If your skin is damaged by the sun, you may or may not have resigned because it can't be reversed, but that's not necessarily true. Red light therapy is one of the most effective treatments to rejuvenate healthy skin, restoring it to its radiant, resilient, firm and youthful condition. In this article, we talk about how to repair damaged skin with a therapeutic light.
Red Light skincare can be used alone, or as part of a holistic healing approach that supports skin health at the cellular level. In addition to some good lifestyle choices, it could be the secret to regain and maintain a young skin.
By the end of summer, you might enter the autumn season with a bit of sun damage. No one likes sunburn or peeled skin. All additional UVA/UVB exposures may have challenged your glowing appearance. Here are some ways of recovering, curing and reversing the sun damage this summer
What happened underneath the skin damage.
If your skin is damaged, you want to have it repaired, and you probably want it to happen quickly. But restoring and maintaining healthy skin is no quick fix, and it's not just a beauty thing. It is a question of your overall health. The skin is the biggest and a very important organ within your body, and is your first line of defense against pathogens. It also plays an important role in helping your body retain the necessary water.
When the most external layer of the skin (known as the skin barrier) is damaged, it is weakened and becomes more vulnerable to further damage. If you have already swept away a bad sunburn as a "one-time thing", think again. Deep beneath the reddened skin, UV rays have caused damage to skin cells, which has made them less able to perform their normal functions.
Every part of the body is interconnected. Skin damage can lead to excess moisture loss or bacterial infiltration, which can affect the ability of your organs to do their job. Thus, it is not just the skin that can be damaged by too much pleasure in the sun. Your entire body may suffer to a certain extent.
Let's discuss the causes of skin damage so that you can take steps to avoid a recurrence, before moving on to the use of specific techniques to reverse the damage.
How Do You Know You Have Skin Damage?
Skin damage may occur in several ways. The sun is primarily responsible, but it is not the only one.
Other potential sources of various types of skin damage include irritation from chlorinated pools, household products, or beauty products, all of which can cause burning, dryness, itching, redness, and/or rashes. Generally, avoiding such situations or products is sufficient to stimulate healing.
The skin can also sustain damage from poor nutrition; specifically, a processed diet high in sugar and artificial ingredients. This kind of diet can lead to chronically malnourished cells, which then prioritize survival over other functions like replication or self-repair.
Smoking, excessive substance use, sleep deprivation and chronic stress can also cause skin damage. These damages tend to increase over time, such that they may not become visible for decades.
You know your skin has been damaged when ...
You Have a Suntan.
In small quantities, sunlight is beneficial; for example, it is essential for boosting the production of vitamin D. However, the body knows when it has had enough sun, and it reacts by increasing the production of a pigment called melanin. In people with fair skin, this could be within 5 to 10 minutes exposed to the sun without protection. For persons with very dark skin, the production of melanin increases after 45 to 60 minutes.
The function of melanin is to darken the skin to reduce the absorption of harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. But melanin can't do much to protect your body from UV rays. It is not enough of a barrier to block all UV rays; those that get through (or got through before the body boosted melanin production) can damage the genetic material within skin cells. This causes an increased risk of developing carcinoma, melanoma and other types of skin cancer.
You Have Gotten Sunburned
While the painful redness of sunburn can heal within a week or two, the damage to the skin is lasting. The long-term effects of repeated sunburn include premature wrinkling and sunspots (also known as age spots), which form after UV radiation damages the structural collagen that supports the skin, leading to abnormal melanin production.
Age spots, which are formed after UV radiation damages the structural collagen that supports the skin, are a result of abnormal melanin production. Inflammation can be your biggest enemy when you're dealing with sunburn. If there is rapidly swelling in the area of the burn, this could result in long-term sun damage, and provoke other skin conditions.
Is it Possible to Reverse the Damage to the Skin?
In many cases, the answer is yes: Skin damage can be reversed with a holistic approach. This means not just relying on topical treatments like oils or creams, but rather, supporting your body at a cellular level.
The body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself, but this process must be supported—or at least not interfered with. You will be most successful in supporting your skin from the inside out using a variety of therapies and approaches.
Add Light Therapy to Your Skin Care Routine
Red light therapy is a painless and natural approach that has roots in ancient sun therapy. But unlike natural sunlight, which exposes the skin to UV light, red light therapy uses only the wavelengths of light that have been widely studied and are known to stimulate positive biological processes in the body.
