used in this kind of light therapy stimulate a number of processes in the body, which ultimately results in improved cognitive function.

Learn more about the FlexBeam

Is Red Light Therapy Effective for Mental Acuity?

Using red and near-infrared light therapy for as little as 15 minutes daily can greatly improve mental health and cognitive performance. Red and infrared light stimulate cells and tissues at different depths. Both of these types of light work to increase cellular energy production and delay cell death.

Red light therapy improves the brain’s ability to operate efficiently. It can improve brain health, boost your ability to recall memories, help with mental health disorders, and even be beneficial with mild traumatic brain injury.

How Does Red Light Therapy for Mental Acuity Work?

If you’re wondering how red light therapy actually works to improve cognitive functions, the answer has several layers.

Mitochondrial Function Support : Red and near infrared wavelengths penetrate into the cells and boost the mitochondria that are parts of every cell. The mitochondria take glucose from food and produce energy that the cells can use. During this process they also produce oxygen.

Red light not only increases the amount of energy produced, but also neutralizes the free radicals that are the byproduct of cellular energy production. This helps to prevent mitochondrial dysfunction, which is often linked with Alzeihmer’s disease.

Red light therapy helps proliferate mitochondria and contributes to overall cellular health, including brain cells.

Solution for Sleep Disorders : The screens that surround us day in and day out emit huge quantities of blue light. In nature, blue light is characteristic of the middle part of the day. It wanes in the evening and is replaced by red and near-infrared light, which triggers the production of the sleep hormone melatonin.

Melatonin is the hormone that regulates the natural sleep and wake patterns, also called the circadian rhythm. Unhealthy lifestyle factors or excessive screen time can easily disrupt his natural biological balance.

The circadian rhythm governs many other internal processes and hormones, and disruption can result in insomnia, sleep disorders, and even a hormonal imbalance.

Red light can regulate poor sleep by triggering melatonin production in the evenings. Insomnia is commonly linked with impaired cognitive performance, delayed reactions and reduced attention.

 Start using red light for improved sleep

Decrease in Inflammation : Red light therapy is an extremely efficient way to reduce inflammation in the body. It improves cerebral blood flow and helps boost the immune system. This means better drainage of fluids and less swelling, as well as a stronger immune response to any pathogens.

Red light therapy also impacts the gut, supporting healthy gut flora. Gut health is inextricably linked to the immune system and can have an effect on the body’s inflammatory response.

Help With Mood Disorders : Along with bright light therapy, red light therapy is proven to be effective for mood regulation. It can help to improve mood in case of chronic stress, or for instance, seasonal affective disorder.

Mood disorders and mental health problems such as anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder and depression often cause inability to focus, scattered attention and feelings of brain fog. By helping with moods and mental health, red light therapy can contribute to a greater clarity and focus.

Can You Use Red Light Therapy at Home?

Red light therapy devices used to be bulky and only available at doctors’ offices. However, over the years, the technology has become more accessible and nowadays, you can enjoy the therapeutic benefits of red light therapy at home.

Do your red light therapy at home : Modern red light therapy devices are portable, easy to use, and some are even handheld. This means that mental acuity light therapy is accessible to everyone, every day. You can use red light therapy to improve cognitive function and mental sharpness without leaving the comfort of your home.

Red light therapy is safe to use at home as there is no risk of adverse effects. A daily treatment with a red light therapy device can improve your overall brain health and become a part of your healthy lifestyle.  

How to Use Red Light Therapy to Eliminate Chronic Overuse Injury

According to research on epidemiologic studies on overuse injuries in male and female collegiate athletes, more than 25%  of all injuries were overuse injuries. This number suggests that there is a high probability that many of these athletes are in danger of turning their injury into a chronic overuse injury if the treatment is not adequate.

The same research states that women have a higher rate of overuse injuries. On the other hand, men have a higher rate of acute injuries. Let’s look at what the difference is before diving into the exact how and why red light therapy could help manage overuse injuries.

What Is an Overuse Injury?

An overuse injury is caused by repeated trauma on a micro-level. This trauma to either your bones, joints, tendons, or muscles is caused by too much physical stress. Generally, exercising and staying active are good things. But, when you overwork yourself you prevent your body from remodeling.

Your body makes your bones, ligaments, muscles, and other tissue stronger when you exercise. Exercise triggers the processes of breaking down fiber connections and then building them up again to be more resistant. If the breakdown process happens faster than the build up-you are stuck with an overuse injury.

