Why You Should Start Red Light Therapy in 2026 w/ Scott Chaverri

00:00Part of the reason why I wound up where I am is that I had really bad insomnia, really, in my 20s and 30s. It was terrible. It really just demolishes your quality of life, at least for me, because if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm kind of worthless. And then I figured it out that it was really just this bright light. I grew up with a television in my bedroom, like, I just really bad sleep hygiene habits. Once I started wearing blue blocking glasses, I started dimming the lights in the rooms, you know, at sunset. Like, my sleep has been great ever since. It's just so crazy to me that I struggled for that long, and it was something so simple.

00:30What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. Welcome back to another episode of The WarriorBabe Show. And today, everyone, I'm super excited for the guest that I have here with us. I'm sitting down with Scott. He is a founder and CEO of the Mito Red Light. He's one of the leading names in the red light therapy and personally a brand that I've talked about before on this podcast and episodes. And, you know, I'm an owner of the product as well. Scott is on a mission to make clinical grade light therapy more accessible to people. And in this conversation, we're going to dive into how red light supports energy recovery. We'll dab a little bit into hormones and long-term health. And so, yeah, Scott, welcome to the show. I'm excited that you're here.

01:21Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Cool. So before we dive into like all of the science and applications and everything like that, which everyone listening to this, I'm going to dive into like different buckets with Scott here. We'll dive into like why red light matters. We'll dive into mitochondria and stress. We'll dive into like the central nervous system, nervous system regulation, hormones and sleep. But before I dive into all of that, Scott, what first got you interested in red light therapy and what made you decide to like dedicate your life's work to helping people understand this type of technology?

01:59Oh, well, it kind of goes back. Well, I would say I've been a biohacker at heart since I was a teenager, actually, and really super interested in health and wellness as a teenager. I had bad acne. And I struggled with it pretty much into my late 20s. And so I just have a genetic predisposition. But I also now know that some of my lifestyle and diet habits were contributing to that. But even going back to my teenage years, I was trying to solve my own health and wellness issues or my own health issues, which were acne.

02:31And then into my 20s, I had really bad insomnia. You know, when you have challenges, you go looking for solutions. So really, so I would say for decades, I've been interested and largely self-taught. And then in 2016, my two-year-old son was diagnosed with cancer. And that was just a total nightmare. And anybody that's ever been through something like that is familiar with something called caregiver fatigue or caregiver exhaustion and just the stress and the anxiety around that whole situation.

03:07I mean, I was just I was in bad shape and I was looking for things that I could do to just feel a little bit better, sleep a little bit better. And I stumbled upon red light in 2017. So about about a year in and I started I just bought a panel and I started using it. And I just noticed that, you know, I just helped a little bit with my mood. It helped a little bit with my sleep. Just having that 10 minutes of self-care time, you know, and kind of getting away from the storm that we were living. I made a huge difference. And so I was an avid user.

03:39And then in probably early 2018, I wanted to buy more red lights because I was spending a lot of time, you know, when you have a panel, you spin around, you got to do upper body, lower body, front, back. You spent a lot of time that I didn't have kind of trying to shine the light on your body. So I went out into the market to buy more and I actually got sticker shock by how expensive they were. And that was really kind of like, well, I was wondering if I could build these myself for, you know, and just have something more accessible. And it turns out that we could. So I prototyped for six months and we launched in early 2019 with just very, very simple products.

04:18And for me, it was like, I know that I want red and near infrared light. I know that I want a certain amount of it. How can I do that as inexpensively as possible? So we had very no-frills products in the beginning. They didn't even have timers or anything, mechanical switches, you know, very so basic. But now it's been, we're seven plus years in and our product portfolio has grown and we've definitely added a lot more bells and whistles to our products. But we still have very entry-level price-wise products, you know, because again, like for me, I want everybody to have a red light in their home.

04:49And I think eventually we will get there. I think it's going to be kind of a mainstay in homes throughout the world. And so we want to at least, we want to make it as accessible as possible. So we've got very simple, well-designed products, but that are still relatively inexpensive compared to some of the other products that are out there. Yeah. Yeah. You guys definitely do. It's very easy and accessible. The one that I have, it's like up into my waist high, like, and so I sit in front of it and that's, that's great. And it's easy. It's, you can move it around and you can move it to different locations.

05:22I want to get one of the big panels where you just can stand in front of it. That's the ideal. But yeah, I definitely agree with you that it's going to be a staple in people's households in years to come. And you guys are on, you know, on the right track. It's really cool what you've done. And it's also really cool to hear that story that you started off just being more, you were interested in it. You had your experience to make things better for you. And then, you know, you got the opportunity to really dive into it when that hardship came in your life with your, with your child, which I can resonate with you on the caregiver side of things because I had to take care of my grandmother when she was sick.

