Use Color to Reduce Chaos and Improve Well-Being

Does one room in your house make you feel relaxed while another makes you feel jittery? Are there rooms in your home you absolutely hate to go into and others that beckon you all day long? Do you wince when you just open the door to your office or bedroom?

It’s all about color. The Pantone Color Institute believes that color plays a huge role in your life because of its silent message. It can make you feel happy, sad, angry and even depressed. At the 2016 Atlanta Marketplace convention, the Pantone Color Institute introduced its colors of the year, rose quartz and serenity blue, because they create the welcoming feelings of peace and calm; a sense of order instead of chaos, trauma and stress.

Color impacts all areas of life

According to research by Satyendra Sing, Professor, International Business, University of Winnipeg, business managers can use colors to increase or decrease appetite, enhance mood, calm down customers and reduce negative perceptions. Color psychologists have determined that color influences less obvious perceptions such as the taste of food or work as placebos by having the color of pills be certain colors to influence how a person feels after taking them.

Mother Nature provides you with the ideal color palette. A quick look outside your window will show you a complete palette of colors found on planet Earth. If you live in a suburban or country area, the predominant colors are green (grasses, trees, etc.) and blue (sky and water); hues that are calming and stress reducing. If you live in an urban area, the predominant colors are shades of cold gray and very edgy (skyscrapers, sidewalks, streets); these are more chaotic and edgy. If you live in the desert, you find a lot of neutral earth tones (sand) and blue (sky); they are grounding. And in the mountains you find lots of warm gray and earth tones (rocks and exposed dirt), some green (trees and grass) and blue (sky); equally grounding.

Evaluate how color impacts your personal environment

Take a close look at your home or office to see whether you are living and working in an environment which provides calm, tranquility and peace, so you can be more productive and at peace with yourself.

Declutter first! No matter what color the walls, furniture and accessories are, if your space is filled with clutter you will not be able to focus, concentrate or relax at day’s end. If it doesn’t fit, you no longer like it or it is cracked, chipped or broken, get rid of it. Things that are functional, and documents and files that you need to keep should filed, organized or put away. Other items not wanted or needed should be given away.

Determine what energy each room should provide you. Once you’ve decluttered your home or office, the next step would be to align specific areas where activity and work are important and those areas where relaxation, conversation and rest are important.

• For those areas where activity needs to take place or where you wish for more interaction with family and friends, you can use slightly more lively colors to encourage conversation and lightheartedness. Just do not go too bright or dark because interaction can turn negative very quickly due to the silent impact of the colors. You can even stay neutral in these areas and add splashes of high energy color in your wall and tabletop décor.

• For areas where focus, concentration and productivity are the objective, such as an office or library, use the softer, calming, stress-reducing colors. It is very hard to concentrate when walls, furnishings and décor are screaming “look at me” instead of you looking at the work at hand. This principle should also be applied to children’s bedrooms. Their rooms should never be bright, dark or high energy. They should always be surrounded with nurturing tranquil colors to encourage good health, innovation and creativity.

• For the areas where you want complete relaxation, regeneration and rest, the new colors of the year are a perfect example of what to use. Their subtle value of lightness and their color energy are perfect for bedrooms, home sanctuaries and any place you want to eliminate stress, chaos and trauma and replace them with peace, tranquility and calm.

Do remember to use color judiciously as too much color and brightness can cause scattered or un-focused thinking, an aggressive attitude or anxiety in any room or setting and the wrong ones can make you sleepy and sluggish.

Using color to energize a room, home or office building is an easy way to improve the energy in your surroundings – and especially in you. Try it; you’ll love the newfound energy you’ve created through the use, amount and placement of color.

© Pat Heydlauff, all rights reserved 2016