Lighting does more to your space than illuminate it. Both light and color can influence a person’s mood, day-to-day perception, sleep cycle, and psychological functioning.
With the variety of LEDs available in the market, you might be wondering what the best LED light colors for different situations are.
As a property owner, understanding the different meanings behind every LED color is important in transforming your space. We have listed everything you need to know about LED lights and their colors below. Let’s dive in!
Understanding the Basics
If you’re planning to install LED lights and still don’t know where to start, here are a few important things you should understand:
LEDs
Light Emitting Diode Lights, or simple LED lights, are energy-efficient lighting systems used in both residential and commercial settings. This technology continues to innovate and improve with color lighting, incorporating a wide color spectrum.
Lumens, Wattage, and Kelvin
Lumens measure the brightness of a light. Wattage is the measure of the amount of energy a bulb needs to produce a certain amount of light. If a bulb has a higher Watts rating, it consumes more energy to light up.
Kelvin measures color temperature. It is the numerical equivalent of every color in the spectrum.
Color Perception
Color perception is the ability to differentiate lights of different wavelengths. When our eyes see pure-wavelength light, we can only see a few colors. Most of these are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. These are the most common colors for LED lights.
Types of Colors
Primary colors are colors that can not be derived from mixing secondary colors. Complementary colors are two colors that produce either black or white light when combined.
Color Mixing
Color mixing, as the name implies, is when colors are processed in the cones of our eyes and they combine. For instance, we see blue and yellow colors mix to form green. This is an example of additive color mixing.
How Does Light Affect Your Mood?
According to researchers, lighting and color can affect a person – both biologically and psychologically. Brighter lights are known to heighten a person’s emotions while insufficient lights are linked to depression and vitamin deficiencies.
The lack of light can even lead to Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.
Light also has an influence on our circadian rhythm. Circadian Rhythm is our body’s “sleep-wake cycle” that regulates other systems and affects signals that transport to our brain. By knowing this, we understand that light produces a great effect on our body and its functions.
Which light can make a person more active? Which LED light color possibly makes us sad? Let’s look into the LED light color meanings and the different LED light colors for every situation!
Warm LED Light Color Meaning
Warm LEDs are popular for giving off senses of happiness, intense emotions, optimism, and passion. These warm colors include Red, Orange, Yellow, and Pink LED lights. Here are what they mean:
Red – The “passion” and “intensity” light
Red is known to signify love, passion, intensity, and anger. It stimulates senses including a person’s metabolism. Red LED lights are often used to create a “sexy” environment. The reason for this is that red flatters your skin well.
Being the color of blood and fire, it can intensity moods, specifically anger. If you’re easily irritated or overwhelmed, using red LED lights may not be the best choice.
Orange – The “friendly” and “welcoming” light
A person associates the color orange with happiness, hospitality, and friendliness. Orange LED lights are great for heightening happy energy without the overwhelming feeling connected to red LEDs.
Because of the warmth we perceive with this color, orange is great in the areas of your home where you receive guests. This would signify a welcoming and friendly ambiance.
Yellow – The “positive” light
Yellow is the color of optimism. It stimulates a person’s memory and creates a happy and active aura. Yellow LEDs are perfect for productivity spaces like your home office, workplace, or study area. This can also be used for commercial offices.
Pink – The “feminine” light
Pink LED lights are a mix of red LED and purple LED. Installing pink LED lights will add freshness, playfulness, and femininity to your room.
This color is a beautiful shade associated with life, compassion, and boldness. Pink is also known to eliminate impurities in your bloodstream and cleanses your body in chromotherapy.
Cool LED Light Color Meaning
Cool LED lights like Blue, Green and Purple LEDs are known to evoke relaxation. These colors not only make your room look more attractive and spacious, but they convey certain emotions for every shade as well. Here are the cool LED light colors and their meanings:
Blue – The “loyalty” and “peaceful” light
Blue LED lights are associated with calmness, peace, and freshness. This color is often used in spiritual and religious settings because of the peacefulness the color brings.
Switching your LED lights to blue can give off a feeling of strength and responsibility too. It also signifies loyalty, trust, and companionship.
Besides affecting mood, other shades of blue can make narrow spaces appear wider. If you have a small bathroom or a tiny nook, installing pale blue LED lights is ideal.
