MARTIN: Hello. This is Martin Pytela for Life Enthusiast Health Shots podcast and today I am with John Graham Harper, and John is an awesome fellow. You wouldn't believe the stories he's going to tell. And these are the stories of a young warrior who has caused himself all kinds of injuries. And so early in his life, he found out just how beat up a human body can get and how to best heal it. And I think this is relevant to all of us. Doesn't matter what age and doesn't matter what cause. Healing is a function that our bodies can get help with. John, welcome to the Life Enthusiast Show.

JOHN: Thank you so much. That's a great name for a show, Life Enthusiast. I like this word. I don't hear this enough.

MARTIN: Indeed. Right.

JOHN: Thank you so much.

MARTIN: Right. Tell me, what do you call this gadget that you have put together?

JOHN: I specialize mostly in medical manufacturing and red light therapy in particular and the device that I built is called Lumaflex. Luma meaning light and flex as in flexibility, right? So, Lumaflex is considered the world's number one portable red light therapy device. So you can see here with the light on. And why I say the world's number one is because we've won eight design and innovation awards. And every time you win an award, there's a process to where you're asking, can I have this award? This is why I deserve it. And the story that we tell is all down to why the design, why the material is being used and our education. What are we trying to achieve with our education? And what our vision is to change the world with light therapy. The design, the actual shape of the Lumaflex, this pad for example, the reason why it's exactly this size is to address the number one pain that's in the world which is the lower back pain. So more people have this pain and go in for a prescription or even get surgery when they don't quite need to because it’s such a prominent pain.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah.

JOHN: But we don't want to go too big because we'll lose portability. But we really need to have enough surface area to address that number one pain. So just as an example, the size of it, it took many months to be set on this exact size.

MARTIN: I was going to say, John, we have sold similar gadgets before, but just looking at it, I can see that it has hit the sweet spot between size, too big, too small.

MARTIN: It's a Goldilocks size. I can just see it. And also the flexibility versus not and the density of the lights versus not. A ton of thought has had to have gone into this design because I can just see that you have enough lights to make a difference but not so much to make it expensive and you have the flexibility to allow it to go many places and so on. So, I'm really excited about the design specifically.

JOHN: Yeah. Thank you so much. It took over two years to do the development stage of it.

It was a long strenuous process. There's a protocol, there's an approach that we have with light therapy and the way we want to address treatment and using light therapy as a treatment tool for pain conditions is we want to basically guarantee your bang for buck. 

You pay for a device. There is light that is available, this healing light.  We want to make sure you get as much of this light as possible into your body. So, we require that it touches skin. So, this isn't a device that you have away from you. And not to say that devices that you have at a distance are bad. It's just that when you have a manual and you give this manual as with your product, the power output is there. Everything is measured with instruments. We guarantee a certain amount of power output into your body. Now, based on the distance, if you go an inch away from the device and six inches, 12, the power output drops very significantly.

MARTIN: Yeah.  Is it dropping with the square or is it with the cube of the distance?

JOHN: Yeah, it's dropping because it reflects. So, it is something that light works in a straight line but the benefits that you get from here versus here are wildly different. But it doesn't necessarily mean this way for other things or for other areas of our life. But it's just with light it's a tricky thing. 

MARTIN: Yeah. I'll throw in the word. It's dropping off not with the linear dependency, but it's a geometric dependency. It's just very dramatic. Yeah.

JOHN: Yeah. And it's something like what I remember when I was talking with my science team, one scientist in particular, he said it's like throwing spaghetti on the wall. It's not to say it isn't benefiting you but it's a hit and miss based on person-to-person, distance and clothing and sort of the direction that your body is facing and all of this. So, I just said well, how do we guarantee that in our product line we can give the treatment that people paid for? And they said it has to touch the skin. And then we kind of worked back from there, used liquid silicone to have the device moldable to joints and muscles and it was this whole back and forth process in development where we're trying to achieve this, oh, we have to go back to the drawing board multiple times. And we're like, throw that out. Let's go back to the,

MARTIN: Right. Right.

