History of Color and Light Healing:

Color and light have been used for healing since the beginning of recorded time. Ancient Egyptians built solarium-type rooms with colored panes of glass. The sun would shine through the glass and flood the patient with color. Some people use colored silk cloths which are placed on the body and then flooded with sunlight. Early color and light healers in the modern world used colored gels and sheets of glass to apply light to the body. Others used color infused water and color meditations to send healing rays to the person.

Today, there are many practitioners who use color and light in interesting ways. Some therapists have a box with a mechanism that flickers light into the eyes. They report success in speeding the recovery of stroke victims and those persons who experience chronic depression.

Some healers recommend the wearing of eyeglasses with colored lenses. Practitioners of Feng Shui bring color into our homes and workplaces for optimum balance of energy.

Dr. Peter Mandel, a German acupuncturist developed a system to apply color and light to acupuncture points on the body. Colorpuncture is now being taught in many countries. In the United States, color and light therapy is beginning to be recognized as a complimentary system to other treatments.

CNN recently announced that researchers at Cornell University discovered that applying blue light to the backs of the knees resets the body’s internal clock, eliminating jet lag and the sleep disturbances that accompany shift work.

Why it Works:

The earth, the oceans, in fact every living thing, is dependent upon light for its very existence. A recent scientific study disclosed that each cell in the body emits light. We live in a sea of energy
and our bodies are composed of energy. Color works through and in us, in every nerve, cell, gland and muscle. It shines in our auras and radiates upon us from the sun. Color is an active power, exerting
a tremendous influence on our consciousness, soul and spirit.

Within our body, our organs, muscles, cells and nerves all have a level of vibration. When our body becomes out of balance, disease occurs. Each color has its own frequency and vibration. Through extensive research, we know that color and light will help bring our physical and emotional systems into balance.

Asian medicine teaches us that our bodies have meridians carrying energy throughout our system, connecting with each major organ. When blockages in these meridians happen, disease follows. The Chinese use acupuncture needles to remove blockages in the meridians. Color can be used in the same way and is frequently more powerful, quicker and has no discomfort from needles.

Spectro-Chrome is Light and Color projected on specific areas of the body, bringing the emotional and physical into balance. For example, magenta is often indicated on the body in cases of electromagnetic stress. It is especially beneficial over the chest and low-back. It helps the body to minimize the circulatory effects of electromagnetic stress.

Color and light are intimately related to electromagnetic stress. The visible octave of the electromagnetic spectrum is one to which we are most sensitive. Our ability to receive appropriate light information and energy stimuli from our environment is a key factor in the regulation of every cell in the body.

Melatonin, the hormone produced by the pineal in response to the light dark cycle, goes to every cell in the body. When regulated properly by environmental light, it is the most potent force known for longevity and prevention of cancer. Misregulated, it can actually promote cancer.

Color has been shown to shift the balance of the autonomic nervous system, which innervates every organ in the body. This dual control system consists of the parasympathetic division and sympathetic division. This system can become imbalanced by environmental stimuli such as EMF, artificial light and other stressors.

The individual can also adapt to acute and chronic stress in an attempt to maintain homeostasis. This imbedded adaptation is another major cause of imbalance, because it interferes with the ability to respond optimally even to a stress free environment.

The rainbow, truly a miracle of nature. confirms not only the importance of color, but specifically those portions of the spectrum for which the human organism is attuned.

Throughout most of history, the role of light in human functioning has been limited to and primarily thought of in terms of its role in initiating the process of sight. Early researchers, such as Babbitt, Pleasanton, Pancoast, and Dinshah, clinically found that color, applied to the skin, could have a profound, yet non-intrusive rebalancing and curative effect on bodily ailments. At the turn of this century, science first began to realize that light entering the eyes not only served vision, but also traveled to other very important brain regions. It was in that same period of time that Dr. Harry Riley Spitler theorized in great detail about the role of the eyes in phototransduction, as well as the role of light and color in total organismic function and, development.

