How we used the best quality red light in Australia to hack our sleep, recovery and meditation for 30 days straight

Welcome to our Aurora Red Light Mini Review. We have been using and testing red light panels for years now and have seen a lot of red light brands come and go. You may not have heard of Aurora yet but they are a reasonably new wellness brand that are a subsidiary of Clearlight Saunas, so it’s quite clear they know about recovery.

Red light therapy is the cheat way to mimic some of the healing benefits of the sun and concentrate it onto a certain part of the body.

Although red light therapy doesn’t completely mimic or replace the amazing benefits of real sunlight, it is the best way to get the healing power of red light and infrared light at home without stepping foot outside.

Of course, we are huge advocates for getting the majority of your light based healing from natural sunlight and certainly do so ourselves, but red light devices like the Aurora Mini offer a convenient way to hack your recovery, sleep and skin health and take it to the next level at home.

In this Aurora Red Light Mini Review, we break down the main features of a red light panel like irradiance, power output, price, warranty, LED count and other technical specifications.

Aurora Red Light Mini Review Australia

We know a lot about smarter recovery for humans and have tried and tested a handful of red light therapy panels for the well documented benefits of improving sleep, speeding up muscle recovery, wound healing, reducing skin marks and acne, boosting testosterone and more.

In fact, we set up the Aurora Mini red light panel at home in Australia and used it religiously for 30 days in a row and the benefits were real. At first, it is easy to be sceptical of red light therapy because it is difficult to notice fast results, except for sleep that is.

Use code Recovery for 5% discount at checkout

The Aurora Mini has been a bit of a game changer for our daily recovery habits. Not only was the user experience amazing with the Aurora Mini, being able to easily move it around the house into the meditation room, next to the bed, on the desk and on the yoga mat, but the noticeable benefits relating to improved sleep and relaxation, increased energy levels, bright and clear skin and faster healing time from some minor injuries has left us wanting more time under the red light.

Bottom Line: 500 watts of LED power with near infrared and red light pumping out of the highest quality compact and portable well priced red light therapy devices on the market.

Get Aurora Mini

Price: $499 (Use code RECOVERY for a further 5% off at checkout)

Strength: 500 watts LED, Near Infrared 850nm, Red 42mil 660nm and 135 mW/cm2

Size: 26.5 x 22 x 6.5 cm

Warranty: 30 day money back guarantee and 2 year warranty

Use code RECOVERY for 5% at checkout

Why Use Red Light Therapy - Does It Actually Work?

Red light therapy does work, and it has the scientific research to back it up. Many people, like us, need to see the science and data before they commit financially to buying something for their health. The science behind how red light therapy actually works is interesting and we can explain it in simple terms…

Red light therapy devices like the Aurora Mini emit specific wavelengths of light, similar to some of the light spectrum emitted naturally by the sun. By emitting this red and infrared light from the device, the light penetrates the skin into the tissues where the magic happens. These wavelengths have been extensively studied and proven to have a wide range of benefits. What is going on beneath the skin? The red light interacts with the body on a cellular level.

The majority of the benefits of red light therapy come from the interaction with our mitochondria, known as the powerhouse of the body, which breakdown nutrients to produce energy (or ATP). When we drench the cells in near infrared and red light, it encourages both greater production of ATP and more protection from oxidative stress through cell proliferation (damaged cell removal and recycling). These mechanisms encouraged by near infrared and red light therapy or LILT (low intensity light therapy) effectively reduce oxidative stress and inflammation which is beneficial for so many reasons. This is why we see a multitude of benefits from red light therapy in the areas of improving skin clarity, speeding up injury and wound healing and exercise recovery which is what we are all about! One of our favourite performance and fitness biohackers, Ben Greenfield, also agrees with the power of red light therapy.

The experts agree on the benefits of regular red light use for sleep, testosterone, healing and recovery

What 30 Days Of Aurora Mini Red Light Use Did For Us

At first we thought 30 days of using the Aurora Mini red light might have been a bit ambitious considering all of the hours of the training, work, study and recovery commitments and practices we already cram into a day. After coming up with the genius idea that we would simply set the red light up in front of us as we meditate, using the red light every day was easy. While some treatments target specific conditions relating to recovery, wellness and injury, red light therapy works by boosting your body’s innate ability to heal itself. What did we find the most positive effect on from using the Aurora Mini for 30 days straight? Read on…

How The Aurora Mini Improved Sleep

Sleep disturbances are a common issue for a large number of Australians. When we lack quality sleep, we lack the ability to recover properly from exercise, maintain energy balance, maintain good mental health and many other things that contribute to overall quality of life. It is widely agreed upon that good sleep is one of the biggest determining factors in good health and wellbeing, alongside optimal nutrition and exercise. We have discussed ways to naturally improve sleep and sleep hygiene for better recovery and performance with simple, actionable practices and habits in some of our other articles.

