color and wellness

How Color Affects Your Mood (and Wellness)

When you hear talks about wellness, it is often classified as booking a vacation, taking a yoga class, going to the spa, or taking a warm bubble bath. I want to share a new twist on wellness. Let’s think about color, clothing, and attitude.

Just look at the colors above and what they represent or the emotions they evoke. Imagine if you wore orange this week, how much more determined and creative you might be? Or if you wore yellow—it actually generates muscle energy. Who wouldn’t want that? Do you want to feel more calm or tranquil this week when you attend a meeting? If so, wear blue.

I notice how wearing different colors makes me feel different. I probably don’t need to tell you, but I love red! My next favorites, although not really colors, are black and white. You can probably tell this from our corporate colors. But I also love bright yellows, oranges, greens, and blues. When I wear any clothing with those colors, I feel better in terms of being energetic; get-up-and-go; happy; sunny. All of those positive feelings affect my well-being.

Now, what about black affecting my well-being? Well, I don’t feel morbid in black. I feel very powerful when I wear black. It is a symbol of authority so if I am going into a situation where I want to feel empowered, I will wear black. This helps my mental well-being and also plays a role in how I come across to others. It is a positive experience that boosts my self-esteem and emotional well-being.

Interestingly when I remodeled my bedroom and bathroom a few years ago, I chose colors that are very calming – beautiful silvers, pewters, grays, and white. I added bathroom tile and hardware that sparkles and shimmers like the evening stars. My bedroom is a place of calm and serenity which is very important to me with my crazy travel and work schedule. I feel peace as soon as I open the door to my room.

Think about it. What colors do you favor? Why might you like those colors? Are there new colors you need to surround yourself with to help create what you want to feel? Don’t be afraid to mix up the various colors for the different spaces you reside.

Color speaks to us all the time. We are surrounded by color (or lack of color) in nature. For example, when I travel to the mid-west during the winter when it is gloomy and the skies are gray, I notice I don’t eat as healthy. I crave foods that are heavier, more fattening, and could be described as comfort foods. I don’t feel like jumping out of bed in the morning. And at night, I’m ready to just sit inside and ‘veg’ out which means I’m not getting much exercise. I notice as soon as I get back to sunny Las Vegas, I eat much healthier, eagerly awake with the sunshine, and want to be active throughout the early evening and weekends. I want to get up, get out and go! (No offense to those who live in the mid-west; I was born in Cleveland)

You should surround yourself with the colors that help evoke the feelings, emotions, and energy that you desire. This would include your workspace, rooms in your house, the inside of your car, or any space or place where you spend a lot of time.

Have fun exploring color, meaning, and the connectedness to your Wellness Pillar.

Orange is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.

Yellow is the color of sunshine. It’s associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy. Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy.

Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, and freshness. Green suggests stability and endurance. It indicates growth and hope.

Blue is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect. Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness.

Purple symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition. It conveys wealth and extravagance. Purple is associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

Red is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Red is a very emotionally intense color. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.

White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, and purity. It is considered to be the color of perfection. White means safety, purity, and cleanliness.

Black is associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery. Black denotes strength and authority.

The color information above is from Color Wheel Pro. 

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7 thoughts on “How Color Affects Your Mood (and Wellness)”

  1. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants
    Sheila Dissmore

    I am a black/white girl, but favorite color is RED, for many reasons. I think that color “attracts” others and is inviting. I love seeing rainbows in the sky with the beautiful color they show, that reminds me of Gods promises. Joan, I mixed 2 sizes of glitter into a cool blueish gray paint, and have a “sparkle” bathroom at my home. I love it! And I also wanted to share this that I found on the web. “It turns out that one of the most significant benefits of using blue ink: improved memory recall. Psychology research suggests that reading and writing text written in color increases the likelihood that you will remember that information.”

  2. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants
    Mary Jo Wiseman

    Color can be a great motivator. In the middle of a dark, dank winter in Minnesota on a Friday when I would have preferred to just stay home, I needed to dress in red. It gave me the energy I needed to get moving and put a smile on my face.

  3. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants
    Alice Rezendes

    My favorite color is red, also. It’s just so vibrant. My kitchen is red along with one wall in my bedroom. I also purchased your ‘red’ lipstick to match a lot of my work clothes – it looks great with black when I am in my power mode.

  4. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants
    Sandy Middleton

    Thanks Joan! I enjoyed this info. I must have needed my power colors today, since I’m in black with a black and gray blouse!

  5. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants

    I tend to wear a lot of black and blue. Not that i don’t have other color options in my closet cause I do; but I just seem to be drawn to those 2 colors more often than not.

  6. Training for Executive and Administrative Assistants

    I love bright colors as well. Fushia is my favorite followed by royal purple. Fushia wasn’t listed on the color wheel, so I guess it is a combination of red/pink.

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