How Colors And Color Therapy Can Help You Heal

It is no secret that color can impact our moods very quickly. How many times have you had the urge to paint a room in your home? This is because you instinctively know that you need something new to impact you when you are coming home, or spending the day inside. You intuitively know that color impacts your feelings and emotions.

But what makes us have these strong, spontaneous reactions to our surroundings?

Your reactions and psychological responses could be due largely in part to the colors used in the décor and design of the space. You know how many of us refer to a hospital environment as ‘sterile’? Naturally, hospitals are kept very sanitary. But this reference is also likely due to the stark whiteness of the halls and hospital rooms. Not all psychologists agree, but many understand there is such a thing as color psychology.

Historically, different cultures have regarded color as having the power to affect your mood, feelings, health, and even your behavior.

So, if you want to change the mood you experience in your home, consider the following information. It might help you achieve the ambiance you’re seeking in your cherished and sacred spaces.

• If blue is your favorite color, you might not be too surprised to read that this particular color will aid healing and help manage pain. Blue can also promote feelings of tranquility.
• Because green brings thoughts of the outdoors and the wonders of nature, it’s believed to bring about feelings of serenity, restfulness, and perhaps even joy. Some find that the color green decreases stress and increases feelings of relaxation.
• Orange is said to promote healthy lungs and produce energy and vitality in people. Closely related to red, orange is considered a warm color that brings excitement. You know it’s true-when you walk into a room that’s painted orange, it definitely grabs your attention.
• The color of the sun produces feelings of warmth and brightness. Like orange, yellow cannot be ignored. It’s even been referred to as the most “visible” hue in the color spectrum. If you want to “cheer up” your kitchen, yellow might be the right choice for you.
• Full of drama and mystery, a room painted red is evocative of emotions such as comfort, intensity, warmth, and even love.
• Although you may not consider black a true color, it’s an important hue. The color black is formed due to a complete lack of light. In terms of your feelings, black can induce a gamut of strong emotions. You might experience sensuality, mourning, or sadness when you’re exposed to black.

In film, you’ll notice that black is often used to represent a deep, dark, ominous character.

Ultimately, black is not only a conflict in terms but brings about conflicting feelings for many as well.

Want a room to appear bigger? Put some white paint on the walls. If you want a dark space to appear lighter, white is your solution. Using white as a trim color in a room will make your wall color “pop.”

Your feelings in a white room will run the gamut from feeling bright to being overwhelmed by the overload of light and space around you.

It may be bland on its own, but white can enhance the appearance of deeper colors and hues used with it. So, how you feel when you see white depends on how much white is used and the way the other colors in the room are presented.

Colors are powerful in that they do affect how you feel.

To lift your mood, bring about feelings of tranquility, or induce excitement, use these basics of color psychology to decorate your home. Encourage the mood and feelings you strive for just by skillfully selecting wall and accessory colors.

It is worth considering why we ask this — could it be that what color we associate with the most has some sort of effect on us, or says something about our personality?

Color therapy taps into the psychological effects of color. Participants are exposed to a range of colors via food, massage oils, colored lights, crystals or stones, etc. Some practitioners of color therapy use visualization techniques to help their patients. Different colors are said to affect different body systems or energies. Patients who undergo color therapy do so in order to experience restoration and/or healing.

Harness the Power of Light and Color Therapy

If you’ve seen a rainbow, you have seen the colors present in light. White light, or full-spectrum light, is made of all the colors of the rainbow, and when light is broken up by rain droplets, prisms, or other means, the colors become visible.

Light itself, and a lack of it, has been shown to have psychological effects. As one example, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is caused by the decreased light that comes with the change of seasons from summer to fall and winter.

People that find themselves affected by SAD have shown great improvement when exposed to special light boxes that emit full-spectrum light. I used one of these myself while I was in college and experiencing SAD, and it worked like a charm.

If light can affect people’s moods, it stands to reason that the components of light, colors, would affect it as well. After all, without light, there would be no life at all.

Open the Flow and Vibrancy of Energy

Colors, particularly colored light, are said to affect the energy flow of the body. This flow of energy, or vibration, has optimal rhythms and speeds and connects all the internal organs via channels. Color therapy helps align those vibrations and open channels so that the body’s systems work in harmony.

Achieve and Maintain Balance

In industrialized cultures, people spend a lot of time indoors. Some might say that we have in fact become accustomed to spending too much time inside, and not nearly enough time in nature. This lack of exposure to full-spectrum light can leave the body in a state of imbalance. Color therapy aims to make up for this deficiency by ensuring exposure to all colors present in light.

Color Therapy Can Be Used In Individual Treatments

While principles of color therapy are applied to each patient, treatment is influenced by what colors affect that particular person. Colors can have strong associations. For example, blue may be considered in color therapy to bring a cooling sense of calm, but if someone has frightening memories associated with blue — perhaps they were attacked or abused by someone wearing that color — then it would not have a positive effect. Perhaps that person would need some additional therapy and deeper work to build positive associations with blue.

Treat the Physical and Emotional

Color therapy is not just for emotional healing. Physical healing is part of such therapy too. Yellow is used to relieve abdominal cramps, for example, and red, blue or orange lights are shown on the chest to treat asthma. When I am having a particularly stressful day, I try to incorporate some calming blue into my day.

If you have studied energy work at all, you’ve probably heard a fair amount about chakra energy centers from yogis, healers and alternative health practitioners. We have the ultimate rainbow within us. But how do you actually use this knowledge to access a dynamic, always-on flow of life energy to enhance your wellbeing, relationships, sex life, power, vitality and creativity?

Fortunately, there are very practical and simple ways to work with chakras, which allow you to tap into a vast field of energy whenever you need it.

Unfortunately, most of us have energetic blocks and imbalances as well as energy-sabotaging habits that prevent us from accessing our full vitality, which leads us to feel exhausted, scattered, dull… even ill.

Anodea Judith is the bestselling author of Wheel Of Life, and she offers a free online workshop to help optimize the colors of your chakra system: Supercharge Your Chakra Practice: How to Heal Your Energy Centers & Unleash the Full Power of Your Life Force.

There are so many ways color therapy can benefit our well being, our inner and outer worlds.

If you wish to experiment with the different ways you can utilize color therapy in your every day life, I would suggest starting with your wardrobe. Play around with different colors, mixing and matching, and especially trying out colors that you may not have previously considered giving a chance.

Then, move on to playing with splashed of color in the different rooms of your home. There are so many simple, effective, and unique ways to do this. Try a different shade of curtains, and try throwing some colorful fabrics around different areas of any room that may feel stale to you, or need some rejuvenation. Have fun with this — the possibilities are truly endless!

Originally published at https://mindfulmysticmama.com on June 29, 2020.