5 replies to this topic

[AnygirlX]

I listened to a bulletproof episode with Steven Fowkes a while back and they touched on light therapy for increased energy. As I tried to research more it all became a little overwhelming and I never figured out what I should use. Several months later I'm back to looking at light therapy for depression. There's plenty of SAD lights out there, but would a near infrared light be a better choice? Any suggestions on the specifications I should look for? I read that 830nm LED lights are a good option, but I don't know how many or what I'm looking for. Oh and part of the reason I didn't want to just use a normal SAD lamp is because I have ADHD and in the last 1-2 years my concentration and cognitive ability have begun to decline. 

[AnygirlX]

And how close to the light do you need to be? I understand that the depth of penetration will be very small so I would assume you wouldn't want the lamp 3' away. How close do you need it? 

[richards2324]

According to Dr mercolas website Dr hamblin says you want 10 millawatts/cm2. That means with a 1w or 1000 mw device if your treating an area of 10 by 10 cm so that gives you 10 mw/cm2(1000mw/100cm2). He goes on the say for deeper tissues you may want 10 to 30 mw/cm2 so that would be a 2 to 3w device with the same surface area. Now there is total Jules which is (mw/cm2)*time in seconds*.001. One website said you want between 3 Jules and 50 jules/cm2. With a 1w device with 100 cm2 being treated you get .6 Jules/cm2 every minute so you need 5 minutes to get the the minimum amount of Jules and 83 minutes to get 50 jules. If you rotated at least 17 spots for 5 minutes per spot getting the least amount of Jules per spot for a total of 50 Jules/cm2 total. So you could do between 1 and 17 spots being in the correct jules/cm2 range.

[richards2324]

Your going to want to go to the research for mw/cm2 and total jules/cm2. And I'm not sure if you could do .6 jules/cm2 per spot which is one minute per spot giving you a minimum of 5 spots to get the recommended mimimum jules.

[Oakman]

I don't know what's best for depression specifically (not personally depressed), but I've used 660nm deep red light, 1-5 cm away from skin (whole body/head) giving ~100 mw/cm2 as measured for 3 min/skin surface. I've tried longer, but I didn't like how it felt.  Used as described, no ill effects with every other day use for months with some breaks. Healing of minor injuries seems to be sped up, and there is extra hair growth. 

 

When shown on the head, I assembled an programmable Arduino variable frequency power supply to give a flashing red light as research shows differences between the effects of steady state light and frequency interrupted light (closed/and/or covered eyes). I thought I'd give it a try and as a bonus it provides a great psychedelic light show in your 'mind's eye'. That might be good when correctly tuned, for depression

Edited by Oakman, 12 September 2018 - 07:52 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

I'm using this 850nm IR illuminator board:

 

https://www.aliexpre...iceBeautifyAB=0

 

You can also get a 940nm board if you like or the same product in a metal housing.

 

I've got to get my meter and make some measurements but I suspect that that board is going to come in around .6 ~ 1W of optical power.  

 

If you are handy with a soldering iron you want to remove the photocell so it runs all the time.  Otherwise, you'll need to cover it over with black paint or tape.  

 

There are also illuminators with higher outputs.  Just search for "IR Illuminator".