[Angela Foster] (0:14 - 1:39)
Hi friends, today we're diving into one of the most talked about and misunderstood tools in the longevity and performance space right now, and that is red light therapy. You've probably seen the masks, the panels, maybe even the full body beds. They're showing up everywhere from biohacking clinics to department stores.

And with that explosion in popularity has come a lot of big claims and with it a lot of confusion. So the real questions are what actually works, what is backed by real science and which benefits are solid and which of those are really overhyped. To help us cut through all of the noise, I am joined by Ari Witten, founder of the Energy Blueprint and natural health educator and researcher known for his evidence-based approach to optimising human energy.

Ari is also the author of the book, The Ultimate Guide to Red Light Therapy, which he has re-released to bring it up to date with the very latest science. We talk about masks versus panels, why the device space can feel like the world west and what to look for if you want skin benefits and how to use red and near-infrared light for recovery, performance, sleep, and even stubborn fat in a way that actually works. If you've been curious about red light therapy, but overwhelmed by the options, or you have a device and you're not quite sure how to use it, this episode will give you a clear framework and the confidence to navigate it intelligently.

So let's dive in. What's the wackiest claim that you've heard then in relation to red light therapy?

[Ari Written] (1:41 - 3:03)
Oh, I don't know. You know, the whole device space, the people who are creating devices right now, it's really like the wild west and there are many... It's kind of a disaster, to be honest.

There's a lot of junk devices. There's a lot of people, companies making claims that are very disconnected from the evidence. A lot of people trying to promote certain specific technical aspects of their device, whether it's the pulse rate or the wavelengths or the radiance that are sort of the key ingredient to success that makes their device much more powerful than other devices.

But if you actually understand the science, there's oftentimes no studies at all that even point to that. Yeah, there's people talking about the EMFs of their device, people talking about... There's a lot of rampant issue of people lying and misrepresenting about the actual light output of their devices.

There's a lot of stuff going on that's very, very wrong and that I'm working to try to clean up. But as far as claims, I mean, yeah, there are probably wacky claims for quantum healing of disease and who knows what else? I don't know.

[Angela Foster] (3:04 - 3:16)
Yeah, yeah. Some crazy stuff. It's the first time, actually, I'd say this year that you've really seen it, certainly in the UK, where red light therapy has become so mainstream that you can find at least the face masks in a kind of department store.

[Speaker 3] (3:16 - 3:17)
Can you really?

[Angela Foster] (3:17 - 3:50)
Yeah, you can. So companies like Shark have brought out the red light therapy masks and things like that, so you can physically just go pick one up, whereas previously it was online. I'm excited to dive into it all with you because I think you can lay to rest some of these false claims for us and also give us the science.

I have your brilliant new book here, which is a complete relight, and I'm diving in. It's just got so much, so many gems in it. I'm sure we'll only scratch the surface today, but why don't we start by what exactly is red light and near-infrared light therapy?

[Ari Written] (3:50 - 9:27)
That's a great place to start. There's growing awareness now of circadian rhythm and how light interacts with our biology through our eyes. And these blue photons of light are feeding back in our eyes, interacting with receptors that create electrical impulses that feed back into a part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

And that's where our essentially our 24-hour biological clock resides. And that clock then influences almost every physiological process in the body. I mean, it influences our metabolic health, our risk of many different diseases, our brain health, our energy, our hormonal health, what's what's going on with different hormonal rhythms throughout the day, whether thyroid hormone, testosterone, cortisol, melatonin.

It's influencing almost everything. It's influencing. We now know that there's all these circadian clock genes throughout all the tissues and organ systems of our body that are tied in and synced with this central circadian clock in the brain.

And again, the primary input to that whole system that's regulating this, all these biological cascades is in response to light and darkness signals, which primarily come from the blue part of the spectrum of light entering our eyes. So we have just, you know, as far as the light and human biology story, we have those two layers. But there is this third layer that most of us are, historically speaking, less familiar with, though, as you said, now with face masks in department stores, now it's quickly becoming more mainstream, which is that there's this other band of the electromagnetic spectrum, specifically in the red wavelengths of light and near infrared wavelengths of light.

Red is visible to our eyes as red light and near infrared light is just outside of what the human visual system can process. But this is all part of the light spectrum that comes from the sun. OK, so the sun emits this broad spectrum of light, which includes the visible spectrum, the colours of the rainbow, ROYGBIV, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.

It includes ultraviolet, which is partly visible, partly non-visible. And it includes a large portion of infrared energy, which is largely outside of what the human visual system can detect. Now, specifically within this broader electromagnetic spectrum and specifically the light emitted and energy emitted from the sun, there is a unique portion of this, specifically from the range of about roughly 600 to 900 nanometres, which is pretty much the red and near infrared part of the spectrum or is the near infrared and red part of the spectrum.

And it turns out that human biology, human tissue is uniquely transparent to this specific band of light. OK, and this is called the optical window in the scientific literature. It's called the optical window.

And it talks about how human tissue is essentially allows this band of light in to the body, whereas other parts of the light spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum, whether we're talking about, let's say, green light or yellow light or blue light or ultraviolet light or far infrared energy, what we feel as heat, all of that light generally stops very much at the surface of our skin. OK, and it's getting absorbed by what are called different, what are called chromophores, different compounds that are capable of absorbing that energy or sometimes reflecting that energy. But we have this unique band in there, 600 to 900 nanometres, red and near infrared light energy where our tissue is designed, has evolved over millions of years, not just humans, but mammalian tissue has evolved with this optical window where our tissue is designed to allow that light in to penetrate.

And it turns out it penetrates quite deeply. There's actually quite a big controversy about how deeply that light penetrates. I'm happy to talk in detail about that because it's quite fascinating, actually.

And I spent many weeks on that just to build out, to sort of sift through the controversy and build out how deep this light actually penetrates into our tissue. Surprisingly simple and yet surprisingly controversial. But we allow this light in.

Now, just intuitively, it's sort of, it should awaken some curiosity as to why our biology evolved to allow this light to penetrate into our body. And if you think about it from the perspective of, and actually there's some arguments that have been made in the scientific literature about human hairlessness, the fact that we are not furry creatures, but we evolved to be relatively furless, though some of us are furrier than others, actually evolved also for the purpose of letting more light into our bodies.

[Speaker 3] (9:28 - 9:28)
Interesting.

[Ari Written] (9:28 - 11:12)
Now, the question all of that should arouse is why? What is this light doing once it enters our body? And it turns out it's doing all kinds of really fascinating stuff.

And we can talk about the mechanisms of how this works, but it's interacting with ourselves. These photons of light don't just pass through us. And, you know, they're not just benign or inert, sort of passing through us and doing nothing.

Our cells have figured out how to capture some of this energy, this free energy from the sun and do really useful things with it to produce more energy, to stimulate cascades of growth factors that repair and regenerate cells, to make the more broad principle is to make cells function better. And it seems that this is almost the way I frame it in the book, is that this is kind of it's best thought of not as some random, weird technology where we can just, you know, sort of we have these crazy devices and you can, for some random reason, this light triggers effects, but is better thought of in this evolutionary frame as we evolve to capture this energy from sunlight to do useful, important things in our biology. And it is essentially a kind of nutrient that our cells have evolved to require, just like we require certain nutrients from food. We capture these light nutrients and we improve our cellular function, improve our cellular health and stimulate repair and regeneration processes as a result of capturing.