05:55So I get that. And, and look what you're doing now that you're, you know, you felt firsthand what it feels like to be a user of the MitoRed Light, of your products, of the Red Light. And now you're just trying to get everybody else to really, you know, buy into why this is so effective and so useful. So you guys, it's going to be a staple for sure, but that's really cool. For any way that's new listening to Red Light Therapy, can you just talk about what it is and how it actually works? Sure. So I think zooming back and we've evolved with sunlight for millions or billions of years.

06:28And so when we, when we think about the solar spectrum, it's, it's divided up into kind of three main components. There's ultraviolet light and, and we, we talk about wavelengths of light. So ultraviolet is 200 nanometers to 400 nanometers and nanometers, just a billionth of a meter. So that's the wavelength. And then you've got visible light, which is 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers. And so if you remember high school physics, it's Roy G Biv, but in the, in the direction we're going, it's, you know, violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

06:58And when you get up to 700 nanometers is red. And then, and then we have infrared light and infrared light is 700 nanometers up to just different numbers. So let's just say, say 3000 to 5,000 nanometers, and that's divided into near, mid and far. So those are the main parts of the solar spectrum. And then, and there's different parts of the spectrum have different bioactive properties, or they do different things to our biology. So most folks are familiar with ultraviolet light UVB light needed for vitamin D, for example.

07:29Most folks are generally kind of becoming aware of blue light and its impact on our circadian biology and, you know, and trying to avoid blue light specifically after sunset. So that you don't disrupt your circadian rhythm. And then infrared, red and infrared are actually very interesting, particularly near infrared. They have like unique bioactive properties where they are able to penetrate into the body and essentially act on the mitochondria. And hence the name of our company, Mito Red Light. Mito is short for mitochondria because I'm a very literal person.

08:01And, and literally the, it's, it's fascinating because the shorter wavelengths of light can't penetrate into the body. They get absorbed by melanin and their short wavelength, the longer wavelengths of infrared, they, they can get in, but they get absorbed by water and they get turned into heat. And that's why mid and far infrared are used in saunas because it's infrared sauna. You want that heat generation, but there's a window of red and near infrared light, roughly 600 nanometers up to about a thousand nanometers where you don't get that thermal effect, but you don't get absorption by some of the other chromophores.

08:32So that energy can get into the body and act on the mitochondria. And the short, the short explanation of what it's doing is it's actually helping the mitochondria make energy. The mitochondria are the power plants of the cells. And they basically harness this electromagnetic energy to make ATP. And so the ATP is adenosine triphosphate. It's essentially cellular energy. So what we observe and the way I can get into the mechanism real quick. I mean, it's actually, it's, it's, it's amazing that we know, we know all this stuff because, you know, mitochondria are quite small,

09:03but what happens is these, this energy, these wavelengths of light, they go in and they get absorbed by a chromophore called cytochrome C oxidase. And cytochrome C oxidase is bouncing around in the mitochondria. And it's looking to, it's, it's going to bind with either nitric oxide or oxygen. And when it binds with oxygen and finishes making ATP, it's the fourth phase of cellular energy production. But what happens is, is that it's, if it's bound to nitric oxide, it can't finish making ATP. So what we, the, what we think happens is that the light goes in, it gets absorbed by cytochrome C oxidase and literally vibrates apart from nitric oxide.

09:39So that there's more free floating cytochrome C oxidase to bind with oxygen to finish making ATP. And then we, we observe this by, you know, when we, we study this in the lab, we see an increase in ATP. We also see an increase in nitric oxide. So that would make sense. But the bottom line is that the more ATP, more energy available to your cells, the better they can do their jobs in simple terms. And so we see a photobiomodulation and particularly red and near infrared light therapy studied for so many different things.

10:12Cause in, in theory, if the cells contain mitochondria, which are pretty much every cell in your body, except for red blood cells, they can benefit from the exposure to this, these wavelengths of light. Yeah. I appreciate that scientific breakdown. And also the simpler terms of things is basically it's at a cellular level, helping our mitochondria to keep producing energy and giving us energy essentially. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And, and essentially being more efficient in doing so. But stemming off of that, keeping it on what it actually does.

10:44Like what are some of the most common benefits that you've seen people report back when they start using red light therapy consistently? So there's so many different things. And that's why actually I remember, gosh, it's been such a crazy 10 years for me, but I remember when I first learned about it, I was so skeptical. And I used to be, I don't know, I, I, I'm an Ivy league grad. So I, maybe my ego gets in my way or at least it used to when I was younger. And, and so I was used to be so skeptical and used to think I was, it was so much BS and I was so much smarter than everybody, but I've been humbled. And I've learned, I've learned that I was, I was actually an idiot.

11:15It's just a red light. Like how can it do anything? Right. I mean, that was just where I was coming from, but when it was first discovered, it was actually, it's interesting to understand how it was first discovered. And it's kind of, and it's actually the initial discovery is going to drove the initial research, but there was a Hungarian scientist who was actually the, the laser had just been invented and the first lasers were red. And so he was curious if a laser that he had would do anything to cancer. So what he, he studied skin cancer in mice. So he shaved the mice, implanted tumors, skin cancer tumors, and then he ablated the tumors with, with the red laser that he had.

