Monday, June 16, 2025 Baking in the Red Light

I’d run across something on YouTube that talked about red light therapy (AKA low-level light therapy). I consulted with Dr. Google to learn more. RLT is touted to work on a cellular level to reduce inflammation to help with:

Joint pain relief
Nerve pain relief
Wound healing
Hair Loss
Brain and mental health
Anti-aging effect on the skin
Weight loss
Tendinopathy
Knee osteoarthritis
Plantar fasciitis pain
Chronic low back pain
Fibromyalgia pain

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? I did a search to see if anybody in our fair town featured red light therapy and found one place. This will probably be absurdly expensive, I thought to myself, but I called to inquire. “It’s $10 for one hour,” the receptionist told me. Only ten bucks? Sign me up!

I brought some books to read figuring there wouldn’t be much else to do during my hour of RLT. The receptionist showed me into the private room and showed me how to turn the light on, telling me that I could leave before the hour was up, but it cost $10 no matter what. For only $5 more you could also turn on the sauna which is supposed to help. I declined. See my previous post about being frugal.

I settled into the little room, put my books on the bench next to me and turned on the light. GAH!!!! My eyes! I felt like Gollum encountering the sun after living under a mountain for hundreds of years. “It’s too bright, precious!” Sitting there for an hour suddenly seemed very daunting, but I’m no quitter. I would be paying for one hour, I will sit here for one hour in my shorts and tank top to get maximum exposure to these healing rays.

I tried reading for a while, but it was dreadfully difficult to concentrate while under the piercing gaze of those lights. I think I would have confessed to just about anything, if asked. Normally you think of basking in the light, but this was more like baking. As the time went on I got really hot. I became obsessed with the idea that the receptionist had forgotten that I didn’t want the sauna on. “She turned it on by accident, that’s what happened,” I was muttering.

To succor myself, I sang all four stanzas of the the hymn “Rise Again Ye Lion Hearted,” which we had recently memorized. “Mid the lion’s roaring, songs of praise outpouring. Joyously they take their stand, on th’arena’s bloody sand.” I felt rather sheepish complaining about the glare and heat of the red light lamps while singing about the martyrs and their brave deaths in the coliseum. Also, I fervently hoped that no one could hear me singing.

Weirdly, after I finished singing, some sort of radio came on in the RLT room. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off and was unreasonably irritated by it. In fact, I was so hot I was unreasonably irritated by everything. I popped out of the room a couple times to cool off. The RLT room was a small glassed-walled room inside another room, so I still had my privacy.

The minutes seemed elongated, like some strange effect of the light. At last, the time was over. I got dressed (you don’t think I’m going to wander around town in shorts and a tank top at my age, do you?) and went out to pay the receptionist and ask about the sauna and the music. No, she hadn’t turned on the sauna. No, she hadn’t turned on the music. Hmmm.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! But not too soon. I don’t know if you can really get the effects from one hour of exposure, but I could see doing it 2-3 times a month. Next time I’ll know what to expect. And so will you.

I’ll probably expose this post to RLT in the morning. Maybe it will help.