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The Healing Benefits of Color

Ever been in a room filled with beautiful energetic colors? Did you feel like dancing or playing?  Color contributes to the energy of a room and is used in the design of restaurants to hospitals. Do you feel calmer when looking up at the big, blue sky? Do you like hanging out in a basement?  Do you feel depressed when subjected to dark rainy weather found in the Seattle sky?  Colors have a very strong effect on our feelings, moods and emotions. They’re a very simple presence, and yet we feel them very strongly.

The use of color and light for healing has been used for thousands of years and only recently has this healing benefit been combined with the health benefits of infrared saunas.  Colors can affect moods and emotions and can be as calming as they are agitating.  Cool or natural colors are more calming, in hospice centers walls are painted a lavender or green color to help relax its patients.  Many restaurants utilize red and orange colors to stimulate your appetite. And what is childcare without a yellow wall that promotes positive, cheerful energy and activity?  Our reactions to color differ from person to person.  Our attraction to certain colors may signal areas where we are imbalance.

Color is the language of the soul. Think of an inspired painting. Colors affect our perception of large or small.  Colors have symbolic meaning which is immediately recognized by our subconscious.  We might associate light blue as boy, pink as girl or red as love.

So how can colors inspire a feeling of wellbeing?  For centuries, chakras have been defined as energy points in the subtle body, not the physical body, and as such are the meeting points of the subtle (non-physical) energy channels called nadi. Nadi are channels in the subtle body through which the life force (prana) (non-physical) or vital energy (non-physical) moves. Various scriptural texts and teachings present a different number of chakras. There are many chakras in the subtle human body according to the tantric texts, but there are seven chakras that are considered to be the most important ones.  The rainbow colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and white.

Our body is an outward expression of what is taking place in our minds.  If we have negative thoughts our experiences and health can be negatively impacted whereas if we have positive thoughts our experiences and health can be positively impacted.  The ancient practice of chakra meditation focuses on the seven most important colors and associates each color with energy centers located from the top of the head to the base of the spine.

One of the easiest chakra meditations you can do is to visualize a white ball of light a representation of prana or lifeforce enters through the top of the head travels down the spine and merges with the first chakra located at the base of the spine.  Visualize this great ball of light merging with a red ball of light at the base of your spine.  You are essentially clearing blocked energy in this visualization.  Once you are able to visualize the two balls of light joining have the white leave the root chakra at the base of the spine and repeat the visualization with the sacral chakra (orange).  As you move up the spine you move up through to the crown of your head and then just breathe and focus on the white ball of light getting brighter and surrounding your body.  If any color is difficult to visualize it is likely that you have a spiritual or emotional blockage that may over time cause an illness.  I view chakra meditation as a spiritual check-in with my body systems.

Celebration Saunas Chakra Poster

RED
Red is the color of passionate love, seduction, violence, danger, anger, and adventure. Our prehistoric ancestors saw red as the color of fire and blood – energy and primal life forces – and most of red’s symbolism today arises from its powerful associations in the past. The healing properties of red is to bring warmth, energy and stimulation.  Red energizes the heart and blood circulation.  Red also enhances the 5 senses as red is the grounding chakra located at the base of the spine. Focusing on the color red on your root chakra causes the release of adrenalin improving strength and energy.  Red causes hemoglobin to multiply raising body temperature.  A preference for red is associated with passion, love, sex, high energy, impulsive, active, assertive, aggressive, courage, strength, power, adventure, danger, warnings, revolt and revolution.
ORANGE
Orange is the color of joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement and stimulation.  Orange is a very hot color that gives the sensation of heat without the aggressiveness of red.  Orange opens the body and mind.  As a product of red and yellow it combines physical energy with mental wisdom, inducing a transformation between lower physical reaction and higher mental response.  Orange helps assimilate new ideas and stimulate mental enlightenment. It is also helpful in dealing with excess sexual expression. Orange links very strongly with the sacral chakra.  The healing properties of orange stimulates the lungs, increases the activity of the thyroid, relieves muscle cramps and spasms, and can promote milk production in mothers.  A preference for orange is associated with warmth, energy, celebration, abundance, comfort, sociable, dedication and the enjoyment of the senses.
Yellow
Yellow is the color of the sun, life-force, vitality and energy.  Yellow awakens mental inspiration and strengthens the nerves.  It is the color of cheerfulness, curiosity, flexibility, progress, amusement, and communication.  It is the foundation of courage. Yellow stimulates the solar plexus chakra or psychic center. It can be used for psychic burnout or other psychic-related conditions or ailments. Yellow can be used for conditions of the stomach, liver, and intestines. It helps the pores of the skin and aids scarred tissue in healing itself. It also has a very enriching effect upon the intellect and the brain. Like the color of gold, yellow represents the highest of the physical colors.
Green
Green is the color of Healing and Peace.  It inspires emotional and psychological harmony and balance.  Residing in the middle of the color spectrum it equally contains both a physical nature and spiritual nature to balance harmony.  Green stimulates the heart chakra that has a soothing influence on body and mind representative of Spiritual Healing.  Love is the motivating power behind all healing.  Green affects all conditions of the heart including blood pressure.  Green has both a soothing and energizing effect that stimulates inner peace.
Blue
Blue is the color of truth.  Blue is cool and soothing, dreamy and magical and represents peace and rest.  It improves fevers, slows bleeding and improves a sore throat.  Blue can have a sedative effect for rest and relaxation.  Blue corresponds to the throat chakra, the power center of expression.  Blue is considered a power center due to its impact on speech and communication.  The healing properties of blue are decreased inflammation, fever, high blood pressure, bleeding and headaches, or any ailment of the throat.   Blue is the bringer of tranquility and soothes suffering.
Indigo
Indigo is the color of purity.  It purifies the mind to provide mental clarity.  Indigo purifies bloodstream and frees the body of negative thoughts.  Indigo combines the deep blue of devotion with a trace of stabilizing and objective red. Indigo stimulates the brow chakra or the third eye and controls the pineal gland.  It is the color of clairvoyance. Indigo can assist with ailments of the eyes and ears.
Violet / Purple
Violet is the color of transformation to the divine Spirit. Violet works only on the levels of the Spirit and does not treat physical conditions.  It touches the ether of our divine spirit family to provide inspiration to spiritual questions. Violet helps to expand our Divine understanding. Violets spiritual nature can provide relief from melancholy, hysteria, delusions and alcohol addiction bringing spiritual insights and renewal.  Violet can slow down an over-active heart, stimulate the spleen, white blood cell production (immunity), induce sleep,  soothe mental and emotional stress,  decrease sensitivity to pain and promote detoxification.

WHITE

White is the perfect color; for it is all color, in perfect balance and harmony. It is the color of the awakened spirit; the light of perfection; the light of the Divine and Cosmic consciousness. White is life force light, the well of truth and love.  Directing white through the chakras promotes overall health and wellbeing while stimulating your own divine healing nature.

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