Feeling blue or tickled pink, the colors around you can have a real impact on your mood.
That’s not some woo-woo pseudoscience, either: Studies have shown that different hues can actually activate different parts of your brain.
And with the US dropping to its lowest ranking ever in the World Happiness Report, Americans can use any help they can get in the well-being department.
“When you perceive color it sends signals to the hypothalamus which can impact your mood, triggering the release of certain hormones,” Dr. Tania Elliot, an internist and health influencer, told The Post.
“Certain colors have even been associated with physiological changes like increases in blood pressure and metabolism.”
For example, multiple studies have shown green to be calming, with one showing that visiting a green environment in a city was associated with lower blood pressure and lower heart rate.
And if you’re looking for a happy boost, Elliot suggests thinking sunshine and daisies.
“Yellow and orange have been linked to happiness,” she said. This is due to societal and cultural relationships with these colors, as well as a neuroscience mechanism that “is not fully understood.”
Yellow, in particular, seems to be pretty strongly associated with cheerfulness and contentment.
Research out of University Hospital South Manchester found that happy people tended to choose the color yellow to describe their feelings, while people who identified as depressed or anxious picked gray.
And just look to the classic yellow smiley face. Graphic designer Harvey Ball created it in the ’60s to boost morale among life insurance company employees.
“I made a circle with a smile for a mouth on yellow paper, because it was sunshiny and bright,” he reportedly told the Associated Press.
How to use it
So what do we actually do with yellow — and orange, for that matter — to be happier? Elliot says anything goes.
“Wear them, paint or color with them, and even better, find them in nature such as watching the sunrise or sunset, which can boost dopamine levels,” she said.
She wears a splash of yellow in a new campaign for fashion brand Ramy Brook, modeling their Sloan beaded halter midi dress and Shiann knit midi dress — plus a blue top, a color she says is calming.
TikTokers will certainly vouch for it working: “Dopamine dressing” — in which people wear bright, vibrant outfits to boost their happy hormones — has been a hit on the app for years.
And a 2012 University of Hertfordshire study confirmed that dressing a certain way “influences the wearer’s mood.”
“Many of the women in this study felt they could alter their mood by changing what they wore,” Dr. Karen Pine, an author of the study, said in a press release. “This demonstrates the psychological power of clothing and how the right choices could influence a person’s happiness.”
Surrounding yourself with a happy hue helps, too. During World War I in 1917, according to CNN, “colorist” Howard Kemp Prossor designed a room in a London hospital with blue ceilings, green floors and yellow walls.
While it wasn’t found to be particularly reliable as treatment, an army doctor noted that it did feel more cheerful.