[Angela Foster] (11:14 - 13:11)
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[Ari Written] (13:12 - 16:12)
Yes, and also in the midday. Sunlight in general is clearly very beneficial for health. Now there has been obviously a campaign that has kind of distorted that basic understanding to make us fearful of the sun for skin cancer and skin ageing, which itself is a whole discussion we could have for an hour, but the broader case is that humans function better when we're exposed to sunlight and that's for a number of different reasons.

We all know this very intuitively. We crave sunlight. We know that we don't feel good when we're locked indoors, deprived of it.

Now, part of that is a circadian rhythm mediated effect. We know that there's seasonal affective disorder, which is a big thing in the UK, also the Pacific Northwest and other more northern latitudes where it's overcast for much of the year or very southern latitudes. We know that we don't feel good when we don't get sunlight and part of that effect is the circadian rhythm effect.

Part of it is likely also mediated through skin mediated effects. There are cascades of effects that happen when light interacts with our skin that affects things like nitric oxide and even neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine affects the nervous system and then another part of that is likely due to red and near infrared light and the deficiency of that part of the spectrum penetrating into our tissues and interacting with our cells and helping those cells to function better. There's probably many more mechanisms to the story, but it's clear that we need lots of light. The band of light in the morning and evening is more red shifted.

There's less blue, there's less UV, so it's less intense light. It's going to be less intense on your skin, less intense on your eyes, and there's probably some differences in how it affects the nervous system and mood and things like that. We're probably yoked to that in a way where certainly getting the specific band of light, the way the overall spectrum shifts in the evening hours before sunset probably is designed to trigger biological processes in us that cue us, that trigger us to shift more into, okay, we're going into nighttime, the time for rest, relaxation and sleep.

But I also, again, want to point out that sunlight also during the daytime in between the hours of morning and evening is also full of red and near infrared light and sunbathing in the middle of the day can get you a whole lot of it.

[Angela Foster] (16:13 - 16:25)
Yeah, I think I saw a study as well, like around, I was looking at a few months back around like being exposed to red light before eating was improving insulin sensitivity after eating. So like even eating outside.

[Ari Written] (16:26 - 16:30)
But, you know, as you were saying, that's Glenn Jeffrey's study. I think he's a researcher out of the UK.

[Angela Foster] (16:30 - 17:41)
There we go. But when we look at, you know, in the UK, for example, so right now it's dark at 5.20pm and it's dark until eight o'clock in the morning in January. It's extremely difficult to get access to light for anyone that works.

You know, I was speaking to my child's teacher the other day. She goes in in the dark and she leaves and gets home in the dark and she's like, I'm fed up with being in the dark. I think that's where red light panels may have some efficacy for making up when we can't get out.

I have a question before that. When you were talking about the different spectrums of the blue light, green light, these other colours, we know that we're exposed to a lot of blue light by nature of being indoors. A lot of the lights are LEDs, are screens and things like that, which I've read as can be damaging and also damaging to collagen production in the skin.

Is part of what we need to do a little bit like when we think about Omega-3s and Omega-6s, we want to have both. Do we need to be exposing and say, for example, if we are exposed to a lot of blue light, is there a need to counter that with some additional red light exposure, for example?

[Ari Written] (17:41 - 21:54)
Yeah, that's a great question and a great way of framing it kind of as that ratio between Omega-6 and Omega-3 or a ratio between blue and red and near infrared light. I think it's a great way of framing it. The reality is we don't have a huge amount of science on this where we can sort of look at the studies that have compared blue light, you know, sort of with and without red and near infrared light.

But this is something that I've long talked about and speculated about for many, many years. And there are a few studies now that have suggested this kind of thing. For example, and it's not just blue, it also includes ultraviolet light.

So there is a science of what's called preconditioning. And that is there are various ways that this can be done. It can be it's it's it relates to the science of hormetic stress.

And preconditioning is essentially exposing the body to a stimulus or to a low level stressor before a bigger level stressor or sometimes, you know, sort of coinciding very rapidly or concurrently. But right before doing a higher level stressor and by doing the sort of preconditioning with that lower level stressor beforehand, you reduce the amount of stress and damage from the bigger stressor after the fact. And one example of this is shining red and near infrared light on skin and or not, you know, so one group where you do this preconditioning with red and near infrared light and then you go expose them to ultraviolet light and you look at how the skin is burned or you get DNA damage as a result of sunburn, as a result of exposure to ultraviolet light, either with preconditioning, with red and near infrared light exposure on that skin beforehand or without. And it's very clear that red and near infrared light exposure, doing that before exposure to UV light, creates this big interaction effect where your skin is much less likely to burn when subsequently exposed to UV light.

Right. So the same this principle that's at play here is the skin is responding to certain wavelengths of light where now it's initiating protective responses that protect it from the potentially damaging effects of other wavelengths of light. And it is very likely, and we have good evidence, as you as you've just alluded to there, that excessive amounts of blue and ultraviolet light can be damaging to the skin, can be damaging to the eyes.

And we know that red and near infrared light essentially kind of push the mechanisms, those same mechanisms, if you look at matrix metalloproteinases, collagenase enzymes, things that are involved in collagen breakdown, skin ageing, the same you could look at mechanisms at the level of the eye that are involved in oxidative stress and things like that. We know that the mechanisms that are sort of the pro-ageing, pro-oxidative stress mechanisms triggered by excessive amounts of blue or UV, red and near infrared tend to do the exact opposite. So logically, what this is hinting at is the spectrum of light matters.

And if you're exposed to lots of blue light, let's say from fluorescent or LED indoor lighting, from computer screens, TV screens, modern artificial lighting more broadly, which tends to have lots and lots of blue and very little or nothing in the red and near infrared range of the spectrum, we're getting an imbalance that's sort of pushing us towards pro-oxidation, pro-collagen breakdown types of activities. And it is very likely to the point of your speculation there that more red and near infrared will sort of counterbalance that.

[Angela Foster] (21:55 - 22:12)
That's really interesting because then that I guess for someone who's listening, how might I use this? If you had a red light panel at home, for example, using the panel in the morning, particularly in darker mornings like January in the UK before going into the office could be beneficial then to provide that counterbalance.

[Ari Written] (22:12 - 22:57)
Yes. Yeah, very likely. Now, I want to be clear that I'm speculating.

I can't I couldn't cite a specific study because it doesn't exist where they've, to my knowledge, where they've actually tested that in a very direct way. But yeah, the broader body of evidence, when we look at the mechanisms of how the light works, either pro-collagenase or anti-collagenase effects where it's inhibiting or or promoting collagen breakdown or, you know, you look basically you look at the effects of blue, the body of evidence and blue and UV on the on the skin or on the eyes. It's very clearly in the direction overall of pro-ageing effects, whereas red and near infrared light, anti-ageing effects.