11:53It was a very low powered laser. So it didn't do anything to the tumors, but he observed that the mice that got the laser, that their wounds healed faster, right? Cause he literally, you know, he wounded them while he was implanting these tumors and also their hair grew back faster. So, you know, it's been very well known and actually very well established for wound healing and for hair growth, you know, and again, cause a lot of the early research was around those. Cause that's what the initial observations were. And, but you know, now we know skin health for sure.

12:24So I would say skin very well studied and used for decades, hair growth and wound healing would be kind of the top use cases that are very well studied. And then anecdotally from our own customers, we hear, we hear better sleep a lot, which is also very interesting to me. And I don't know that there's scientific consensus on exactly why, but I have, there's, there's some strong hypotheses about why, why it helps you get sleep better. That's beyond just kind of circadian signaling.

12:55There's actually, you know, we think it's, it could be increasing melatonin production. And so I can kind of get into that too, if you're curious, but yeah, well, let's, I see it. I want to say that for the bucket that I have around sleep. We'll dive into that definitely a little bit later when I was, you know, talking to you a little bit shortly before we even hit record on this. I was like, the biggest things I'm noticing are my skin is a lot clearer and my hair. So last year, and I had a lot of the listeners know, but I'll fill you in. Like I had, I went, I had to chop my hair because my hair was thinning. They had to do with hormones and stress, but ultimately I went to the mito red light. Like I've had this thing for, I think two or three years now, but I specifically went to sit in front of it more often than not than I was.

13:33And I noticed that my hair was getting stronger just by sitting in front of it for 10 minutes a day. I love it. Yeah. It's super cool. Going off of that, have you, have you seen the red light affect people differently based off of their like age and their activity level or their homeowner state? Or is it just, does that, does that matter? So yes and no, I would say that we, you know, in the studies we do observe differences in different populations and there's various factors for that. And, and some of it would be a conjecture on my part.

14:05So I'll try to, or hypotheses, informed hypotheses, but you know, I don't know that we definitively know exactly why. So a few things, one of the issues is that the specifically red light does get absorbed by melanin. One way that I do different is if somebody has more melanin than say me, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty pale. The melanin will absorb the shorter wavelengths of red light and they'll experience red light differently than me. They'll feel more heat actually in their skin. And it's also, it's very similar to UV light because it's the same exact thing that happens with UV light.

14:36The darker skin folks, they need more UV because it's absorbed by melanin. And so they, they tend to have lower vitamin D levels because they just need more relative to somebody that, you know, ancestors are from Scandinavia. Pretty much a similar effect with respect to red light. And, and also if it's getting absorbed by melanin, it's not penetrating as deep into the body because it's getting absorbed. And so on balance, it could be that folks with darker skin would benefit from less red and more near infrared.

15:08Does the effect is let the melanin absorption is less as you get into near infrared. And so that's actually one of the things that we tried to do. So we designed the MitoAdapt and I don't know which device you have, but the MitoAdapt's got the 11 modes. And what I was trying to do there was give folks a different flexibility in the combination of wavelengths they could use. And also, you know, we collect kind of intake information. So Fitzpatrick skin type and age and some other things. And then, and then we asked them for subjective feedback about how it's going.

15:38Because I'm trying to correlate potentially that, you know, do certain wavelengths work better for certain populations, you know, because we don't know exactly. And so that we're trying to gather data. I mean, we're doing what we can to, and so that's, it's in the works. But, you know, I need tens of thousands of data points before I can start really deciphering that. So I'm working on it. So I think about this a lot in terms of non-responders, because, you know, we do get a fair amount of non-responders. And I have some hypotheses about why that might be. And even some of the literature. So I was actually, so we just did a deal with Austin Matthews.

16:09I mean, he's a phenomenal hockey player and just really top tier athlete. And I was doing some research because I was writing a blog article about performance. And so I was just doing more research about performance. And a lot of the performance research that I've done, it seems that it really, red light really seems to move the needle if you're an elite athlete or if you're not an athlete at all. But for kind of the, I don't know, like kind of the moderate exercise people, it doesn't move the needle that as much, which I just find very interesting, right?

16:41Like I actually, if I, before kind of really doing a deep dive in that particular research, I would have guessed that probably the elite athletes would have been the hardest to see an effect because they're already, they're already elite, right? And they're already like performing at such a high level, like so much harder to, in my opinion, to move the needle once you're really at such a Olympian level. But that's not the case, at least in the research. And it's interesting. It's interesting. So if you're an elite athlete or if you're a sedentary, you get more of a kind of net benefit than if you're kind of in the middle, at least with respect to performance and recovery.