After seventeen years of ongoing research and clinical application, Spitler discovered that different frequencies of light entering the eyes could augment the brain’s major control centers that regulated all bodily functions. Believing that physiological and emotional ailments were primarily caused by imbalances in the nervous and endocrine systems, Spitler utilized different frequencies of light by way of the eyes to restore balance within these regulatory centers, thereby directly affecting the source of the visual dysfunctions he found.

Based on his discoveries, Spitler conceived the principles for a new, exclusively optometric, and functionally oriented clinical science that he called Syntonics.

Syntonics (optometric phototherapy), utilized clinically for more than 60 years within the field of optometry, is that branch of ocular science dealing with the application of selected visible light frequencies through the eyes. This ocular application of light has been utilized with great success in the treatment of various visual dysfunctions associated with strabismus (crossed eyes). amblyopia (lazy eye), visual field constrictions, accommodative/convergence problezits (focusing and eye teaming skills), head trauma, visually related learning problems, and even some diseases of the eyes.

To fully understand this new emerging field of research and clinical application, the effects of ocularly perceived light on all aspects of human functioning need to be expanded and elaborated.

The Spectral Receptivity System (SRS) is a light projection tool used in Syntonics to desensitize us to the habitual triggers that catalyze emotional and physical stress that eventually lead to disease.

Each eye contains approximately 137 million photoreceptors. These photoreceptors transform light into electrical impulses that are then sent to the brain at nearly 234 miles per hour. These impulses travel along several different routes involving the entire brain. Some travel by way of the optic nerve to the visual cortex, where they are relayed to the posterior parietal cortex, inferior temporal cortex, and angular gyrus. These areas, respectively, tell us where things are, what things are, and integrate all sensory inputs relating to language, thus laying the initial foundation for the process of vision.

Some impulses travel by way of the retino-tectal pathway to the superior colliculus in the mid-brain. This area subserves peripheral retinal detection, thus setting up conditions for fixation and foveation. These impulses also directly effect balance and coordination as they are sent from the superior colliculus to the 8th nerve. The superior colliculus is very important, as it neurologically represents everything other than the fovea, thus acting as the brain’s gyroscope.

Another very important pathway, the accessory optic tract, takes light information to the accessory optic system in the brain stein. Impulses going to this area directly effect general arousal and activation of the CNS, as well as emotions. The accessory optic tract also sends its light activated information by way of the retinohypothalamic tract to the site of the body’s biological clock within the hypothalamus.

The hypothalamus may be the single most important portion of the brain, as it coordinates and regulates most of our life-sustaining functions and also initiates and directs our reactions and adaptations to stress. It is the brain’s major integrating center for all information from the nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, and emotional system, etc.. Along with the fact that the hypothalamus uses light activated information in its regulation of our vital functions, it also relays this information to the pineal organ. The pineal, truly a master organ and considered the body’s “regulator of regulators”, utilizes light information, sent by way of the eyes, to orchestrate and synchronize the body’s internal functions with natures “heart beat.”

Just as the field of clinical nutrition has evolved from the general use of multiple vitamins to the prescribing of specific nutrients, amino acids, and enzymes that the body is in need of, the field of optometric phototherapy has utilized this same principle since its onset. While medical science has shown that light has a profound stimulatory and regulatory effect on all of the body’s vital functions, optometric phototherapy has found that specific portions of the visible spectrum act as the rebalancers of these vital functions. Light may well be the major nutrient which feeds the evolution of all life.

Based on these scientific findings, the field of ocular as well as general phototherapy has greatly expanded, and is presently being used in a variety of clinical applications ranging from the treatment of vision problems and learning disabilities by optometrists, to the treatment of cancer, depression, and even AIDS, by medical practitioners.

The idea of light as an integral part of all life and creation was evident since the beginning of time. From the very first sunrise to the sunsets of the present, we continue to be awed by the beauty, power, life creating and life sustaining properties and emanations of light.