The aim of implementing sleep hygiene practices like using red light therapy, dimming the lights, blocking out blue light from devices, minimising caffeine intake, cooling the room and bed, infrared sauna use, sufficient daily exercise, teas/supplementation and many more, is to set the optimal conditions for the right response from mind and body to be primed to go to sleep. As we have spoken about, light signalling is perhaps the most important function for determining sleep quality and quantity. In the morning we make sure we do hard exercise within 30 minutes of waking while getting as much morning sunlight into the eyes as possible to set the body clock for the later release of melatonin when we need it most. In the evening we use a combination of red light therapy to mimic the light emitted by a setting sun, and then completely block out light during sleep with a blackout eye mask to ensure the continued release of melatonin.

So here’s what we recorded with 20 minutes of nightly use of the Aurora Mini red light for improving sleep. The red light therapy had an obvious boost to melatonin and overall readiness to sleep, recording an average of 5 minute improvement in sleep latency, the time taken to fall asleep, while using the Aurora Mini in combination with our regular meditation practice. The science is there to back us up on this one too, with one Chinese red light therapy study showing two key points: “red-light illumination positively affected sleep quality and endurance performance variables in Chinese female basketball players; and red-light illumination is a positive nonpharmacologic and noninvasive therapy to prevent sleep disorders after training”.

What else did red light therapy do for our sleep? Apart from making us fall asleep faster, which is a common and frustrating issue for many people, it also left us feeling more well rested in the morning, in comparison to when not using red light therapy. Known as sleep inertia, the level of alertness and grogginess experienced upon waking is a significant factor in determining our desire for caffeine intake to break away from that sleepiness. With a brief exposure to red light using the Aurora Mini panel, we noticed a nice energising feeling and overall shortening of that sleep inertia period, once again, backed by science.

How The Aurora Mini Hacked Our Meditation and Yoga Practice

As we mentioned earlier in the article, finding the time to squeeze in up to 20 minutes of red light therapy in an already packed day was a bit of a challenge. That was until we realised one of the best ways to implement a regular red light therapy session with the Aurora Mini was to use it while doing other practices that were already habitual. There are a number of times we found it useful to incorporate red light therapy into at home, including during the yoga, meditation, podcasting, strength training movements and study sessions that we already did daily.

Meditation is another recovery and wellness practice that we swear by and practice just about every day. We meditate daily using Sam Harriss’ Waking Up App which has improved our ability to stick to a regular practice out of sight. We have been using Waking Up for over 2 years now. How the red light therapy hacked our meditation was by pairing two practices together to multitask and boost the potential benefits of recovery that we were achieving in the period of meditation. The warming red light is the perfect combination to meditate with and there was definitely a distinct energising feeling after meditating with the Aurora Mini red light on at the front of the yoga mat.

How The Aurora Mini Sped Up Healing And Reduced Pain

Red Light Therapy For Hacking Injury

Since we know from the introduction that red light therapy achieves its positive effects on the body from its ability to improve cellular function, we could see how it is also effective at healing injuries and reducing pain from injury. This has been our experience using the Aurora Mini red light panel for 30 days straight indeed. There are various injuries among the team including low back pain from multiple disc protrusions, recent knee surgery for meniscus injury, labral tear in the shoulder, arthritic pain in various areas just to name a few. So what has red light done for us to heal injury and reduce pain?

In short, a lot. To expand, we know that the body is naturally working over time to heal injury and return to its naturally resting state at any point in time. Our cells are constantly being broken down by things like oxidative stress and rebuilt to repair damage, heal injury and fight off the constant threat of disease and illness. It is amazing really! What red light therapy lends a helping hand to here, is through its boosting of ATP production by stimulating mitochondrial function as we spoke of earlier. This in turn has the effect of accelerating our ability to recover and heal from injury. So what did we notice? Using the Aurora Mini red light panel gave a marked reduction in sleep disturbances as a result of waking up less from pain associated with injury. This is somewhat of a double positive, by reducing overall pain we are able to improve sleep which has a positive effect on healing and repair.