17:13And I'm not exactly sure why, but that's an interesting, that's what the research says at the moment. Another hypothesis I have for non-responders is just, is if there is mitochondrial dysfunction earlier in the electron transport chain, right? So, so just to zoom back, it's a very simple kind of way to think about this. You know, there's four steps to making energy and, or, you know, maybe we describe it as complex one, two, three, and four. Red light therapy works at complex four. And actually we just came out with skincare products. One of the ingredients is methylene blue because methylene blue helps complex one and three.

17:47So in theory, anything that improves the efficiency or function of complex one, two, or three would be synergistic with red light because you have to get the complex four before you can actually realize the benefit. And so one of my hypotheses and very simple ideas that, you know, if you have mitochondrial dysfunction and you're struggling to even get your mitochondria to the fourth step, then you're not in a position to really benefit as much from the red light. You know, it's because you have to kind of get to that fourth step before red light can do its thing. So anyways, that's, I'm really interested in like thinking about what we can do to synergize with red light.

18:23And then again, one of the, and there's a few things like antioxidants and I think mitochondrial support at complex one, two, and three is pretty logical way to synergize with red light. Ladies, are you feeling frustrated with body changes you're experiencing during menopause? It's time to take control. If you're between 45 and 65 years old and tired of struggling with body fat and muscle loss, Warrior Babe is here for you.

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19:24That's warriorbabe.com forward slash apply. All right, let's get back to the show. That's pretty cool that you're diving into this research and developing more to see, you know, non-infective or non-active or however the term you're saying in terms and getting a better understanding of how it can work with that group and all the other research that you're doing. It's really cool. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. We're doing a study in Poland right now just because it's less expensive to do studies in Poland.

19:55But we designed a skincare product, and so we're doing a split face study. So we just kicked it off. I'm super excited. But they're putting our skin serum that we designed on half the face, and then they're illuminating the entire face, you know, five times a week for 12 weeks. And what we're hoping to see is that, you know, the side that just gets the red light sees improvements in skin quality, and we've got five different metrics we're measuring. But the side where we precondition with the serum, which is designed to synergize the red light, we're hoping to see more of a benefit, more of a net benefit.

20:26So stay tuned for that. We got about three, four months before we get the results. But yeah, stay last time we're buying all those products. All right. That's super, super cool. And it's really cool to be inside of your brain and be able to hear and unpack what you're working on and doing and at the depths of where you're getting to. I appreciate that behind the owner and CEO of a company because you really care about what you're working on, not just, you know, for you, but for the people that you're selling the products to and you want to get more answers so that you can serve more people, which is really cool.

20:59Yeah, I honestly just am super curious person. And I love this stuff. I love trying to. Yeah. Developments is the funnest part of my job. Certainly, you know, operations and being organized is not the funnest part of my job. And I'm not good at that. So I like, but I like tinkering with things. I mean, if you come into our office, we've got all sorts of gadgets around. And I'm not really even an inventor type, but I'm pretty good at like understanding the current state and then trying to think of ways to make, I think, you know, improvements.

21:30And I'm also just super curious for my own benefit because I want to look and feel young as long as I can. Yeah. Love that. That's super cool. Okay. I want to dive into, you mentioned blue light earlier. And I know that that is a causer to a lot of people like, you know, after sunset and staying around the blue lights. Like my, for example, like I turned, I have all the Phillips Hughes lights in my space. So at night I turn it to the orange light to get rid of the blue light.

22:00So I want to pick your brain on how things like artificial light, how blue light contribute to like the mitochondrial dysfunction, like, you know, versus, yeah, let's just dive into that. How does that, how does that stuff affect our mitochondria? Yes. Well, this is kind of an emerging area of research and something that I am also very curious and working on solutions. Yeah. Uh, and again, so like I had my own issues, uh, part of the reason why I wound up where I am is that I mentioned earlier, I had really bad insomnia and, uh, really my twenties and thirties, it was terrible.

22:36I mean, I don't know for anybody that's really struggled with it. Like it's, uh, it really just demolishes your quality of life, at least for me, because if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm kind of worthless. And so, but that was happening on a regular basis. And then you get in this, this kind of like self-talk where, oh no, it's going to be another one of those nights where I can't fall asleep. And then like you, it's just, uh, it's just a bad place to be. And then I figured it out that it was really just this bright light, you know, just, just, I grew up with a television in my bedroom. Like I've just really bad sleep hygiene habits, which, you know, and, uh, once I started wearing blue blocking glasses and started dimming the lights in the rooms that I was, uh, you know, at sunset, like my sleep has been great ever since.

23:13It's just so crazy to me that I struggled for that long. And it was something so simple that solved it. So I I've lived that. And I'm a huge fan of, you know, sunsets dim, the lights. Uh, I mean, there's different levels, uh, and, you know, going orange, red, I think is good, but they're, but they're by nature, they're dim. And obviously they don't have the blue, but I don't think it's just getting rid of the blue. I also think it's just lowering the intensity of the light. And then if you really want to up your game, I would suggest having the lights, uh, instead of overhead down on the ground, which is kind of an ancestral thing.

