Color and Sleep

How Color Affects Your Sleep Habits

Why is Color Important To Sleep?

Color impacts our lives in ways we don’t even know. Our brains react in different ways to different colors: some colors influence our feelings or mood, while others impact our emotions and metabolism. Color has been known to influence bodily reactions like blood pressure and even your productivity at work. Largely because of this, industries often use colors within their
marketing to evoke specific reactions from consumers. For example, McDonald’s famously chose to use red and yellow in their branding after studies showed that these two colors induce hunger. Since then, many of McDonald’s competitors have jumped on the red and yellow bandwagon

What Exactly is Color?

When Sir Isaac Newton discovered that pure white light separates into distinct visible colors when traveling through a prism, he effectually started the modern understanding of what color is. The definition of color is “the property possessed by an object of producing distinct sensations on the eye as a consequence of the way in which the object reflects or emits light.” Each color has a wavelength that reflects back to the eye’s color receptive cells called cones. Cones then process this data and send it to the brain.

Room Color is Important

When choosing a color for your bedroom or office you should read about what colors affect what kind of moods.

Eyes Are the Key

Your eyes process the data of what colors are present and send those signals to your brain. The color receptive cells in eyes are called cones.

The Brains Behind it

Once the colors are processed by the eyes and sent to the brain, the body then sends signals regarding how it should react.

Travelodge Study

While there has not been much research done in the area of how color affects sleep, there are a few studies that give us valuable insights. A recent study conducted by Travelodge gives a greater understanding of this. Travelodge looked through the keyhole of 2,000 houses to investigate the effect of bedroom color schemes against the quality and amount of sleep they are getting every night. Some major findings in the study:

  • The color blue helped to decrease blood pressure which is essential in achieving a good quality night’s sleep.
  • The next most favorable color scheme for inducing a good night’s sleep is yellowish. Yellow stimulates the nervous system which aids comfort, while also creating a cozy and warm atmosphere.
  • A green themed bedroom is the nation’s third most popular sleep inducing color — with sleepers getting on average 7 hrs 36 min of sleep. Green creates a restful, calming environment which is essential in inducing sleep.
  • A silver bedroom/decor is the fourth most popular sleep inducing color scheme — with individuals getting on average 7 hrs 33 min sleep per night. The metallic color makes a bedroom feel luxurious and glow like moonlight — this can trick the eye into believing it’s night time. Shades of orange add warmth to the space and help create a secure and reassuring atmosphere and may help digestion.
  • In contrast, the analysis also revealed the least favored bedroom color schemes for getting a normal good excellent night’s sleep are purple, brown and grey resulting in about seven hours of sleep a night, or less. Using these colors in your bedroom is also more likely to promote vivid dreams or even nightmares; leading to fragmented sleep and you feeling tired the next day.

We spend a third of our lives in bed, so hopefully this study gives a better insight into how important different sleep studies are to your health. SleepAcademy.org is here to break down these studies into digestible content so you can make the best decisions when it comes to getting the sleep you deserve. Visit our Get Better Sleep section for more posts like this one!

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Our Sources

Elliot, Andrew J., and Markus A. Maier. “Color and Psychological Functioning.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 16.5 (2007): 250-54. Web.

Travelodge. The Secret To A Good Night’s Slumber Is To Sleep In A Blue Bedroom.  [Press release] 17 May 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2014.

Whitfield, T.W., & Wiltshire, T.J. (1990). Color psychology: A critical review. Genetic, Social & General Psychology Monographs, 116, 387–412.

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/bh.html#:~:text=Our%20modern%20understanding%20of%20light,%2C%20green%2C%20blue%20and%20violet.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/food/4445573/mcdonalds-sign-red-and-yellow-reason/#:~:text=She%20explained%3A%20%22Red%20triggers%20stimulation,yellow%20it’s%20about%20speed%2C%20quickness.

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