JOHN: And I remember.

MARTIN: And so yeah, I see that you made it actually washable. So this is easily shareable from person to person, person to animal, anything goes, right?

JOHN: That's right. We're touching skin. There's going to be a sweat, as you're having cellular energy, your body's going to get hot. So, it needs to be sweatproof. But then if it's textile, cleaning it over time, that's going to be an issue. So, sweatproof, let's go even further. Let's make it waterproof. And let's go environment, temperature, and pressure tested. So, then we can then now encourage people to use it anywhere, anytime, on the go.

And then we started working on fundamentals. With light the more you use it, the more you benefit from it. If I'm using light therapy every day and I have an injury I'll heal faster because I'm using light therapy every day. So we say okay, so we're trying to create consistency of use. So the product needs to adapt to different people's lives and allow them to multitask. So that was a key thing in the development phase, was tailoring the product making sure that it was able to fit into multiple different people’s daily routines. So, the environment temperature pressure test was a key thing. It’s like oh, I'm having a shower this is waterproof I'll do light therapy as I'm having my shower, or I'm in the jacuzzi or I'm,

MARTIN: Oh, this is a really cool thing that is not readily obvious but one of the biggest problems of modern days is time, right? So if I multitask it with some other activity it gets done because if I were required to sit in front of a screen, I get to do nothing other than stand naked in front of my light panel. But this one I actually get to apply it to the area of concern, and I can go about my daily business. I can go shopping with this on.

JOHN: Yes, you can take your kids to soccer practice and have it on your back, use it and move it in different areas. Even while you're driving, at a stoplight you can adjust the device and put it in a different area. I've had people even use this as they play golf. They hit the ball, they apply and they walk, I've seen so many great cases for it.

MARTIN: All right. So, this is the how. Let's actually tell about the why. Why does one use it? What is the reason why I would want to have this in my possession?

JOHN: Well, I'm trying to communicate light therapy, it’s natural it's non-invasive as a pain management solution. But we do have people that use it for skin, because we are FDA cleared for skin rejuvenation. There's a lot of beauty practitioners that actually use it for their face.  But then they'll also use it for their knees.

MARTIN: Okay. All right. So, hold on. Should we explain at this point what it actually does in the body before we get into why you want to use it? My thinking of the why is either pain or,  let me explain this way from the physiological issue. Inflammation is the issue here. Inflammation comes with five symptoms which are redness, heat, swelling, pain and loss of function. All of which will express itself into the body. The pain is usually the worst of it because when we hurt we really know about it. The loss of function is gradual but it does happen. And so, in skin the loss of function is sinking, sagging, loss of elasticity.

JOHN: Wrinkles. Blemishes.

MARTIN: Right. But with my ankle, the loss of function is, can't move it.  It hurts to move it and so on. With my horn, something in my shoulder, it's going to be just every time I move my hand this way, I get reminded that there's something wrong with it. That sort of thing, right?

JOHN: Yes. Exactly. That's right. That’s something that I would love. Anybody who is listening if you send me an email at john@lumaflex.com or you contact me on Instagram. Let's do Instagram, @JohnGrahamFitness just say I listened to Martin or I watch Martin's show, I would love to get access to the education. Here's my email. So we built a Lumaflex Academy where I have a scientist named Peter Forham. He's a light scientist. I asked him I said, many people have the same question what is light is it pseudoscience, is it made in laboratory? How can I trust it? All these understandable questions, it's something that's still catching on, right? The information is slow to get out to the world, but it is catching on. So, I asked Peter, I said, with your background, could you please package the information about light therapy, about the cellular mechanisms, can you make it easy to digest so that those people who do the course can go tell their friends and family and it can be passed down? And we created the foundations course.

