What Does Red Light Therapy Actually Do?

What does red light therapy actually do?

QUICK ANSWER: Red light therapy uses two specific wavelengths of light, red at 630–660nm and near-infrared at 810–850nm, to give your mitochondria, the tiny energy factories inside almost every cell, the signal to produce more energy. There is no heat, no UV and no downtime. You lie under warm light for around twenty minutes. Clients most often report sleeping more easily, calmer skin, less muscle soreness and a steadier mood. It does not suit everyone, which is why a short health check comes first.

I get asked about this more than almost anything else in my practice in Big Bay. Usually it arrives sideways. Someone has seen a red panel on Instagram, or a friend has bought a mask, and they want to know whether it is a genuinely useful thing or just this year’s wellness noise. It is a fair question. So here is the honest version, including the parts that are less flattering.

How it works, without the jargon

Inside almost every cell in your body sit your mitochondria. They are the part of the cell that makes energy, the reason you can think, move, digest and repair. When you have been running on stress for months, they get sluggish, and no amount of early nights quite reaches them. That is why rest sometimes does not fix the tiredness.

Red and near-infrared light are absorbed by an enzyme in the mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase. In plain terms, the light nudges a step in the energy-making chain that stress and inflammation tend to slow down. The cell makes more ATP, its usable energy, and has more capacity to repair itself. This is called photobiomodulation, which is the proper name for red light therapy.

The two wavelengths do different jobs. Red light at 630–660nm works closer to the surface: skin, collagen, wound healing, mood. Near-infrared at 810–850nm goes deeper, into muscle, joint and connective tissue. A good panel gives you both.

It is worth saying clearly what it is not. It is not a sunbed. There is no ultraviolet light involved, so it is not tanning your skin and it is not damaging it. It does not burn, and there is no recovery time afterwards. If you want a second opinion that is not mine, the Cleveland Clinic’s overview of red light therapy is a level-headed place to start.

What people actually notice

I want to be careful here, because this is where wellness marketing usually oversells. Red light therapy is one of the better-evidenced non-invasive tools available, but the strength of that evidence varies a lot depending on what you are asking it to do.

The research is most established around skin (collagen production, tone, wound healing) and around musculoskeletal recovery, which is why you now see it in physiotherapy rooms and sports clinics. It is less settled, though genuinely promising, around sleep, mood and inflammation.

What my clients tell me, which is a different kind of evidence and I will call it that, tends to cluster around four things:

• Sleep. This is the one I hear about first and most often, usually within two or three sessions.
• Skin that looks calmer, less reactive and more even, rather than dramatically different.
• Less next-day soreness after training or a long week on their feet.
• A steadier baseline. Harder to measure, easy to feel: less edge, quicker to settle.

Notice what is not on that list. Nobody has ever described it as dramatic. It is cumulative and quiet, which is exactly what you would expect from something working at the level of cellular energy rather than doing something forceful to your system.

What a session is actually like

Undramatic, which is rather the point. You lie down in front of the panel, wearing protective eyewear. Always, no exceptions, even though the light is not UV. The light is warm but not hot. You do nothing for twenty minutes.

Most people find it deeply relaxing, and a fair number fall asleep. There is nothing to recover from afterwards; you get up and carry on with your day.

A standalone red light session in my practice runs 20–30 minutes, from R350. As an add-on at the end of a BodyTalk or Reiki session it is twenty minutes, and through September it is free with every session booked. More on that at the end.

Who it is not for

This is the section most red light content leaves out, and it is the section I would want to read. Red light therapy has real contraindications. Before any session, free add-on included, I run a short health check, and there are conditions where I will decline.

I will not proceed at all if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, have active cancer or a history of skin cancer, have porphyria, or have photosensitive epilepsy. Pregnancy is on that list not because we know red light is harmful, but because there is not enough safety data to say it is safe. That is a meaningful difference, and I would rather explain it than skip it.

There are also conditions where we can usually proceed, but the protocol changes:

• Thyroid conditions: no light directed at the neck or throat.
• Lupus and other photosensitive autoimmune conditions: GP clearance first.
• A pacemaker or implanted cardiac device: we avoid the chest.
• Photosensitising medication such as Roaccutane or tetracycline antibiotics.
• Surgery in the last three months, or metal pins and plates: we work around the site, not over it.

And several conditions respond particularly well: perimenopause and hormonal conditions such as PCOS and endometriosis, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. The last two we start deliberately short and slow, because sensitive systems can find even a good thing to be too much at first.

Why I added it to a BodyTalk and Reiki practice

Because it reaches something the other work does not. BodyTalk and Reiki work systemically and energetically. They address what the body is holding and how it is communicating with itself. Red light works at the cellular level, on the raw capacity to make energy and repair.

A woman who has been running on stress for two years often needs both. The session settles the system; the light gives the cells something to rebuild with. Twenty minutes of warm light at the end of a treatment, when the nervous system has already come down, is when the body is most able to use it.

It also fits how I want to work: gentle, cumulative, no shock to the system. There is a version of wellness in 2026 that is all extremes: colder plunges, longer fasts, harder protocols. Red light therapy is the opposite of that. Regulated, not extreme.

One client, briefly

A client in her late forties came to me for BodyTalk with the kind of tiredness that sleep was not touching. Perimenopause, a demanding job, the usual accumulation. We added twenty minutes of red light to the end of each session.

She did not report anything dramatic. What she said, about three sessions in, was that she had stopped waking at 3am. That was it. But it was the thing that had been quietly wrecking everything else, and once it shifted, the rest had room to move. Shared with her permission, and deliberately unremarkable, because that is what the honest version of this looks like.

If you want to try it

Through September, every BodyTalk or Reiki session booked at my practice in Big Bay comes with a free twenty-minute red light therapy add-on. My rates have not moved. September simply comes with twenty extra minutes of something genuinely good at the end of your session.

Subject to that short health check, for the reasons above. I will always ask first.

WhatsApp me on +27 76 612 9266 to book, or find me on Instagram at @siemonscharnik. Big Bay, Cape Town.

Frequently asked questions

How many sessions before I notice anything?

Most clients notice sleep changes first, usually within two to three sessions. Skin changes are slower. Collagen turnover takes weeks, so think six to eight sessions before you would fairly judge it. It is cumulative, not instant.

Is red light therapy the same as a sunbed?

No. Sunbeds emit ultraviolet light, which damages skin. Red light therapy uses red and near-infrared wavelengths, with no UV at all. It does not tan you, burn you, or increase skin cancer risk. They are genuinely different technologies that happen to both involve lying under a light.

Can I have red light therapy if I am pregnant?

No. I defer until you are fully finished breastfeeding. Not because red light is known to be harmful in pregnancy, but because there is not enough clinical safety data either way, and that is not a gap I am willing to guess across.