Overuse injuries mostly happen when you are trying to increase the intensity, length, or number of sessions of exercise, by too much at once. Trying to hit the gym harder to make up for a lost time after a period of inactivity can have the same effect.

The focus of a physician’s treatment plan should be to ensure the injury doesn’t return. The athlete’s part in this is to accept the necessary changes to their training regimen.  

What Is the Difference Between Acute and Chronic Injury?

Acute injuries are the result of a sudden traumatic event. For example, acute injuries can be broken bones, smaller fractures, dislocated joints, and torn muscles or ligaments. Acute injuries come with symptoms like swelling, intense pain, and generous bruising. Sometimes, the injured person is not able to use the injured body part at all.

Acute injuries happen less often compared to overuse injuries. With an acute injury, it’s usually clear what the exact problem is. There is always an obvious event that caused the injury. So, they are also easier to diagnose and because of that, the treatment might be more straightforward than for an overuse injury.

How to Treat a Chronic Overuse Injury?

Firstly, you should realize that an overuse injury is going to get worse if you are ignoring the problem at the start. Another circumstance that can often prolong the recovery is that many physicians tell athletes to simply stop practicing. To most athletes, this isn’t fair advice because it doesn’t feel like an option. Try to find a doctor who will put in the effort of making a plan that helps with your symptoms and supports your need to continue moving, and avoid detraining.

There are different treatments that can be combined into a plan and which would be improved by the use of red light therapy.

Red Light Therapy as an Additional Treatment for Chronic Overuse Injury

Non-surgical treatments for a chronic overuse injury are your first step toward recovery. These include:

• Exercise therapy
• Kinesio taping
• Manual therapies
• And other options

These treatments mainly try to relieve stress from the injured area by strengthening the surrounding muscles, and other tissue, so they can take over some of the impacts on the injured area. At the same time, they promote blood flow, tissue healing, and regeneration.

Red light therapy can assist all these processes to become more efficient

That is why red light therapy is an excellent addition to these non-surgical options. It also enhances protein production – this has an effect on rebuilding tissue in general. No matter if it’s muscle, tendons, ligaments, or bones. So, it can help rebuild the tissue in that area.

What red light therapy also does is – improve your blood circulation. A better blood flow means that components needed for rebuilding tissue are more readily available and as an extra stimulus there will also be a bigger store of oxygen available. This also boosts the healing process. 

Red Light Therapy Can Help Relieve Pain

The injury itself, as well as the treatments, can be the cause of inflammation and pain. 

Painkillers manage the pain from the injury symptoms and also the possible pain during or after certain treatments like manual therapy, stretching/strengthening, and exercise therapy.

Red light therapy reduces inflammation and speeds up recovery by stimulating the production of the building blocks and oxygen. Additionally, triggering the immune response of the body helps eliminate inflammatory processes and helps pain management efforts.

Red light therapy is a completely non-drug pain management option. The specific wavelength of red and near-infrared light triggers the release of hormones that have pain soothing effects. Red light stimulates the levels of serotonin, endorphins, and other opioids that our body produces naturally. 

Red Light Can Support Surgical Management of Chronic Overuse Injury 

In the worst-case scenario, a chronic overuse injury may need surgery.  Red light therapy can assist to prepare your body for the surgery, but especially during the recovery period because tissue recovery is one of the advantages of red light therapy.

Another effect would be less scarring. Red light therapy has the same effect on the skin as it has on the tissue that was damaged during your injury.

Red light can help boost the blood flow, and also promote the creation of new blood vessels. This creates higher oxygenation levels and damaged tissue repair itself. However, blood flow is not the only thing tissue needs to regenerate. Nitric Oxide (NO) signaling release is another essential mechanism for wound forming and infection prevention. Red light therapy helps NO signaling release, consequently, assisting the healing process.

At the very core of every red light therapy, the healing mechanism is the systemic effect of energizing the body to heal itself. Our bodies are amazing systems that recognize their needs and requirements. Giving it energy boosts to perform the processes necessary for health optimization is the best you can do to help yourself heal. 

FlexBeam is not a big device, but it is a very powerful one. While offering targeted red light therapy, it can also be positioned in a way to provide unmatched systemic energizing and healing effects. Learn more about how to use it and which red light benefits you can expect it to offer.