So again, anybody listening, you want access to the foundations course, we sell it online, but of course I'm very keen to give it away because it's a way in which we're growing the awareness. It's very important. So yeah, anybody who wants to check out the course. It's only an hour and a half long video and Peter is giving the seminar in Miami. It's a specialty gym for athletes to come and get treatment and there's about 20 coaches there or something. And yit's a great video. It's wonderful because you go from zero to hero in light therapy.

MARTIN: Awesome. But you know what? Let me just butt in with this. Many of our viewers have probably watched Joe Rogan talk about his $120,000 light bed that he has in his house.

MARTIN: Well, Joe can afford one. Red light As such is helping the mitochondria. That's a given that we know.

JOHN: Yes.

MARTIN: There's science on it supporting it. When you push the red light in, the food to energy conversion happens at a better rate, which means that the cell is healing. That means better energy available. When we have energy, we can rebuild, we can heal, we can restore. So instead of having this $120,000 tanning bed you're delivering this targeted thing for a few hundred dollars. So just about any household can manage owning one of these, unlike the $120,000. Well, that's the extreme, right? Because you're like a little burrito being roasted from all sides in that light. 

JOHN: Yes. I like that. Yeah, if you can afford it, that's great. But it’s so true, not everyone can afford that. And even when you have that bed, it stays at your home. You can't take it with you anywhere on your holiday or on your weekend away or you're kind of like “oh, I got to go back home to have my treatment.” And it's just like you said before about people's time. Human nature, it's something like, it’s not that, okay, if I had a red light therapy bed, if I did, because I'm very regimented, as an athlete, a former athlete, I'm very regimented. It's six o'clock I wake up; I myself am like that. But if you have to do something out of your routine, you may do it for the first two weeks, take a couple days off then get back on it. But the same time next year, probably not that bed or that device, it's probably going to just be collecting dust. And it's true. I think there's a bigger opportunity for people to see the amazing benefits of red light therapy if it's a portable device.

MARTIN:  I want to illustrate your point. I have a box here. Take a look.

JOHN: Wow. And in the box I have a gadget. Take a look. It’s a heat source with infrared heat coming in. Delivers similar stuff.

JOHN: Wow. 

MARTIN: This is a $400 gadget that I have not taken out of this box in months. You know why? 

JOHN: It's just, I don't know how you would use that.

MARTIN: Because I have to stand there with this noisy thing blowing on me and wand myself with the warm air. It works. It's an awesome practical solution that I don't use because it's such a pain in the ass to use.

JOHN: That’s right. It’s such a key thing. We see it everywhere else in product development, whether it be electric cars or apps and cell phones. We see this understanding of the user and their routine, their daily habits and tailoring technology to that. We see it everywhere else. But in light therapy, I just didn't see it. I thought that was where the opening was. So, in the product development and even looking at the products later this year, that's something, I'm very well known with my design team to just say, just scrap it and just say no. 

M whole goal is, is this product what you'll be using this same time next year? That's the question I ask myself the most. And I got this from when I was in fitness and I'd be training people because as a competitive athlete I was training people as well to kind of my athlete career and I remember you talk about dieting like you got to eat healthy every day you got to work out every day and I was always trying to hack that consistency I was trying to hack the formula where everyone was like well, this is easy. I can do this every day. Everyone's trying to do that, I don't care what works in the laboratory. I don't care what works under all the perfect conditions. what's going to work for you? And that's that kind of thinking I brought to Lumaflex. 

MARTIN: Yeah. Okay, so this is how it works. So, the science of light is not debatable anymore. We actually have lots and lots of stories. It's just how do you get this proper wavelength? It has to be the right wave length. What is it? 660 to 880 or something like that nanometers in wavelength?