[Angela Foster] (22:58 - 23:16)
So if we start there, let's start kind of skin level and move in further. If we're looking at the skin, there are the choice of panels or now these red light therapy masks. What are the difference in effects between putting a mask over your face or standing in front of a panel?

[Ari Written] (23:17 - 24:18)
Yeah, this is what the question you're asking here is sort of like the tip of the iceberg or is one singular sort of I guess you could say like branch of the tree of the much larger discussion of how do we select the right type of device for a particular treatment goal? OK, and there's there's a lot that goes a lot of principles that need to be understood in order to answer those kinds of questions in an ideal way. Now, I'm going to do my best to answer your question very directly while sort of hinting at the much broader discussion.

The very direct, simple answer is that as a generalisation for the purpose of facial skin anti-ageing, I would prefer face masks over panels. Now, I'll stop there and you can ask me why and we can go into the broader discussion.

[Angela Foster] (24:20 - 25:58)
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So if we just start there, why is the mask superior? Is that because it's so light? It's not being diffused in other areas.

Why is it superior and what should we look at, look for in a mask?

[Ari Written] (25:59 - 32:08)
OK, so a few technical aspects of this one relates to irradiance of the device, which is actually quite easy to solve using a panel, but there are other issues not easy to solve. So first of all, for a particular treatment goal, you want the right irradiance, which is a measure of the light intensity, essentially the amount of light output per unit time per second that is occurring. And that irradiance, there's an optimal range and it's possible to be too low, which many, many devices are, and it's possible to be too high, which used to be not a big issue, but now has become an issue where many devices on the market are too high.

And there's a whole culture of people promoting the general assumption that the higher the irradiance is, the more effective it is, the more powerful devices. So everybody should get the most powerful device possible. One of the big exceptions to that rule, where it is clearly not true, is skin anti-ageing.

For facial skin, you don't want the highest irradiance possible. You actually want a more moderate irradiance, somewhere in the realm of like 10 to maybe 50, maybe 40 on the high end, milliwatts per square centimetre. OK, and a lot of the panels on the market might be 75, 85, 90, 100.

Many of them advertise that they are 160 or 170. A lot of that's misrepresentation, but that's another problem. But let's say it was true.

Let's say the panel does emit 150 milliwatts per square centimetre. Well, you don't want that on your face. You want a much lower irradiance.

Now, that is a problem that is solvable by simply adjusting, if you have that knowledge and you're not under, you're not operating under the assumption that the more powerful the light is, the more beneficial it is on your facial skin. OK, let's say you have this knowledge that I just explained, that actually you want to lower that irradiance down to somewhere between 10 and 40 or 50 milliwatts per square centimetre, and you adjust your panel accordingly. You won't have specific numbers, and most people don't even know the accurate numbers of the actual irradiance of their light panel to be able to adjust it accordingly.

But let's say you estimated that if I turn my panel intensity down to, let's say, 30 percent of its maximal intensity, you'll probably, with most good quality panels, you'll probably be in the right range for facial skin anti-ageing. Now, so then that irradiance issue is now taken care of. OK, but there are another there's another aspect to this equation, which is the face is not well, I'll put it this way, a light, an LED panel is a flat surface.

OK, the face is not flat. I have all these curves on my face. And what that does when I have a flat panel of light emitting light with light coming at my face this way, well, certain parts of my face that light may hit very well.

The parts that are curved to the sides, like over here, do not receive light very well. So I'm now getting uneven in terms of the light that's being emitted from the device. Let's say it's 30 milliwatts per square centimetre.

But some spots on my face are receiving 30. Some spots are receiving five. Some spots are receiving close to zero, depending on just the angles of my face in relationship to that source of light.

So you could potentially solve that problem by sort of turning your head to the side and doing a treatment. I'm using my panel now on the left side and now I'm using my panel on the right side. But still, you're going to have some uneven aspects of the coverage.

And now it becomes also somewhat inefficient time wise to use a panel for that purpose. So it's possible to use the panel for that purpose. But it has those issues that I just described.

Now, the other aspect of it is there are no studies, zero as far as I'm aware, of actually using an LED panel for the purpose of skin ageing, whereas there are many studies that have used a facial mask for that purpose. So the short version is for those reasons I just explained, the body contouring effect of the mask so that it can conform to the curvatures of the face and deliver light at what are called the right angles of incidence. So you want the light to be sort of parallel as much as possible or perpendicular, I mean, to the surfaces that you want them to penetrate.

The more that you have a bigger angle of incidence where light is kind of, let's say, hitting the side of my face, but from this angle as opposed to this angle, directly perpendicular, the more likely that light is to bounce off, be reflected or what's called remitted to basically not enter, penetrate and be absorbed into the tissues, but to bounce off as opposed to getting it where we want that light to go. So we want the light to be perpendicular.

In general, the principle here is we want the light to conform to the curvature of the surfaces of our body as much as possible, and we want it to be in the right irradiance.

[Angela Foster] (32:09 - 32:47)
It's interesting, isn't it? Because, you know, I have no affiliation with this brand at all, but when we're looking at red light therapy masks, I have an Omnilux mask and I think they have done studies and they don't just do a mask that goes across the face, which as you say, gets the curvature and I like it because you can move around, but they also, I was literally charging them to use because I was trying these, they have these ones that specifically go under the eye. So again, they're like targeting. If someone was to use a red light therapy mask because they want to protect against ageing of the skin or even maybe even try and reverse ageing, what frequency would they need to and what duration in order to see those results?

[Ari Written] (32:48 - 33:02)
Yeah. Um, I want to, I want to comment on one other technical principle that relates to the efficacy of the light since you, since you brought up that little device. I've never seen that before.

That's something that sticks on to the face, right under.

[Angela Foster] (33:02 - 33:17)
Yeah. And it actually has these pads that like, um, I think, I believe have a serum in it. I, it's quite new this cause I've had their mask, but then, yeah, this has, if you imagine it's got like, and it has LEDs in it, it has LEDs in it and you charge it and then you turn it on and put it under the eye.

Yeah.

[Ari Written] (33:17 - 34:44)
Okay. So one of the other principles that goes into this, so I described sort of the angles of incidents and how that influences the likelihood of that light to, to penetrate or not, um, one of the other aspects that relates to that, how efficiently that light will penetrate into the body is, um, the proximity of the light to the surface and including direct contact of the actual light with the surface of the skin. Um, the general principle is the closer something is to the skin and up to the point of actual pressing into the skin, the more, more of that light will tend to penetrate and be absorbed into that skin as opposed to reflecting off. So this is another argument in favour of why you want to use something sort of right on the skin as opposed to a light source that is distant away from it.

So something like that, what you're, what you're showing there that sticks right onto the skin and pressing into it is going to deliver light more effectively. All things being equal. It's a broader discussion there because oftentimes all things are not equal.

Many of the devices that are designed to press against the skin have other limitations and issues that create, um, some, some problems and drawbacks with those kinds of devices. But, um, now the other question you asked, remind me now, uh, tell me again, what was the question you just asked?

[Angela Foster] (34:44 - 35:07)
Yeah. The other question was around if someone's using, because they become a hypopolis, if someone's using a red light therapy mask on their face and they want to reverse skin ageing ideally, or at least limit it, what would be the frequency that they need to use it with? And how long would it take them to see results?

