Holistic Hues: Color Therapy for Mind, Body, and Spirit
Do you feel happy when you see a specific type of color? Does any color trigger your anger? It does, right?
Colors reflect our feelings and also are symbols of nature’s beauty. Nature cannot be called beautiful if we remove the colors from it. Colors enhance the beauty of an object or a living being. It gives essence to a particular thing with its natural characteristics. Humans define colors as vibrant, calming, dull, bright, and sober. They can be helpful for our mind and body as colors affect our emotional and mental well-being.
Color therapy, or chromotherapy, is an ancient healing method to utilize the power of colors to treat mental and physical health. For years color therapy has been used to improve mindfulness and to protect a healthy state of mind and body. But before diving into the meaning of color therapy, let’s understand its origin.
Origin of Chromotherapy
The practice of color therapy was started in Egypt, China, and India during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Besides building pyramids, Egyptians are also known for using colors for therapy. They understood the meaning of colors and used them in various places as a symbol of emotions or to represent a particular thing.
China used colors for medical and healing purposes; India used colors’ power to practice Ayurveda. The process has evolved with time, and now a more holistic approach is used for chromotherapy.
What is Color Therapy?
Chromotherapy or color therapy is a holistic process of healing based on the belief that it can cure diseases, emotional health, or physical pain. It works on the principle that the proper approach can speed up healing. When any ill body comes in the presence of the correct color, it can heal itself. It can be either through colored rays or mental practices.
Colors and their symbols
How often have you noticed the significance of a particular color? The meaning it holds or the emotion it represents. We are so habituated to colors in our surroundings that we do not try to understand their basic definition in life. Below we have mentioned a few common colors and their symbols to help you understand.
· Orange
This color symbolizes immunity, warmth, energy, and thoughtfulness. Mainly it denotes joy and the essence of liveliness.
· Red
This color represents anger, love, passion, security, creativity, and courage. Red also symbolizes materialistic value and pleasure.
· Yellow
Yellow symbolizes happiness, creativity, intellect, and also cowardice. You can connect yellow with thoughtfulness and intelligence. However, it can also represent danger.
· Green
This color denotes nature, prosperity, envy, and luck. Green also represents freshness and joy.
· Blue
Blue can be associated with wisdom, peace, intuition, and hope. But this color also represents depression and sadness.
· White
This color denotes purity, peace, healing, and truth. White is a color of togetherness and is always associated with a peace offering.
Effects of colors
As you know, colors affect our minds, body, and spirit in various ways. Sometimes we don’t realize how they helped us to recover from our problems. Everyone responds differently to colors, so the best way is to experiment and understand what works for you. Let’s discuss some colors and their effects on our bodies.
1. Blue
This color helps with stress and relaxation. It also helps to cure sore throat, body aches, jaundice, and ulcers.
2. Violet
Violet is helpful for migraines and appetite as it is associated with the top half of the mind.
3. Green
This color helps with headaches, heart problems, and lung diseases, as it is associated with the chest part. It can also be calming and relaxing for the mind.
4. Red
Red is associated with the lower portion of the body, so it helps with legs, weakness, blood pressure, and bladder-related diseases. This color is also good for heart rate and blood circulation.
5. Yellow
This color helps with appetite, digestion, and constipation as it is associated with the stomach area.
6. Orange
Orange color helps with the nervous system and also kidney problems. It denotes optimism, excitement, creativity, and joy.
7. Indigo
This color associates with the bottom half of the head and helps cure asthma. It can heal problems related to the face, eyes, ears, and nose.
Practice color therapy on your own
You can start color therapy by practicing on your own. You can incorporate this therapy into your day-to-day life in various ways. It is simple to understand and is beneficial for being healthy. Let’s start with the basic things you can do to get started.
1. Always choose your dress colors wisely. You can decide which color to wear based on your daily mood. Or you can choose according to your daily activities and events.
2. Sit in a room with bright colors. Vibrant colors increase productivity, and help in keeping the mind focused.
3. Choose red and black to feel confident and authoritative. Or you can go with colors you feel confident with.
4. Use colors that denote joy for parties and fun activities. It sets up the mood for everyone.
5. Use white or light colors during meditation, yoga, or mind-related activities.
These are some essential tips you can use, to begin with color therapy. However, you need to understand how severe your mental and physical problem is. If suffering from severe mental issues, it is advisable to go for therapy. Find a good therapy place like Therapy Journey to get better. Ensure to check out the therapist’s background before considering him/her. You can search their LinkedIn accounts, for example, Chris Gustafson (associated with Therapy Journey).
Conclusion
With this, we hope you got the idea of color therapy and understood its basics. Color therapy can be induced in your daily habits with practice. It’s an excellent way to adopt a healthy routine that helps with your mind, body, and spirit.
However, it depends on your color choices and your response toward the approach. Hope you will practice and experiment with the therapy methods. It is an ancient process and has given proven results, so get started with it.