Medically reviewed by Karen Wolters, RN and Joanna Fearnley, LPN
Red light massage therapy is non-invasive, painless, safe, effective, easy to administer, and has no known negative side effects. For example, a large 8-inch by 15-inch light therapy device can bring many benefits to your massage therapy practice. The red lights work on the body for more surface area and the infrared lights give a deeper penetration.
It can loosen up the stiff back muscles of a stressed-out client before the massage, so that the strength and pressure of your hand work will not have to be so labor intensive. Or, placed on the hand or leg of a senior in discomfort from pain, that pad’s warm and gentle photons of LED light can do the work of increasing circulation and speeding up pain relief as you massage that client’s other hand or leg. The main applications of red light therapy include, “reducing pain and inflammation, augmenting tissue repair and promoting regeneration of different tissues and nerves, and preventing tissue damage in situations where it is likely to occur.”
And, at the end of your workday, you can place those red light therapy devices on yourself to take out tension, and ease any pain or discomfort that may have resulted from a full day of massages. It’s why more massage therapists are adding red light massage therapy to their menu.
Expand Your Massage Menu
Red light therapy devices can give a whole new dimension to your massage practice, as you now provide an additional service with LED Light Therapy that may augment results when offered concurrently with a massage. Red light massage therapy can also be listed on your menu as an add-on before or after the massage, or as a stand-alone treatment modality. Either way, offering red light therapy sets you apart from the competition and expand your income.
A Winning Partnership: Red Light Massage Therapy
Since massage therapy and red light therapy complement one another, red light massage therapy is very easy to incorporate into your practice — no matter the service you offer your clients. Both modalities support the body’s own natural healing processes to assist in reducing pain and discomfort. And it’s gentle, relaxing, and soothing. It has been proven to bring cellular enhancements that could potentially amplify the benefits of your massages. Used together, these two modalities can be a highly effective strategy for bringing your clients the most benefit.
Red Light Therapy Reduces Joint Pain
There is one very important thing that red light therapy devices can do that massage cannot — in addition to reducing pain in soft tissue and muscle, it can also reduce joint pain, getting into areas where massage may not reach. With red light massage therapy, you can wrap an LED pad around a hip, a shoulder, a knee, an elbow, or an ankle, and provide your clients with a deeper level of pain relief from stiffness, arthritis, or injury than massage alone can achieve.
Using Red Light Massage Therapy In Your Practice
There are three fundamental ways to utilize red light massage therapy in your massage practice: before, during, or after the massage. Your choice of timeframe will probably vary from massage to massage, depending upon the client’s current physical issues, your therapy goals for that client, and what the client wants during a particular session.
Red Light Therapy Before the Massage:
Incorporating light therapy into your session before the massage commences may often be the most beneficial approach for your clients and for you. An effective strategy could be applying pads to body areas with the greatest need for the first 20 minutes before inception of the hand work. As the red light therapy devices are placed directly on the body where relief from pain and stiffness are most needed, these pads will warm up the tissues and trigger the increase in circulation that begins the process of pain relief. Your client’s body will become less tense and less stiff, more relaxed, more supple, and therefore, easier for you to massage once the session starts – saving you some degree of hard work by reducing the forcefulness and pressure of your hand work that, minus the RLT devices, may have been required to achieve similar results.
Red Light Therapy During the Massage:
A second way to incorporate red light therapy is to introduce red light therapy devices during the massage session, usually at the start. Light therapy devices can be held in place on the body by Velcro straps. The gentle warmth of the LED pads will relax muscles, soothe tissue, and help bring the client a deeper degree of relaxation and stress reduction. The LED Light can penetrate into the joints, bringing relief from chronic pain or injury. As the session continues, the red light therapy device could then be shifted around the body to do their work on different areas while you do hand work on other areas.
Red Light Therapy After the Massage:
The last way to incorporate red light therapy is to treat your client with a full twenty-minute red light therapy session immediately after the massage concludes. The client may remain prone on the massage table, or moved to a chair while one or more red light therapy devices are placed on problem areas. Red light therapy will stimulate many cellular processes that support the body’s innate healing ability. And this boost will persist for some time after the conclusion of the red light therapy session.
If you choose to use red light therapy before or after hand work, a larger 6-port controller system from HealthLight’s Clinical Line can operate up to six red light therapy devices simultaneously, enabling an extensive therapy session that can address multiple problem areas at once.
Put Red Light Therapy on Your Massage Menu
In conclusion, incorporating red light therapy into your massage practice is simple and easy to do; is beneficial to your clients; may augment the results of your massage sessions; may save you some intense hand work; and you may use the same equipment for clients and for self-treatment. Also, red light massage therapy has the potential to boost your earnings by expanding your services. So consider adding red light therapy to your massage menu today. HealthLight has many different sized FDA-cleared red light therapy pad options available to suit the needs of any massage clinic, from the smallest to the largest.
Start Your Pain Relief Journey Today
Contact us now and speak with a light therapy expert. They are here to help you find relief at home with soothing red light therapy.
