Color Health and Safety Tips for Seniors

 

How often have you used your sense of color to navigate through your day, and not been conscious of your actions? 

This post presents ideas about color characteristics and how being color savvy as you age, can improve the quality of daily living. 

Learn how your color choices help you stay out of danger, create a mood, safeguard health, and encourage you to get back on track.

1.    Red is an energetic color, one that attracts attention.

Research indicates that red is a color that’s most easily seen by everyone, even from a long distance away. Stop signs, curb edges, and red clothes are just three of the ways red can attract attention. 

Play it safe. Keep a red night light on in a darkened room, including the hallway and bathroom. Red light is easier to see, than white light.

When you look at red, it speeds up reactions, and stimulates the appetite. Fast food restaurants choose it for their logos and feature it in their décor. 

If you need to put on a few extra pounds, decorate with red accent colors in your kitchen or dining room, because it increases your desire to eat more food. 

See additional information about how to Use Color Ideas to Cultivate Happiness.

2.   Yellow is a happy, easy to see color.

Yellow is the color of essential road signs, like a no passing zone or a warning sign that signals an obstacle or curve in the road. 

Yellow is a lively color, but when you focus on this color too long, it can cause eye strain. This happens because light is reflected by bright colors, resulting in excessive stimulation and irritation of the eyes. 

Lighter shades of yellow create a sense of cheerfulness and ease, and creamy yellow painted walls create a restful atmosphere. Soft yellow paint applied to walls in a small room makes that room appear larger. 

Yellow is the color most often associated with the solar plexus chakra. Learning how to use its color energy can empower you.

3.   Color is an important clue to consider for food freshness and safety.

When you prepare, serve, and eat a food product, notice its color. 

Fresh produce is vibrantly colored, so shop for or grow fruits and vegetables in an array of colors including red, dark green, yellow, orange, and purple. 

Set the intention to let the food you eat provide essential nutrients, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and fiber, rather than try to get nourishment from supplements.

Eat at least 5-7 servings of a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables a day, as it’s money in the bank for disease prevention, maintaining strong teeth and bones, and providing energy to work and play. 

If you’re ill or out of commission from a fall or other injury, remember it’s especially important to eat the rainbow to heal. 

A study from the National Institute of Health (NIH)  indicates why increasing fruits and vegetable consumption improves muscle strength in older adults (for that matter, anyone of any age).

4.   Certain colors warn of danger.

Molds are microscopic fungi that live in plant or animal matter. Unless you know for sure that a mold on food is intentionally grown, like those on blue-veined cheese such as Roquefort or Gorgonzola or the white mold on Camembert cheese, don’t eat it. 

When you suspect a food is spoiled, return it to the store for a refund or discard it. That old adage ─ it’s better to be safe than sorry applies here. 

Several types of food mold can make you feel queasy, produce allergic reactions, or respiratory problems.

5.   Contrast helps colors stand out from their background.

 

As you age, the ability to recognize the differences in color shades may diminish slightly. Compensate for this by remembering not to put yellow, blue, and green in close proximity. These colors may become increasingly difficult to tell apart. 

If you arrange clothes in your closet or dresser by color, put contrasting colors next to each other.

MedlinePlus at the NIH advises seniors. “As you age, it gets harder to tell apart blues and greens than it is to see the difference between red and yellow."

Read details at MedlinePlus to discover possible ways vision can be affected as you age.

                       

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Notice how often your color choices support, protect, relax, delight, or excite you. Take advantage of each color’s unique characteristics to help you lead a more colorful, satisfying life!

 

***This post is offered for entertainment and information purposes only, and is not intended as health or safety advice.***

Please comment in the comment section below.

What is your favorite color? When you see it, how does it make you feel?

Are you mindful about the way colors affect your sense of enjoyment?

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