How Colors Affect Mood

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We all have specific colors we love and others we aren’t so drawn to.  For years, psychologists have studied how colors affect our brains, moods, and creativity. The four primary psychological colors – are red, blue, yellow, and green. The variations and mixing of these four colors maintain the balance between our body, mind, and emotions.

Black: This is a powerful, mysterious color and is associated with seriousness and associated with sex, death, and mystery.  Black may make you depressed, or on the other hand, may make you feel secure.

Blue: A relaxing color.  Blue lowers blood pressure, calms, gives a sense of security, and suppresses appetite.  In studies, blue has been shown to increase the creativity receptors in the brain, leading to cognitive brainstorming.  While blue is one of the most popular colors, it is one of the least appetizing. Blue food is rare in nature. Food researchers say that when humans searched for food, they learned to avoid toxic or spoiled objects, often blue, black, or purple. When food dyed blue is served to study subjects, they lose their appetite.

Brown: This is an organic, earthy color.  It can make you feel cozy.

Green: This is the easiest color for the eyes to focus on for long periods. It soothes pain and is associated with optimism. It may make one feel happy, clean, and fresh.  It is one of nature’s most abundant colors, so it often leads to sensations of peace and zen.

Orange: This color is friendly, relaxing, and ambitious.

Pink: This is a youthful, feminine color.  Pink is also a soft, sensitive color. This is a “happy” color.

Purple:  This color is often associated with royalty.  It is also a contemporary color. Purple has a list of associated feelings, from feeling mournful to creative.

Red: This color raises blood pressure, stimulates appetite and conversation, and is often associated with excitement, action, and impulse. In studies, Red boosts performance on detail-oriented tasks such as memory retrieval and proofreading by as much as 31% compared to blue.  Red is also often used in restaurant decorating schemes because it is an appetite stimulant.

White: It is often associated with purity and cleanliness, nothingness, and death or mourning in some cultures. It can make one feel clean/sterile.

Yellow: This color is an eye irritant and a highly emotional color.  After long periods, yellow invokes feelings of anger and hostility.  However, yellow, in small doses, is a warm, happy color.

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