Color Therapy Colors Your Mental Health

Are you feeling blue? If so, that does not mean you are necessarily sad. The color blue has a soothing, calming effect and experts on color therapy suggest it be used in hospital rooms to calm post-operative patients for optimum healing.

Color therapy also referred to as Light Therapy, Chromatherapy and Colorology, involves the use of colors to change a person's mental health.

Color therapists are alternative health practitioners, or holistic healers. A therapist trained in color therapy uses color to balance energy wherever the body needs it. Therefore it can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental.

Typically, rooms, light bulbs, candles, eyewear, clothing, and gems or crystals (in Ayurvedic medicine), are used to balance the energy.

The method is used to channel vibrations to any of the seven main chakras aligned vertically from the base of the spine to the top of the head. Practitioners explain it like tuning two guitars, in that if you pluck one string on a guitar, the same string on the other will also resonate. These "resonating frequencies" are what color therapists will try to "tune." Treatment by color therapy can even be performed like acupressure, acupuncture and reflexology, on finger meridians.

In patients diagnosed with depression, color therapists will help them learn breathing techniques and layer fabric or light in orange and yellow. Orange, associated with the second chakra, is the color of joy, and it is great for digestion. Yellow, the solar plexus chakra, energizes the body. It lifts depression and connects the patient with their emotional self.

Researchers recognize that colors bring about emotional reactions in individuals, which also differ in every person. The diagnosis is based on that reaction - revealing the imbalance.

Color therapy has no side effects other than for some people, some shades may be too intense. If people are very susceptible, they may have a more dramatic result. For example, in a person who is prone to depression, dark "soothing" blues or rich purples may be out of the question.

Understanding which colors affect us favorably, which affect us negatively, and why, complements any treatment, and speeds up the healing journey.