Color substantially impacts our emotions, influencing us in ways we may not even be aware of. Understanding the psychological impact of colors can help you make better decisions about which color to use in your home and which color to wear when you have an important meeting or interview.
Chromotherapy, or color therapy, uses colors to balance our emotions and heal our bodies. It’s practiced worldwide as an effective way to lower stress levels and boost moods, energy, and vitality. Let’s explore how colors affect us psychologically and how chromotherapy can help you improve your life.
Understanding the impact of colors (In the workplace on employee well-being and productivity)
Color can be used to make your workplace more appealing by increasing productivity and improving employee well-being. For example, using warm colors like reds and yellows in workplaces where employees spend most of their time can increase their activity levels, while using cool colors like blues and greens can decrease them.
Understanding how colors are perceived is essential in choosing colors for your workplace or home. Using colour therapy to create a harmonious environment will positively affect your employee’s well-being and productivity at work.
Chromotherapy is a form of color therapy that uses colors to achieve physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual balance. Chromotherapy has been used as a therapy for physical diseases such as asthma, hypertension, depression, obesity, acne, etc., and emotional problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Understanding how colors are perceived can be an essential factor in choosing colors for your workplace or home.
Colors and Impact on Behavior
Colors have different wavelengths and energies; they influence our mindsets, moods, and behaviors
Colour affects our perception of pain and temperature by impacting brain waves, hormone levels, and nervous system responses.
Red increases blood pressure; blue decreases it. Warm colors (reds) increase appetite while cool colors (blues) reduce it.
Colors can positively or negatively affect your body, mind, and spirit
Colors have different effects depending on whether they are used for decoration or in an environment where you spend most of your time (workplace, home).
For example,
- Warm colors like reds and yellows increase activity while cool colors like blues and greens decrease it. Colors can also be associated with specific times of day, seasons, activities, and environments.
For example,
- Blue is often associated with calmness and tranquillity;
- Green is associated with nature;
- Yellow is associated with warmth;
- Orange is associated with excitement;
- Pink is associated with nurturing;
- Purple is associated with spirituality.
Colors and Circadian Rhythms
Color can be used to protect our body’s natural rhythms (circadian rhythms), which help us fall asleep, stay asleep, wake up easily, feel energetic during work hours, etc.
For example,
- Blue is associated with nighttime;
- Orange is associated with daytime;
- Yellow is associated with morning;
- Red is associated with evening.
When choosing colors for your workplace or home, choose colors that will promote a healthy circadian rhythm for employees.
For example,
- If you want employees to sleep better at night to have more energy during their working hours, you could use warm lighting (reds and yellows) in their bedrooms at night and cool lighting (blues and greens) in their offices during the daytime hours.
This way, they will associate office environments with being awake and alert while associating bedrooms with sleeping.
How colors affect your moods and behavior
Colours affect our moods, behaviors, and perceptions in different ways. We live in a world where colour is all around us. Everything from your toothbrush to your wallpaper has colour. As such, colours are not just superficial, but they have a deep-seated effect on our moods, perceptions and behaviours.
For example,
- Red increases heart rate; blue calms it down.
- Red is also associated with excitement;
- Yellow is associated with happiness;
- Green is associated with nature;
- Purple is associated with spirituality;
- Orange is associated with creativity.
This is why choosing colours for your workplace or home can greatly impact your employee’s well-being and productivity. Choosing colours that make people feel relaxed, energetic, or motivated can positively affect their performance.
Coloured lighting (i.e., LEDs) can help reduce stress levels in office environments while boosting concentration levels at night by encouraging employees to sleep a better night.
Ways to use color therapy in your daily routine to calm your mind
While many don’t realize it, color plays a large role in our day-to-day lives. Psychologists have found that colors profoundly affect our moods, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—the benefits of color therapy are quite diverse. But how can you use color therapy to benefit your life? From calming a restless mind to igniting an artistic passion within you, here are five ways to use color therapy in your daily routine.
1—When Exercising:
Red can increase your energy, boost your performance, and raise your endurance. A study published in Psychological Science found that participants who wore red during exercise burned more calories than those who wore other colors. So next time you hit up a spin class or head to yoga, consider bringing along an outfit in your favorite shade of red.
2—Before Bedtime:
If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, try adding some colour to your bedroom. Red can be particularly effective in helping you fall asleep faster. A study published in Sleep Medicine found that people who slept in red rooms fell asleep faster than those who slept in blue or green rooms. So next time you want to hit snooze one more time, consider changing up your room with a few new pieces of red furniture or décor.
3—In Your Kitchen:
Color has been shown to affect our appetite. A study published in Appetite found that participants ate more food when they were served a meal on a red plate than those who served their meal on other colours of plates. So next time you’re cooking dinner, consider adding some red accents to your kitchen.
4— In Office:
Color can also have an effect on your mood. For example, studies have found that people who work in blue rooms are more productive than those who work in red rooms. So next time you’re looking to increase your productivity at work, consider adding some blue accents to your office.
5—When Relaxing:
Finally, colour has been shown to positively affect our mental health as well. For example, a study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that participants who were exposed to colours before taking a math test experienced less anxiety compared to those who weren’t exposed to colours beforehand.
Conclusion
Colour therapy has been used for centuries to bring about a natural state of relaxation and well-being. Colours can reduce stress, bring about happiness, energize us or calm us down. Colours have different meanings across cultures, but they all have one thing in common – they make us feel something when we see them. Understanding how colours affect our moods is an important part of understanding how we interact with them daily.
