Colour therapy

 Colour Therapy

Chromo therapy, sometimes called colour therapy. colourology or cromatherapy, is an alternative medicine method. It is claimed that a therapist trained in chromo therapy can use colour and light to balance energy wherever a person's body be lacking, be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. The practice has been labelled pseudoscientific by its critics.

Colour therapy is unrelated to light therapy, a valid and proven form of medical treatment for seasonal affective disorder and a small number of other conditions.

History of Colour therapy

Avicenna (980-1037), who viewed colour to be of vital importance in diagnosis and treatment, discussed chromo therapy in The Canon of Medicine. He wrote that "Colour is an observable symptom of disease" and also developed a chart that related colour to the temperature and physical condition of the body. His view was that red moved the blood, blue or white cooled it, and yellow reduced muscular pain and inflammation. He further discussed the properties of colours for healing and was "the first to establish that the wrong colour suggested for therapy would elicit no response in specific diseases." As an example, "he observed that a person with a nosebleed should not gaze at things of a brilliant red colour and should not be exposed to red light because this would stimulate the sanguineous humour, whereas blue would soothe it and reduce blood flow. American Civil War General Augustus Pleasonton conducted his own experiments and published his book The Influence Of The Blue Ray Of The Sunlight And Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, published in 1876 about how the colour blue can improve the growth of crops and livestock and can help heal diseases in humans. This led to a birth of modern chromo therapy, influencing scientist Dr. S. Pancoast and Edwin Dwight Babbitt to conduct experiments and publish books about chromo therapy. After this, throughout the 19th century, healers claimed coloured glass filters could treat many diseases including constipation and meningitis. Photobiology, the term for the contemporary scientific study of the effects of light on humans, has replaced the term chromo therapy in an effort to separate it from its roots in Victorian mysticism and to strip it of its associations with symbolism and magic.

Light therapy is a specific treatment approach using high intensity light to treat specific sleep, skin and mood disorders.

Ayurvedic medicine describes the body as having seven main chakras, which are spiritual centers located along the spine that are associated with a colour, function and organ or bodily system. According to this explanation, these colours can become imbalanced and result in physical diseases but these imbalances can be corrected through using the appropriate colour as a treatment. The purported colours and their associations are described as:

Chromo therapy can Reduce Stress and Enhance Sleep

Colour therapy or Chromo therapy is the use of colour to promote general health and also to treat particular maladies (including but not limited to sleep-oriented problems). 

Chromo therapy can be used to treat both emotional and physical sleep disturbances, and may involve exposure to coloured lights, massages using colour-saturated oils and salves, meditation and visualization of certain colours, or wearing certain colours of clothing.Colour has been used for centuries in the treatment of a wide variety of disorders.

In India, practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine believed that specific colours corresponded with each of the seven chakras, vortices of energy in the body that represent organs, emotions, and aspects of the soul or life force.

In the days of ancient Egypt, practitioner
built solariums with specifically designed glasses and lenses that served to break up the sun's rays into the colours of the spectrum.

Origin of chromo therapy:

In the late 17th century modern-day colour theory was born when English mathematician and philosopher Sir Isaac Newton conducted his prism experiments and showed that light is truly a mixture of colours from the visible spectrum.

But it was not until he late 1800s, when Dr. Edwin D. Babbitt published his book "Principles of Light and Colour", that Chromo therapy as we know it was outlined.

It is in this work that Dr. Babbitt suggests the use of colour as a treatment for a variety of ailments, including sleep and anxiety disorders.

In the late 1940s, Russian researcher S.V. Krakov conducted a series of experiments in which he separated the different wavelengths in the light spectrum to show how colour affects the nervous system.

In his experiments, he observed that red light stimulated the adrenal glands, raising blood pressure and pulse rate, and that blue and white light had a calming, relaxing effect.

The fruits of Krakov's studies are still used today by many practitioners, and his brand of colour therapy is commonly recommended for stress and for stress-related pain.

The Chemistry of Colour Therapy:

In recent years studies have demonstrated the positive effess of foll-spectrum fight on seasonal affective disorder (SAD) a other forms of depression, which has resulted in increased patific awareness of colour therapy.It is becoming more and more common to find maintie researchers turning to chromo therapy for a variety of ailments a well, particularly sleep disorders.

Colour is a property of light, which is made up of many differe waves of energy. When light falls upon the photoreceptor celle of the retina, it is converted into electrical impulses.

These impulses travel to the brain and trigger the release of hormones. The release of these hormones in controlled bursts can be used to treat the body and mind for many of the medical conditions that hinder sleep as well as promote conditions that are conducive to sleep and rest.While many forms of chromo therapy can and should only be practiced by licensed practitioners and/or medical doctors, some forms of colour therapy are simple and safe enough to be practical in the comfort of your own home. These include wearing clothing of particular hues, surrounding yourself with a recommended colour, eating certain colourful foods, and concentration on visualizing a particular colour.

Some Cautions:

Never use colour therapy instead of conventional care for serious sleep problemsIf you suffer from epilepsy, use caution when looking at flashing lights.If you are receiving coloured light therapy, avoid looking directly into the light source. Look at an object illuminated by the coloured lights instead.When taking prescription drugs, read the warning label to make sure that no side effects are induced if your skin is exposed to bright light.Colour plays a major role in setting up a particular mood o state of mind. Colour does affect one's feelings, moods, and emotions.