Brighten up: Can colour really change the way we feel?

Do you find yourself constantly sinking into a dark mood? Christine Manby dons her brightest jumper and finds out whether hue makes a difference

Forget the expensive skin cream, a coloured T-shirt could make your skin look younger (Getty/iStock)

On a grey day when you’re feeling blue and you’ve spent too much time on social media getting green with envy at other people’s perfect lives, it’s all too easy to sink into a black mood. Could a change of outfit put you back in the pink? The link between colour and emotion is written into our language. But do the colours with which we surround ourselves actually have the power to change the way we feel?

The ancient Egyptians certainly thought so. They were among the first to practise “chromotherapy”, using coloured minerals, stones and dyes to treat the sick. They also created special rooms in their temples where they used refracted light to “bathe” their patients in colour. A thousand years later, in the 11th century, Persian physician and philosopher Avicenna drew up a chart that matched colours to what he believed to be their physiological effects. He proposed that while red increased blood flow, blue could reduce it. Meanwhile he thought that yellow helped reduce inflammation and could ease muscle pain.

More recently, there have been myriad scientific studies of the effects of colour on human physiology and psychology and Avicenna’s theories have been borne out. Red really does increase blood pressure. Blue really is calming. After blue lights were installed on the platforms of Toyko’s Yamamote railway line, attempts by people to take their own lives there reduced dramatically.