How Does Red Light Therapy Help You Mentally?
One of the main ways red light therapy aids your mental health is by providing you with extra light.
While this might not sound like much, seasonal affective disorder (SAD) proves just how vital light is for our minds. Also called the winter blues, SAD occurs in winter when the days are shorter, causing you to become depressed due to a lack of light.
This is where red light therapy comes in; it gives your body more of the light you need to avoid SAD.
The Connection Between Mental Health And Fitness
We at Recovery Lab know how important your mental health and fitness are to each other.
On the one hand, if you are depressed, discouraged, or have some other similar feeling, we know you’re going to find it extra hard to muster up the inner motivation you need to work out and get or stay fit. This’ll make it even harder to reach your fitness goal.
On the other hand, we know it is extremely hard to bear when all your friends outpace you when walking, especially if you have to ask them to slow down for you, or when people you know go out to do activities you know you just aren’t capable of physically doing. In short, being unfit often takes what was once a good mood and sours it, dragging you down mentally.
Matters become even worse if these two things start spiraling. In this situation, your discouragement causes you to skip working out, making you less fit, and this causes you to feel even worse, etc.
For this reason, it’s best to do everything you can to avoid starting on this slippery slope.
Red Lights Or Regular Lights?
There are many recommendations for ways to get more light, including making sure you’re outdoors more and setting up more lamps to trick your body into thinking the days are their usual length.
However, the problem with using lamps or other artificial lights is that these create more blue light. As blue light negatively impacts your eyes and other things, such as your sleep patterns, it’s widely acknowledged that people should avoid too much blue light.
For this reason, red light is the perfect option; it gives your body the extra light it needs while not having the blue wavelengths, which are best avoided. It even lacks the UV rays you get from natural sunlight!
Summary:
We at Recovery Lab of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, know the importance of your mental health and how this impacts your fitness. Read here about how our red light therapy helps you mentally.