The Causes of Light Starvation: Photophilia and Malillumination

Working and living indoors: Poorly illuminated environments with inappropriate artificial lighting could have serious health implications. For example, most artificial indoor lighting lacks ultraviolet light (UV), which at the proper intensity is essential to the production of vitamin D and the metabolism of calcium.

Unhealthy artificial light: Most indoor lighting lacks the requisite full-range color distribution and the proper intensity to sustain health and certain functions, such as vitamin D and hormone production. Light’s effect on human mind body health has, until recently, been ignored in architecture, design, and engineering. Both fluorescent and incandescent lights have lots of Red, but are lacking in Green, Blue and Violet. Furthermore, indoor lighting is generally not bright enough, amounting to only 1/20th the intensity of outdoor light in the shade on a sunny day. The amount of light that we receive from 16 hours indoors is dramatically less than the amount we receive from a single hour outdoors.

Negative lifestyle habits: Even in sunny California and Florida, the average individual receives little sunlight in a 24-hour period. The additional interferences we have, such as tinted sunglasses and contact lenses, tinted car windshields, and tinted windows, don’t allow in the health-giving properties of the entire spectrum of light.

Seasons/low light conditions: In winter in the northern hemisphere, the onset of winter depression and seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) occurs in late fall and peaks in February. (These symptoms usually wane in early spring, as the days get longer.)

The Symptoms of Light Starvation:

Symptoms of lack of exposure to sunlight: Scandinavian winters have been associated with a higher incidence of irritability, fatigue, illness, lowered immune functioning, insomnia, hypersomnia, depression, alcoholism and suicide.

Vitamin D deficiency: Sunlight is crucial to vitamin D production.

Calcium deficiency: Calcium levels are lowest in the low light conditions of winter. Calcium is necessary for the growth of bones and teeth. A lack of calcium is related to such conditions as osteoporosis and osteomalacia, the softening of the bones.

Neurotransmitter and Neurohormonal deficiencies: Create a disturbance of bodily rhythms, leading to symptoms such as those seen in seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) or its sub clinical form, winter depression, phase shift disorders, and jet lag (with symptoms such as disturbances in sleep, appetite, or mood.)

• Our knowledge of light’s effect on the human body is in its infancy, yet, researchers continue to discover the power of light in preventive and therapeutic medicine.
• Light regulates and stabilizes our physiology and emotions.
• Light through the eyes affects the brain and every cell of the body.
• Humans have a biological requirement for ultraviolet light, and it is currently unclear how much we need of the other colors of the spectrum.
• Evidence points to the fact that we could all benefit from a greater supply of natural light, particularly during the winter months.

What Light Nourishes: Light enables us to see, and it plays several vital roles as it enters our eyes and our skin. Light enters the pineal gland (the body’s light meter) via the retina. Its neurotransmitter, melatonin, influences the hypothalamus, which is responsible for controlling many of the endocrine functions that are disturbed in depressed individuals such as sleep and wakefulness, reproductive physiology, mood, and the timing of the biological clock.

• Sunlight shining on the skin triggers the production of melanin, a dark pigment that protects the surface of the body.
• As UV rays from the sun penetrate the skin’s surface layer of melanin, the body’s supply of vitamin D is replenished. Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine vitamin”, and although vitamin D can be obtained from milk and fish, this form is not as biologically effective as the vitamin D produced by sunlight. Vitamin D3 is a skin hormone called solitrol, which works in conjunction with the pineal hormone, melatonin, to control the body’s response to light and darkness. Solitrol works antagonistically with the melatonin to produce changes in mood and our 24 hour bodily rhythms, as well as affecting our immune system.
• Vitamin D enters the blood stream and goes to the kidneys and liver where it plays a key role in the absorption of calcium from foods, as well as the utilization of the mineral phosphorus. Nutritionally oriented physician Dr. Elson Haas states that since vitamin D is intimately related to the metabolism of calcium and phosphorus, it is important to the growth and development of bones and teeth in children. Dr. Haas adds that D3, because of its effect on calcium levels, is important in the maintenance of the nervous system, heart functioning, and blood clotting.