JOHN: Yeah. So in this device we have 630 and 850. And I have, because the next devices will have different nanometers. And how I choose the nanometers is, number one, it's sort of a discussion I have with the science team, especially Peter Forhan, I want to hear what his opinion is. And his opinion it's not necessarily because he's a scientist as well, but I just have to again, think about the user and I have to sort of balance both, right? But also we have access to the global clinical research database for all red light therapy products. All red light therapy studies, all the studies that have ever been done. And I believe at the moment now, and that's something I'll email you later because it's something that I would love people to have access to. It's something we talk about in the course, but in that database, I'll look up a nanometer, one particular nanometer that I really like is 904 because of the overwhelming research behind it, right? Another one I really like is the 660 nanometer.

MARTIN: Right. I'm familiar with that.

JOHN: And then another one that I'm looking into now for our next product is the 1064 nanometer.

MARTIN: All right.

JOHN: And that's looking at these certain nanometers, how much clinical research is behind them and what sort of products can be made incorporating different ones and also to create a bit of variance. Oh, I'm buying that device, this one has the same, why? This one can serve this purpose, this one can serve this purpose. So, different price ranges, different use cases and different outcomes. But the clinical research database that's something I would love you to get access to.

MARTIN: Okay. So, the one we have here now is specific to the healing of the injured or overused or unhappy tissue giving pain. Right?

JOHN: Yes. With 630 and 850, what is Red light therapy? Red light therapy penetrates the skin and is activating your mitochondrial energy. Your mitochondria having energy, it allows your cells to be able to heal you. But again, we require touching skin. So, people have said this device versus a stronger device, this device can't promise those same outcomes. But I said if it touches skin we can promise those same outcomes. The other device is strong but again what we lose in that device is it's not portable, it has to be fixed to a location like a bed or something like that. I'm trying to create a portable device where, 78-year-old grandma Jessica, who wants to be competitive on the golf course, has it in her bag, or there's like James who's taking his kids to soccer practice and he has to swing by work afterwards, he just has it in his bag. So, where does it fit in people's lives and how can they apply it?

And that's kind of where I would specialize in because I understand the user a bit, quite well. And something interesting about Lumaflex, we have these straps, the long straps and the short straps that go with the device, but as we saw people use the product and we're getting this feedback, we started to notice that people actually used their clothing to hold the device. So this is my heart, and then I would move it here to put it on my spine. That's a key area for you when you're working on a computer.

MARTIN: Right. Yes.

JOHN: And then a lot of people what they do is they just drop it down to service your gut health and then they shift around to get their lower back. And I saw people using it in this very creative way without the straps. And it was something that… I left the straps at home. I just use my clothing. And it was inspiring that people were again fully incorporating it into their lives rather than saying: “It's red light therapy time! Let me get the straps." And that was exciting for me because I was like, "Wow, we're almost like a cell phone, it's always on your body”, kind of thing. 

But yeah, that's kind of what we're looking for is pain management solutions. And obviously I was saying before there's skin rejuvenation benefits. Those nanometers also support hair growth. So people say, do I want to buy a $5,000 helmet or should I do the protocol for hair growth that my doctor's telling me, can I just use that? Then I can also use it for my pets, we have lots of people with pets that use this for their pets, right? Because it's durable, something you can clean and you can use it so it's sharable. And then for horses, for hack stacking, incorporate it into different environments. The essential, even though it isn't waterproof, it's water resistant. I use this in the sauna and I do a 40-minute sauna every day. I'm trying to get my sauna time in.

MARTIN: Okay. Yeah. So, let's explain the two products now that you've shown them both. There's a basic difference. The price is nearly double the baseline. I don't know. We want to make this message evergreen. So, if you ever raise a price, it may change, but it's a few hundred dollars for the entry and it's double that for the other one.  So let's just explain.

JOHN: Yeah, so the Body Pro, it's designed for professional use. So, a massage therapist has this as a tool in their toolkit. They may have acupuncture, cupping, a massage gun. They may have all their tools in their toolkit to provide a treatment if they're a therapist, a doctor or nurse or whatever. So that kind of is where the body pro fits. It's more of that professional use case. Where I've seen this used is where in a wellness center, they rent the use of it to go into all the other modalities in a circuit. I'm here to do some salt therapy. Then after that, I'm going to jump on a cryo. I'm going to do an IV. So, then they'll take this device and they'll stack light therapy with those other devices. And the essential,

MARTIN: Hold on. So the main feature then would be the swappable power supply, right? So you can have one charging while the other one's in use.

