Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Color therapy

As I was going through all my books over the last few days, deciding which to keep and which to sell, I found a whole bunch on color therapy. I'd forgotten all about my interest in it. At one point I had even had a bunch of transparencies printed up in solid colors and experimented with sending various types of Reiki energy through the different colors to see if it changed. Yeah, that's me, trying science-type experimentation on things science claims to have disproved.
For now, the color therapy books remain in the sell pile, but it got me to thinking and I used my google-fu to see if anything new was being talked about on the web. I found an article on a health blog. It's not really from a new age perspective, like all my books are, so it was interesting to read.
The blog calls it "Chromotherapy" and claims it dates back to ancient China and Egypt. Which gets my attention, of course. Egypt! They did reflexology too, back in the days of pyramids. In the modern form, there is The Lüscher Color Test, a psychological tool.
During the test, patients are exposed to various colors. The colors they choose (and the order in which they are chosen) are believed to be associated with particular mental states.

Here’s a brief overview of what some of the colors represent (according to Dr. Luscher):

  • Blue is associated with contentment and belonging.
  • Green signifies self-esteem and willpower
  • Red represents confidence and a proactive attitude.
  • Yellow indicates eagerness to learn and to experience “new encounters”
That is too funny because I have always hated yellow. If I had to put all the colors in order on the table in front of me, I'd put yellow on the floor! But I am eager to learn. So what does that mean?
And then some crazy person like me decided to put color to the test. My tests were not scientific, of course. I'd lay the colored sheet on someone and run energy through it, then switch to a different color and ask if it felt different. I could see the colors and so could the person--no control, no double blind. Hey, it's not like I had an NIH grant to study it! Or any training in setting up experimental protocols.
I assume the people who did this other study has the credentials I lack. They found an interesting association between certain colors and altered mental functioning. The exposure to a blue background (led) to twice as much “creative output” as was found with a red background.

The color red promoted “attention to detail”. Red also improved proofreading ability and memory - as compared to the color blue. The rate of improvement was approximately 31%.

Hmm, maybe there is something to always doing proofreading with a red pen! And maybe I should take the color therapy books out of the sell pile...

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