23:47But they also know that the receptors for this are at the bottom back of the eyeball, you know, so they're, they're, they're, you know, primed to receive the light from the sun when it tie up in the sky midday. Right. So, so just another way to kind of optimize it is just have the light lower and on the ground, like a, like a fire, like a campfire would be done on the ground. And so I've been doing this for a while. I mean, uh, I used to, I'm going to have friends come over. Gosh, I've been doing this for like 15 years, the dim light thing. And, you know, my, my whole house turns red at night and it's kind of weird.

24:17Uh, and if you don't know like why, like, and then, you know, the neighbors are like, yeah, seeing people outside walking by your house outside and people like, why is he having a red house? It was strange, but that's how we roll in the Traveria house. But yes, so there's that element of circadian, uh, signaling and most folks are kind of understanding this and there's plenty of great options for low blue light. And even, uh, you know, so you can put things on your screen to, uh, F dot locks or iris is what I use to, uh, change the composition of the light depending on the time of day. So you're not getting that from the screen because the screen is a horrible source of blue light and flickering light.

24:51But then there's the ambient light too, which I think we need to start talking more about because these LEDs, see LEDs get a bad rap, but it's really, uh, and our products are LEDs. And sometimes people get confused, but the reason why LEDs deserve a bad rap is that, uh, it's really the white LEDs, which are used for lighting. And really you should do white in quotes because it's really blue light. And then, uh, typically these white LEDs are where they're made. It's, it's a blue LED. And then another blue LED, which signs, shines through what's called yellow phosphor is basically just a yellow coating.

25:24Yellow and blue makes green. So the blue light goes through the yellow phosphor and it makes kind of this, uh, spectral curve, which is primarily green, but you get a little bit of yellow and red. And because you have, uh, your eyes have three receptors, rods, cones, I always get them confused, but there's red, green, and blue, uh, rods and cones. And if you light up enough of the red, green, and blue, you perceive that as white. And so we've got these very foreign LEDs, like this, these foreign to our biology, spectral composition from these LEDs, which is essentially blue, a little bit of green, and just enough yellow and red to light up enough of the red, uh, receptors where our brain perceives that as white light.

26:05But it is very fake white light and it is devoid of most of the visible light spectrum. It's missing cyan for interest, and it's pretty much, uh, missing yellow, orange, and red. And it's completely missing in infrared. And that is very foreign to our biology. Like you would never in nature, you would, anytime that you're getting sunlight, you're getting infrared. Anytime that you're getting light, period, in nature, you're getting infrared, uh, whether it's from sunlight or from fire. So I would argue that this very short wavelength, high energy light, which is devoid of red and near infrared, is not good for our biology.

26:41And we need to start, uh, having a conversation about that and trying to find solutions that, uh, where we can have our energy efficiency cake, but eat our, uh, near infrared beneficial biology exposure too. Uh, and, uh, I, I didn't phrase that probably as well as I could have, but hopefully you get my point there. Yeah. And I'm working on that too. I mean, I've got some ideas on how we can have high energy, uh, energy efficient light, but we also is more full spectrum and has infrared. I love that. I love that. You got a lot in the works. Quick break.

27:12If you're finding this episode helpful so far, it would mean a lot. If you could hit pause for just a second, leave a quick rating or a review or share it with someone who could benefit from it. Your support helps more women discover these tools to build muscle, lose fat, and feel confident. Thank you so much for being a part of this journey with me. Let's dive back into that sleep comment that you mentioned, how you mentioned in red light therapy seems to have a huge effect on sleep quality. Can you explain from what you know and understand?

27:42I know that there's probably a bit that you want to dive into that with gaining, because you mentioned how it's more like skin, hair, nails, more like the science behind that. Like more specifically, how does it help like the circadian rhythm and, and melaton production? It's really interesting. And, you know, there's a study. I love this study. Uh, it's interesting cohort. It was done in elite Chinese female basketball players. And they, uh, the athletes got exposed to 30 minutes of red light early evening. And then they, uh, they, I think they were, you know, they were athletes. So I think they were measuring kind of their performance and recovery, but they also happened to do like subjective sleep quality scores.

28:17And they also happened to measure their melatonin. Just do a melatonin. And so what they noticed in the athletes is that their sleep quality scores went way up like subjective sleep quality scores. And, but they also noticed that their melatonin went up 67%. And it's like, whoa, that's interesting. Like why? And, and so like, cause you know, when you think of most of the time when we're talking about melatonin, we're talking about dim light onset melatonin. And it's basically the sun sets and, and, uh, and, you know, things get dark and it's, it's, it starts this cascade of signaling to step for the pineal gland to start making melatonin.

