While you sit in a classroom at school, are you focused on the blackboard? If you go to a fast-food restaurant, do you feel rushed in and out? When you visit your doctor, do you feel calm while you sit in the waiting room? Chances are that in all these places you see colors—on the walls, the rugs, the furniture—that help create a certain mood and make you react in a certain way. Like the designers of these rooms, you can use color in your own life to help improve your mood or change it altogether. back to top

What is color theory?
Think of how you feel when you see your favorite color. Color theory uses the arrangement of colors to stimulate your brain and bring out a certain mood or behavior. The same way that blue may make you feel relaxed, another color may give you more energy or inspire you to paint a picture. back to top

Do colors have health benefits?
In some cases, color may be used in a healing technique known as color therapy, or chromatherapy. Colors stimulate your senses and affect your body, mind, and emotions. That's what color therapy is all about. Practitioners of color therapy use colored fabrics, stones, and lenses to help improve patients' health. For example, a practitioner of color theory may have someone look through blue-tinted glasses for a period of time to help ease anxiety.

So who knows? If you're feeling stressed-out, those sunglasses you like with the colored lenses may be both the height of fashion and just what the doctor ordered as well. back to top

How can I tell which color is best for me?
People react differently to colors. And they often go back and forth between favorites. While you may not find one color that's best for you all of the time, the colors you like can say a lot about you. And by wearing different colors at different times, or using them to decorate your room, you may be able to cheer yourself up, calm yourself down, or help keep your mind focused. back to top