If you’re here, you may be wondering if coloring can help us in any way, be it our well-being. Well, let me tell you coloring helps to lighten our mood, relieve stress, and calm ourselves and our brains in between an exhausting routine. I observed this from my experience and the reading content that I’ve consumed over the past two years.
To share how coloring helped me, you’d need to know my background briefly to understand where I’m coming from. I was working on my master thesis and teaching online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Juggling with the work from home and study from home routine while actively trying to maintain balance, I was clearly losing it. This was during the pandemic so you’d know.
If not on the surface, from the inside, I was losing my mental and emotional energy. It was evident on how easily I felt irritated, lost track of the time while working, often spent more time than required on work due to evident mind-blocks, and much more. Areeb (my husband) clearly noticed it. We talked. We discussed. But nothing was helping to calm me.
To add to the active work, I was collecting data, conducting interviews from the Pakistani educators, and hearing their first-hand experiences and struggles for my thesis. My thesis was on understanding educator well-being, so direct experiences affecting well-being were discussed. In turn, it was triggering for me as I belonged to this community and was able to relate to them as a Pakistani woman educator.
I related to the experiences. I accepted my privileges. And I felt overwhelmed. I truly needed a mental and emotional break, or a tool to relieve my stress and to take a break.
This is when Areeb introduced me to the ‘Paint by Numbers’. Since I have very specific creative outlets, painting hadn’t been my thing. But I was always inspired by paintings and thoroughly appreciated the artwork. My experiential self wanted me to give it a try. So I did.
Areeb gifted a beautiful kit to me to calm my inner self during the long stressful episodes of thesis writing. To date, this is the best thing I came across and I wish I had known about it earlier. But better late than never. Right? In between all of this, I found peace to rebuild and feel myself by therapeutic art and drawing and coloring with numbers. The picture below is my progress so far in between the breaks.
Later on, I found that research talks highly about adult coloring. Coloring improves focus and concentration and reduces stress for adults – as I experienced. It is used as an alternative to mediation and many psychologists suggest coloring as a calming and therapeutic tool to their patients.
Are you wondering how? Here are three reasons why coloring becomes a helpful tool for adults to relax.
1. Break from stress: Coloring provides the space and time to our body, mind and spirit to recover from stress. Since coloring does not require perfection, it aids in relieving stress. The focus in coloring also shifts our brainwaves to alpha-waves that are responsible for relaxation.
2. Neurological Benefits: Coloring calms down our amygdala. Amygdala is a part of our brain that is responsible for anxiety, panic, or stress reactions. It is also known as the fear center of the brain. Focusing on coloring let the brain to relax as it would in meditation.
3. Journey to easier and happier childhood times: Since coloring is often regarded as an activity for kids, this simple activity takes us to our childhood times. This also means going away from present worries, leading to a recuperative effect.
All in all, it’s simple, fun, and easy to follow. Just like any other hobby [reading, playing games], coloring is a hobby enjoyed by kids as well as adults. The best part is, all you need is a coloring book, pencils, and a choice of media.
Annie A.