28:54And then, uh, we get sleepy and then we, we want to go to sleep. And that's actually that whole process. And that whole cascade, uh, is why, you know, you don't want to like jack it up by, you know, putting bright lights on and messing up that whole natural daily rhythm. But the melatonin story I think is much bigger than the pineal gland. And so the kind of the, the leading theory about this is that if you take a step back and how we talked about earlier, how the red and near and red light goes into the cells, increases mitochondrial ATP production, right?

29:26There's no, the way I described this, there's no free lunch in biological systems. There's always a cost, right? So it's not just like, Hey, more energy. You also have a, an increase in, uh, oxidative stress, uh, in, within the mitochondria within the cells. Nitric oxide is, is a pro-oxidant. I mean, it is an oxidative stressor. I mean, it tends to just get kind of lumped in as being good for, uh, blood pressure and things like that. And for a pump at the gym, in the bedroom, but, uh, it's also an oxidative stressor. So, I mean, it makes sense that we see this increase in ATP increase in oxidative stress.

29:57So what happens is there's, uh, there's signaling that happens from the mitochondria back to the nucleus of the cell, which is like, Hey, we've got more, uh, oxidative stress. You know, like there's, there's a fire going on here. So we should, uh, we should be increasing, we should bring the fire trucks and be increasing our anti-inflammatory and antioxidant production and signaling. And so what is thought is that the main, uh, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory that gets produced is melatonin. Right.

30:27And it kind of makes sense, you know, so you've got like the power plant, you would want the, the coolant kind of built into the reactor just from like kind of design standpoint. So it doesn't, it wouldn't surprise me is, Hey, the energy of the power plants running hotter. Melatonin is produced locally right there to kind of, uh, put out the fire, if you will. And so the thought is, you know, if you're getting a good amount of infrared, uh, red and near infrared light during the day that you're building a reservoir of melatonin, extra pineal melatonin. It's not the melatonin that's made by the pineal gland, but melatonin is made inside the cells.

30:59And so you build this reservoir of melatonin during the day and that, that helps, uh, the, the extra, the, the dim light onset melatonin just be spared to help you sleep better. There's a couple of good papers on it by Russell Ryder and Scott Zimmerman, where they do a much better job of explaining it than I do. But, uh, but that is the, the leading, uh, thought of like how that works. And I know subjectively, like anytime I spend a good amount of time outside, I sleep better. And, and, uh, I think, I think we've all kind of experienced that. And I think it's just that infrared light increasing, uh, melatonin production in the cells.

31:33Yeah, absolutely. I mean, think about the summer days when you're out with your family, like on the beach or something like that. And think about summer naps, like later in the day, you sleep much better being outside. Yeah. Yeah. It makes total sense. What is a good, like effective dose during the day for people like minimum effective dose? Like what would you recommend people like a sweet spot in terms of duration and frequency for people to do? Based on the literature, uh, depending on what it is. Uh, so we measure in joules and joules is, uh, I think it's watts per second. Uh, but so you'd really, uh, one of the things when you're looking for a device, you want to make sure that the, the manufacturer can tell you with independent lab data and properly measured proper measuring equipment, what the fluence is.

32:16Fluence is just joules per square centimeter, but generally speaking, you want somewhere between six joules and 60 joules. And, you know, like six joules might be something like the eyes. You know, it's very interesting. They're studying, uh, red and near infrared light for eye health. Eyes are obviously super sensitive to light. Uh, and so it makes sense that the dose would be quite, uh, low, you know, you don't need a lot. And then also they're loaded with mitochondria. So we usually recommend wearing the goggles or the glasses because, um, you know, our lights are quite bright.

32:47Uh, but if somebody was going to use it for eye health, you know, basically like a minute or something would be plenty. Uh, maybe two minutes. And the reason I say that is our devices at 12 inches put out about three joules per square centimeter. So that's six joules is would be about two minutes up to about 60 joules, which would be about 20 minutes, which is, you know, for like deep tissue or maybe an injury, like an acute, acute problem. I might suggest, you know, doing like a higher dose. Uh, and, you know, and, and so like, uh, a couple of years ago I was putting my daughter's, uh, tricycle together on Christmas and I just use very bad posture.

33:23And, uh, and I hurt my back really bad. And so I was doing like 30 minutes. I was doing a very, very long light session, trying to, trying to get my back to, uh, get back to normal. But that's not what I would recommend for kind of like regular use. I mean, for kind of just daily maintenance, I think 10 with our devices like ours, about 10 minutes, uh, about 30 joules, which again is kind of right in that range is, uh, is probably pretty good. And then we also recommend, you know, taking a day off, like strategically taking a day off each week.

33:53Cool. That's good to know. I'll have to check my joules, make sure I'm at the right joules. Okay. I want to dive a little bit into your perspective on like hormone health, specifically like thyroid function, cortisol, and like testosterone. How does red light influence things like those, like thyroid function, your cortisol, your stress? Um, how does it, how does it help? Well, you know, hormones are super complicated because they're, they, uh, you can't really look at them in isolation because they're all, uh, there's all these feedback loops and, uh, or, you know, like DHT is made from testosterone.

