The Best Soothing Color for a Doctor's Office Walls

Patients are often nervous in doctor's offices, making color selection for walls important.

The color of your walls suggests how visitors should feel in your office. You can use soft blues to make patients feel relaxed and calm, or light greens to give them a feeling of being in nature. Soft yellows add a feeling of standing in sunlight. Alternately, you can even use multiple colors, providing an analogous feeling that includes each of these warm colors.

Blue

Shades of blue have a calming effect on people in a room. Blue is a natural color that people link to calm water or clear skies. Use a muted tint or tone for your blue, such as a light blue or blue-gray color. Blue is particularly ideal for a doctor's office, giving patients a feeling of relaxing calm when they enter the office. Avoid bright shades of blue, such as vivid blues or bright blues, as these can stimulate patients and make them agitated. You can enhance the blue color scheme with pictures of lakes or rivers, continuing the blue theme and providing the natural scene of water to your office.

Green

Green shades are ideal for offices with an abundance of natural brown furniture, such as chairs or bookcases. The combination of natural greens and brown give patients the feeling of a natural setting, reminiscent of the colors of trees. Green is also a soft color, leaving patients feeling more relaxed and happier. Much like blues, avoid bright, unnatural green shades, as these can actually agitate patients. Enhance green walls with plants, further developing the natural feeling of the office.

Yellow

Soft yellows provide a feeling of sunlight in the office, which people tend to find uplifting. Yellow is also a spring color, often associated with spring mornings or walks in the sunlight. Use softer tones or relaxing yellow tints for walls, to avoid overpowering patients with your walls. Remember that bright yellow may seem attractive, but if all of the walls are bright yellow, the office may seem too bright for people to relax.

Analogous Colors

Colors that are next to each other on the color wheel are analogous. You can place analogous colors together to providing a natural, relaxing contrast between the colors. Blue, green and yellow are analogous to each other on the color wheel, and together can add an important contrast to walls. Use stencils or patterns to apply small amounts of each color to walls, creating a relaxing forest feeling in the office that will uplift patients and give them the feeling of health and joy.

References

• Health; Boost Your Mood With Color; Milena Damjanov; April 2008
• Tiger Color: Basic color schemes - Introduction to Color Theory