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 influence of colors in our surroundings.
W
hile humans have long ap- preciated 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 physi- cians, 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 mag- netic currents or fields 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 sup- pressing the production of melatonin. Published in the journal Evidence- Based Complementary Alternative Medicine, Azeemi and Raza’s photo- biology research, applied as chromo- therapy, supports premises of ancient Chinese, Egyptian and ayurvedic heal- ing traditions in which color is intrinsic to healing: for example, red increases
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circulation; yellow stimulates nerves; orange increases energy; and blue and green soothe everything from skin ir- ritations 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 find- ings published in Environmental Health Perspectives. During the day, artificial light with more blue wavelengths may help improve the performance of stu- dents and employees working indoors; at night, a reduction of the blue portion in artificial 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 elemen- tary schoolchildren, can attest to the soothing effect of blue light when soak- ing in her
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