A Cure for Spring Fever

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend, a long weekend in some places!

With the end of winter taking a good long time to arrive in the Northern hemisphere, I can’t help yearning for more color, especially the green of the leaves that  will cover the trees, yes, even in the city.

I used to hate the color green, I had a real aversion to it. Maybe it was the sickening avocado green of our kitchen, or the forest green in my crayola box that went unused because I found it dark and depressing. When I was a kid, I just knew that green was my least favorite color. I avoided it every time.

So I was surprised when I started to find green attractive after so long. I’ve begun noticing leaf green, spring green, lime green, refreshing and harkening the return of spring, the colors of new leaves and certain insects. I even find olive green soothing. I suppose I’ve been affected by the modern association of green with the natural world, protecting the environment, and my love of insects, many of them green. Historically, before the Romantic period, green was a chemically unstable color, dyes which were made from green vegetation (they did not mix blue and yellow at the time) were difficult to fix, green colors were the first to fade. Green symbolized change, luck and also its opposite, misfortune. Since then, though, it has become symbolic of freshness, cleanliness and health.

And since clothing and its colors affect not only how we perceive others as we interact with them but also our own moods as we wear different clothes and colors, I’m trying to add some of this newly loved green to my outfits in the form of scarves, gloves, hair accessories too. And a few green accents around the house can’t hurt either.

So here are my Mood lifting tweaks for everyday:

Get more of a color you love into your life, at home and wherever you go:

• Wear brightly colored accessories: scarves, brooches, cuffs, gloves, earrings, barrettes, neckties to instantly lift your mood.
• Change your home ‘accessories’, cloth napkins, pillows, towels, tablecloths, in spring colors and bring spring inside even before the flowers have bloomed.
• And most important, don’t wait for a special occasion, brighten up each day and make it a habit!

I’d love to know what your favorite colors are! How do you incorporate them into your life? Do you drench your home in them or are they accents? Do you wear them to accessorize, or as the main color of your outfit? Please leave a comment below!

And if you know someone who’d like this, please share!