Making arts and crafts improves your mental health as much as having a job, scientists find
Engaging in creative activities can significantly boost well-being by providing meaningful spaces for expression and achievement, according to a new study.
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Walking into my grandmother’s house, I watch her hands move in a fast-weaving motion as stitches extend from her knitting needles. Beside her are layered stacks of knit blankets, scarves and ponchos stitched with carefully selected color schemes and patterns made of wool yarn. She donates these blankets to children’s hospitals and foster homes.
Her favorite pastime is creating. She is always crafting, whether it’s knitting, coloring, scratch art or most recently, dabbling in gem art. These activities provide her satisfaction and purpose in ways more fulfilling than work.
She infused her love for arts and crafts into the rest of my family. My mom joined community theater groups when she became an empty nester and learned pour painting. My younger cousin photographs nature, and his father (my uncle) has a comedic podcast with voice actors. My twin brother and I sang in college — it kept us sane while balancing our heavy academic workloads.
We thought it was beneficial for our health, and we were right. Creating art reduces levels of cortisol, the body’s stress hormone, past research has shown.
Lea Horowitz knits with granddaughter Riane Lumer.
“Engaging with arts and crafts is accessible and affordable. Options such as knitting and drawing require very few tools and can be engaging and creatively fulfilling activities,” said Dr. Helen Keyes, cognitive psychologist and head of the school of psychology and sport science at Anglia Ruskin University, via email.
Now, a new study by Keyes and fellow researchershas found that engaging in creative activities can significantly boost well-being by providing meaningful spaces for expression and achievement.
Although prior studies have shown that creating arts and crafting is therapeutic for people with mental health conditions, the general population has been understudied, according to the study, which published recently in Frontiers in Public Health.
That’s why they sampled members of the general population without diagnosed illnesses to see how arts and crafts might contribute to well-being and may reduce loneliness outcomes in everyday life.
The team used data from a major national survey in the UK between 2019-2020 to investigate how creative activities could impact life satisfaction, controlling for variables known to affect wellbeing such as gender, age group, health, employment status and deprivation. The researchers analyzed a sample of 7,182 participants living in England (age 16 and over) from the annual Taking Part survey conducted by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, which explores how the public engages with these activities.
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