icon-account icon-glass

Popular Searches

Popular Products

The Lean Protein
Whey protein powder for weight-loss.

CATEGORIES

The Health Benefits Of Coloured Lighting And Chromotherapy

18th October 2023

Health Life

18th October 2023

By Beth Shelper

TikTok trends come and go, but one craze that has been amplified by the popular video app is that of coloured lighting. We’re talking LED strip lighting, lava lamps and those ultra-cool neon signs that are filling your Instagram feeds lately.

Not only do these coloured lighting fixtures provide a great background for your selfies (and ultimately up your social media game tenfold), but coloured lighting also actually has a much more beneficial effect on your overall wellbeing.

It also helps you focus, so if you’re struggling to keep your head in the game, why not try coloured lighting? You should also really check out The Focus Capsules, too.

Amazingly, colours can affect mood, so rather than just being a trendy interior design feature, the coloured lighting you install in your home is actually pretty influential, from the type (and colour) of light you wake up to, to the coloured lighting you surround yourself with when you’re falling asleep.

How colours affect mood and what is chromotherapy?

Different colours evoke different sensations, feelings, and thoughts, and this is used in Chromotherapy (which is the fancy name for colour therapy). Not to be confused with Light Therapy, though.

Chromotherapy shows that colours and light can be used to treat physical ailments. Studies have proven that Chromotherapy is hugely effective, especially when treating mood disorders. A 2015 study by the American Research Journal of Pharmacy found that Chromotherapy had a tremendously positive impact when treating stress with the colour yellow, and equally as impressive results when treating migraines with the colour blue.

To get a better idea of how this works, let’s look at which colours evoke which emotions, shall we?

  • Red

Red is universally recognised as one of two things: the colour of love, or the colour of danger. When it comes to Chromotherapy, though, the colour red is both a libido booster, and a hue that affects a person’s sense of smell. Red light benefits include healing promotion, spiritual healing and an uplift in energy.

  • Yellow

Yellow is heavily used in Chromotherapy as this is a mood boosting colour. The colour yellow evokes feelings of happiness and joy and is often referred to as a ‘depression killer’.

  • Blue

Blue is the bringer of peace, tranquillity and feelings of calmness. The colour blue is used a lot Chromotherapy, and is especially effective when used at night, to assist in falling asleep. Blue light benefits include a reduction in nerves, migraine management, stress reduction and pain management.

  • Green

The colour green is synonymous with nature, bringing feelings of strength.  This colour is often used in Chromotherapy to encourage a person to ground themselves and feel at peace with their surroundings.

  • Purple

Similar to blue hues, the colour purple is calming. Also used during Chromotherapy to bring a sense of calmness to the person, if you’re struggling to fall asleep, set your coloured lights to purple.

  • Orange

Orange is the colour of creativity. If you’re struggling to get your creative juices flowing, set your coloured lighting to orange.

When should you incorporate coloured lighting?

The short answer? Whenever you want.

One of the best (and most effective ways) to incorporate coloured lighting into your day is at the start, when you wake up, and at the end, when you go to sleep.

What coloured light is best for waking up?

Yellow is the go-to when it comes to the best coloured light to wake up to. If you don’t get a lot of sunlight in your room, filling your room with yellow accessories, yellow coloured lights or even a nifty sunrise lamp (which quite literally, mimic the gradual rising of the sun) are the way to go.

Sunrise lamps are especially neat as they sync with your circadian rhythm. Sounds pretty technical, right?

Your circadian rhythms basically refer to a set of bodily processes (whether that be physical, mental or behavioural… such as sleep) that follow a set cycle of twenty-four hours. These respond to light, which is why elements such as sunrise lamps are a great way to improve the wake-up process (aka, one of our circadian rhythms).

What coloured light is best for sleep?

Staying on the theme of circadian rhythms, the best coloured light for sleep is blue. Closely followed by purple.

This is because these are typically dark in hue, and promote feelings of calmness and tranquillity. Setting your coloured lights to these colours before it’s time for sleep signal to your body that it’s time to relax.

Innermost's favourite coloured lighting options

Realistically, we can’t see many downsides to incorporating coloured lighting into your life. So, we’ve gone ahead and rounded up some of our favourite coloured lighting options.

