Hey guys it’s me again!
I have been having so much fun reading about color for my English class (you’d think I’d do it for my color class but that’s just me. lol) I am so excited to share with you what I have been learning! Did you know that colors actually affect us? A little of it is cultural upbringing and but most is actually physical and energetic!
There are all kinds of studies on the matter. One did a bunch of tests with computers using different colors. They found out that blue contributes to creative thinking and red detailed thinking. Who knew? Another used lights of red and blue. The people in red lights would have heart rate increase and their blood pressure go up, while those in the blue lights would have the opposite happen. These are some of the examples of how colors affect everyone in the world the same.
Did you know that in China the color for mourning is white? Here in the U.S. we usually use black. This is an example of how colors can be culturally influenced. In my text book “Color: the Secret Influence” it says that in France they eat canned peas that are gray but in England they won’t eat them gray so they put dye in them to make them green! Makes me wonder what choices I make because of cultural influences.
My book also says that people in the US chose blue as calming and people in Spain chose white. I decided to test this. I don’t like statistics though because they leave things out. I asked one question, “What color calms you?” I got a lot of responses. My results did show a high number of people choosing blue, but I also could show that most of the people specified a lot of different light colors, although a lot didn’t even specify. I could have asked further questions like does it look dusty or is it just blue? Is it light blue or dark blue? I didn’t.
In another study they talked about how different languages come up with different color categories like a word for dark blue and one for light blue whereas we just call it all blue. So is it possible that the Spanish chose white because it represents all light colors? Hmm I wonder.
Energetically there is an idea that we need different colors throughout the day so what calms us now might not calm us in an hour because it’s not what our body needs. There is also a system called Energy Profiling® by Carol Tuttle. I’ll be writing more about this in a future blog.
For now here is a brief overview. Her system puts people into 4 general categories based on movement. She then created a system of dressing that harmonizes with each type. It would be like putting me in a black suit and sending me to a meeting. I’d be giggling and cracking jokes and not in any way behaving in the “proper” way you’d expect in a black suit. However, if I went to that meeting in a springy yellow suit with a flirty skirt people wouldn’t be at all surprised at my giggles and jokes. I think this would probably explain why some people choose light blue as calming and others choose dark blue. Yet we all get the same affect by ’blue’ it calms us. Lots of interesting thoughts to ponder on!
Have a super duper day!
Michele
