Autumn colour therapy

We have written a number of blogs about how great gardening is for improving gardener’s general levels of health and fitness.  Our health and wellbeing though, is not just a physical thing.  There are many aspects of our health which relate to less tangible sides of our person.

We are body, mind and spirit and none of these areas functions entirely alone; each can affect the other.  In the kind of summer we have experienced this year, when the conditions have been just right to produce some simply amazing autumn colour, it’s easy to make a connection between garden beauty and that uplifting feeling we get appreciating the sight.  Colour therapists would have us believe that each colour, being a specific light wavelength, has a specific energy that can affect the body’s inner vibrations in particular ways.

There is certainly some evidence that colour can affect our mood.  US scientist Robert Gerard conducted a study that demonstrated how the colour red might stimulate anxiety, and colour psychology is used by business to market products and attract customers.  The deep purples and indigos are said to be related to the immune system, the reds our skeletal and muscular system, yellow the digestion and, green the blood and circulation.

Whatever the benefits of particular colours might be, there can be no mistake that the autumn show is a great attraction (look at the numbers of visitors to arboretums and woodlands such as Westonbirt and Batsford), and autumn colour in the garden and beyond is good for the spirit.