PHOTOBIOMODULATION — even insomniacs can now dream
If you know me, the chances are you will have heard about the TBI* that I suffered almost 7 years ago. My accident was horrid for those close to me — for my family, my friends and particularly for my pal B, who was present with me on the roof that night. Luckily for me, my dormant brain was not cognisant of anything around me for at least a year after the events of the early morning of December 5th, and it’s capacity severely reduced for a couple of years after that.
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs *) can have a host of effects on those that experience them, perhaps the most prominent being on memory, on sleep and on balance/coordination (the two are intrinsically linked). While I do not have the time in this short piece nor the medical expertise necessary to make this anatomically reliable, what I will do is chart one particularly fascinating way I have made it through the post-TBI cognitive havoc; particularly when it comes to sleep:
It is a well-known fact that many people around the world do not sleep well. Thousands of people routinely take sleep-aiding substances (legal and less legal ones), have sleep regimes involving candles, calm music or abstinence from stimulants after a certain time or routinely have a soothing shower or bath just before bed.
What took place when I was came out of hospital though is the precise reason for this article; and for our focus on Photobiomodulation (better known as Red Light Therapy).
Back to 2018 now, and upon discharge from A&E in Bristol’s Southmead hospital; my bodily state was such: mute and confined to a wheelchair. That was January, having suffered my brain injury and coma the previous December. I then spent 5 months at a live-in rehabilitation centre, the Oxford Centre for Enablement (OCE), only the second half of which I can really remember. Amazingly, post-A&E and the recently-discharged stages, my consciousness and my body’s function was improving by the day. It was not long after regaining this awareness of what exactly was happening to and around me that I realised I that every night it was a struggle to sleep. This then worsened the more sentient and aware of things I became (something of a catch 22 perhaps) — and slowly it dawned on me that in fact I was in the throes of insomnia. I still have my parents’ words for a year or two of “night darling, hope you sleep” ringing in my ears.
every night it was a struggle to sleep
Anyone that has ever experienced insomnia though will tell you how far away you are from being helped to sleep by kind words.
As explained above, upon discharge from hospital my sleep regime couldn’t have been much more chaotic. Hours were spent wondering why I was so incapable of falling asleep, and then more hours still spent getting frustrated at that inability. It was a vicious cycle, and one I could not seem to break out of; all the while taking hopeful solace in the gallons of Horlicks’ I was drinking every week.
After some time, even multiple mugs of malted milk sleepy drink stopped having an effect. Scared of putting stronger sleep substances into an immuno-compromised body, I was beginning to make plans for life as an insomniac.
It was at this nadir — when I was at my most sleep-deprived worst — when photobiomodulation came in to my life; a wonder process that would eventually save my sleep, my sanity and indeed me.
I was beginning to make plans for life as an insomniac.
Photobiomodulation (PBM) is the name for a scientific process via which cells are stimulated and grow thanks to the application of light, particularly red light. Red light is applied to cells in the human body in order to stimulate, heal, regenerate them, and / or to protect tissue that is damaged, degenerating, or at risk of dying.
This is when I was introduced to Rupert Molloy*, founder of The Photobiomodulation Studio.
I met Rupert in December of the annus horriblis of 2020 — those horrid, nervy days that seemed to incubate a never-ending procession of bad news. Thoughts and love go out to anybody who lost somebody to or due to Covid, and there is one family in particular that will forever be in my thoughts, and they know that ❤️.
While 2020 was the year of so many nightmares it is hard to keep count, I had had my own nightmare shortly before and so for me 2020 was a fairly consequential year: 2020 for me is the year that I regained my ability to sleep, and the year that my neuro rehab leapt ahead.
Below are some of Rupert Molloy’s* thoughts of our initial meeting when I was still in the throes of cognitive frailty. Jacob is our mutual friend; someone Rupert describes as “the most understanding, thoughtful and tolerant friend that one could have”:
“Tom is tall, he chatters amiably, he smiles, all the while he fidgets. Tom is restless in mind and body by day and by night; he doesn’t sleep more than 2 hours.
Jacob is sure that photobiomodulation will help Tom regain something like normality. Tom is a linguist, Portuguese his principal language, he wants to be a journalist, a writer, however his thoughts are scattered, fragmented, and as he talks one understands the nature of the problem.
The right side of Tom’s skull was fractured, this side is concerned with creativity, writing, art.
It was some 3 years after the TBI that I attended Tom…. Jacob described Tom as being erratic, forgetful, and unable to fall asleep.
^ How significant this, Rupert and my maiden meeting, would prove to be…
→ If I was to tell you — without any context — that something as comparatively simple as wearing a helmet with dozens of infrared lasers on one’s head for 15 minutes, twice-a-day could transform someone from an insomniac into a normal sleeper — you would understandably want proof.
photobiomodulation… twice a day, can turn an insomniac into a normal sleeper
For proof, take a look at two screenshots — taken about a month apart — of my sleep mapping app from 2021 after working the helmet into my daily routine.
Rupert’s instruction was to wear the helmet for 15 minutes at a time, twice a day, which is what I did. I am unsure who was more amazed by the results when we studied them:
(Excuse the language — my phone text is all in Portuguese and has been ever since I fell in love with the language in Brazil in 2017. ‘Na cama’ means ‘In bed’)
Not only did my ‘time asleep’ (‘dormindo’) almost double in just under a month (April 13th - May 9th), but my sleep also increased in two other metrics: sleep regularity (‘Regularidade’) and the time it took to fall asleep (‘Adormeceu após’).
^ Now you get a glimpse of the secret weapon behind my transition from almost nightly insomnia to a 95% success rate when attempting to fall — and stay — asleep.
nightly insomnia to a state of 95% success rate when attempting to sleep.
We now need to consider the science behind PBM:
The pictorial description below explains the process well by showing the what is happening inside of cells when infra-red light is applied to them:
I cannot overstate the magic of PBM.
Whilst now almost always being able to sleep when I want to, the quality and length of my sleep has also seen an almost 100% increase; not to mention the innumerable benefits to my focus and concentration that have been manifest since I began the red light journey.
Medical journal Frontiers.org, published a paper last year entitled ‘The effect of photobiomodulation on the brain during wakefulness and sleep’. There are many interesting lines in the paper, but the précis summarises the important points regarding this still relatively unknown form of therapy:
“the use of red to near infrared light on body tissues, can improve central and peripheral neuronal function and survival in both health and in disease... This impact has downstream effects on many stimulatory and protective genes… Recent studies have shown that when applied during the state of sleep, photobiomodulation can also be of benefit… by improving the flow of cerebrospinal fluid and the clearance of toxic waste-products from the brain.” (Cerebrospinal fluid is the clear, colourless body fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord).
^^ Now you see how a wondrous scientific and medical process — and one that very few people will have heard of — has rescued my sleep, and brought with it improvements for my concentration, focus and my ability to block out background noise. Not only has it made my brain less reliant on sleep, but it has allowed it to get to sleep.
Thank you Rupert Molloy!
Were this a substance, no doubt people would be talking of a new ‘wonder drug’ that had been found.
Were this some kind of new and exciting healthcare procedure, it would be front-page news; hailed by all.
Instead, it is a medico-scientific innovation; one whose supposed complexity and feared intricacy scares people away from discussing it. Believe me, from somebody who has undergone the transition from civilian to wannabe science afficionado in order to understand this wonder process,
PHOTOBIODULATION CAN CHANGE THE WORLD — please join me in spreading the word.
For more info, please have a look through this if interested →
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