Feeling blue? You may have a touch of gray!

The researchers are hopeful that findings of the study may have important implications in the diagnosis and treatment of those who suffer from depression.

Details of the study
To determine how people define their own state of mind, a research team from the University Hospital South Manchester examined more than 300 people, including 100 with depression.

For the study, the team developed a color chart called 'The Manchester Color Wheel' to come up with this finding.

The chart contained varied colors including different shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, pink, black, white, and gray.

All the participants were then asked to choose a color towards which they were most drawn; which was their favorite; or which best described their current mood.

At first, all the non-depressed people were asked these questions. Then the same test was repeated with depressed and anxious people.

Depressed people found to feel gray, not blue
Most of the participants, whether depressed or not, chose yellow as the color they were drawn to.

Surprisingly, blue, the color associated with a low mood, was voted as the favorite color irrespective of the volunteers’ mood.

However, when both sets of people were inquired which color best represented their state of mind, those who were depressed and had said they had bits of blues chose shades of gray, unlike the healthy volunteers with ‘normal’ mood, who chose yellow to reflect how they felt.

The choice of gray implied misery, disinterest in life, boring and monotonous life, stated the researchers.

Yellow color is normally linked to ‘happiness, cheerfulness, and a positive emotional state,’ while ‘even in everyday life dark colors are regarded as depressing.’

Prof Peter Whorwell, from University Hospital South Manchester, who led the research, said, “Colors are frequently used to describe emotions, such as being ‘green with envy’ or ‘in the blues.’

“When we used these results to separate colors into positive, negative and neutral groups, we found that depressed individuals showed a striking preference for negative colors compared to healthy controls."

The results for the anxious and depressed individuals differed considerably to those in the healthy volunteers.

The study has been published in the Journal BMC Medical Research Methodology.