The key path
- Color therapy uses colors and light to try to improve mental and physical health.
- There is no solid evidence that color therapy works to treat medical conditions.
- Although neutral, certain colors can help with tension and mood, such as blue for relaxation.
Color therapy, also known as chromotherapy, is a form of therapy that uses color and light to treat certain mental and physical health conditions. We can trace this form of therapy back to the ancient Egyptians. They used sun-filled rooms with tinted glass for therapeutic purposes.
Although color therapy has gained some popularity over the years, it is still not a widely accepted form of therapy in Western medicine. Many medical professionals consider this to be pseudoscience or quackery.
While color psychology is the study of how different colors can affect human behavior and perception, color therapy is different. It’s based on the unproven assumption that certain colors can affect people’s “energy” and affect health outcomes.
At some point, we’ve all experienced the ways in which color can affect us. For some people, seeing the color green on their daily run is an instant mood booster or they instantly feel a little better wearing their favorite yellow. The practice of color therapy can be traced back to Indian Ayurvedic medicine, which claims that the application of certain colors can correct imbalances in our body’s chakras.
Types of color therapy
In color therapy, it is believed that different colors are able to affect the body in different ways.
- red: Red is used to invigorate or invigorate someone who may be tired or feeling down. However, red can also stimulate people who may already be stressed.
- Blue color: Chrome therapists use the color blue to induce and affect depression and pain. Darker shades of blue are also thought to have hypnotic properties and may be tried for those who experience insomnia or other sleep disorders.
- green: Green is the color of nature, and according to chrome therapists, it can help relieve stress and relax a person.
- Yellow color: Yellow can be used to improve your mood and make you happier and more optimistic.
- orange: Orange, like yellow, can be used to evoke pleasant emotions from people. Bright warm colors are also thought to stimulate appetite and mental activity.
Color therapy techniques
There are two major techniques of color therapy. This can be done either visually, that is, hoping that it elicits the desired response in your body, or by projecting certain colors onto certain parts of the body.
Color therapists believe that color can enter our bodies either through our eyes or through our skin. Each color we can see has a wavelength and a unique frequency. Each unique frequency has a different effect on people and is used for different purposes. Warm colors are generally used for stimulating effects, while cool colors are used for calming effects.
What color therapy can help
Chromotherapy is considered a type of alternative medicine treatment. It is intended to help with a number of conditions, including:
It is important to note that there is no specific evidence that color therapy is effective for any medical condition. According to the American Cancer Society, available scientific evidence does not support any claims that the use of light or color therapy is effective in the treatment of cancer or any other disease.
There is currently no research to support that color therapy can be used as an effective treatment for any of these conditions.
Benefits of color therapy
Over the decades, color therapy has been purported to provide many benefits, from the physical to the mental, including:
- Stress relief: Certain colors like blue and green are believed to have a calming effect on people who are stressed or anxious.
- Whet your appetite: Warm and stimulating colors are thought to increase your appetite when you struggle with food cravings.
- Seasonal influence: People suffer from seasonal affective disorder mainly during cold weather due to lack of sunlight. Some types of bright light therapy is It has been shown to be beneficial for mood disorders. Color therapy also suggests the unsolicited idea that warm colors like yellow and orange can help.
- To boost your energy: Red and yellow colors are believed to boost your energy and make you more motivated.
Things to consider
Although the premise of color therapy is that certain colors evoke certain emotions for most people, this is not always the case. Humans are unique. The effects of certain colors on people can vary from person to person. Colors that can feel calming or soothing to most people can be disturbing or depressing to others.
How to get started
Although the science behind color therapy is still largely uncertain, practicing some aspects of color therapy is completely harmless to you. Here are some ways you can start experimenting with color therapy:
- Get rid of blue lights at night for better sleep. Research has shown that blue light from your laptops, phones and televisions can affect your circadian rhythm, which affects the quality of your sleep. Wearing anti-blue light glasses or turning the setting on your gadget to warmer yellow tones has helped.
- Basque in nature. We have plenty of leaves and grasses in nature that can positively relax us.
- Be intentional about color choices. When choosing colors for anything, from the color of the walls in your room to the color of the clothes, choose colors that you find stimulating or positive emotions.
It is important to reiterate that color therapy does not act as a definitive cure for any mental or physical health condition. If you are experiencing a condition such as depression, it is important to talk to your doctor about it.
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