JOHN: So, the main feature would be it's IP67, so it's environment and temperature tested. The goal of this is to go into the military. And you do get a spare battery. You get two batteries. 

MARTIN: So you can have one charging while the other one is in use, right? 

JOHN: Yeah, for limitless treatment, right? I've got a client coming in but it's okay, I just swap the batteries and I will never run out.

MARTIN: So, one thing that does come up is the timing. Right. There's the right amount of time because doing it too much is actually counterproductive.

JOHN: That's such a good question. That was something that again, when we were in the development phase of building Lumaflex, talking to the science team, what we wanted was to actually have a 10-minute timer on this. So we work from 10-minute treatment time. During the course, where we're going into protocols, we recommend x number of sessions, that session being 10 minutes.

And that's something that if a doctor who's well versed in light therapy, that's something that they can work from as well. They can say, "This has a 10-minute timer, touching skin, based on this condition, based on all your blood work or whatever tests that we've done, we want you to do x number of sessions." So, it's everything it all has 10-minute timers on it, but must touch skin. That's the key thing.

MARTIN: Okay. So, that's rechargeable, portable, swappable, and water resistant. You can go swimming with it.

JOHN: Yeah. if you ever end up getting water on it, i've taken this into the snow, into the mud, the sand. I've taken it swimming. I've sat in the jacuzzi with it. Yeah, that's the idea. And it's also app connected too. So you can actually do it remotely. So it's on the app and I can stop it from the app.

So it does have Bluetooth. And what I want to do with the app is build out more protocols, a schedule, things like that. That's a future app development will be coming. But looking at the essential, only one battery, right? So there's no two batteries. It isn't connected to Bluetooth. It doesn't have a Bluetooth functionality. And it isn't submergible. So it's still water resistant, but it's not submergible. And to be honest, this was always intended to be the one that people buy more. It's like I own a practice, I'll buy one as a tool, and this I'll sell in my retail. That's kind of how it works. So, if someone were to say, what's the product that's changing the world? It's actually The Essential.

MARTIN: Okay. How long does it take to charge up?

JOHN: It takes an average of two hours to charge, but as the same with your iPhone, it's still lithium batteries, it's just battery technology. So, as the same, treat the battery as well as you treat your iPhone. So, everyone knows with batteries, if the battery isn't fully charged, if it's half, it's not wise to charge it at that time. It's better to let the battery drain and then charge it. That's commonly known to keep the longevity of the battery. So, what I always tell people is when you charge your iPhone at night, charge your Lumaflex and then let them both sort of run out throughout the day and charge again.

MARTIN: Or wait until it dies and then charge it.

JOHN: Yeah. And there’s about 12 sessions of 10 minutes is what you get with the battery life. 12 to 15 is right now. But again, based on the health of the battery over x number of uses, over months or years.

MARTIN: Okay. So, I could do 10 minutes on my belly, 10 minutes on my neck, 10 minutes on my shoulder. That's three. I still can hand it to my wife, she can do her three and we still have a whole day more before I have to charge it. Yeah.

JOHN: Yeah, and there’s a scientist I know who’s quite good at light therapy for the brain. And she has told me that 10 minutes is all you need for the brain. For the gut, you can do two sessions a day for gut health. And then usually throughout the day, all that to say, I do get my 13 sessions done. I'll definitely put it on my chest, at least twice a day, my gut twice, my neck twice. And usually, you know when you're just feeling drained or you've had a meal and it's hard to digest, that's usually when. Because those are ways in which you can get light therapy into your life for those things that people don't really know that. My wife also during that time of the month, she also uses it for those pains, for those cramps. I use it when I don't feel, I use it to wake myself up in the morning. I put it on my neck if I feel drained or if I'm seeing blue light a lot, I'm watching a movie, afterwards, I'll use it to kind of reset me a bit. I also use it as a lamp. At night time, I want to tell my brain, don't wake up.  So you turn off the phone and then you just turn on the light and use this as your light for the day, for the evening, right? But yeah.

