8 Years of Light - Lessons on Red Light Therapy
Alex Fergus
ALEX FERGUS
ISSN Sports Nutrition Specialist / Fitness Instructor / National Record Holder in Powerlifting and Indoor Rowing / Head researcher and author @ AlexFergus.com
With a dynamic background spanning over a decade in the health and fitness industry, Alex Fergus stands out as a multifaceted professional excelling in various domains. Currently based in Sydney, Australia, Alex has dedicated his service as a Health & Sleep Coach to top executives worldwide. His commitment to optimizing not only physical but also mental well-being has made him a sought-after figure in the global professional sphere.
As the Head Researcher and Author of AlexFergus.com, Alex's blog attracts over 3 million readers, offering evidence-based insights. Beyond coaching and writing, he holds National Records in Powerlifting and Indoor Rowing, and is the reigning Australian Natural Bodybuilding Champion. Alex embodies a unique blend of expertise, from gym management to global coaching and competitive sports, making him a standout figure in the health and fitness landscape.
Alex Fergus, with eight years of extensive experience, cuts through the confusion
The future is bright. Red light therapy is taking off because it works. The science is there, people are using it, and they see the benefits. It is hard not to be impressed.
Summary
- Photobiomodulation is scientifically validated by thousands of studies, proving benefits for skin healing, pain relief, systemic vitality, and cognitive health. - Red and near-infrared light can penetrate bone to reach the brain. For optimal results, light must be applied to bare skin, as clothing—especially dark colors—blocks light absorption. - Red light therapy differs from infrared saunas in mechanism. Using them simultaneously is less effective because sweat and water on the skin scatter light, reducing deep tissue penetration. - Power density claims are often misleading due to a lack of industry standards. Accurate measurement requires a spectrometer rather than common solar meters, which often inflate output data. - Select a device based on specific goals: handheld units work for targeted treatment, while large panels are better for full-body recovery. Effectiveness does not always require high cost.
Article
Lessons On Red Light Therapy: Products, Marketing, And Practical Implications
At Biohacker Summit 2023 Amsterdam, Alex Fergus Offered A Grounded Guide To A Booming Wellness Technology
In a conference culture that often rewards novelty over nuance, Alex Fergus brought something rarer to the stage at Biohacker Summit 2023 Amsterdam: hard-earned skepticism shaped by long experience.
Speaking on Saturday, 14 October 2023, in Amsterdam, Fergus presented **“8 Years of Light - Lessons on Red Light Therapy”**, a talk that sidestepped evangelism in favor of practical judgment. A health and sleep coach, researcher, fitness instructor, and record-holding athlete, Fergus drew on eight years spent testing hundreds of red light devices, interviewing experts, and reviewing the scientific literature on photobiomodulation, the formal term for what the market more casually calls red light therapy.
His central message was neither utopian nor dismissive. Red light therapy, he argued, was supported by a substantial and growing body of evidence. But the industry built around it remained noisy, under-regulated, and crowded with inflated claims, confused measurements, and products whose marketing often outshone their actual utility.
The Case For Belief, Tempered By Experience
Fergus did not spend long trying to prove that photobiomodulation merited attention. That ground, he suggested, had already been covered by the research itself.
“Photobiomodulation has literally thousands of studies on the topic, and the fact that it is growing exponentially is a key indication that there is profound credibility behind it,” he said.
That scientific confidence was paired with a personal account of discovery. Fergus recalled first approaching the technology with caution, suspecting it might be another short-lived health fad. Yet after a week of use, he said, he noticed changes that were difficult to ignore: better gym recovery, improved energy, and what he described as a broad, steady lift in vitality rather than the sharp spike-and-crash associated with stimulants.
“After using red light therapy, I noticed a general vitality that is hard to explain,” Fergus said. “It was an increase in energy and wellness throughout the day without any resulting crash.”
The anecdote that seemed to convince him most, however, was more mundane and therefore more persuasive. Long troubled by gum sensitivity, he found that a few sessions appeared to reduce the pain enough to notice. It was not dramatic in the cinematic sense. It was, instead, the sort of small relief that often marks the beginning of conviction.
Beyond Skin Deep: Light, The Brain, And Neurological Promise
If red light therapy still carries a reputation as a tool mainly for skin health, wound healing, or muscle recovery, Fergus made the case that this understanding had become too narrow.
“Red light therapy is not just for skin-level benefits or healing wounds,” he said. “We are seeing amazing success using it to stimulate the brain and improve cognitive function and performance.”
He pointed to devices designed to direct light through the nasal cavity toward the underside of the brain, citing work with dementia, traumatic brain injury, and cognitive performance. He also described a more personal and emotionally charged example: the treatment journey of his son, who had epilepsy.
Fergus spoke about working with Australian neurotherapist Dr Randy Beck, who used QEEG brain scans to identify areas of depressed neural activity and then applied targeted photobiomodulation as part of a broader protocol aimed at stimulation and recovery. Fergus said the results had been meaningful for his family, noting that his son had remained seizure-free for more than a year at the time of the talk.
The point was not that red light therapy functioned as miracle medicine. It was that the field had moved well beyond cosmetic use, and that serious practitioners were deploying it in neurologically ambitious ways.
Can Light Reach The Brain? Fergus Tried To Answer It Himself
One of the more memorable moments in the presentation came when Fergus described his own attempts to test a question often used by critics to dismiss the technology: could red and near-infrared light actually penetrate bone?
