healingways
How Hues Can Help and Heal by Judith Fertig
OUR WORLD COLORING
From relaxing in a hot tub amidst sparkling blue lights to sleeping soundly surrounded by soft-green walls, we continuously experience the subtle infl uence of colors in our surroundings.
W
hile humans have long appreciated nature’s chromatic displays, it wasn’t until 1666 that Sir Isaac Newton proved that white light from the sun refracted through a prism separates into the individual bandwidths we perceive as hues. A growing body of research by physicians, environmentalists, psychologists and alternative medicine specialists is now exploring how color—as light and pigment—can affect people physically, mentally and emotionally.
According to Pakistani research
physicists Samina T. Yousuf Azeemi and S. Mohsin Raza, working from the University of Balochistan, “Colors generate electrical impulses and magnetic currents or fi elds of energy that are prime activators of the biochemical and hormonal processes in the human body.” Different colors cause different reactions, from stimulating cells to suppressing the production of melatonin. Published in the journal Evidence- Based Complementary Alternative Medicine, Azeemi and Raza’s photobiology research, applied as chromotherapy, supports premises of ancient Chinese, Egyptian and
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ayurvedic healing traditions in which color is intrinsic to healing: for example, red increases circulation; yellow stimulates nerves; orange increases energy; and blue and green soothe everything from skin irritations to anxiety.
Blue light can reset our biological
clocks. Although electric light attempts to mimic natural sunlight, the body does not sense it that way, according to fi ndings published in Environmental Health Perspectives. During the day, artifi cial light with more blue wavelengths may help improve the performance of students and employees working indoors; at night, a reduction of the blue portion in artifi cial lighting provided for shift workers could protect against sleep disturbances. The irony, notes Science Writer David C. Holzman, of Lexington, Massachusetts, is that applications of blue light are now used to cure some of the very things it can cause—sleeplessness and depression. Sonya Nutter, a Kansas City mother of three elementary schoolchildren, can attest to the soothing effect of blue light when soaking in her Kohler chromotherapy tub in the dark: “It’s even better than lavender scent for calming,” she says.
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