MARTIN: Alright. You have hit on it a few times. But I would really love to hear your story. How did you actually get here?

JOHN: So I started out as I was into fitness. I was that skinny guy. That really skinny guy that was last to be picked for the team. Not so confident, ginger hair, freckles. I had not much going for me. So, I found my confidence, my warrior in the gym. And as I was training and putting on muscle, I was protecting my little teddy bear inside me, right? And I got very serious into fitness and especially in competitive sports. I played rugby, and after an injury to both my shoulders and my left knee, rugby was clearly not something I could do anymore. But I tried CrossFit. I did very well in CrossFit. I was almost competing at regional level and then lost interest in that. And then I found boxing and I went into amateur boxing for many years. Yeah. And amateur boxing to this day is still my big passion. It's like something, I'll watch boxing any day of the week. All the famous fighters. I love it.

MARTIN: Alright. I'm not a boxer at all but when I think about it, I see it more as an endurance sport than anything else, is it?

JOHN: Oh yeah. Hell yeah. The thing with boxing is, what a coach will always tell you and what you always sort of remember as in your career is don't fight, box. There's a very clear distinction. Like UFC, MMA, they're fighting. We’re boxing. It's the art of boxing. It's the craft. The art of throwing a hit but not getting hit. It's all cardio. That's why skipping and running are pretty much in every boxing program. Lots and lots of running. But it was really fun for me and it was something I enjoyed, obviously competing in amateurs. But after 4 years, I started to get very severe headaches and it was, you were telling me before we got on the podcast, how you just say: “Oh, harden up. You'll be fine." You as a man you feel like it's part of the package of being an athlete. I need to relish this, endure it.

MARTIN: Endure it and overcome. And it’s nothing. Just wave it off. But it's not nothing. It will hurt you.

JOHN: Yes. It's part of your armor. It's part of your identity as an athlete, as a boxer. I accept the pain because nobody else can. It's a total ego trip. But I remember my wife taking me to hospital and we did a full scan and they told me that I developed a tumor in my head because of micro traumas to the brain. So, it was a tumor that was growing. It wasn't a cancerous tumor, but they said: 

it is growing into your brain and what we need you to do is schedule a surgery within 11 months or else it may be difficult for us to do this micro surgery.” Because they want to go into my ear and attack the tumor that way, and if it grew much it would be like a big opening or whatever. I don't know. But it was a bit scary, obviously I was like “Whoa that's not cool. 11 months and it's going to grow into my brain.” It's sort of something where you really stop, rethink, and obviously my wife is very much like: “We should not be doing any more impact sports. This has to stop.”

MARTIN: Right.

JOHN: But after that surgery was gone, obviously there was a period of time to rehab, but not only during the time when I was sort of getting myself back together after that surgery, but also from rugby and all of that, my wife was pushing me to use red light therapy. And the device that she had me use, I'll have to find a photo of it, because I think her grandfather is using it now, but it was a very tall lamp. It was a very tall lamp and it had this bendable arm that bent in three different places. It was a very heavy lamp. He had a large weighted base like one of those beach umbrellas..

MARTIN: I'm just reaching for something here. In my office, I have this amateur version of that. Look at this monster.

JOHN: Yes. It was a really big version of that. Exactly like that except much much bigger. Looks so much. 

MARTIN: So this is modern day. This is LED

JOHN: Wow.

MARTIN: What I just showed, that's a grow light. This is something you would do in a hydroponic home growing situation, but it does deliver lots of the correct wavelength light.

