On my most recent trip to Barnes and Noble, I was stunned to see an entire table set up in the middle of the store with a variety of coloring books on it. But these weren’t just ordinary coloring books. They were geared towards adults! I had to know what this was about, so I snapped up one of them and a set of colored pencils and hurried home!
Coloring is just fun, isn’t it? Your kids love it and you probably loved it when you were a child. There’s actually a good reason to love coloring- it’s good for us. It relaxes our amygdala (that’s the area of our brain that’s responsible for emotions) so our psyche can get some serious, much-needed rest. And coloring for stress relief isn’t new. Psychiatrists have been prescribing it to patients for about 100 years. Letting that kooky amygdala rest is a good idea- the more you do it, the more it helps to reprogram that area of the brain to respond less severely to stress.
Want to make this a more social activity? Call your friends! Coloring parties are popping up everywhere. Friends gather to sip wine, chat and color! You can also make it a family affair. Designate an hour one or two nights a week for “family color time”.
Psychologists say coloring promotes focus, but not so much that it creates stress (after all, staying inside the lines does take a little concentration). But it also allows us to live in the moment and keep our attention on this one activity for however long we engage in it. Sounds a bit like meditation, doesn’t it?
You can even turn your creations into wall art or some other type of craft, like greeting cards or decoupage.
As soon as I sat down to get to work on my first design, you know what happened? I actually felt stressed. I started to think about what would happen if I picked the “wrong” color scheme. I started to judge my work before I even began! I remember being a kid and not worrying at all about what anyone thought of my drawings. My parents hung them up on the fridge regardless of how weird they were (and they were!). I knew I had to get back to that mindset if this was going to work.
So I gave myself a serious pep talk. I wasn’t being judged on this (duh!). No one was going to evaluate it and decide my worth based on the color scheme I chose. So I took a deep breath, opened my box of pencils and got to work.
And then something amazing happened. I forgot all about the stress of picking the “right” colors, I forgot all about the stress of my day, and instead, it was just me and my pencils having a good time. My thoughts didn’t once wander into negative territory (or any other territory for that matter). I was in the moment and felt noticeably calmer afterwards.
Now I see why coloring is such good therapy!