Rather than relying solely on published data, he ran his own experiments using a goat skull and a section of cow tibia bone, the latter roughly comparable in thickness to an adult human skull. With a portable device and a spectrometer, Fergus said he was able to show that visible red light and, crucially, near-infrared wavelengths passed through the bone.
The figures were not offered as final proof of clinical effect, but as a rebuttal to the claim that penetration was physically impossible. If photons were getting through bone in measurable quantities, then brain-directed applications could no longer be brushed aside as fantasy.
For a field repeatedly accused of selling colored light as placebo, that mattered.
Bare Skin Matters, And Black Fabric Kills The Dose
If the science made red light therapy sound sophisticated, Fergus was equally interested in the ordinary mechanics of using it well. The details, he suggested, were where people wasted their money.
Among the clearest practical lessons was this: light should hit bare skin whenever possible. Using a spectrometer, Fergus measured how much energy passed through different materials. The results were stark. A black T-shirt blocked about 98 percent of the light. A white shirt allowed more than half to pass through. A towel, thicker but pale, performed better than many people might assume. Dark, dense, athletic fabrics were especially poor.
The lesson was simple enough to feel almost comic in its obviousness. People buy expensive devices, then blunt their effect with clothing choices.
For users unwilling or unable to undress, Fergus suggested white fabric as the least bad compromise. But his broader point was about respecting the basic physics of the therapy. Red light is not magic. It is light. If something blocks or scatters it, results diminish.
Why Sauna And Red Light Therapy Are Not The Same Thing
Fergus also addressed a growing consumer trend: combining red light therapy with infrared sauna.
The pairing made intuitive sense. Both belong to the broader wellness world. Both promise recovery, circulation, and improved function. But Fergus argued that the overlap had encouraged conceptual confusion.
Infrared saunas, he said, operate through far and mid-infrared wavelengths that interact strongly with water and generate heat. Photobiomodulation relies on red and near-infrared wavelengths that act through different mechanisms and are intended to reach tissue more directly. Once skin is wet with sweat, that goal becomes harder to achieve because water scatters the light.
His practical recommendation was unglamorous and sensible: do red light therapy before entering the sauna, ideally while the sauna is heating up.
“Sessions should precede sauna usage,” was the implication running through his advice, because once sweat accumulated, penetration declined.
This was the pattern of the talk at its best. Fergus consistently translated abstract technical differences into use-case decisions ordinary consumers could understand.
A Marketplace Full Of Hype, Half-Truths, And Shiny Numbers
Where the presentation sharpened most was in its critique of the industry itself. Fergus described the current market as a “wild west”, and the phrase felt earned.
There are masks, handhelds, mats, tabletop devices, wall panels, and full-body beds. There are luxury products, budget products, and products that look suspiciously alike. Many, Fergus noted, are effectively adapted grow lights: devices built from existing horticultural panel designs with different LEDs inserted for human therapeutic use.
That did not automatically make them bad. But it did puncture the aura of bespoke innovation that often accompanies their sale.
More troubling, Fergus said, was the widespread misuse of numbers. Model names often imply output or superiority when they may only reflect how much power a unit draws from the wall. Wattage, in other words, is not the same thing as useful therapeutic delivery.
Then there was irradiance, the metric many companies use to prove effectiveness. Fergus warned that these claims were often based on solar meters that were not well suited to measuring therapeutic red and near-infrared output. Spectrometer readings, he argued, were far more reliable, and often far lower than the inflated values used in marketing.
What looked powerful on a product page could turn out to be much less impressive under proper measurement.
He urged buyers to seek spectrometer-verified data, question testing distances, and be wary of companies boasting that theirs was the most powerful device on the market without disclosing how that claim had been established.
Start Small, Stay Sane, And Match The Tool To The Job
For all his technical detail, Fergus was careful not to turn the decision into a consumer anxiety spiral.
“You do not need to spend a lot of money to benefit from red light therapy,” he said. “Just get started, try it on a sore spot, and see the benefits for yourself after a couple of weeks.”
That advice cut against the prestige logic of the wellness industry. Fergus suggested that newcomers begin with a low-cost bulb or a small targeted device rather than a high-priced panel or bed. If the therapy proved useful, they could then scale up according to need.
A handheld unit might be enough for gum pain, a sore knee, or travel. A large panel made more sense for full-body recovery. The key was not to buy the most expensive object in the room. It was to choose the device that fit the actual problem.
“When you find the right tool for your goals and stay consistent, the results can be life-changing,” Fergus said. “It is a way to help stimulate the body and gain performance upgrades from the inside out.”
A Technology Growing Faster Than Its Standards
By the end of the session, Fergus had sketched the paradox of red light therapy with unusual clarity. The science, while still evolving, had become too substantial to dismiss. The use cases had widened from skin and pain to cognition and neurological support. Adoption had moved outward into elite sport, luxury consumer goods, and mainstream wellness culture.
And yet the market remained immature, prone to exaggeration, weak on standards, and filled with devices that asked consumers to trust numbers they had little means to verify.
That is often how emerging health technologies travel into public life: not in a straight line from laboratory to clarity, but through a blur of genuine promise and opportunistic branding.
At Biohacker Summit 2023 Amsterdam, Alex Fergus did not claim to resolve that tension. What he offered instead was more useful: a field guide for staying hopeful without becoming gullible.
Part of Biohacker Summit 2023 Amsterdam