JOHN: Yeah. And it is effective. That lamp that my wife pushed me to use every night 20 minutes before bed. I remember she would really push me to do it. And I remember where I really kind of got sold was with my left knee. This injury was the one for years it would hurt and  just by sitting down. I would have this heat rub that I would take with me and I would massage my knee to create the lubrication in the knee just because it would hurt so much. But I remember after a week, I would lay there and she would point it at my knee and after a week I didn't have the pain, and after the second week I didn't need it for the knee anymore. That was the most dramatic.

MARTIN: Yeah. That's the reveal, right? That was the convincer for you, was it not?

JOHN: Yeah. And it was, even to this day, even with Lumaflex I've never put it on that area ever. After some when I've trained my legs or we've gone hiking together, I've done the post training on my legs, but I've never had that knee issue ever again. Even now it still amazes me..

MARTIN: I guess once healed, it's repaired. That’s that. It’s functional.

JOHN: That’s right. Yeah. Amazing, right?

MARTIN: That’s awesome.

JOHN: Life changing. But that's when I dove, like what I call is you jump on the light train. I jumped on that light train and I've been on the train. 

MARTIN: I would love to see sort of more applications. You possibly have some pictures that we can share with the folks of how it's been used, right? Could you illustrate just some of the uses just so people get the idea of just how flexible this thing is?

JOHN: Yes. I mean, it's something obviously designed for the lower back, but you see the flexibility. It now allows it to be contorted to your joints, your elbows, your shoulders. I had a guy in New York, we were, I remember me and Peter, we were at a conference in New York and this guy came over and he said, "I have a shoulder issue from rugby and it's like a dead shoulder where I can't sleep on it.”It hurts, but I can't raise my arm. And I have the video. I could say, but we put it on the front for 10 minutes. Then we put it on the back for 10 minutes. And he came back and he was moving his arms.  And he called his wife and he's like, "There's these guys, they're into light therapy at this conference. I don't know what's going on." And he came back and he shared the story and it was something, it was really amazing that he had such a quick response, the cells were able to heal. It's just they needed that excess energy. Right. He was just deficient in energy

MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN: But shoulder, that's a big one. The neck, the heart, what I always tell people, like for me, heart, gut, head and the back of the neck, those are my sort of overall being places that I do.

MARTIN: Did you ever get any pictures of people getting their hair back on their head?

JOHN: No. I've never had anybody say this but it's funny because recently a guy named Quan James, he's a nurse and he specifically is saying I'm going to use this in my hair treatments.

MARTIN: So maybe someday?

JOHN: So his clients will give him those images.

MARTIN: All right.

JOHN: Yeah, I'll have to ask him for him. But yeah, that's something as well. Hair treatment, hair growth, skin rejuvenation. Something that's really exciting is gut health. That's something that I watch the space about gut health, brain health, also eye health with red light therapy. They're very very exciting, to see the new research out about that.

MARTIN: Yes. 

JOHN: In our manual we tell people not to look at the LEDs to keep your eyes closed. And I encourage people, please do research on it. It's something that Joe Rogan talked about how he no longer needs glasses, because that's something he's talked about a lot. And I think there is a study out there that encourages three minutes a day looking at the LEDs but that's again something that people should research on their own. But for us, we always say keep your eyes closed because we don't want to incur any issues. The back of the knee is a very key area, and palms and feet for runners are always areas that I see people use a lot. Just because they have carpals or something they've got issues with flexibility with mobility in their feet.

MARTIN: Yeah.

JOHN: Where we are being encouraged to be used in the military, where the military is testing is for shin splints,

MARTIN: Yeah. Right. Of course.

JOHN: Because of the running. But, yeah. It's designed as an all-in-one device to mold to any joint muscle or area on your body, and that’s the idea.

MARTIN: So, you mentioned people use it with their pets or animals or I guess this would work awesomely well on a racehorse, right? Yeah.

JOHN: Yes. That's another area, particularly in Australia with our distributor over there who also now wants to, he has a lot of clients in the US, where he's like: “I want to own the horse market in the US!” Okay, go for it.

