At one point or another, everyone has to deal with sagging skin. While it’s often associated with a drastic change in weight, the aging factor plays a great role here. The fibrosis, over time, loosens and loses its elasticity, leading to sagging jowls or droop skin on the whole body.
So, does red light therapy help sagging skin? Does a face-led mask or red laser light help in maintaining that youthful, tighter skin?
Since keeping youthful skin is important for many of us, people often turn to many methods and creams, including anti-aging creams, that promise great results. But, with the rise of red light therapy and its many health benefits, people are interested in whether RLT helps with sagging skin now more than ever.
Continue reading our article to find out.
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Causes of Sagging Skin
Before elaborating more on what red light therapy is and how it can help with sagging skin, we like to point out why loose skin occurs. The skin can lose its tone and elasticity for many reasons, and here we’ll talk about the most common ones.
Weight loss
The number one reason behind loose skin is weight loss. However, when people imagine someone having sagging skin, they usually imagine someone obese who dropped a hundred pounds and now looks like a different person.
This can sometimes be the case, but the truth is, even if you drop a couple of pounds, chances are you will get some degree of sagging in the skin.
Pregnancy
During pregnancy, your uterus expands, making the belly to noticeably protrude. This sudden and rapid stretching will manifest in sagging skin and stretch marks. In addition to that, pregnancy can weaken the integrity of the connective tissue. The connective tissue is the group of fibers that holds the structure and elasticity of the skin.
The younger the woman is, the easier it will be to deal with loose skin and bounce right back up after pregnancy. However, the average age of having children has increased in recent years, and some women battle with loose skin in their thirties and forties.
Aging
The two main proteins involved in the firmness of the skin tone are elastin and collagen. Elastin is a stretchy component, and collagen acts like a paste that holds the tissues together. Collagen comes from the Greek word “kolla” and means glue.
These two proteins work great as a team and contribute to the skin’s structure. However, as we grow older, the production of these substances diminishes and starts to slow down. This usually happens around the time when a person turns 25.
Smoking
Like every pack of cigarettes with a life-threatening message, we are here to tell you the same. Smoking can cause various deadly diseases and increase your sagging skin and wrinkles.
Nicotine can narrow down blood vessels in the body and prevent major nutrients and oxygen from reaching the skin cells.
In addition to that, the chemicals found in cigarettes can break down collagen and elastin, which means that people who smoke will experience sagging skin much faster than non-smokers. When you smoke cigarettes, the skin will start to get loose on the face, arms, and breasts.
Related: Can BBL Damage Skin?
Does Red Light Therapy Help Sagging Skin
Does red light therapy help sagging skin? Yes, it does. Red light therapy is a new trend and should be a highly effective treatment.
This therapy is also known as photobiomodulation or low-level light therapy. Low-level light therapy has many benefits and may help people treat chronic skin conditions, heal wounds, reduce scars, and, most importantly, reduce aging signs like sagging skin and wrinkles.
The way that red light therapy works is that it uses wavelengths of red light in the range between 630 to 660 nanometers with a combination of near-infrared light that ranges a little higher from 810 to 850 nanometers.
The wavelengths heal the skin from the inside, meaning that the red light stimulates beneficial processes at the cellular level. This type of therapy may be highly effective in restoring the health of the skin tone and reducing the signs of aging.
Red light therapy may tighten loose skin in the following ways.
Increasing cellular energy
Our bodies are made from trillions of cells, and they all have different functions. How one individual cell performs affects the whole body, and restoring the regular operation of the cells is one way of restoring overall health. This includes the sagging skin process and restoring the elasticity and firmness of the skin.
When the cells are low on energy, the condition is known as mitochondrial dysfunction. Mitochondrial dysfunction is when mitochondria or energy factories found within the cells are not producing enough power. All that the cells can do is put all their focus on survival.
The causes behind this condition can be chronic inflammation or oxidative stress. However, the good news is that red light therapy can bring your energy levels in the cells back to average production.
When you leave your skin exposed to red light, it absorbs into the tissue and makes a connection with the light-sensitive chromophores in each cell. The interactions stimulate mitochondria or, in other words, boost the body’s primary energy source.
The primary energy source is called adenosine triphosphate or ATP. Red light therapy can raise the energy level of every cell and help the cells get back to performing at their best. It may repair and regenerate them at total capacity.
Also Read: Will Red Light Therapy Fade Tattoos?
Increasing collagen and elastin
We have already established that when the skin is exposed to red light, the entire body benefits from increased cellular energy production.
However, a couple of cells in the body particularly enjoy and are very responsive to red light. Collagen is a protein that provides firmness to the skin.
Elastin is the protein that stretches the skin. The key to restoring the elasticity and firmness of the skin is improving collagen and elastin production, which red light therapy does safely.
The Final Verdict
There are a couple of things we can do to avoid sagging skin, for instance, never start smoking or reducing caffeine, but some contributors to loose skin are inevitable, like aging. So, does red light therapy help sagging skin?
Absolutely! Exposing your skin to red light may increase the production of collagen and elastin, the two main proteins that maintain the skin tone at a quality level.
Hello! I’m Nicky Rodgers.
Almost a decade ago, I got excited about the idea of employing alternative methods like red light therapy to create a healthier life.
To learn more about it, I did my Certified Light Therapist course from Photonic Therapy Institute and started looking into the intricacies of how light therapy influences several bodily processes. Before I knew it, my interest had become an obsession which resulted in this extensive blog.
Here, I offer countless well-researched articles to help you understand the benefits and uses of light therapy. I hope this information gives you a head start in your wellness journey.