Color Therapy: Change your Underwear, Change your Mood

 

Natural Wisdoms: A regular feature:

Color is an amazing gift from nature. It is a living vibrational energy that is perceived and absorbed by your senses. It has a subtle yet potent interaction with your emotions and brain.

The colors you wear can reflect how you are feeling to the world, you can intentionally wear colors to shift your mood or you can hide from the world (blacks the color which shrinks your presence)

There are colors which stimulate the thinking (left) side of your brain and colors which stimulate the creative (right) side of your brain. There are colors to help you relax and others to energise and excite. Whilst some colors encourage communication others evoke stillness.

Did you know that yellow is the first color perceived by the human eye.

Below are some useful insights from my journey with color workshops over the past two decades.

Change your underwear: Change your mood:

Simply by changing the color of your underwear you can subtly fuel your energy reserves or balance your emotional needs. It is easy to do, no one need know what you are doing and I guarantee you will feel a difference.

Feeling tired grab a red pair, stressed out try some calming blue, emotionally upset go for the orange or in need of some optimism switch to yellow.

Color you world for balance:

1: Red will give you a boost of energy whilst stimulating your immune system. Red can activate your appetite - beware. It evokes action and passion and a perfect color if you tend to be a procrastinator.

2: Orange will allow you to digest your emotions without holding onto stuff and encourage emotional balance and optimism. It is warm hearted and offers a sense of community whilst offering a feeling of tolerance. Perfect color for social gatherings.

3: Blue is tranquil and peaceful. It has been proven to reduce pain levels. It aids in acquiring inner peace and supports creativity. Blue is associated with the right hand side of the brain.

4: Green refreshes, encourages growth, is balancing and healing. It is nurturing and associated with the heart. Green promotes prosperity and well being. Green of course is a combination of blue and yellow.

5: Yellow lifts your spirits and offers you a positive feeling. It evokes confidence and joy. It is connected to your mental thinking and improves attention to detail and academic achievement. It improves concentration and clarity of thought.

6: Purple is known to heighten your intuition. It is similar to blue in that it offers comfort and calm. A great color for meditation.

Experiment with color:

 
Don’t take my word for it though, experiment for yourself. Notice how different you feel wearing blue or orange or even red undies or any item of clothing.

To further excite you into experimenting with color therapy I’ve added a few special treats to whet your appetite.

 

Color your wallet for wealth:

 
Years ago after listening to a color therapist a group of my girlfriends all switched to green wallets. Green represents growth, abundance and prosperity. It is the color most often associated with money. In Feng Shui green relates to the wood energy which is associated with wealth. You might also like to read the Tao of a full happy wallet if you are keen to boost your money vibes.

Lose weight with color:

 
Research has shown that blue is the most likely color to suppress your appetite. A blue light in your fridge may be just the trick you need. Blue is not a color you think of when you imagine food. Nature does not offer many blue foods except for a few such as blueberries. Red will stimulate your appetite and encourage fast eating. Notice how many take-aways have red signs or decor.

Link: http://www.wellsphere.com/mind-body-article/color-therapy-change-your-underwear-change-your-mood/6973

The Brain on Music (The Mozart Effect)

Have you ever used music at work to jack up productivity or change your mood? Interestingly some rhythms. such as baroque, induce enzymes in the brain and add amazing well being and focus.  Other tunes leave you punchy … and unable to focus. Has it happened to you? 

Music holds an immensely powerful influence over the brain and yet few workplaces  benefit from addictive musical sounds. Listen to inspirational music and calm your thinking to see how it works. Or ratchet up brainpower with Makeba’s, Pata Pata. Then read on to discover what research could offer your day.

Across genres, you’ll find that music puts you in touch with your inner beliefs and desires and the cadence can create an amazing mental landscape for you to read, relax or reflect on your day.

Or it can make you moody, edgy and anxious. How so? Music shifts your brain waves that control how neurons talk to one another. Watch the visible shift happen for people in this video.

Start with your favorite tunes from Psychologist Don Campbell’s list here and tell us how music alters your mental states. In his book The Mozart Effect, Campbell shows the following results for listeners:

Gregorian chant creates quiet in our minds and can reduce stress.