And presumably it's on a constant basis, right? You can't just use it for three months and then give up and expect it to continue.

[Ari Written] (35:08 - 37:50)
So the, the, the two basic categories of wavelengths are red and near infrared. And, um, the, the very general sort of breakdown of that is that near infrared light penetrates more deeply than red light does. Um, so as a good rule of thumb, like as a, as a heuristic, that's generally good to operate from the deeper, the tissue you're trying to affect, the more you want to shift your wavelengths that you're using towards near infrared, as opposed to red.

Okay. Um, and the principle could be stated in reverse. The more you're trying to affect things more on the skin surface, more superficial skin deep sort of stuff.

Um, the more you might want to use prioritise red light because to the extent you're using near infrared, uh, more of that light will penetrate through the skin to deeper tissues to be absorbed in tissues beneath the skin, as opposed to at the level of the skin. Okay. So that is the sort of black and white version over simplification of the principle at play here.

The nuance to this is that both work for both purposes, that red light can also affect deeper tissues and near infrared light can also affect superficial tissues, and we know that near infrared light in some of these masks has also shown in some of these, in some of the research to affect and benefit skin health and skin regeneration and anti wrinkle effects at the level of skin pro collagen effects at the level of the skin.

So it's not a black and white thing where only red wavelengths work and you don't, you don't want near infrared or for deep tissues, only near infrared wavelengths work. Both are great for both purposes, but the principle is more of a shift towards red wavelengths, 600 to 700 nanometres. The predominant ones that you'll see are probably 630 and 660 nanometres, uh, as being the best in the context of skin superficial sort of issues.

And I mean, superficial in an anatomical way, I don't mean it in a judgemental way. Uh, and a superficial means closer to the surface. Um, and more the two, again, to the extent you're want to treat, you know, tendons and muscles and organs and glands and, um, bones and, um, deliver that light into joints and things like that, the more you would want to prioritise near infrared light in the 800 to 900 nanometre range.

[Angela Foster] (37:51 - 38:27)
Got you. Okay. And then in terms of like how often and how long, if we're, if we're sticking with skin health and then we'll go into deeper tissues, um, did masks.

I mean, a fairly simple, right? Because they have already a timer built in. So they've designed it, whether or not, as you say, this is where I think it's become a minefield for people because certainly there are, there are masks that have come out now and they are much stronger in terms of, and have many more bulbs than say, uh, something like, uh, an Omnilux who maybe have been in the industry for a bit long, quite a bit longer in terms of a face mask, how do we know what to look for and how often do we need to use it?

[Ari Written] (38:27 - 40:56)
Okay. There's a, there's like three things going on in that, in that question. I'll try to break them down.

One, the number of bulbs is actually another technical factor. That's important in this equation. Um, and is why you shouldn't just buy any mask or any device because a lot of them, especially the ones that press up against the skin pads on, on the body or facial masks, one of the big, big, huge flaws in many, I would say most of those products is they have too low of led density.

What that means is there's too big of spaces between each led and what that does. And you can't see it very well because it's pressed up against your skin. So you don't have the sort of perspective to even really see what's going on.

But if you were to look at it, what you'd see is on this patch of skin, let's say my hand here, I'd have one spot of intense light here, and then another spot over here, you know, half an inch or an inch away. And in between would be a cold spot that is getting very little light. So let's say I have with a facial mask on my face, I have 20 milliwatts per square centimetre on this spot of tissue on my face and 20 milliwatts over here an inch away.

But in between, I might have only five or I might have two or I might have almost zero in some spots. So in other words, there are hot spots and cold spots. There is uneven light coverage, and that is a function of the led density of the device.

So one of the things that most consumers won't be aware of when selecting a mask is, is this issue of led density. They might get the cheapest mask because on the on the outside, if you don't look at the spacing of lights, of LEDs, which most consumers will not be sophisticated enough to do because they won't know what I just explained, all masks will essentially look the same. You won't know why one would be superior to another.

You might get the cheapest one then, because why should I spend eight hundred dollars or a thousand dollars on this expensive one when this other one is one hundred and fifty dollars? Right. Well, that makes a huge difference because one is providing even uniform light coverage over your entire face and the other one isn't even coming close to that.

One of them is a solid device proven by research. One of them is a junk device. That's just a waste of money.

[Angela Foster] (40:57 - 41:01)
How many bulbs do you think you would need then for a face? If you're looking at a mask, how many bulbs should I have?

[Ari Written] (41:01 - 41:38)
Oh, I don't know the count off the top of my head. I want to say maybe two or three hundred in what I've seen in the masks, but I could be a little off in that number. It might be as high as five hundred.

But what I can tell you is that I know that there are not small differences, but like two hundred or three hundred percent in two to three fold differences in terms of the LED density. Some have LEDs packed in there where they're getting uniform light coverage. Others have big gaps where they don't.

So that's one aspect of the question. Now, redirect me here to the other aspects of your question.

[Angela Foster] (41:39 - 41:42)
Frequency, the frequency and the total duration.

[Ari Written] (41:42 - 46:34)
OK, so both great questions. Frequency is surprisingly, we know surprisingly little, I would say. If I can speak broadly, the challenge with that is we have thousands of studies on this topic, but there's so many different devices and ways that they've been applied in the research that, you know, some some of them might use, well, we did it once a week or once every two weeks.

Others say we did it two times a day. Right. And one uses a laser device and one uses an LED device and one uses a big pad and one uses a tiny little flashlight and different methods of application, different dosages.

There's so much variation in the overall body of evidence that it's really hard to standardise. We don't have the the studies where they've compared like, OK, this one we did two times a day, this one we did once a day and this one we did every other day and this one we did once a week. And we can clearly say, based on this large body of evidence that has tested these different frequencies, that the best frequency is every other day or every day.

It's just that the evidence doesn't really exist in a solid way right now. But broadly speaking, what I can tell you from the sort of established evidence, as well as talking to experts and clinicians who have decades of experience using this. The broad consensus is that every day is generally fine.

Dr. Michael Hamblin, who's my co-author on this book, who's the most prolific researcher in the world on this subject, has said to me in conversation that he thinks twice a day is is perfectly fine in almost every context. So, yeah. And there are others who might argue for every other day or something like that, who might say maybe it's good to take one day of a break in between.

I would say that becomes more important if you're doing like really intense treatments like laser treatments at high dosage, something like that, to the extent you're doing very gentle stuff like a face mask on your face. I would say every day is perfectly fine and maybe even once in the morning, once in the evening is perfectly fine. So that's the frequency issue.

Now, the other question is that you brought up, which is a great thing that you brought up, was the timer on these masks and how it shuts off automatically after whatever, 10 minutes or something like that. That's actually a surprisingly important issue because the dose, the overall dose, the total amount of light delivered to those tissues is not only a function of the irradiance that I was explaining earlier, the intensity, but it's also a function of its irradiance combined with duration, the time of application. That is what delivers the dose.

So we want to be in the right parameters as far as the irradiance, but we also want to be in the right parameters as far as delivering the correct total dosage. You could be in the right irradiance for one minute and, OK, the irradiance was good, but you didn't do nearly enough time to deliver a dose that is actually effective. It's sort of, imagine that you need one gramme of vitamin C to create a certain benefit for your immune system, but you decide to only take 20 milligrammes instead of a thousand milligrammes.

