Ask the Experts - colour therapy
This week alternative therapist Pat Nagle explains the importance of colour in everyday life and how it can alter perception.
Colour therapy is a technique of restoring imbalances in the body by applying coloured lights or substances to the body. The idea is an ancient one and can be traced back to the Healing Temples of Light and Colour in ancient Egypt.
The therapeutic qualities of colour are also successfully employed by 'traditional' medicine. For example, treatment with blue light has replaced blood transfusions in the care of newborn babies suffering from jaundice.
Blue light in fact penetrates the skin and destroys the excess bilirubine, which the liver, not yet mature, is unable to digest. After two or three days of this treatment, babies have the ability to eliminate bilirubine by themselves.
Treatments with continuous pulsating blue light are a valid aid in healing some afflictions of the circulatory system.
They are particularly effective in enhancing the appearance of varicose veins. Blue light is relaxing and soothing to the eyes and aids concentration.
In more recent times, colour has been recognised as having a profound effect on our everyday life. Prisons use colour schemes which calm and soothe while promoting re-integration and education.
Hospitals often paint walls blue because of the soothing effect on patients.
Shades of yellow can provoke a sense of nausea and are therefore very rarely used on transports such as ferries or planes. Bright red causes uneasiness in the occupants of a room - architects at a large Japanese factory have painted the walls of the toilet in this shade to reduce the time employees spent in there!
Many studies by psychologists and neurophyisiologists in the last decade have proven how much colour influences our perception of time, space and sensation. Kurt Goldstein, an American researcher, has scientifically proven that under a red light time seems to pass more slowly; objects seem longer and heavier - while under a blue light the opposite is true.
A black suitcase is perceived heavier than the same suitcase painted white, and it has been proven that carrying the former is more tiring!
For more on Pat's courses at Lancashire College visit www.lancashirecollege.com or call 0845 600 1331.
Click on the green video icon above right to view the video.
Next week: Preston Bird Watching & Natural History Society's Stephen Halliwell walks viewers through how to spot birds in a wood or park near you.
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Weather for Preston
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
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