Chromotherapy or Color Therapy is making its way back to the forefront of society. Thought to have its beginnings with Ayurvedic medicine, Color Therapy has been used as an ancient form of healing practiced in India for thousands of years. Equally there is historic reference in the Chinese and ancient Egyptian culture as well. With Chinese medicine, each organ is associated with a color. Ancient Egyptians built solarium-type rooms, which could be fitted with colored panes of glass. The sun would shine through the glass and flood the patient with color.
Avicenna (980-1037), who viewed color to be of vital importance in diagnosis and treatment, made significant contributions to Chromotherapy in The Canon of Medicine. He wrote, “Color is an observable symptom of disease” and also developed a chart that related color 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 colors for healing and was the first to establish that the wrong color 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 color and should not be exposed to red light because this would stimulate the sanguine humor, whereas blue would soothe it and reduce blood flow.
We know that color is simply light with varying wavelengths. This light energy affects all living cells. Used in the right way, these different frequencies of light, i.e. color, can have a profound and healing effect on all creation, human or otherwise.
Color Therapy can be used for any problem whether, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual for specific problems as well as for relaxation therapy. Color Therapy is safe and used either alone or alongside other therapeutic treatments. Color energy is said to be the catalyst for our healing process and encourages normal and healthy workings of the body.
A standard method of diagnosis in using color is with the use of the Luscher color test, developed by Max Luscher in the early 1900s. When performing Chromotherapy, color and light is applied to specific areas and acupoints on the body. Some of the tools used for applying colors are gemstones, candles, wands, prisms, colored fabrics, bath treatments, and colored glasses or lenses. Therapeutic color can be administered in a number of ways, but is often combined with hydrotherapy and aromatherapy in an attempt to heighten the therapeutic effect.
What is the meaning of color and how does it heal? Some color therapists start with the chakras and their corresponding positions in the human body. There are seven of these chakras and each is associated with a particular organ or system in the body. Each chakra has a dominant color, but these colors may become imbalanced. If this happens it can cause disease and other physical ramifications. By introducing the appropriate color, these maladies can be fixed. Below is a description of each chakra and its corresponding color.
* Red: First Chakra: Located at the base of the spine.
* Orange: Second Chakra: pelvis area
* Yellow: Third Chakra: solar plexus
* Green: Fourth Chakra: heart
* Blue: Fifth Chakra: throat
* Indigo: Sixth Chakra: lower part of the forehead
* Violet: Seventh Chakra: top of the head
Color therapists also state that we absorb color energy not only through the eyes but also through the skin and the electro magnetic field or aura.
Your color preferences can tell a professional Color Therapist a good deal about you. Color choices can indicate where there may be an imbalance of color, which can highlight a potential problem; whether emotional, physical, mental or spiritual and also gives indications of personality issues, which may need to be addressed.
A professionally qualified Color Therapy practitioner will help you to understand your color preferences, and indeed your need for a certain color or colors.
Color should be a part of our everyday life, not just something we experience for an hour or two with a therapist. Color is all around us everywhere. This wonderful planet does not contain all the beautiful colors of the rainbow without reason. Nature and its colors are not simply here by chance, everything in nature is here for a purpose. Color is no exception.
The capacity for health and well-being is within us all – let Color Therapy help you to fulfill your potential.