Right. Now you're not going to get the effect of that thing, despite the fact that you took the right substance. You did take vitamin C, you just didn't take it in the right dose.

So we need both to come together. And one of the things that if you're trying to do this with panels, even if you get in the right intensity, you now have to do a mathematics calculation to figure out how much time and how much time on each side maybe of your face to apply the light to arrive at the total dosage that is the ideal dosage. Now, it's not it's not that difficult to do, like it's just it's really simple math, but you also need to know your numbers to do it well.

So what a good quality face mask that has been proven in studies, like something like the OmniLux, like they've done research on it, is it's all it's already built in. You know that it's delivering the right irradiance and the right total dose to create the effect. And that effect has already been shown in studies.

So you can just sort of trust that you're doing it right. Whereas if you try to DIY this stuff with panels and you don't know the irradiance and you don't know the duration, there's some guesswork. And like maybe it's having the same benefit, but I don't know for sure.

[Angela Foster] (46:36 - 46:57)
OK, and when we're looking at then, are there complementary things that you can put on the skin that may enhance the effect? So, for example, things that would come to mind would be GHK copper or possibly I think there's one tiny study that people like to cite around green tea or hyaluronic acid. Are any of these things going to boost the effects of a face mask?

[Ari Written] (46:59 - 50:59)
I haven't seen much in the way of research. There's probably maybe a handful of studies that exist. I haven't seen much in the way of synergism between compounds and red light.

It is a thing that certain compounds can absorb red light and specifically blue compounds like methylene blue being the most famous one, which, by the way, there is some research showing has beneficial effects on skin health. That blue colour, that blue coloured substance methylene blue actually absorbs specifically 660 nanometres. It absorbs red light and it interacts.

There's an interaction between that. There's different contexts where that has been utilised. It's been utilised in what's called photodynamic therapy to combat cancer.

It's been utilised to combat viruses, things like that. There's a lot of people, biohackers experimenting with it who swear that it has certain benefits for the brain. But there is it is real science to show that the wavelengths of light interact with the substance very clearly.

Certain other compounds like spirulina, like EGCG from from green tea. Also can interact with light in certain ways. I have not seen compelling evidence.

That doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't possible. But I have not seen studies where they've shown they've actually experimented with certain substances applied to the skin combined with a face mask where they've shown that that's superior to the face mask alone. It's within the realm of possibility.

GHK copper peptides might be an interesting one also because it is that rich blue colour. Intuitively, that suggests that there might be just the way that light and colour absorbs, if you understand the sort of the optics of it. To have a rich blue colour like blue is basically the opposite of red and which means it is going to interact with that that red light potentially.

So which is the case with methylene blue might also be the case with GHK copper. I don't know for sure if that is the case, but it's possible. And then even if it does, though, there is a question of whether that interaction is a good thing or not.

So, for example, in the in the context of methylene blue, one of the things that happens is a generation of reactive oxygen species that actually can can sort of explode or damage viruses or combat cancer cells. Right. So there is actually an aggressive oxidative reaction when you combine light and that substance.

Now, if it's done in this targeted way, it might target only the bad things and not the good things. But until you have robust research on that, I might be cautious with like let's say I apply methylene blue to my skin and then I apply red light to it. I don't know if that is going to maybe create now an oxidative effect that is actually damaging to my skin as opposed to enhancing.

Maybe those two things act alone in a way that they're each beneficial on their own. But now when combined, maybe they create an oxidative reaction that's damaging to my skin or maybe they created a reaction that is selectively damaging only to like precancerous cells. I don't know is my point.

And as far as I know, I don't know that anybody knows. I don't know that we have the the body of evidence to to speak to that coherently. But I think there are interesting questions and there's clearly interaction there that we should explore and find answers to.

And there may be very beneficial effects from that.

[Speaker 3] (51:00 - 51:01)
Interesting.

[Angela Foster] (51:01 - 51:27)
So I'm just going to summarise before we dive deeper into the body. So from a face perspective, it is better to use a mask. It goes all over the face.

It's to look for a company that has studies behind them so that you know you're getting the right number of bulbs, the right irradiance and that the timer that's on the device is right. And generally a daily thing, possibly twice a daily. But we don't know if you put topical applications, whether those would be good or bad.

The science remains to be seen.

[Ari Written] (51:27 - 52:09)
That was an excellent 30 second summary of a lot of information. I would say, you know, we've focused a lot on face masks in this discussion and skin health in particular. I just want to point out to people that there is a much broader discussion of some of these same principles, LED density, the proper irradiance, the proper dose, the selection of wavelengths for the right purpose.

The issue of devices that contour to a particular body surface, whether it's a joint or a face or the top of your head to deliver light to that issue, to that area in the most effective way. These are all broader principles that apply to every other body part as well, not just the face.

[Angela Foster] (52:10 - 52:39)
Yeah, that makes sense, right? Because we're 3D, as you say, so that makes sense. When we're looking at panels then and we're looking at going deeper into the body.

So, for example, and I know we probably don't have time to dive deep into the science on every single area, but to give people some principles. If they're looking at utilising the device for improving either recovery from exercise or performance in exercise, how might they use that pre or post workout?

[Ari Written] (52:40 - 53:29)
Yeah, it's a good question. I asked, when I asked this to Dr. Hamblin in conversation with him, I liked his answer. He basically said, you know, I broke it down.

I said, well, we have these studies that show that it's beneficial to apply it pre-exercise, these studies that show it's beneficial to do post-exercise. And, you know, what do you think is the optimal protocol? And he's a very, he's a brilliant, he's very eccentric and he's very straightforward and direct in his style of communication.

He just, he often simplifies very complex issues and he goes, why not just do both? You know, and, and I went, well, we can't really argue with that. If, you know, one of the world's most prolific PBM scientists says, you know, just do it before and after.

Why not get both benefits?

[Angela Foster] (53:30 - 53:32)
So before the gym and then come back and do it after.

[Ari Written] (53:32 - 53:33)
That resolved that conflict.

[Angela Foster] (53:34 - 53:41)
Yeah. And how long would you stand in front of it? Right.

Because the panel itself, how long do you stand? What distance are you from the panel?

[Ari Written] (53:42 - 54:16)
Yeah. These are also surprisingly nuanced and potentially controversial questions. The, I'll come back to the heuristic that I gave before, which is that if you want deep penetration of light and more absorption of light, the closer you are to the light source, the better, up to actual skin contact.

The device pressed up to the skin and even pressed into the skin with some pressure will deliver more light to those tissues, especially to deeper tissues more effectively. Now.

[Angela Foster] (54:16 - 54:27)
Ari, can I just stop you right there then? Because that sounds like rather than standing in front of a panel, you could take your panel and lay it on the floor and you don't want to break it. Lie on the panel.

[Ari Written] (54:27 - 57:47)
You got it. And in fact, Dr. Hamlin does exactly that. Um, and what's interesting though, is many people will explicitly advise you to not do that.

