Light and sound therapies are "sensory" because they act on the human senses through waves of both sound and light. Sitting in the sun or listening to a favorite piece of music can definitely affect your mood. But because not all sound and light waves can be seen or heard, many therapists consider that they work on the energy or "vibrational" planes as well as at the psychological level.



Light Therapies

Insufficient natural light can lead to depression, tiredness, or overeating. In the winter, especially in colder countries, the level of indoor light produces only about a tenth of the illumination of a full day of natural light. A form of "winter blues" that can result from this is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). It affects around 1 percent of the population (more women than men) but can be successfully treated with special "full spectrum" light units fitted into the home or into the office.

Color Therapy

Normal daylight (that is, light from the sun) is filtered through the eye to produce the visible colors of the spectrum ­ red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Other colors invisible to the human eye are ultraviolet and infrared, which affect us even though we 'can't see them, because our skin is receptive to changes in light.

Color therapists work with colors to rebalance the body on both the physical and "psychic" levels. Therapists who work on the physical level believe that as light is received and absorbed through the skin it works on the nervous system to change the body's chemical balance. By adjusting the amount of specific color input they believe they can affect physical well being as well as mood. Pink, for instance, is considered to have a calming effect, red speeds up the circulation and raises blood pressure, while blue lowers it.

On the psychic, or subtle energy level, therapists work to influence the seven energy centers, or chakras each of which is said to correspond to one of the seven colors of the light spectrum, starting with red for the "base" chakra and ending with violet at the "crown" center. So, for example, green is said to influence the "heart" chakra and yellow the "solar plexus."

Colors and Aura

Many therapists work with your "aura" and "chakras". An aura is an energy field, which, personal to each individual. Some therapists claim tob able to see an aura, which manifests itself in the fonno a shimmer or haze of colored light around the body. Every aura has its own colors, and they are affected by your health, well-being, and spirit. If your energy compromised in any way, that will be reflected in tit color of your aura.

Color therapists claim that every subtle change color affects us on every level of our being. Recent scientific studies have confirmed that every cell of our body is made up of contracted light - and because light responds to color, the as yet unproved theories behind color therapy are believed to make sense. Color therapy is aimed at restoring cells to an even level of balance, thus stimulating any necessary healing processes and improving overall spiritual and mental health. Your therapist will choose a color that he or she sees as vibrating at a frequency needed to restore the cells; he or she must take care to choose the correct color and offer it in the right "dosage" to ensure that the balance is maintained. Every color has both negative and positive attributes.