  • Lava lamps

If you’re already the proud owner of a mesmerising lava lamp, it’s time to climb up into the attic and dig out your lava lamp from the good old days. If not, check out this classic lava lamp, or go a little bit more retro and grab yourself a magma lava lamp. Fancy.

  • LED strip lights

Simple to install, affordable and great for adding a touch of to your space, LED strip lights are a great way to incorporate chromotherapy into your everyday life. We love using them behind furniture such as the TV or bed to create a subtle colour glow that emanates and oozes into the room, but you can install these however you like.

  • Sunrise lights

Great for those that struggle with that dreaded AM alarm, sunrise lights bring a natural light source into your room without running the risk of that awful 5am blinding wake-up in the middle of summer. Sunrise lamps are stylish and can be synced up with your alarm clock in many cases, to create a pleasant wake-up experience. Who doesn’t want that?

Summary

All in all, not only are coloured lights a pretty funky addition to your home, they’re great for your overall health, too. Whilst we’re not massive fans of fad trends here at Innermost, we’re definitely going to get on board with this one. Thanks, TikTok.

References

  • Chromo therapy- An Effective Treatment Option or Just a Myth?? Critical Analysis on the Effectiveness of Chromo therapy. Click here.
< Older post Newer post >

Need Expert Advice?

Take the quiz

Take the quiz

If you're not sure where to start, take our 5 minute health consultation to get product recommendations tailored to your goals.
Read more

Other Insights

What Happened To My Training Over Summer (Honestly)

What Happened To My Training Over Summer (Honestly)

I did not train well this summer. A holiday to spend time with my family, a run of work trips, a couple of injuries I was trying to cope with (left shoulder and right forearm for those who are interested). If you'd asked me in June how consistent I'd be over the summer, I'd have said very. I was wrong. Most people quietly assume the founder of a wellness brand has this figured out. The truth is I run a brand, I try to have a life outside it, and summer is the season where routine goes to die for almost everyone I know. I don't think that's a personal failing. I think it's just what a normal year looks like. What I want to talk about is what actually happens to your body when this happens, because the research here is more reassuring than you might expect. What detraining research actually shows There's a real body of science on this. Strength and cardiovascular fitness don't decline at the same rate, and they don't decline anywhere near as fast as people fear. Cardiovascular fitness is the first thing to soften. Your VO2 max starts drifting down within a couple of weeks of stopping structured training, because your heart and blood vessels adapt to demand quickly in both directions. Strength is a different story. Studies that track people through a few weeks off training consistently find that measurable strength loss is small, often barely noticeable, for the first three to four weeks. The muscle itself takes even longer to shrink in any meaningful way. Several studies looking specifically at detraining periods found that visible loss of muscle protein and structure often doesn't show up until somewhere between five and eight months without any training at all. A summer of patchy sessions is nowhere near that. The reassuring partThe part I find genuinely reassuring is what's called muscle memory, and it's not just a phrase people use to feel better about a break. When you train, your muscle cells add nuclei, essentially more control centres for building protein. Research shows those nuclei stick around for months after you stop training, well past the point where the muscle itself has started to shrink. When you come back, you're not starting from zero. You're reactivating machinery that never actually left. That's a large part of why people who return to training after a long break tend to regain lost strength and size far faster than it took to build in the first place, often within four to eight weeks depending on how long the layoff was. Some of you might remember this happening post-Covid. So if you had a summer like mine, the honest scientific answer is that you probably lost less than it feels like, and you'll get it back faster than you think. What I'm actually doing this month Nothing dramatic. I'm not doing a reset week or a punishing comeback programme. I'm just going back to five structured sessions a week, prioritising the compound lifts I know well, and being honest that the first couple of sessions will feel harder than they did in June.  Don’t forget your proteinThe other thing I'm paying more attention to is protein, simply because it's the one lever that makes the rebuilding phase more efficient. Adequate protein intake supports the muscle protein synthesis that's doing the actual work of restoring what softened over summer. I've been leaning on The Health Protein for this. It's plant-based, built around pea and brown rice protein for a full amino acid profile, with glutamine in there to support recovery. If you'd rather stick with a whey based option, that's a completely reasonable choice too, and The Strong Protein remains built for exactly that. If you had a messy summer, you're not behind. You're just at the start of a normal, unremarkable return to routine, and the research says that's a far shorter road back than most people assume. Forward this to anyonre you know who is dreading their first session back. I'd genuinely like to know what generally works for you post-summer. Structured plan, just showing up once, anything. Reply and tell me. Even if it’s a one-liner, I’d love to hear from you.
Read more
The Glow Blend: A Confession