And, um, the, I'm going to simply, this is too long of a discussion to have a depth, but the very simple reason why there's two reasons why one is the issue of the led spacing. Um, where in order to get uniform light coverage, you want to be slightly away from the light. Light spreads out as it moves away from its source.

So if you're right up against it, potentially you enhance light penetration, but you might have the issue of hot and cold spots. Okay. Now, another issue is the heating of the tissues.

The device itself will generate some heat as many electrical devices do. And if you're pressed in direct contact with that light, much of that heat may transfer into your body. Okay.

And, um, there is a point at which the heating of the tissues can be problematic and can itself be a source of damage to those tissues, which may inhibit or counteract some of the benefits you're getting from the light. Potentially. Okay.

This is all very device specific. Depends how hot the device is getting, how hot it's, how much it's transferring heat into your skin. If you're in direct contact with it, there's, there's nuances to this discussion.

Um, the, the bigger issue, why it's generally, uh, advised by most people, including device manufacturers to why none of them really say to use the device in direct contact with the skin is the issue of EMS. Um, people are concerned over the electromagnetic spectrum, electromagnetic frequencies, specifically magnetic and electrical fields. They're concerned over the harms, potential harms, fear of harms of those EMFs. And so the idea is if you move six inches away, then you in, for most of these panels, you will have minimal to no, um, EMF exposure.

And so most of the panel manufacturers basically got into this thing of trying to minimise the concern that customers have around exposure to EMS by just saying, well, move six inches away from the device. Our device has zero EMFs once you move six inches away. So use it from that distance.

But there is a genuine question as to the trade-offs there is maybe moving further away from the device does effectively limit or eliminate EMF exposure, but maybe it hinders the delivery of light to the tissues, which is the whole purpose of the therapy. Um, and maybe doing as Dr. Hamblin does and just sort of laying right on the panel and pressing the skin right into it. Um, and by the way, he doesn't have much concern over the EMS, um, is a thing is optimising for that goal is much more important than optimising for the zero exposure to EMS goal.

[Angela Foster] (57:48 - 57:51)
Now he's not worried about the hot and cold patches. He just lay on it.

[Ari Written] (57:52 - 59:06)
Um, no. And there's some nuance to that. So there's so much nuance to this and so much of it is device specific, but the, if you get a panel that has pretty high led density and the overall, um, irradiance of those LEDs is sufficient, it will spread out in your tissues as well.

Meaning, um, as it's penetrating through your tissues, the light will spread and potentially create uniform light coverage. Even if it's not uniform on the surface, it can potentially create more uniform light coverage, um, as it goes deeper into your body and you get a convergence effect. Like imagine, um, if you've ever seen a play, um, just people on stage and you have spotlights, you know, one over here and one over here.

Well, at the source, those lights are not interacting, but as they converge, let's say on the person on stage, now that light is interacting, um, and, and is, um, amplifying the effect at that level of once it's hitting the person on stage. You follow what I mean? And can you, can you kind of visualise how that same effect might happen inside of your tissues beneath the level of the skin?

[Angela Foster] (59:06 - 59:25)
Okay. It strikes me that this could be, well, I suppose. It strikes me that lying on it then could help with like mitochondria in the heart and, um, you know, organs of the body, right.

By lying on it. Then I have a concern over like, could it break? Could it be dangerous?

Could it cause cuts on people? Things like that.

[Ari Written] (59:25 - 1:01:36)
Yeah. Most of them are actually quite sturdy. Uh, I've laid personally on many, many of them, and they're actually very well built as it, there might be exceptions to that.

Don't, don't, don't assume that every brand, I don't know. But the ones that I've put pressure on are actually well built and very sturdy. Um, as far as delivering light to the heart, uh, there's, there's a number of studies that you can do this real easily in like rodents, for example, in animal studies.

Um, but, um, doing it in a human is a bit different. There are some, there, there's some issues with scale that might be hard to sort of grasp, but in terms of the absolute distance that light travels through tissue, let's say that I can get light photons, a meaningful amount of light photons, red and to travel through two inches of depth of mammalian biological tissue, you know, skin and the tissue fad and muscle and the tissues, maybe bone the tissues beneath that, um, two inches in a human.

Is, you know, this much is not that deep. And especially if there's a bunch of bone thick bone, it's probably very little light's going to get through that bone. Whereas in a rodent, uh, it's two inches is very deep.

I can almost deliver a lot of light through the entire torso of a rodent. You, you get what I mean? So in an animal study, I can potentially shine a light and deliver lots of lights to internal organs, to the heart.

In a human, it's much more difficult just through this, this sheer, uh, difference in the scale that we're talking about. Um, now there are studies where they have exposed the heart to this and with a powerful enough device, maybe applied in the right way. And maybe if you're a lean person and you don't have a tonne of muscle or you don't have a tonne of fat over that, um, it might be possible with a powerful enough light, but in general, probably in a human, not going to deliver tonnes of light to the heart.

[Angela Foster] (1:01:37 - 1:01:48)
Okay. What about then fat loss? You mentioned earlier when we did the true or false weight loss, maybe not fat loss.

Yes. How might we use this for fat loss?

[Ari Written] (1:01:48 - 1:04:10)
Yeah. Uh, let me actually just add one interesting nuance to the point I was just making before I answer that, which is there was a recent study that came out actually by Glenn Jeffrey. Where they use some very sensitive equipment to determine how deep light, especially near infrared light penetrates through the whole body.

And they actually found, this is pretty remarkable and will be, it'll be interesting to see if this can get replicated, but they actually found that some degree, some minimal minuscule amounts of light photons can be direct, can be detected here on my, on my back. Now you can't see me on the camera, but I'm pointing to like my spinal area when light near infrared light is shined here on the front of my chest. Okay.

Meaning some detectable amount of light photons are literally travelling through the entire torso of a human being. Now it's important to understand that this is a very tiny fraction of the amount of light that's hitting the surface. So it would, you know, I might have a very powerful light source on this side of my body and only a tiny fraction of that light might be detectable coming out the other side of my body.

But even with that, it is remarkable and an astounding finding to, to show that light can travel through that, that deep through human tissues. The other interesting aspect and nuance to this discussion is the deeper you go into the body, the more you're talking about like internal organs and especially mitochondria rich internal organs like the brain, like the heart. The more photosensitive they tend to be, which means that they're, they paradoxically are way more responsive to even minuscule amounts of light.

So the amount of light that I might need on my skin or to muscle tissue or tendons right beneath the surface of the skin might be way, way higher orders of magnitude higher. In terms of the dose of light needed to create an effect there compared to the dose of light needed to create an effect on these deep internal organs that are way more photosensitive.

[Angela Foster] (1:04:11 - 1:04:24)
That's very interesting before. I mean, a related question to that before you talk about fat loss then is when you're using red light therapy, are the effects on the body systemic? So you might be standing in front of the panel.

Are they systemic across the body?

[Ari Written] (1:04:27 - 1:06:41)
That is another great question. That is a big answer. And the answer, the short answer is yes.

