🎨 Chromotherapy

"Colors answer feeling in man; shapes answer thought; and motion answers will." –John Sterling

Hi Cringers!

My husband and I live in Maine where it’s gray 360 out of 365 days per year. We’re also in a place that’s overwhelmingly beige, I’m talking beige walls, beige carpet, and beige blinds.

So, to feel less SAD (seasonal affective disorder) during the winter, I got in the habit of dressing colorfully, also known as “dopamine dressing.”¹

I wore a shamrock green sweater, a buttercup-yellow tee, and a powder-blue corduroy shacket in the middle of a dark, gloomy Maine winter.

I participated in dopamine interior design as well and decorated our place with Sherbert orange throw pillows, multicolored garlands, colorful risograph prints of fruits, suns, and international food items, and hid some of the beige flooring under various multi-colored area rugs.

And you know what? It worked! I felt happier and more energized surrounded by color.

It turns out I had inadvertently chromotherapized myself.

Chromotherapy, according to verywellmind.com, is  “a form of therapy that uses color and light to treat certain mental and physical health conditions.”²

Early Egyptians believed that colors could heal. They painted the floors green to symbolize the grass and hung various crystals and hued gems so that when the sun hit them it would create healing temples of color.³ Similar practices can be found in ancient Greece and China.⁴

To this day, color psychologists claim that colors can affect our heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration.⁵

Western medicine tends to view chromotherapy as pseudoscience and quackery. And while I don’t believe sitting in a blue room can cure cancer or that crystals can heal a 3rd-degree burn, I do believe color can elevate moods, stimulate emotions, and speak to us in ways words can’t.

To quote a few famous artists:

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way." - Georgia O’Keefe

"Color! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams!” - Paul Gaugin

"The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color." - Hans Hofmann

And if the artists won’t convince you, maybe the social scientists will:

• A study of 52,098 National Hockey League games found that teams wearing black jerseys are over 10% more likely to be penalized for aggressive fouls than teams wearing white jerseys.⁶

• Psychologist Carlton Wagner found that babies cry more in yellow rooms.⁷

• University of Durham researchers Russell Hill and Robert Barton found that athletes who wore red clothing in the 2004 Olympic Games won more events than those athletes who wore blue.⁸  

• One study found that blue lighting significantly decreases a man’s appetite.⁹

If you’re still thinking this all sounds a little woo-woo, then think about it from a biological standpoint.

We evolved to see color in terms of survival:

🔥🔴 Red is Fire: danger, protection, and seduction.

☀️🟡Yellow is Sun: warmth, optimism, and energy. 

🌱 🟢Green is Plants: growth, hope, and resilience. 

💧🔵 Blue is Water: calming, cleansing, and rejuvenating.

What does this all have to do with personal branding? Because the colors you choose for your brand have a major impact on how you’re perceived and the type of audience you attract.

According to Hubspot’s article, “Color Psychology: How To Use it in Marketing and Branding”:

• Up to 90% of an initial impression comes from color

• Color can increase brand awareness and recognition by 80%

• 93% of consumers make purchasing decisions based on visuals alone

In the next several Cringe Letters, I’ll be breaking down the rainbow and going into the history, psychology, and meaning of each color.

By the end of this series, you will have:

• An in-depth understanding of how to communicate with color

• And the tools you need to find and create your own personal brand color palette

Do you know someone looking to develop their personal brand to attract new job opportunities or increase leads for their business with branding? Tell them to sign up for Cringe Letter to learn more about developing an impactful personal brand.

Until next time, Cringers! Hope you all have a colorful week.

1. https://www.self.com/story/dopamine-dressing-tips

2. https://www.verywellmind.com/color-therapy-definition-types-techniques-and-efficacy-5194910

3. https://www.colourtherapyhealing.com/colour/colour-history

4. https://aspiraldesign.com/frontpage-article/ancient-civilisations-and-the-power-of-colour-therapy/

5. https://www.colorpsychology.org/

6. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1948550611418535

7. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-03-15-9201240411-story.html

8. https://www.nature.com/articles/435293a

9. https://www.journals.elsevier.com/appetite/media-coverage/blue-lighting-decreases-the-amount-of-food-consumed-in-men