Green – The “calming” light
Because of the color’s ability to bring calmness and freshness, green LED lights are often used in chromotherapy, reducing chronic pain up to 60 percent.
In fact, a study conducted in Arizona infers that looking at green light contributes to an increase in the production of enkephalins.
Enkephalins are pain-killing chemicals our body produces. Therefore, having green LED lights inside bedrooms and living rooms is a great choice for relaxation.
Green LED lights are also associated with wealth. If you’re opening a new business or making a big life decision, you might want to consider green lighting for luck.
Purple – The “creative-booster” and “mysterious” light
Purple can ignite a person’s creativity. For this reason, purple LED lights can set the mood for productivity. Besides this, installing LED lights will provide a mysterious and eccentric feeling to a space.
Different shades of purple LED light may elicit different meanings. For instance, light purples are connected to romance, femininity, and delicacy, while dark purples give off a sense of luxury, majesty, and wealth.
White LED Lights
Besides warm and cool LED lights, white lights are also a great addition to your space. It is commonly interpreted as pure, innocent, and soothing. White LEDs provide natural lighting to your home.
Although some think white light looks too plain or boring, they are good in controlling the overall temperature of your home too. White LED lights have different variations which can set different moods for your space. They come in warm, natural, or bright white.
While white LED lights mean purity and cleanliness, be careful with using bright white light during the wee hours. This type of light is found to stimulate the human brain, resulting in sleep disruption at night.
Best LED Light Colors for Different Situations
By understanding the different meanings of the colors of LED lights, you have an advantage in deciding when to use them. You might be wondering what the best LED light colors for different situations are.
Here is a table of the ideal LED light colors for every situation to serve as your guide:
Color | LED Light Color Meaning | Situations best for |
Red | Passion, Anger, Love, Impulsiveness, Courage, Vitality, Boldness | ◠Creating a “sexy†environment ◠Increasing metabolic rate ◠Relaxation and sleep |
Orange | Happiness, Joy, Wisdom, Friendliness, Potency, Confidence | â— Welcoming guests â— Having dinner at home |
Yellow | Optimism, Joy, Warmth, Intellect, Productivity | â— Studying â— Working â— Feeling productive |
Pink | Glamour, Femininity, Compassion, Boldness, Youthfulness | â— Spiritual healing â— Chromotherapy: Eliminating impurities from your bloodstream |
Green | Calmness, Peace, Wealth, Luck, Balance, Healing | â— Decorating your garden, â— Relaxing â— Putting up a storefront â— Opening a new business â— Being one with nature â— Healing â— Reducing chronic pain |
Blue | Loyalty, Peace, Responsibility, Spirituality, Focus, Strength | â— Relaxation â— Spiritual settings, â— Religious gatherings â— Transforming a small space |
Purple | Creativity, Delicacy, Productivity, Luxury, Wealth, Majesty, Honor, Inspiration | â— Feeling productive |
White | Purity, Innocence, Cleanliness | â— Controlling overall temperature of a space â— Relaxation |
Chromotherapy
An interesting topic related to a human’s perception of color and light is chromotherapy or “color therapy”. Chromotherapy is a treatment method that utilizes colors to heal physical, mental, and spiritual imbalance.
It applies visible light to aid in treating health problems, regenerating tissue, and removing pain.
The following are the benefits of every color in chromotherapy and how installing LED lights of every shade may help:
- Red: Increases pulse rate, blood pressure, and breathing; Supports respiratory and circulatory functions
- Orange: Activates and removes localized fat
- Yellow: Purifies the skin, helps with indigestion and boosts the immune system
- Pink: For cleansing your bloodstream and removing impurities in your body
- Green: Provides a calming and relaxing effect
- Blue: Promotes relaxation and healing; Relieves headache, stomach pain, nervous tension, and muscle cramps
- Purple: Reduces anxiety, calms the nervous system, relaxes muscles; Supports the lymphatic system and spleen
Final Thoughts
It is no secret that light and color work together. The technology of LED lights and their color makes it interesting to beautify a space and uplift emotions.
Every color exhibits a different color temperature that can affect human perception and mood. This is why knowing the best LED light colors for different situations is an important element in residential and commercial interiors.