LED Color Light Therapy: An Overview

If you’ve been around the block with holistic or alternative medicine, you’ve probably at least heard of color light therapy, or LED light therapy.

What is Color Light Therapy?

Color light therapy, or chromotherapy if you’re fancy, is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a type of therapy that uses different wavelengths of light, aka colors, to treat your overall health and well-being.

Records of this type of healing can be found going back centuries to ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and China. All of these ancient cultures in some way found that the use of different colors of light can provide healing. [R]

LED Color Light Therapy vs Color Psychology

LED color therapy differs from the more widely accepted color psychology in that color light therapy refers to the use of colors in treating physical ailments while color psychology can affect mood and disposition.

While they’re technically different, you’ll most often see them used in conjunction with one another and the terms used interchangeably. Just keep in mind they are separate ideas and color therapy is more of a physical, not mental, interaction.

How Does Color Light Therapy Work?

Each color is associated with a different frequency, or wavelength, of light which passes through our cells and affects them differently.

If our eyes can pick up on this difference, why can’t other parts of our bodies?

Generally speaking, as we move from the top of the visible light spectrum (high-frequency violets and blues) into the near-infrared (low frequency), the light is going to penetrate deeper and deeper into our skin.

Think of it as the tighter the wavelengths, the more solid the color and the harder it is for it to worm its way into our bodies.

Okay, maybe don’t think of light as worms…. that’s just… yeah forget I said anything…

ANYWAYS.

As a therapy, depending on how deep the penetration of light needs to be, we can select the appropriate color for our target depth.

The Benefits of Color Therapy

Below are the most common uses for each color during LED color therapy treatment. We will explore from the topmost layer of penetration to the deepest.

How to Get LED Light Therapy at Home

If you are interested in trying LED color light therapy out for yourself, there are a couple of different avenues you can take – some more expensive than others.

Saunas

Brand Recommendations:

All saunas in this list offer chromotherapy LED panels and are rated low EMF.

Portable Devices

There are MANY affordable and portable options for light therapy if you don’t want to dive right into a full-fledged home sauna.

The only downside is that most of these products only offer a limited range of color therapy options – mainly red, blue, and infrared – or they only offer one color at a time.

So depending on what kind of healing you are looking for, you might have to buy a couple of different devices. Luckily, they are affordable and user-friendly.

Blankets

A more affordable and portable sauna option if you still want the whole body exposure but not the price tag or space commitment.

Facemasks

Easy to use light therapy device for treating facial acne, wrinkles, and skin tone.

Light Panels

Hooga has an excellent lineup of NIR red light therapy panels. You have the option of just buying one, or you can attach multiple and create your own custom setup.

Light Bulbs

Hooga has the best selection of LED bulbs specifically made for light therapy. Each bulb comes with a connector cord and power switch so you can just plug and play!

Light Wands

Best for facial acne, anti-aging, and smoothing skin complexion but can be used anywhere on the body.