MARTIN: It's hard to own anything.

JOHN: Yeah.

MARTIN: I wouldn't recommend that you allow anyone to own anything. Just go and tell others. All right. So, I guess you can have a dog sleeping on it or would you just strap it to a dog? How would you apply it?

JOHN: Yeah. I've seen people, people have shown me videos of their cat or their dog when they turn it on, they go and they lay on it. They gravitate towards using it.

MARTIN: They know better.

JOHN: But I've got lots of people that have purchased it for their dog that has had a condition and there is a strap where if it's on their belly or something, their organ or something they can strap it around and usually when the dog is laying down if they're under they have a condition that's usually the time.

MARTIN: Yeah, they'll be restful. Yeah. Okay. Great. So we say what situations, how it works. I guess the why is obvious, the why is pain reduction thereof restoration from injuries returning back to normal function. 

JOHN: Yeah. That's right. I mean we have a lot of support from medical persons, from scientists, I would say mostly from scientists like Andrew Huberman. He's very good, and talks a lot about red light. There's a few other guys like Brecka, he's another one that endorses it a lot. And these personalities sometimes get lost in all the information they say, but all of them are saying red light, thumbs up. Let's go.

MARTIN: Right. Yeah.

JOHN: And it's good that it's okay, that's getting awareness. Now, the clinical research database we're approaching is close to 9,000 studies.

MARTIN: Right. But there are many devices on the market. Many of them are these large LED beds. They are boards. They’re two feet wide, four feet tall, whatever. Something you can stand in front of or lie upon. But they run into thousands of dollars and they’re not portable. This is a wearable gadget which has me really impressed or engaged here because I think this will get used more than anything.

JOHN: That's right. Yeah. I mean, and if we don't, we did something wrong. And we got to go back to the drawing board. Because the whole goal is, are you going to use this at the same time next year? Are you going to use it? And that even goes down to the texture of the liquid silicone.

There's a very big, noisy machine that produces this liquid silicone mold. And then the glazing we do on it, to where it's not sticky, it's soft to the touch. And just the feedback, the data we got back from ladies saying, "I like the way it feels." We're like, "Okay, that's good. What do you think?" It's just so important with anything, if you really want to change and create an impact, you got to be thinking about those little tiny things like, how big is an average woman's bag? Is it going to fit in a gym bag? That's okay, we got the man his bag for work, but a woman's bag, is it going to fit? And is she going to feel comfortable bringing this out to her friends? Does it look like something? Does it give her some sort of credibility or pride or does it, I don't want to show anybody this. We don't want bad battery powered is a must, plugging something in doesn't make anyone feel good. You want to have people like: “You have a Lumaflex? That's amazing! I always wanted one of those.”  You have to think about that if you're going to do something. If you really want to create consistency you have to think about the finishing and how it is. It can't be bulky. The brand, everything has to show, I want to use this. I want to take it in my bag. Don't forget my Lumaflex. You have to think about that. I'm glad you understand, because it's something that, when you're talking to the design team, they're like, "No, push it through. Next phase. Let's go to the next phase." 

MARTIN: Yeah. Ii’s got to be right.  Alright. Well, awesome. This is John with Lumaflex. We will be putting a link next to this podcast so that you can buy it with our endorsement and from our link. Thank you very much. We get a small commission on it. So that's how it works. Thank you for shopping with us. John, thank you very much for explaining the product.

MARTIN: I'm really excited and feel honored to be able to offer something that's really well-designed and functionally complete. This is really good.

JOHN: Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate being on the platform. You've obviously built an audience. They trust you. And you being able and allowing me access to that audience I really appreciate it. So, yeah, grab the link. It's going to be in the bio. And Martin is my younger brother's name, I really miss him. I haven't seen him in a while.

MARTIN: All right. Very good. John, this is Martin Pytela for Life Enthusiast Health Shots, the podcast at life-enthusiast.com. And thank you.