The Therapeutic Effect of Colors

Color-spectrum therapy has been popular since the days of antiquity.In Ancient Rome, the healer Pleneus recommended precious red stones to stop bleeding, while in China, healers cured stomach discomforts by gently massaging the patients belly with the yellow color.In Western society, notions such as these have given way to the scientific understanding of light as electromagnetic energy, and of color, as being determined by its frequency. The possibility that the energy of light could interact with and affect a living organism motivated modern color-spectrum therapy, which became popular in 1877 when Englishmen Dawns and Blunt discovered the ability to cure rickets with ultraviolet light.Here the scientific explanation is that ultraviolet radiation (which is a component of sunlight) enables a biochemical reaction in the skin that produces vitamin D, and thereby correcting the vitamin deficiency that causes rickets. It is also known that a specific kind of depression associated with the dark months of winter (called seasonal affective disorder) can be alleviated by exposure to a suitable artificial light source that mimics sunlight. Exposure of the retinas to this light seems to...