5 Light Therapy Hacks You Can Do At Home For Better Sleep & Overall Health

Let’s address the elephant in the room: Sure, you may go on a quick morning walk for that initial burst of sunlight, but if you work in an office (or home-office) setting, chances are you’re indoors staring at a screen for the rest of the day. Says Stillman, we tend to miss out on that precious infrared and red light when we’re cooped up indoors—and on the flip-side, fluorescent, flickery office lighting is especially problematic. 

“I want people to get adequate, visible light, infrared, and red light,” he says. A full-on infrared sauna is unrealistic for most of us, (but if you are in the market, our favorites: here), so he recommends investing in a red light panel. “It’s not more than two inches, and you can hang it on your wall. Spend five to 20 minutes in front of it every day, and it sometimes has amazing benefits for people.” (Here’s a miniature model for $299; super pricey, but unfortunately most panels do cost a pretty penny.) 

In terms of health benefits, he references the power of red light therapy for managing back pain (and research backs up the claim), but we should note that these healing benefits are typically seen in professional settings with red light therapy beds. As for home devices, we need more research to make the call, but Stillman still recommends daily red light exposure if you can, just to get those frequencies into your body.