COLOR THERAPY PRECURSOR TO LED THERAPY
Color therapy, also known as chromotherapy, is a form of therapy that uses color and light to treat certain mental and physical health conditions.
We can trace this form of therapy back to the ancient Egyptians in Africa. Ancient Africans considered chromotherapy as part of their mythology and constructed various healing rooms with different colored crystals, oils, minerals, and remedies. Chromotherapy was also often combined with aromatherapy.
It is based upon the assumption that certain colors can impact people's "energy" and impact health outcomes.
At some point, we’ve all experienced the ways in which color can affect us. For some people, seeing the green in nature on their daily run is an instant mood booster or they instantly feel a little better wearing a favorite yellow dress. The practice of color therapy can be traced to Indian ayurvedic medicine, which claims that the application of certain colors can correct imbalances in our body's chakras.
Types of Color Therapy
In color therapy, it is believed that different colors are able to impact the body differently.
Red: Red is used to energize or invigorate a person who might be feeling tired or down. However, red may also trigger people who might already be tense.
Blue: Chroma-therapists use blue to try and influence depression and pain. Darker shades of blue are also thought to have sedative properties and may be tried for people who experience insomnia or other sleeping disorders.
Green: Green is the color of nature, and according to chroma-therapists, it can help relieve stress and relax a person.
Yellow: Yellow can be used to improve your mood and make you more happy and optimistic.
Orange: Orange, much like yellow, can be used to elicit happy emotions from people. The bright warm color is also thought to be able to stimulate appetite and mental activity.
Techniques of Color Therapy
There are two major techniques of color therapy. It can either be done through sight, that is, by looking at a particular color in hopes that it elicits the desired response in your body, or by directly reflecting certain colors on parts of the body.
Color therapists believe that color can enter our bodies either through our eyes or skin. Each color we can see has its wavelength and unique frequency. Each unique frequency has a different effect on people and is used for different purposes. Warm colors are typically used for stimulating effects, while cool colors are used for calming effects.
Chromotherapy is considered a type of alternative medicine treatment. It has been purported to help with a variety of conditions, including:
Stress
Depression
Aggression
Anxiety
Certain cancers
Skin infections
This leads us to LED therapy
LED (light-emitting diode) light therapy treats various skin conditions and concerns, such as acne, fine lines and psoriasis. It comes in different types, including red light LED therapy and blue light LED therapy, which are sometimes used in combination.
LED (light-emitting diode) light therapy is a non-invasive treatment that enters the skin’s layers to improve the skin. In the 1990s, NASA began studying LED’s effects in promoting wound healing in astronauts by helping cells and tissues grow. Today, dermatologists and estheticians commonly use LED light therapy to treat a range of skin issues. Skin specialists often use LED light therapy together with other treatments, such as creams, ointments and facials, to give you the best results.
LED light therapy helps treat a variety of skin concerns and conditions, including:
Mild to moderate acne.
Rough, scaly, precancerous spots on the skin (actinic keratosis).
Wounds.
In some cases, LED light therapy may treat small and superficial basal cell carcinoma (BCC). BCC, a skin cancer, is the most common type of cancer, affecting about 3.6 million Americans each year.
LED light therapy uses various wavelengths that correspond to different visible colors. Each color penetrates the skin at different depths.
Blue light affects the uppermost layer of your skin.
Yellow light penetrates deeper.
Red light travels further into your skin.
Near-infrared light penetrates deepest.
Different LED colors do different things. For example, experts believe:
Red LED light therapy may reduce inflammation and stimulate the production of collagen, a protein responsible for younger-looking skin that diminishes with age.
Blue LED light therapy may destroy acne-causing bacteria (P. acnes).
To see significant benefits, you typically need to have a series of in-office treatments. You may need a treatment each week for about a month. Then you might need maintenance treatments every month or every few months.
LED light therapy isn’t appropriate for everyone, including people who:
Take certain medications that increase their sensitivity to sunlight, such as isotretinoin and lithium.
Have a history of certain conditions, including skin cancer and inherited eye diseases.
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