Colour Therapy: How Colours Affect Mood, Energy and Wellbeing

Discover how colour therapy works, the ancient history of colour healing, and how different colours can influence mood, energy, emotions and overall wellbeing.

Our sense of sight is our primary interaction with the world around us, but we take that process almost for granted. When we see colour it is simply the brain's way of recognising the many different energy qualities of light.

For centuries since the ancient times colour has been used around the world as a vibrational healing energy. The colour healing temples of ancient Egypt placed rubies, garnets and amethyst at the peak of the buildings, allowing the sunlight to shine through the stones onto the person below who needed healing.

Colour affects us physically and psychologically, directly and indirectly, and from a combined psychological, physiological and spiritual perspective. Colour affects us as it enters the eye and is transmitted to the emotional centres of the brain. Even blind people can benefit from colour therapy.

This means that the foods we eat, the clothing we wear, and the colours of our interiors in our homes and workstations can affect us. Colour can affect our moods, sex drive, energy levels and weight gain, to name a few.

Ancient Egyptian healing practices placed colour at the heart of medicine and ritual. Dedicated sun temples were designed so daylight passed through coloured gemstones — rubies for vitality, garnets for grounding, amethyst for spiritual clarity — bathing the patient in a specific frequency of light. Similar traditions appear in ancient China, India and Greece, where physicians prescribed coloured cloths, painted rooms and tinted waters to restore balance to body and spirit.

Modern colour psychology echoes much of what these traditions intuited. Research shows that warm colours such as red and orange can quicken the pulse, raise alertness and stimulate appetite, while cool tones like blue and green tend to lower heart rate, soothe the nervous system and encourage focus. Yellow lifts mood and mental clarity; pink softens aggression; violet supports introspection. The colours around us are constantly nudging our behaviour, often below conscious awareness.

This is why colour matters so much in interior design and wellbeing. The shades on your walls, the light through your curtains, the tones in your bedding and workspace are all shaping how rested, creative or anxious you feel. Soft greens and blues in a bedroom invite deep sleep. Warm earthy tones in a living space create connection and safety. A splash of yellow or coral in a workspace can spark energy and ideas. Choosing colour consciously is one of the simplest, most powerful forms of self-care.

Today, colour therapy continues to be used by many holistic practitioners as a complementary approach to wellbeing. While each colour is believed to carry its own unique vibration and energy, colour therapy is often used to support relaxation, emotional balance, creativity, confidence and spiritual growth. From the colours we wear to the colours in our homes and workplaces, colour can influence how we feel, think and interact with the world around us.