34:26Estrogen is made from testosterone. So, you know, you can't really look at them in isolation and I'm not a, an endocrinologist, but I think, uh, you really need to look at the whole picture and try to understand what's happening with the whole tapestry of your, your biochemistry. But I would say generally that, you know, we've gotten some really good anecdotal feedback about thyroid health. And my, from my, when I looked at the research, the thyroid is actually quite, seems to be quite sensitive to red and the infrared light. So you don't need a lot to move the needle there from what I've been able to tell in the research.

34:56And we've, we've had some anecdotes of folks that were on, that had, uh, underactive thyroid, that were on medication, that, uh, were able to get off the medication, which is like incredible, you know? So again, those are anecdotes and I'm not, I can't make any medical claims, but that's this, you know, this is a customer testimonial. But notice, I remember this, this was going back, gosh, six years. I remember that testimonial. The guy was so happy and I was just like, so humbled. I always feel so humbled when I get that type of feedback. Cause you know, I just sell lights, you know, but like, uh, it does seem to really help people.

35:27You just sell lights. That's such a humbling response. You just sell lights. Uh, now testosterone is an interesting one. And that was actually one of the, you know, I was going through a significant caregiver fatigue, but I'd also just crossed 40. And I was in, and I was interested in thinking about like what I could do for my testosterone. And that was one of the, one of the reasons why I tried red light. Cause I read an article from a famous biohacker at men's health saying that, uh, you know, he shined a red light on his crown jewels and, uh, and it helped with testosterone.

36:02And so I will say for me, I didn't notice anything. Um, and, but I, we've got a few anecdotes of folks that had, uh, maybe cause I already was kind of in like a normal range. We've had a few anecdotes of, uh, you know, guys who have actually had testing done where they were very low and they said they used the light for six to eight weeks and they got into normal. And so maybe, maybe, and then I don't know, again, hormones are complicated. Cause so at the end of the day, like what would be the hypothesis for how that's helping? I mean, if you, if your testicular function is somehow compromised and the lights helping your testes function better and make more testosterone, but if that's not the reason you have low testosterone, then maybe that's not, um, that's not, the light's not going to do anything.

36:44Right. So, I mean, there's a lot of other reasons, whether it's microplastics or who knows, right. For low testosterone is kind of an epidemic. So I don't know that we know exactly what's driving all that. I mean, there's also interesting studies on fertility. I mean, it's pretty fascinating. There was a study in Japan where they just used the light on the back of the head, I believe. And they saw improvements in fertility and the women that were not in the control group. And, you know, it's really fascinating to me. And I don't even, cause you would think like, wouldn't you want to shine the light like on the reproductive organs?

37:14But for some reason, because everything's connected and the body is just an amazing, uh, I don't, I don't like to use the word machine because it kind of, uh, I think it sells the body. But, you know, but for lack of a better term, machine, uh, it's, but it's so amazingly complex and so beautifully, uh, designed by, by God or evolution, depending on your, uh, your belief system. And, and so, you know, I, I, it's, it's just fun to kind of like learn these things and see. And so I guess I'm kind of a long winded answer.

37:45Like I, as far as hormone health, I mean, there's a lot of areas of study. I think just generally speaking, you know, get a light, use it on a regular basis, even if it helps you sleep better. Like there's all these down, there's these kind of like cascading downstream benefits from sleeping better. You know, I don't do, I don't think there's a lot of downside. And actually I would also just suggest try to get outside more and more sunlight. I think everybody's sunlight deficient. So even if you don't want to buy a light, uh, and if you could change your lifestyle to try to spend more time outside, I think you'd probably be better off.

38:16Yeah. Love that answer. I think, uh, what you mentioned there in terms of get a light and see what you're struggling with personally, it's going to be a very individualized approach to why people use these lights. What are you struggling with? Like for me personally, it was hair and you just see it. Maybe it's, you know, sleep for people, or maybe they have is things that they want to improve upon to get a light and they see, they, they see what changes for themselves. Um, so yeah. Right. And it may be something unexpected. And actually I would say oftentimes it is, you know, cause there's, there's some things that people are dealing with where it's just, uh, you know, the light may not move the needle, but, you know, again, that's why, I mean, cause sleep is the number one piece of feedback we get.

38:58And so even if that's all that it did, which obviously I believe it has the potential to do a lot more. I think that could be incredibly profound in terms of your quality of life. And again, I say that it's something that had insomnia for a long time and had terrible sleep. And I just know how, how much that, uh, negatively impacted my quality of life. I want you to talk about Mitra light right now. Mitra red light. I want you to talk about, cause it's, this is the interest industry starting to get very flooded. Um, the market's exploding with red light. I know that you've made a very, uh, affordable and accessible for people, but how can people know what to look like for when they are looking for a red light, like a quality device?

