Meditation Colours

Colour is used as a focus in several contemplative traditions - visualised at the chakras, in mandalas, in the colours of temple and shrine. It is a real technique, and it is worth being precise about what it does.

What colour does that is measurable

Colour affects mood and arousal to a modest degree, and the effects are real but smaller and more culturally variable than popular writing suggests. Blue and green are generally experienced as calming, red and orange as activating. Light itself has a much larger effect than colour: bright morning light sets the body clock, and light therapy is an established treatment for seasonal depression.

Why visualisation works anyway

A visual focus gives attention somewhere to rest, which is exactly what a wandering mind needs. Whether you hold a colour, a flame, a mantra or the breath, the mechanism is the same - a single point of return. The colour is scaffolding for attention, and good scaffolding is useful.

The colour is not doing something to your body. It is giving your attention somewhere to stand, which is the entire technique.

Being clear

Chromotherapy - the claim that coloured light treats disease - has no scientific support, and we will not present it as though it does. Used as a meditative focus, colour is a legitimate and long-established practice. Used as a treatment, it is not.