There's very clear evidence and ample evidence. And we know lots of mechanisms, which I discuss at length in the book about how red and near infrared light create systemic effects and create essentially whole body systemic effects that can even affect the function of cells throughout the body and organ systems that were never even directly exposed to or never interacted directly with those photons of light. So as an example, there are many studies, for example, in animals also been done in humans where they can show differences in brain function, improvements in brain health from shining red and near infrared light on the legs or on the abdomen where no light was even directed to the brain directly.

So and there are different mechanisms of how that takes place, of how light can cascade into whole body systemic effects. One is blood mediated. There are things going on in the blood and the immune system.

There's a shift in the immune system from a pro-inflammatory phenotype to an anti-inflammatory phenotype. There is nervous system mediated effects. There are biochemical neurotransmitter mediated effects.

And there are also one of the emerging things that I think is going to be much more talked about and much more researched in coming years and I think is going to turn out to be a very significant player is stem cells. So stem cells are also released into circulation in response to red and near infrared light. And once stem cells are released into your circulation, they can potentially be involved in repair regeneration processes anywhere in the body.

And but we do have very clear evidence, and it is at this point not even controversial to show that there are systemic effects and that light shined on one part of the body can create benefits on other parts of the body that never received the light.

[Angela Foster] (1:06:42 - 1:07:01)
Very interesting. So I want to ask you about a particular protocol to close. But before we do, if you could just answer.

So going back to fat loss, if you wanted to improve fat loss, maybe you're going to do this, I don't know, before exercise, before something like zone two training. How might we use it to enhance fat loss?

[Ari Written] (1:07:02 - 1:11:18)
Yeah, great question. This is a tricky one. It's kind of, it's one of these issues where there's many different devices that have been used to show these effects in the research.

Some are laser, some are even like halogen bulbs where they've shown effects and the mechanisms of how this works are debated. There used to be a theory that it creates sort of pores, holes essentially in the adipocytes in fat cells that cause leakage of the fatty contents. Into the bloodstream.

And I don't know the latest status of whether that is sort of seen as debunked or seen as still is of as a legitimate mechanism of how it works. I don't know that anybody has really clear answers to how it works, but there is clear evidence to show that it does have benefits for fat loss. Now, the broader discussion of that is how could, well, from a thermodynamics perspective, from a calories in calories out perspective, even if light stimulated release of fatty acids from fat cells into the bloodstream, you would still need to be in an energy deficit, in a caloric deficit to actually, at the end of the day, burn off that energy so that it's no longer on your body.

Otherwise, something could potentially just release it into the bloodstream. If you don't burn it, then it's just going to end up back in those adipocytes, in those fat cells, the body will shuttle it back in. So the broader frame in which this discussion needs to be had is that red and near infrared light cannot magically remove fat from your body.

It is still dependent on the overall caloric deficit. What they can do, which I think is a very, very nice effect, is they can synergise with that overall diet and lifestyle, diet and exercise regimen that you're involved in to lose fat. And they can direct fat loss.

They can help direct it to certain areas of your body more than others. So by shining light on a particular area, and there's a phenomenon called stubborn fat, stubborn body fat areas. For men, it tends to be the lower abdomen and love handles area.

And for women, it tends to be the hips and the thighs. Those are sort of the last places, the most stubborn, quote unquote, areas where even if you get really, really lean, it's still very hard to lose fat from that area. You can't sort of drive that last bit of fat loss.

Physiologically, there are several mechanisms of why. It involves certain receptors on those cells and blood flow to those regions. One really interesting, simple thing you could do right now, if you have a thermometer in your house, is go take your skin temperature, like on a part of your body, your face, your arm, your chest, wherever, and then take your skin temperature on those stubborn fatty areas where your thighs, your butt, your lower abdomen or love handles.

And what you'll see is that the skin temperature in those areas is actually several degrees lower than the other areas of your body. And the reason why is that there's less blood flow to those areas. And this is from an evolutionary perspective, these are the areas that the body wants to hang on to fat in the event of famine, in the event of starvation.

So those, the actual anatomically, those areas are designed to be stubborn in their resistance to losing fat. Now, what red and near infrared light can do is they can change the dynamics of that environment in such a way that you can get more release of those fatty acid contents from those areas into the bloodstream. So going back to your thing, This is spot reducing.

[Angela Foster] (1:11:18 - 1:11:22)
This is like what personal trainers tell us we can never do with exercise.

[Ari Written] (1:11:22 - 1:13:18)
That's, that's right. That's, that's, that's kind of what I'm getting at here. Now, um, spot reduction is typically, is, has been debunked in the context of, um, the idea that like doing sit-ups burns fat from your abdomen or doing arm exercise tone, you know, tones, quote unquote, causes you to lose fat from the fat that's on that body part.

And that has generally been thoroughly debunked, meaning it is not a thing that we lose fat from the area that we do exercise on. Um, but this is a different context. This is about altering the environment of the, that stubborn fatty area and to directly drive, um, fatty acid release from those areas into the bloodstream.

And going back to one of the things you said originally, which was like, how should we do this? How should we pair it with exercise? Yes.

I think pairing it with something like zone two exercise where you're predominantly burning fatty acids for fuel during the activity is, would be the ideal way to do it. So you do the red light therapy on those areas right before, or potentially during, if you have a portable device, um, during the activity to create an overall effect where you're hopefully driving more release of fatty acids from those fat cells in that area. That's being exposed to the red light to burn off those fats.

Some of this is very, very, for example, some of this is still, uh, one sec, sorry. Some of this is still very speculative. I just want to be clear about that.

But the overall evidence is that we, we know there, there, there is an effect of red and near infrared light on fat cells. I'm just suggesting a potential way that this could be done. That makes sense to me.

[Angela Foster] (1:13:19 - 1:13:34)
Interesting. So I'd heard something like around the biphasic dose, whether there's like a bell curve, you can do it for too much. I mean, could you have your red light on you for the whole zone two session?

For example, if you're on a bike for 45 minutes, or is there a limit to how much time we want to spend in front of a red light?

[Ari Written] (1:13:35 - 1:15:19)
Yeah. So basically you can overdo it. Uh, certainly like almost anything.

Um, you know, you can, you can drink enough water to put yourself into a coma and cause brain damage. If you drink two gallons of water in the next 10 or 15 minutes. Um, and, and red light, you know, you can exercise too much where you cause damage as well.

You can get too much sun exposure where you cause damage. Red and your infrared light is no different in that sense that it is possible to overdo it and create harm. Having said that it's very, very safe.

And that harm is much more likely to happen when you're using something like a high powered laser rather than a low powered led device. The types of devices you might use while doing an exercise session directly applied to certain areas of your body, more like pads, maybe something like this. Um, but more like the kind of pads that you might strap onto your body.

Most of those are pretty low to moderate irradiance where the, the safe duration of use might be in the realm of anywhere between let's say 10 minutes to in the realm of hours, let's say maybe an hour or two or three. And some of these devices are such are so low in intensity that you could probably have them strapped on all day long and not have any effect. I'm not saying that's a good thing.

I'm saying those are actually too low of intensity and there's a lot of devices like that, but in the optimal sort of irradiance that you're looking at, maybe it's for one of these devices. Maybe it's around 20 milliwatts per square centimetre. You can safely do that for probably a few hours and not experience any, any problem whatsoever.