39:34Well, I would say, you know, I mean, it's a little bit of self-serving comment, but go, go with a company that's been around for a while that has a little bit of a track record. You know what, we've been doing this for seven years. So, you know, we kind of know how to build good devices at this point. Boy, if I didn't figure it out by now, like I really, uh, I should go do something else. But, uh, I really believe that like, we have really high quality devices, you know, and it's just one of the things you have to kind of pick it up and feel it. Anytime somebody picks up like our 300 X, they're like, you can just tell this thing is built well and it's meant to be rugged and last.

40:08And you've had yours for several years. And I, I anticipate that if you, you know, continue to leave it in room temperature room and don't like throw it in the bathtub or something, that's going to last several more years. And so, and so really it is an investment. So you want to, um, a device that, you know, is well built because they should last many, many years. I mean, that's the nice thing about led tech is that, uh, the led chips really last a long time. And, and, and, and that's partially because they're so efficient and they really, there's minimal heat generated, uh, which is kind of my next tip, you know, for panels, the state of the art today.

40:43Is that any panel that's going to be putting out a reasonable amount of light is going to have some needs, some sort of active cooling so that those leds can be pushed and, and to deliver that light. And so, you know, I would just be skeptical of devices that don't have some sort of active cooling system. And really the cooling system has multi parts to it. We use heat sinks, you know, under the leds, which are basically just kind of these little fans that help dissipate heat from the led through convection. But then there's also fans running to actually keep airflow. So when you turn your device on the fans, kick on and we want to keep those leds as cool as we can, uh, because a, they're more efficient because as the leds heat up, they actually get less efficient.

41:24And then B, they're going to last a lot longer and, and C, and that's the only way to really properly do it. If you really want what, in my view is a therapeutic amount of light. So non-actively cool devices, I think are generally going to be too low powered. And so they would need to be used right up against the body and for much longer time. Uh, and that, that, that's a, that, and also the penetration will be as deep. So to me, panels are the way to go for durability, versatility, and the power that you get so that the light can penetrate pretty deep. Good response. And obviously everyone that's listening to this right now, you know, you Scott, your, your brain and your passion for this, these products is you can, you can just feel it by the way you've been, we've been chatting throughout this entire conversation.

42:04And I totally agree with you, like in terms of a reputable brand, go with them because you're working and constantly improving and getting better. And you've been around for a long time. Um, so your products are, and I can speak firsthand. Products are great. Where can people find you slash get the products, um, your website, you know, can put it here. So you say, and then I'll put it in the description as well. Sure. So our website, Mito, M-I-T-O, again, short for mitochondria, uh, mitoredlight.com is our kind of a main site. If you're curious to learn more, actually, I just, there's a great book that just came out, which I'll plug.

42:38I didn't even write this, but my friend Ari Witten wrote this. I just got it yesterday and I read because I'm a geek. I read like two thirds of this book yesterday. And I'm not, and I'm not, I'm not that type of like super sit down and crank through a book type of person, but I was just super interested in what was within this book. And I have to say it was really well done. So Ari, kudos to you. Great job. So if you want to learn more about red light, go on Amazon and buy Ari's book, Ari Witten, the ultimate guide to red light therapy, second edition just came out yesterday. But also go to our blog, mitoredlight.com.

43:09You could go to the learn section and we've got articles on all sorts of topics to learn. And, you know, this is, we've been building this reservoir and obviously trying to update it and stay up to date with the science. It's, it's always fun for me to think that first of all, I can't believe it's been seven years, but when I started this, there were about 4,000 studies in photobiolodulation. And now there are almost 9,000. And so just in the seven years, we've gone from 4,000 to 9,000. And it's just, you know, because the, I always get excited about the rapid pace of human knowledge, like, you know, because we're just so many amazing scientists out there doing amazing work.

43:49And so the, and then now with AI on top of that, you know, you can get excited about like, we might be able to really start solving some big problems. But just, you know, my one of my vantage point on that is just the amount of studies that have happened just in the seven years I've been doing this. It's crazy. Yeah, no, that's very cool. Yeah. If you guys are interested, it's really cool to see that there's so many more studies in your research that you're continuing to delve in and make these products even better for people. Scott, thank you for being here first and foremost on, and having this conversation. It's been really cool to be a part of your, you know, dive into your brain and pick your brain and, and break down things in a, in a very, you know, at a very high level and also scientific level and very simple level too as well.

44:30A practical way for people that are listening to this. And if anybody that is, you know, listening and you are new to red light or you're maybe already using it, I hope that with Scott's knowledge and what he shared here with us today helps you think differently about the way that you're supporting your body. And on even on a deeper level and check out the products too, as well, highly recommend them. Scott, thanks for being here. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Real quick. If this episode resonated with you or gave you the push that you needed, I'd love for you to pay it forward. Drop a quick rating and review, share the podcast with someone who might need it and help me keep spreading the word.

45:05Your feedback not only helps to show grow, but it might just be the nudge someone else needs to kickstart their transformation. Thank you so, so, so much for your support.

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