Color Therapy May Impact Health and Happiness
Chromotherapy practitioners say certain colors have curative powers and strong energies
When Susan Blitz talks about color, her face lights up. "I love color," the 78-year-old former teacher and social worker, now retired from her career in a New York City nursing home, says. "Color affects our mood and our energy level. The older adults I've worked with love color, too. They favor softer shades — lavender, baby blue, simple green. Yellow, a happy color like sunshine, is often a favorite."
Ann Sonnes, from Forest Hills, New York, is a 66-year-old artist with Parkinson's disease. She, too, loves colors. As a child, her favorite days were when she received a new coloring book and a big box of Crayola crayons, and oil pastels were always a special treat. To her, "Red represents anger, like when someone is red-faced and shaking with rage. But, interestingly, I also associate red with love. Pink is girly and sweet. Purple is a natural color, the color of plums and grapes and eggplant."
Practitioners of chromotherapy, also known as color therapy, believe that colors can profoundly affect our emotions, our psychological well-being, and perhaps even our health.
Color is ubiquitous in our lives, affecting how we decorate our homes, the art we make and the clothes we wear. Practitioners of chromotherapy, also known as color therapy, believe that colors can profoundly affect our emotions, our psychological well-being, and perhaps even our health.
Chromotherapy dates back to the early civilizations of India, China and Egypt. Ancient Egyptians used solariums with various colored window panes, allowing the sun to shine its beams onto ailing patients. In 1878, Edwin Babbitt's book "The Principles of Light and Color" introduced the idea of using colored light for therapeutic purposes.
He believed that red could activate the nervous system, lessening fatigue, and blue could alleviate headaches, back pain, meningitis and other inflammatory conditions. While there's no scientific proof for any of this, some practitioners of color therapy today still believe it can be used to lessen symptoms of many disorders.
Chromotherapy is a holistic healing method that ostensibly uses the visible electromagnetic spectrum to stimulate biochemical reactions. The various colors that we see are the result of the eye perceiving vibrating light at different frequencies, with the reflected lights hitting photoreceptors in the retina. Some wavelengths of light are absorbed by objects while others are refracted or reflected back to the eye.
Sunlight holds all the wavelengths of color in the visible spectrum, as well as infrared and ultraviolet light, which cannot be seen. Different colors activate or inhibit complex physiological reactions. Studies of how exposure to light frequencies affect autonomic functions such as heart rate date back to the earlier half of the 20th century. We now know that wavelengths in the visible range produce biological effects in living cells, tissues and enzymes.
Hospitals' use of green paint on walls (originally called "spinach green") was started during WWI by an American architect who advocated using nature colors to promote healing.
Hospitals' use of green paint on walls (originally called "spinach green") was started during WWI by an American architect who advocated using nature colors to promote healing. Several studies, including one appearing on the U.S. Department of Justice's website, advocate walls in prisons be painted pink, averring that it seems to reduce violent or aggressive behavior in incarcerated individuals.
Although not widely recognized as a form of treatment by conventional doctors, chromotherapy is utilized in various medical specialties by naturopathic and holistic practitioners. In alternative medicine, color therapy is being incorporated into care, often paired with other complementary forms of healing said to enhance overall well-being.
Combining Color Therapy with Other Treatments
The innovative practice of combining color therapy with aromatherapy, both of which allegedly communicate with the limbic system and the hypothalamus, has been utilized.
A 2018 article by the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida discusses the ways in which some practitioners of acupuncture and feng shui incorporate color by the use of gemstones, fabrics and prisms, believing that color and light can restore emotional and spiritual imbalances. Red and orange are stimulating colors that are energizing and uplifting. Soothing blue helps reduce stress by inducing a state of calm.
Ayurveda, a traditional Indian medicine that emphasizes a holistic approach to health and healing, claims that a human has seven chakras or energy centers, each correlated with a specific color. These can be stimulated with single or multiple colors of the visible light spectrum. Some examples include:
- Green represents the heart chakra, associated with compassion, mental focus and empowerment
- Orange is associated with the Sacral chakra, and is considered to be the mind-body chakra
- Red corresponds with the root chakra at the base of the spine, symbolizing our connection to the earth
In traditional Chinese medicine, colors correspond to various systems of the human body, with some affecting the nervous, endocrine or digestive systems.
A 2022 research study at the Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, found that patients with fibromyalgia who wore eyeglasses with green lens for two weeks showed reduced anxiety and pain perception.
Incorporating Color Therapy
In many ways chromotherapy bears a resemblance to color psychology, the study of how colors affect human behavior. This is certainly something we can all experiment with for ourselves.
- Spend time in nature, enjoying lush green grass, cerulean blue waters and bursts of crimson, magenta and yellow flowers.
- Get your colors done. Find your seasonal color palette and see how to dress to be your most becoming self. A fun activity popularized in the 1970s and '80s is making a comeback and becoming more culturally inclusive.
- Take the Luscher-Color Diagnostic Test to learn about your personality and color preferences.
- Go for a holistic massage using color-saturated oils.
- Learn about how colors supposedly affect people, and surround yourself with more of what you’re needing. Red and black together increases confidence while pink highlights romance, blue magnifies creativity and purple helps you to get in touch with your intuitive abilities.
- Add pops of color to your living space, with new throw pillows, a big colorful painting or an accent wall painted a bright and beautiful shade.
Whatever your belief about their curative powers, color can enhance your sense of contentment and well-being. Remember "Fun with Dick and Jane?" I believe in "Fun with green and purple and blue and yellow."
