Imagine a world without color or sound. It's a pretty bleak place, isn't it? Color and sound are important to us for overall health.

Color and sound are the same. Color is visual sound and sound is audible color. Think about how music is talked about in terms of having "color". There are many people who see color when they hear music and some who even taste it, hence the term "flavor of a piece", or "savoring" a musical performance.

In terms of health, we need to take in color every day because we are beings of light and color. Ever notice how your mood causes you to select certain colors to wear? Ever notice that you may be drawn to certain color foods like a craving for "greens" or carrots or tomatoes? Mood can be altered by the color of a room or the clothes we wear. Sometimes we just need to " lighten up". Full spectrum light is used therapeutically since it was found to help people with a condition called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). We in southern California are lucky because we don't need to buy expensive light boxes when we have sunlight available most of the time. 15 minutes of it on our skin daily allows us to use or create Vitamin D. We need to have sunlight coming into our eyes for a few minutes every day for completely healthy functioning, including good mood. I believe that's why people who live here in Southern California are more laid back and a bit more attractive (in general) since there is sunshine all year around.

There are a lot of good ways to add more color into your life daily to create or maintain good health on all levels, mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Eat more brightly colored vegetables and fruit. (Ever notice that fast foods and junk foods have no real color in them unless it's artificially colored some intensely weird color?) Strawberries, blueberries, bright yellow lemons, greens, tomatoes, carrots, etc. are easy ways to add more color in your diet. Brightly colored foods have more vitamins, minerals and the ever-important antioxidants in them. Remember the 5 or more servings a day guideline?
  
  
• Wear more colorful clothing or at least an accessory or two. I know, black is chic and easy but it's also depressing. When I was going through my divorce I woke up one day and realized that for 6 months all I had been wearing was black. That very day I went out and bought a pink sweater and immediately felt better.
  
  
• Go for a 15-minute walk at lunch or just sit in the sun for a few minutes before going back to work. I know we're all supposed to wear sun block and sunglasses to protect us, especially here in the Southland, but we still need at least 15 minutes of unfiltered light a day.
  
  
• Do a 15- minute color meditation. Use a rainbow colored cloth to take a nap under or to meditate with. There are some silk sheets available that are dyed this way. Just use a plain white cover. Or try one that just feels right to you that day.
  
  
• Fresh flowers in seasonal colors brighten up any room in the home or your office. They bring nature inside and if they have a scent you like you get the added aromatherapy benefit.
  
  These are just suggestions to get you started. Follow your intuition. Experiment. Most of all have fun! Play with color. Splash color across a paper like when you were a kid. Allow your natural creativity come out. Wake up your senses. They've been asleep too long. Find out what colors taste like. What does red taste like? Green? Purple? Remember when you were a kid and you talked about red Jell-O, green lollipops, blue Popsicles?