One of the main ways in which red light can heal skin damage is through the revitalizing cellular activity. Fatigued cells don't work properly, which means they can't do their job at full capacity.
Specifically, the energy generators inside the cells, known as mitochondria, do not produce enough fuel for the cells to function in top form. It is a condition known as mitochondrial dysfunction, and has been associated with the acceleration of aging, muscle malfunction, and even neurodegenerative diseases of the brain.
How does it work?
The human body is very responsive to light. All light is beneficial in some measure (including UV light), but too much may be harmful. Red light and near infrared light (NIR) are exceptions, supported by thousands of independent studies.
Red light therapy involves shining red and/or NIR light on the body to stimulate biological processes. These wavelengths, which are part of a specific "therapeutic window", include red wavelengths between 630 and 660 nanometers (nm) and NIR wavelengths between 810nm and 850 nm.
When red and NIR photons absorb into the skin, they interact with the mitochondrial photosensitive chromophores. This stimulates the mitochondria to convert glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is the fuel that cells need to do their jobs, repair themselves, migrate, and replicate. Thus, red light acts as a stimulant to cells, but not in a caffeinated way, that has a temporary effect.
The systems of the organism are directly interdependent, and stimulating high functions in one system may stimulate functions in other systems. If you boost the functioning of cells in the lymphatic system, for instance, you also boost the functioning of skin cells that have now had their “trash service” restored and they are no longer burdened by built-up waste and toxins.
As for how red light specifically helps the skin, is by stimulating optimal cell function, reduces inflammation and stimulates circulation and production of collagen/elastin, three key components of healthy skin.
How Red Light Therapy Repair Sun Damage?
The Red light therapy uses a specific wavelength of red and near infrared light to activate the body's natural healing process. It also increases the body's production of collagen and elastin, which help repair sun damage and other skin concerns like scarring and hyperpigmentation. It also increases the body's natural immune response to help Clearway dead cells and repair damage once. Boosted collagen production smooth and firm skin, helping improve the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Red light therapy doesn't just make more collagen either it is also protects existing collagen helping skin retain its elasticity.
Benefits of Red Light Treatment for Sun Damage.
Common treatments for sun damage include chemical peel and topical creams and gels. However, this can provoke reactions in people with sensitive skin and some tropical treatments like retinol a common OTC solution for wrinkles increase the skin's sensitivity to sunlight. In addition, while the chemical coats are safe their often painful, a chemical scrub trigger the seeding of the upper layer of the skin, often leaving the skin sensitive until healing.
The purpose of these treatments is to increase cell renewal is part of the reason for the skin sensitivity of the effect sensor and to provoke sensitivity. However red light therapy activates the body's natural process for increasing collagen production and tissue damage. Red light therapy has no downtimes and there are no harmful side effects.
RED LIGHT THERAPY CAN PREPARE YOU FOR SUN EXPOSURE.
You may have noticed that the early morning sun has much hotter tones than midday light. This is because the sunlight has to travel further through the earth's atmosphere to reach the surface. Blue and UV light, having shorter wavelengths, are scattered in all directions, while light in the red and near infrared range is capable of penetrating the atmosphere more easily.
This early morning dose of near-infrared light, according to some researchers, could play an important evolutionary role in preparing the skin for more damaging mid-day sun exposure.
There is growing evidence that red light therapy can have a pre-conditioning effect on a variety of functions. Providing treatment before "insult or trauma" can help with a range of issues, including pain relief and post-surgical healing or medical procedure, and athletic performance. This pre-conditioning effect on the skin prior to sun exposure is known as photoprevention. The Photizo Blush and Photizo Skin Care have shown their effect on promoting healthy looking skin and wound repair.
In a 2008 study, 13 participants were pre-treated with red light at 660nm wavelength on one thigh prior to UV exposure of both thighs. The treated areas had significantly reduced erythema (redness) in comparison to the untreated side. The researchers observed a SPF-15-like protective effect as well as reduced post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation.
Conclusion: So priming your skin with red and near-infrared light, are proven to be a good protection for your skin, and in a healthy way. And the even more exiting part of using light as a healing tool, is that you are giving yourself «light nutrition», helping your body from the inside out, or to be more correct, from the cell to cell, helping your own network of builders, to keep your cells healthy, happy and strong. And of course, using a good broad specter sunscreen or UV clouting is important when you are planing to stay outside in the sun. TO BE CONTINUED!