Colour can calm and cure. Sameera Moledina tells you how colour therapy works

Colour affects all we do through our moods and emotions. It creates mood, and affects energy. It can also have an emotional impact that can delight you or distress you. ''Most of us take colour for granted," says Aneeta Sanas, colour therapist. "The main reason I started using crystals for my healing purposes is because colours have certain properties that work for cleansing, purifying and energising our 'chakras' and have great beneficial effects on the human mind and body. Colour affects the entire human organism and each colour has a role to play.For a healthy life, a good balance of colour is necessary.'' Colours evoke both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Your reaction to certain colours is influenced by personal experiences.

Vivid colours can stimulate people to activity. Colour has been known to increase productivity and to speed recovery time in patients. It is a property of light, which consists of many different electromagnetic waves of energy. When light falls upon the photoreceptor cells of the retina, it is converted into electric impulses, which then travel to the brain and trigger the release of hormones.

It is well established that the lack of sunlight experienced during the winter in northern climates causes depression in many people - a condition known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

"Colour therapy comprises of using the seven colours of the spectrum to balance and enhance the body's energy centres and also to help stimulate the healing process," explains Sanas. "The therapy uses colour to re-balance the 'chakras'that have been depleted of energy. It is based on physiologic functions that respond to specific colours. When light enters through the eyes or the skin,it travels neurological pathways to the pineal glands attached to the brain, which control the daily rhythms of life. Different colours give off different wavelength frequencies and these different frequencies have different effects on physical and psychological functions."

Understanding the meaning of colour can therefore help us understand and heal our emotions and feelings.

The Process

Colour therapy, which can help shift blocked emotions, is a totally holistic and non-invasive therapy. The body is exposed to different coloured lights, while therapists use a variety of techniques. While some may use filtered light of different colours, some prefer coloured silks instead of lights.

Daily exposure to full-spectrum light from a special bright-light box has been shown to improve SAD by suppressing daytime elevation of the hormone melatonin (a substance that promotes sleep) and increasing the amount of the mood-elevating brain chemical serotonin.The diagnosis and method of treatment determine the number of sessions required.

Aneeta generally uses a combination of crystals and aura-soma for colour therapy. The curing process happens on the individual's physical, emotional and mental levels.She recalls a patient with severe compression of the nerves in the spinal column, resulting in paralysis of the right side of the body. A disc replacement surgery had been prescribed. When he came to Aneeta, he was stressed, tense and scared. Aneeta saw a lot of red and black in his aura, colours which are related to fear and anger.She started off by first using a lot of orange for healing and pink for un-conditional love, mainly for himself, combined with blue and violet to calm his fears. Having undergone therapy with aura-soma and crystal cures in the form of rings, he became more positive and readied himself for the surgery, which was successful. Post surgery, Aneeta used a lot of red to give him the life-force energy, green for healing and gold for positivity. It has now been over a year-and-a-half and he is absolutely fine with no problems whatsoever.

In another case, a nine-year-old was having sleepless nights with untold fears and was prone to bedwetting too. He was getting more and more emotionally and mentally unstable. Aneeta found his aura torn and edgy, with dark red and black as the dominant colours. She used pink and violet coloured crystals to calm him and suffuse him with unconditional love. As healing progressed, she brought in green, which started his physical healing, black to ground him and gold for security. He was made to wear a tiger's eye for protection from psychic attacks, rose quartz to help him feel loved and amethyst for calmness and peaceful sleep. As the sessions progressed, he started sleeping for longer periods and his bed-wetting stopped completely. His aura is now bright.

Some forms of colour therapy can be tried out at home.The therapist may recommend that you try one or more of them. These include wearing clothes of a recommended colour, eating certain colourful foods, visualising a given colour while meditating, and sitting in front of a colour-filtered light for period of time.

How It Works

Different colours cause different reactions on the mind. Time is perceived as moving more slowly in a red room and more quickly in a blue or green one. Visually, the colour red represents nearness and warmth; blue distance and coolness. Bright red and yellow increase blood pressure and muscle tension. Research suggests that people feel warmer in a red room and cooler in a blue room of the same temperature. Blue rooms decrease blood pressure and aggressive feelings. Studies have shown an increase in fertility in blue rooms.

Different values of pink have different effects on emotions - light dull pinks cause calmness and decreased pulse while the deeper pinks have the opposite effect. The passage of time can be over or underestimated depending on the colour of a room. Colour therapy can also be incorporated by using paints or simple blocks of colour.

Back to blue and its calming effects, studies have shown that when disruptive children were placed in blue classrooms, their aggression subsided dramatically. Interestingly, when the colour of London bridges were switched from black to blue,the suicide rate fell by 50 per cent.

Diabetic patients generally have a lack of yellow in their aura. As the colour responds to the solar plexus 'chakra', which is related to the pancreas and kidneys, an influx of yellow generally helps overcome this problem. Aneeta often combines it with pink and green, even black, to ground diabetics and remove fears.