Neurologist Who Specializes in Light Therapy Explains the Science Behind Miraculous Brain Recoveries

If there’s one message Brandon Crawford would like to share with the world, it is that a broken brain can heal.
Taking a holistic approach, Crawford and his team focus on three foundational pillars: energy, sensory (processing), and movement, thus coining the ESM method. The “energy” focus is on light, which distinguishes the clinic from conventional health care methods that focus on nutrition when it comes to energy.
“You wake up and know you need water, you need amino acids, you need certain vitamins and nutrients. Don’t forget about photons,” Crawford said. “Light is, I would argue, more important than those nutrients, because if we don’t get it, we’re not going to assimilate those nutrients properly.”
The method requires a team to administer treatments. Patients, ranging from children to adults, are sometimes surrounded by the team pointing beams of light toward their brain and other parts of their bodies. Therapists might move the limbs or stimulate the sensory system during exercises that engage motor skills, such as crawling or walking.
Crawford’s first experience with photobiomodulation was during an internship when he joined a mentor in helping a child who had an incurable genetic brain disorder. The parents were desperate enough to try anything. After receiving light therapy, the child’s brain started developing in a pattern more typical for children his age. “When the child went and did a follow-up with their neurologist, the neurologist thought they misdiagnosed the condition,” he said. “It set me down this path of really looking at laser light therapy in a completely different way.”
In one case, a family in Mexico received guidance from NeuroSolution to help their child who had spastic quadriplegia from a brain injury at birth. Once he was able to remain calm, his family brought him to the Texas clinic. “Traditional medicine said nothing is going to help that child—surgeries, medication, whatever. Nothing’s going to make that child move,” Crawford said. After the team worked with him, “He was able to begin to sit up. He was able to roll. He then began to crawl. He’s actually able to say words,” he said.
Crawford said one reason for the recent uptick in brain-related diseases is that we were never designed to live our lives primarily in an indoor setting under artificial light. “It’s actually having a really profound effect on us. We’ve had this very quick evolution in time where all of a sudden now we’re inside all the time,” he said.
While he doesn’t suggest that laser therapy is superior to natural sunlight, Crawford noted that for anyone who can’t be outside extensively or wants to accelerate healing, an investment in LED panels or lasers for at-home usage can help the brain flourish.
There are other ways to optimize brain function. Crawford suggests prioritizing sleep; getting cold exposure such as a morning shower in cold water; moving your body daily; consuming fatty acid supplements; doing breathing exercises or meditation; and getting as much natural light exposure as possible.
“Begin a meditation practice. It can be five minutes a day. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing. Deep breaths in, even longer breaths out. Focus your attention just behind your forehead. And as it drifts, refocus. That refocus is the part of meditation that matters,” he explained.
Light therapy has the potential to improve the lives of people with traumatic brain injuries as well as to boost cognitive function in people’s everyday lives. “The obvious thing—optimize your life. Get outside. Stop living your life indoors.”