[Angela Foster] (1:15:20 - 1:15:25)
Any downside and optimally, would it be a 10 minute treatment if you were doing it? Say, for example, you just want to incorporate it in your routine.

[Ari Written] (1:15:26 - 1:15:50)
If I have this device here, this is a device from SunPower LED. This is quite a high power device. Um, and the optimal duration of use for this is probably in the realm of five to 10 minutes on a certain spot.

So, uh, it just, it depends on, um, how powerful of a device you're using.

[Angela Foster] (1:15:50 - 1:16:42)
Um, so I would encourage people to go, there's so much here because we could go on for hours, right? Your book has everything in terms of bone health, eye health, distances, all of these things. I think, um, and I want you to share where people can buy that.

I know that's now out. Um, but first of all, if you just to close, if somebody listening to this is thinking like myself, for example, classically, many of our listeners will be in their kind of thirties, forties or fifties, majority women. Uh, and they're thinking, I want to have good muscle health.

I want to recover quicker. I want to really support my energy and perimenopause. I want to anti-age my skin, um, as well.

Would it be a red light therapy panel in combination with a mask? And what would be the type of protocol to really maximise energy, maximise your fitness, reduce, um, stress, uh, and improve recovery? And college.

[Ari Written] (1:16:42 - 1:18:46)
That's, that's a big one. Um, yeah, there's a lot, a very long answer that we could potentially do in response to that. I mean, I, in, in the book, I've kind of, I spent a hundred or 150 pages breaking down.

Okay. Based on your goals, here's the best devices to use and here's how I use them. Um, if your goal is predominantly facial anti-ageing face mask, if your goal is systemic wellness, anti-ageing, overall health benefits, you want to create an anti-inflammatory effect in your body.

You want to recover faster. You want to sleep better. You want to have more energy.

Um, you want your mitochondria to work better. You want to minimise oxidative stress. You want to stimulate stem cells into circulation to provide overall repair and regeneration throughout the tissues of your body.

Uh, the total dose of light delivered to your tissue, especially when you consider the previous discussion of like non-local systemic effects that the light is, is doing more than just, um, interacting with the specific cells that it's exposed to, but it's creating these cascades of systemic effects. In that context, the total dose of light delivered to the whole body becomes much more important. Whereas if your goal is, let's say facial skin, anti-ageing or affecting a joint in particular, or an injury on a specific spot of your body that the, you, you want to optimise for the amount of light delivered directly to those target tissues.

Okay. So there's two different sort of things we might optimise for total dose to deliver to the whole body or dose delivered to specific target tissues for these general wellness, anti-ageing, uh, benefits. The, the, it is total dose delivered to the whole body that becomes more important.

And, um, that is where a large panel or a whole body pod. I was at somebody's house last night. Who's got a $75,000, uh, whole body pod set up that they, that they go into.

[Angela Foster] (1:18:46 - 1:18:48)
Almost like a sunbed, but it's a red light therapy.

[Ari Written] (1:18:48 - 1:18:51)
Exactly. Yeah. Like a tanning bed.

Yeah.

[Angela Foster] (1:18:51 - 1:18:51)
It feels so good.

[Ari Written] (1:18:52 - 1:19:30)
Yeah. So, um, yeah, those, those would be the ideal, but they're also very expensive. I think the cheapest ones are 15 or $20,000, uh, a whole, you know, whereas a full body panel can deliver potentially similar amounts of, of light and total dose.

Not as comfortable, not as, not as good looking necessarily, not as impressive to your biohacker friends at parties that you might have at your house. Um, but, uh, you can get a big dose of light very effectively with full body panels and it might be, you know, 1500 bucks or 2,500 bucks to do it that way. As opposed to tens of thousands.

[Angela Foster] (1:19:30 - 1:19:34)
Yeah. And that would be like a daily or twice daily, as you were saying in the beginning, right?

[Ari Written] (1:19:34 - 1:19:39)
With a full body panel like that, I would probably say once a day was great.

[Angela Foster] (1:19:40 - 1:19:45)
Once a day. Okay. Amazing.

Can you take it in the sauna with you? Any reason not to take it in an infrared sauna?

[Ari Written] (1:19:45 - 1:20:01)
Um, just maybe the, the moisture. Um, if you've got a sauna that, you know, and, and the heat itself could be problematic. Yeah, it, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it in that context.

Uh, I would probably do it after coming out of the sauna.

[Angela Foster] (1:20:02 - 1:20:28)
Yeah. Separately. Amazing.

Um, the book is the place to go, right? Cause that, that's where you can basically learn about, I think, I feel like we've only scratched the surface, even though there's such, you've been a long interview, um, in terms of really optimising for performance, for anti-ageing, um, all the things we've discussed already, like skin health, um, fat loss, but also I health, um, all of those things, the stem cells. Um, where can people buy it?

Where can they connect with you, Ari? You are such a wealth of information.

[Ari Written] (1:20:29 - 1:21:18)
Yeah. Go to the, go to amazon.com or amazon.co.uk or whatever the local Amazon is in your country and, and get it there. That's the best place.

There's so many, so much confusion, so many bad claims, so much garbage devices, junk devices that are just a waste of money and time. Uh, and I'm really trying to, to reach people with this message to give them clarity so they don't waste their money and time and they can actually get benefits from doing this. So buying the book helps boost it in the algorithm, reach more people.

If you want to write a review for it, that also helps. Um, but yeah, go to Amazon and grab yourself a copy and I promise you are going to be rewarded with clarity in this very complicated area. And you're going to know exactly what kind of device to get and how to use it to, to get the benefits you want.

[Angela Foster] (1:21:18 - 1:21:41)
Yeah, I think it's amazing because especially as it's just becoming a busier and busier space, right. Where people are getting, like we were saying, just with the face mask, right. They're in department stores.

It's just super confusing now. So this is the guide. Um, thank you so much.

We will put a link in the, in the notes below as well so that people can click on that and go and check out the book. Um, and where can they connect with you Ari, your website? Are you on Instagram?

Where's the best place?

[Ari Written] (1:21:41 - 1:21:48)
Yeah. The energy blueprint.com is my main website, but I would say just, just go grab, go on Amazon and get yourself a copy of the book for now.

[Angela Foster] (1:21:48 - 1:21:49)
Amazing.

[Ari Written] (1:21:49 - 1:21:49)
Yeah.

[Angela Foster] (1:21:49 - 1:21:52)
Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of this.

[Ari Written] (1:21:52 - 1:21:53)
Thanks for having me, Angela. It was a pleasure.

[Angela Foster] (1:21:54 - 1:23:17)
I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey to vibrant health and high performance. Make sure you check out the show notes for a summary of all the important links to everything we talked about. And if you enjoyed this episode, hit the follow button and share it with a friend on social media.

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Angela talks to Ari Whitten, the founder of The Energy Blueprint and an expert in mitochondrial health about his comprehensive approach to overcoming fatigue and optimising energy levels by addressing the cellular engines of the body—the mitochondria. 
Ari explains how modern lifestyle factors, such as poor light exposure, chronic stress, and nutritional deficiencies, signal the mitochondria to enter a defence mode rather than an energy-producing mode

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN: