Colour Psychology: how the colours we wear affects our moods.

Do you find yourself feeling angry around certain colours?

Does green make you feel refreshed?

Does blue chill you out?

It’s long been argued that colours can dramatically affect how we feel. As Pablo Picasso once said, “colours, like features, follow the changes of the emotions.” So how can we use colour to boost our own moods?

Colour is a powerful communication tool, and one that is often overlooked. Just one colour can signal actions and influence reactions - certain colours have even been associated with headaches and increased metabolism. So how does colour psychology work?

Colour psychology is a hot topic in all areas: marketing, art, and design to name a few. Despite a lack of research, discoveries are being made all the time that are helping us to understand more about the way colour affects us.

Colours influence our emotions, and our emotions influence our decisions.

It gets trickier once we realise that there is no clear way to group colours to emotions. We know there’s objectively cool colours (our blues and greens), and our warm colours (our reds and oranges). What we don’t know is how these colours make everyone feel.

For some, red invokes anger. For others, it invokes passion.

For some, yellow feels anxious. For other, it feels happy.

Colour is too dependent on personal experiences to have one universal translation. Research has shown that personal preferences, experiences, cultural differences, and upbringings change the way we react to certain colours. Colour affects how we feel, we know that much. As for what it makes us feel, that’s for us to find out.

So maybe it’s time to keep an eye out for the colours that are around you. Notice the room when you walk into a space. Look in your wardrobe and pick up on the colours you’re drawn too. Think about how those colours make you feel.

Don’t pick colours on a whim; use them to your advantage.