Slower Baroque music, such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi or Corelli, can create mentally stimulating environments for creativity and new innovations.

Classical music, such as Haydn and Mozart, often improves concentration and memory when played in the background.

Romantic music, such as Schubert, Schumann, Tchaikovsky , Chopin and Liszt, enhances our senses and increases a sense of sympathy and love.

Impressionist music, such as Debussy, Faure and Ravel, can unlock dreamlike images that put us in touch with our unconscious thoughts and belief systems.

Jazz, blues, soul or calypso music can uplift and inspire us, releasing deep joy or even deep sadness, conveying wit and affirming our common humanity.

Salsa, rhumba, merengue and any form of South American music sets our hearts racing, gets us moving, both relaxing us and awakening us at the same time.

Big band, Top 40 and country music engage our emotions and comfort us.

Rock music, from Elvis Presley to the Rolling Stones, stirs passion and activity, and so can release daily tensions. Rock can also mask pain and cover up unpleasant noises. It also has the power to create dissonance, stress or physical pain if we are not in the mood for energizing.

Ambient or New Age music such as Stephen Halpern and Brian Eno has no dominant rhythm, so it elongates the sense of space and time, inducing a state of relaxed alertness.

Heavy metal and hip-hop music excites our nervous system, and sometimes leads us into acting out dynamic behavior and self-expression.

Religious and sacred music such as hymns and gospel moves us to feel grounded in the moment, and leads to deep peace and spiritual awareness. Sacred music often helps us to transcend pain.

Consider what tomorrow could bring at work if you swing a bar or two of mental and musical acumen into a project today. It’s also fun to match the music with the moment and watch what you learn

Not surprisingly, research also suggests that music may recruit neural mechanisms similar to those previously associated with pleasant or unpleasant emotional states.

Link: http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/multiple-intelligences/musical/the-brain-on-music/

People who exercise on work days are happier, suffer less stress and are more productive

People who exercise on work days are more productive, happier and suffer less stress than on non-gym days, scientists revealed today.

University of Bristol researchers found that employees who enjoyed a workout before going to work - or exercised during lunchbreaks - were better equipped to handle whatever the day threw at them.

It also found that people's general mood improved on days of exercise but they became less calm on non-exercise days.

The research, published in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management, is the first of it's kind to prove that exercise during work hours has mental, as well as physical benefits.

Jo Coulson, Research Associate in the University's Department of Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences, said: 'Our statistical results were very important.

'On exercise days, people's mood significantly improved after exercising. Mood stayed about the same on days they didn't, with the exception of people's sense of calm which deteriorated.

'Critically, workers performed significantly better on exercise days and across all three areas we measured, known as mental-interpersonal, output and time demands.'

The study group was made up of 200 university staff and employees working for a pensions company and an IT firm.

Each employee completed a questionnaire about their mood, workload and performance on days when they exercised.

The data was compared to answers from days participants opted not to exercise.

The workers, who were already in the habit of exercising, chose their own mode, frequency and intensity of workout to better reflect a real-life situation.

Most used a gym and did classes while some did weight training and team sports.

The key findings were: 

Seventy two per cent reported improvements in time management on exercise days compared to non-exercise days.

Seventy nince per cent said mental and interpersonal performance was better on days they exercised.

Seventy four per cent said they managed their workload better.

The questionnaire scores were 27 per cent higher on exercise days in categories such as dealing calmly with stress and 41 per cent higher for feeling motivated to work.

Those who exercised were also 21 per cent higher for concentration on work, 25 per cent for working without unscheduled breaks and 22 per cent higher for finishing work on time.

Feedback from focus groups found that people who built exercise into their workday were re-energised, calmer and more able to solve problems.

Ms Coulson added: 'It's generally well-known now that there are many physical and mental health benefits that can be gained from regular exercise.

'If people try to fit an active break into their working day, they might also experience the added bonus of their whole day feeling much more productive.

'And that always feels good in our busy lives.

'The study also begs the question whether employers can afford not to be encouraging active breaks.

'The suggestion is that employers who are ahead of the game in offering proper on-site facilities actually get less from their employees on days that they don't exercise.'

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1095783/People-exercise-work-days-happier-suffer-stress-productive.html#ixzz2M2YFlC73