The Glow Blend: A Confession

I need to tell you something I've never said publicly, and it's not flattering. When our product team first brought me a plan for a collagen supplement, my honest reaction was no. Not "let me think about it." A flat no. And if I'm being fully honest about why, it wasn't the science. It was that collagen felt, in my head, like a beauty category. Something for someone else's brand. Not ours. I built Innermost around performance and evidence. Protein, creatine, mushrooms, electrolytes. Things I could point to a study for and feel comfortable talking about at a dinner table full of people who workout regularly. Collagen sat in a different mental folder. Skincare aisle. Jars with gold lids and brand sponsorship by one of the Kardashians. I'd absorbed a version of what "beauty" meant without ever examining it. The argument in the room So we had the argument internally. A proper one. A few people on the team pushed back hard, and rightly so. One of them put it to me plainly: we started Innermost to follow the evidence wherever it goes, not to follow it everywhere except the places that feel awkward. That line stuck with me. Here's what changed my mind, and it wasn't a feeling. It was the research. What the evidence actually says Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's structural, it's in your skin, your joints, your gut lining, and production declines steadily from your mid-twenties onward. That's not a marketing claim, that's basic physiology. The question was never whether collagen matters. It was whether supplementing it actually does anything, and that's where most of the category falls apart. Most collagen products on the market use whole collagen molecules, which are too large to be absorbed effectively when you drink them. The ones that do use hydrolysed peptides, which are broken down into smaller chains your body can actually take up, still run into a second problem: dose. A lot of labels list collagen content that sits well below the 2 to 10 grams used in the trials that show measurable effects on skin elasticity and hydration. You're paying for a placebo with good branding. The ingredient most brands leave out The third problem is the one that convinced me completely. Vitamin C isn't a nice-to-have alongside collagen. It's a required co-factor for your body to actually synthesise collagen at the cellular level. Without adequate vitamin C, the enzymes responsible for stabilising collagen structure don't function properly. You can take a perfectly dosed hydrolysed peptide and still get a fraction of the benefit if the product doesn't include enough vitamin C alongside it. Most don't. They sell you the raw material and leave out the one thing your body needs to use it. Once I saw the category clearly, laid out like that, the decision stopped being about how I felt and started being about what the evidence supported. That's the whole operating principle of Innermost. I couldn't defend saying no to a legitimate, well-evidenced product category. What we built So we built The Glow Blend properly. Hydrolysed collagen peptides at a dose that reflects the research, alongside vitamin C, hyaluronic acid for hydration, biotin and folic acid for hair and nail health. Nothing in it that doesn't earn its place. What surprised me after launch The part I didn't expect was the response once we launched it. A good number of the messages came from women, as you'd expect, and they were generous and specific about what they'd noticed. But a surprising number came from men. Customers writing in to say they'd felt exactly what I'd felt, that awkward little flinch at "collagen," and had quietly bought it anyway because the ingredient breakdown made sense to them. That response told me more about why this category needed an honest voice in it than any research paper did. I'm not going to pretend I have this fully figured out. I still catch myself, occasionally, hesitating slightly before I mention it in a room. Old habits sit deeper than good evidence sometimes. But I take it, and increasingly a lot of men I respect take it too, quietly, without needing to make a thing of it. If this sounds familiar If any part of this resonated, and you've felt that same small resistance to a category you assumed wasn't for you, hit reply and tell me. I'd genuinely like to know I'm not the only one who had to get over it. And if you know someone, a friend, a partner, who could use this exact reasoning rather than a tesimonial, forward it on. It might do more good coming from someone else's honesty.
Read more