Colours influence our lives on more levels than you can image. They can play with our emotions by stimulating feelings like sadness, hunger, passion and happiness. That is namely why many brands rely on colour psychology when designing their logos. Have you even noticed that most fast food companies rely heavily on red, yellow and orange? These three colours can increase food cravings and to even make meals taste more delicious. However, these colours are also known as the colours of happiness, since they are best at boosting our mood.
Yellow, red and orange are part of the group of warm colours. They stimulate and even irritate the eyes a bit, which somehow makes us happier, more energized and optimistic. But how can you make the most of the mood-boosting qualities of these colours. We can think of more than one ways…
Wear them
This is the easiest and quickest way to feel happier. Just put on something red, orange and yellow to your look for the day and you are guaranteed to feel slightly happier and more positive. In addition, you will successfully influence the mood of the people around you and stand out in the crowd. If you are naturally a fan of darker shades like black, grey or brown, you may not find the idea of walking around in a bright yellow shirt all day long particularly appealing. What you can do, however, is to wear a tiny yellow accessory, like a bracelet.
Invite them into your home and office
Step number two is to invite happiness into your home and office by adding these colours to your house or workplace. However, we recommend you to use them in moderation. All three of these tones are bright and loud enough to achieve the mood-boosting effect on their own or even in combination with cooler colours.
Also, red tends to trigger opposing emotions in our brain. That is why it not only associated with happiness, but also with anger and danger. So, limit the use of the happiest colours only to decorations. If you are feeling brave enough, you can even paint one of your walls in yellow, orange or red.
The same rules apply for the workplace. Still, you can’t go painting walls and redecorating at the office. There, you can only make small changes that matter to you, but even they count. For instance, use yellow sticky notes or get an orange coffee mug.
Add them to your desktop
Many people spend long hours every day looking at a computer screen. If you are one of them, be sure to make your desktop happier. Add coloured tabs to your browser or coloured folders to your home screen. They don’t even need to be in red, yellow or orange. It is enough to be as many as possible and they will quickly make you more productive and happier. Change your wallpaper to an image that includes both cheerful warm colours (yellow, orange, red) and calming cool colours (blue, green, purple). That will create a great balance and make you more creative.
Stare at them
If you do not have time for all that, just pick one of the three happiest colours and stare at it for a while. Scientists from the University of Essex, England have discovered this can boost your physical strength by 20%, make you feel more confident, improve your memory and, of course, make you happier.
- Read more: Happier at Home
and The Happiness Project
were both instant New York Times bestsellers.
