The effect of color on your emotions has been known for some time.
Looking at something bright yellow seems to cheer people up and invites an outward release of feeling and emotion.
By changing certain color schemes in manufacturing plants, accident rates could drop sharply.
Changing to certain color combinations in school classrooms could improve the learning ability of students.
Proper color codes in assembly-line factories could reduce fatigue and monotony, and increase efficiency.
Hospital recovery rooms could be repainted for less pain and suffering of patients.
Through the research of Gabriel Cousens, M.D., it was found that the color of a food reflects a certain frequency that resonates and bonds specific cells and tissues in our bodies.
He further correlated individual colors with the body's seven individual chakras.
Ingesting certain colored foods can energize, cleanse, build and rebalance the glands, organs and nerve centers associated with the corresponding chakra of the same color.
Foods selected by color can in turn have a corresponding therapeutic effect.
Again of course, the food must be ingested in as pure a state as possible for maximum effect.
Raw, freshly picked and organically grown vegetables and fruits are preferable.
The longer wavelengths of the red end of the spectrum have distinctly different reactions on living things than the blue end of the spectrum.
Crops grow differently in red and blue light.
For instance, grape vines mature faster and produce fruit quicker under blue light.
Under red light, radishes grow quite large.
Chinchillas raised under blue light produce litters with more females, and mink raised under pink light produce more males.
Under the short wavelengths of blue light, time is likely to be underestimated.
Under the long wavelengths of red light, time is overestimated, and feels like it is in slow motion.
Things seem longer and heavier under red, and shorter and lighter under blue.
To the dark adapted eye, red signals are still perceived as flashing at 75 times per minute, whereas blue flashing fuses into an illusion of being continuous at more than 20 times per minute.
Simultaneous sounds increase the sensitivity of the eyes to blue light, but decrease their sensitivity to red.
People exposed to red light experience an increase in blood pressure, but with continued exposure to the color, the effect is reversed and the blood pressure decreases below normal.
Blue light decreases the blood pressure at first, but then causes it to rise after prolonged exposure.
When prison room walls of holding cells were painted pink, it seemed to have a calming effect on violent prisoners at the New Mexico State Penitentiary for the first few minutes, but afterwards the effect reversed itself and the prisoners become even more violent.
It seems therefore that color stimulation for therapeutic application should be organized in terms of brief periods of single colors alone, and given in alternating spurts for maximum benefit.
Imagine homes, offices and classrooms of the future where the color of room walls are programmed to change automatically every 3 minutes to whatever color is conducive to the desired result.
One researcher found that one inherited type of dyslexia called, "scotopic sensi- tivity syndrome," seems responsive to specific color wavelengths of light.
By using different colored overlays or color tinted lenses, reading difficulties for these dyslexics were often alleviated.
Even some "normal" readers could increase their reading speed with colored overlays.
The color seems to modify the light that goes to the eye, and therefore reduce the distortions that a reader previously perceived.
Not everyone responds to the same colors in the same way out of 150 color tints used, ranging from deep blue to red.
For this reason, subjects choose the color tint that makes the printed page more distinct and readable to them.
Tinted lenses by themselves are not a cure for a specific reading problem, but instead they enhance the effect of remedial educational practices.
When another researcher attached electrodes to the eyes of 20 subjects, he found that different colored lights registered specific electrical patterns as each subject perceived each distinct color.
Since some people have a better ability to vividly visualize, he further found that 5 out of the 20 subjects could produce the same electrical patterns by just imagining each color! In fact, they could produce this electrical pattern of an imagined color at the same time that a different color was flashing before their eyes! In other words, the mind's imagined perception could override actual perception.
This is something that hypnotists have been demon- strating with subjects for quite some time.
To be able to visualize colors not only brings about a clarity to your memory and imagination, but it also improves your perceptual vision as well.
As a daily exercise, watch people and things displaying brilliant colors.
When you see a bright color, close your eyes and visualize the color.
Recreate it with more intensity and imagination in your mind's eye.
Breathe steadily and deeply while doing this, and when you open your eyes, you'll see an improved difference in your color perception.
Next, choose a color and make a list of all the things you saw with that color on the way to work, school or to the store.
Check yourself for accuracy the next time you make the same trip.
To demonstrate the power of clear visualization on your body, simply imagine a bright, white light shining down upon your head, enveloping you and filling your entire body.
If you do this vividly enough, you should easily experience feelings of warmth, security and comfort.
Now visualize a gray light shining down on you and through you.
You should experience disquieting or uncomfortable feelings.
Once you are able to visualize colors distinctly, you can use your talent of color visualization on people in need.
If a friend is tired or fatigued, visualize him being flooded with bright, invigorating red light, followed by brilliant yellows and finalized with a treatment of warm, orange light.
If a person is nervous or hyperactive, treat him to a mental bath of violet or lavender light.
Do the same for yourself.
For instance, when you have a headache, bathe yourself in cool, calming blue.