Blue is an interesting color and it has a lot of power. So many people list blue as their favorite color. I’ve run into other people who have loved it, but they are now sour on the color. There is a very important reason why.

As you can see from the title below, blue is a tranquil color. This is what Leslie Kane found about it. This is one of my favorite studies.

BLUE – THE TRANQUILIZER

Blue evokes a mood of tranquility and serenity. Almost any shade of blue will do it, from cobalt to sky blue to sapphire. An intriguing new study done at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, investigated the effect of blue surrounding a class of behaviorally disturbed children, some of whom were blind. The researchers first measured the kids’ baseline heart rate, respiration, and other physiological indicators.

Then the walls of the classrooms were painted light and dark blue. All of the physical indicators went down and the children became noticeably calmer – even the blind children! Researchers and teachers who observed the children during the one month other blue-paint period were amazed at how calm they were. When the classrooms were repainted their original brown and yellow, the children’s heart rates, respiration, and pulse rates went back up and hyperactive behavior resumed.

“The fact that the blind children experienced this effect provides strong evidence that color has a direct bio-chemical pathway to the brain,” Schauss says. “It works as long as the retina of the eye is attached to the brain. However, if a blind child closes his eyes so that color cannot strike the retina, the effect won’t work.”

According to Bonnie Bender of Pittsburgh Paints, blue can make a room seem like its color, too. “A large office was repainted from a soft orange to aqua,” she says. “The women began to complain of being chilly and some wore sweaters or jackets at their desks. They asked to have the office temperature raised. When the walls were repainted a warm color, the complaints stopped and management saved on the heating bills.”

Blue has also been shown to prevent suicide. The Blackfriars Bridge, a gloomy-looking black bridge over Thames River in London, was a favorite leaping-off point for despondent citizens.

Color consultants suggested painting the bridge Baker-Miller pink, but the public got huffy at the idea of a pink bridge. They settled for the next most soothing color, blue. The suicide rate at the bridge immediately dropped.

I love these reports or case studies. They are not some one opinion of how a color should affect us. The proof is there for all of us to think about. The power of colors is there even if we want to admit it or not.

Also, I want to add something that she didn’t talk about. You can warm up blue. When we mix gold or yellow with it, we get a periwinkle blue. This is a warmer color than a blue without the gold. This might be a tip that you might want to remember.

We are going to talk about how to use these colors together in the same room to create the right feelings in later articles. If people want, I will put this all into an e-book that you can download. Let me know!

A couple of days ago, I was talking with a group of people. When we got on the subject of color, everyone seemed very interested in my knowledge of it and how it affects us.

I explained that I had found this research by going to the library in the early 1980s. I haven’t done a lot of research since then. If I knew where I could get more, I would love to read it.

Someone requested I put my findings on my blog. So I went through my papers and found the information that I dug out of the library. My information all comes from print books and magazines. If there’s someone out there who can add to it, please do by leaving a comment at the end. I want research and not something from a book that isn’t backed up by research that you can go read yourself.

Looking over my papers, I still like this article, The Power of Color. I found some of the sources on my own and I found the information to be accurate. Today, I found myself enjoying the article as much as I did in 1980. It was written by Leslie Kane in July 1982 for a magazine called Health. In my research, I found a book I think was well written. It was printed by Architecture Digest in the early 1980s. I only have pages copied out of it because it was a limited edition, so please let me know what you want. I’ll start with the article. Here are the first three paragraphs of The Power of Color – and you can decide for yourself.

“Why should hanging pretty red wallpaper in your bedroom inspire you and your spouse to make war and not love? Why does a teacher who holds sway in a yellow-and-brown classroom complain that your child’s fidgety and inattentive while a teacher who instructs in a blue room calls him a model student? And why should your job suddenly become more depressing instead of less when the boss finally shells out for a paint job and your dirty white walls get a coat of nice fresh green?
It’s a matter of science—the science of experiencing color.”

This next part I found to be true in a couple of other books that are out of print.

“Colors are electromagnetic wavebands of energy,” says Alexander Schauss, director of the American Institute of Biosocial Research in Tacoma, Washington. “Each color has its own wavelength. The wavebands stimulate chemicals in your eye, sending impulses or messages to the pituitary and pineal glands near the brain. These are master endocrine glands that regulate hormones and other physiological systems in the body.” Stimulated by response to colors, glandular activities can alter moods, speed up heart rates and increase brain activity.”

If you find this information interesting, I will continue entering Leslie’s article and other information from books that are out of print. Please let me know how you feel about this by leaving a comment below. The picture above is one of my favorite pictures from the Hubble telescope. The color is beaufitul and this is a part of our universe. Color is important to your well-being.