Red Light Therapy For Reducing Inflammation

Once again, by hacking ATP production and improving the flow of blood, using red light therapy helps to reduce inflammation which was a noticeable effect of 30 days of using the Aurora Red red light for post training doms and soreness.Increased ATP production and improved blood flow is known to help reduce inflammation by speeding up the healing process. This study shows how red light alters the macrophages of a damaged cell, like one that would be present after normal tears and minor injury from training and exercise, effectively eliminating dead and damaged cells therefore reducing inflammation and promoting healing.

How The Aurora Mini Cleared Skin

Red Light Therapy For Hormesis

Not dissimilar to the mechanisms of healing injury and reducing pain, 30 days of using the Aurora Mini red light panel also showed marked improvements in skin clarity and reducing blemishes. Surprisingly, the boys in the team were most impressed by this benefit! Red light therapy triggers what is called hormesis. By providing an artificial stress, red light therapy use essentially triggers a mild oxidative stress response that causes cells to proliferate and heal the damaged area leading to clearer skin.

Red Light Therapy For Collagen Boost

Further to this, we know you are already aware of the amazing benefits of collagen for the skin. Well, surprise, surprise, red light therapy also boosts collagen levels naturally. So, just to be clear on why it is a no-brainer to incorporate the Aurora Mini red light therapy ino your recovery routine - while we were boosting melatonin levels and getting super relaxed for sleep, healing injury and reducing pain from injury, we were also making our skin flawless. Collagen is the body’s most abundant protein. It’s the major building block in all types of tissue, providing it with structure and robustness. collagen production naturally diminishes with age.

There is extensive knowledge that red light improves skin through collagen production as one of a number of mechanisms in doing so. This study admits that “The application of RLT and ELT provides a safe, non-ablative, non-thermal, atraumatic photobiomodulation treatment of skin tissue with high patient satisfaction rates. RLT and ELT can extend the spectrum of anti-aging treatment”. It is worth noting that this collagen hack that the Aurora Mini red light provided us over the 30 days also extends its positive effects to improving bone, joint and ligament health which speaks to red lights ability to have a broad ranging benefit for exercise performance, injury healing, pain relief and training recovery.

How Long Should You Use Red Light Light Therapy Devices For?

The time and frequency of use for an effective red light therapy session is quite subjective. It is true that any amount is better than none, but what is a suitable amount of time to spend in front of the Aurora Mini?

We generally set our session length at the same amount of time we spend meditating or doing yoga everyday to coincide with a habit that already existed. Although there is no solid scientific research to determine the optimal amount of time to spend on red light therapy, there is also just about zero risk that you can over use the red light device too.

We wouldn’t recommend spending hours in front of the device as the risk v.s reward is probably diminishing in this case. We set out sessions to 10-25 minutes in length and did 1 session everyday of the week to really get the most out of the daily use of red light.

What’s Included With The Aurora Mini?

The Aurora Mini red light device comes with some pretty handy bits of kit to make it easy to set up the panel pretty much anywhere in the house, even with limited space and tools.

The Aurora Mini comes with:

The Aurora Mini red light therapy panel with kickstand
1.5m pairing cable to connect multiple panels for greater surrounding red light
A pulley system to hang the device/multiple devices from a door or wall
Goggles to protect the eyes from overexposure to the bright light
Tools to tighten/loosen kickstand and other maneuverable elements

In terms of non-physical inclusions, the Aurora Mini is backed by a 30 day money back guarantee which is epic to give you the security to be able to commit to buying a red light device and trying it for yourself. All of Aurora’s red light devices also come with a 2 year warranty for repairs and returns which shows the confidence they have in their own product. Free delivery across Australia is also another benefit of buying the Aurora Mini over its competitors.

How the Aurora Mini compares to the larger Aurora Plus for technical specifications

Final Word On Aurora Red Light

After 30 days of using the Aurora Mini red light panel we have essentially started a new habit that is already having such a broad positive effect on a multitude of benefits relating to recovery, sleep and wellbeing. The way we have incorporated red light into our current meditation practice has been the easiest way to implement regular use. For some, this might encourage two completely new positive habits! As our daily hunt for science backed recovery methods continues to uncover the epic gear and gadgets that optimise performance and allow us to reach our full potential, we encourage you to dig a little deeper and do your own research too. We have voted the Aurora mini high on our list of best red light therapy devices in Australia and we stand by the Aurora Mini being a worthy investment in hacking your recovery at home and we can’t really live without it now. Don’t forget to use code RECOVERY at checkout for 5% off.