Reception area with blue feature wall and two armchairs

Transform Healthcare Spaces with Healing Indigo Blues for 2026

09 September 2025

Hospitals, clinics and medical centres can be stressful places. Using a cooling backdrop of hero blues and our new Slow colours can help provide a restful antidote to create calming hospital environments that benefit both patients and staff.

Creating Healing healthcare spaces with Colour Psychology

Cool and calming, we believe blue is the perfect tone for 2026, when life is often hectic and overheated. This balancing colour feels particularly relevant in healthcare spaces that today, around the world, are often overstretched and in overdrive. Research shows that noisy and frenetic environments are detrimental to both staff and patients¹ and that quiet, reflective areas in clinics can be beneficial for healing healthcare spaces². To give you maximum flexibility to work with blue, our Colours of the Year: Free Groove™, Slow Swing™ and Mellow Flow™ to create a family of blues. These three indigos feature in all our 2026 colour stories, with one acting as the lead colour in each.

For hospitals, clinics and medical centres, we recommend the Dulux Trade Slow colour story with its combination of quiet tones that support patient recovery environments. The dark meditative blue - Slow Swing™ is the hero in this palette, but all three can help create the ideal calming backdrop for reflection and recuperation. By slowing the visual pace of a space, these cooling colours can help dial down feelings of stress and offer relief. Also, by using Slow colours to define specific areas where patients, staff and visitors can unwind can help healthcare settings function more effectively.

¹ Hospitals are noisy. They don't have to be, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), August 2023

² Aristizabal, S.; Byun, K.; Porter, P.; Clements, N.; Campanella, C.; Li, L.; Mullan, A.; Ly, S.; Senerat, A.; Nenadic, I.Z.; et al. Biophilic office design: Exploring the impact of a multisensory approach on human well-being. J. Environ. Psychol. 2021, 77, 101682.

A SLOW COLOUR STORY

Create a Calming Backdrop for Treatment room colour psychology

Treatment room with blue back wall and hospital bed

Cool and fluid, blue can help create a soothing flow in any interior space – something that is particularly beneficial in a medical clinic interior. Here, Slow Swing™ and Mellow Flow™ from the Dulux Trade colour family for 2026 help to create a quiet and cohesive feel in a treatment room, supporting stress reduction and patient comfort during procedures.

Treatment Room Colour Palette

Quieten the Corridor with Hospital corridor design Strategies

Hospital corridor with blue floor and pillars

The design of high-traffic areas, such as stairways and corridors, is often left as an afterthought in healthcare spaces. Using the light indigo - Mellow Flow™ and Dulux Trade Slow colours for these in-between areas can help offset the stressful pace of hospital life while providing colour-coded medical spaces that assist with wayfinding and orientation.

Hospital Corridor Colour Palette

Paint a Peaceful Ward for Enhanced Recuperative ward designs

Hospital ward with deep blue entrance and brown split wall

Busy with patients, doctors and visitors, a ward can be the antithesis of the quiet, recuperative space required for recovery. Dulux Trade Slow colours can create a visual calm that can help reduce stress and create multisensory hospital environments. The hero deep blue in this palette - Slow Swing™ can have a particularly meditative effect, supporting the healing process.

Patient Recovery Environment Palette

Make the Waiting Room Restful with Healthcare waiting room aesthetics

Healthcare waiting area with blue and brown walls and floor-to-ceiling window

Set against the pale, natural browns of the Dulux Trade Slow palette, the airy blue - Mellow Flow™ from our indigo colour family emphasises the natural light and brings a fresh, open feel to this waiting area. Visually calm, these tones can help quieten the mind and ease stress – beneficial for patients and visitors alike, creating biophilic healthcare interiors that connect to nature.

Healthcare Waiting Area Colour Palette

Explore Colour Applications Across Sectors

Find out how Dulux Trade family of blues and 2026 colour stories can transform Education spaces, Offices environments and Hospitality settings.

Transform Healthcare Spaces with Healing Indigo Blues for 2026