Cityvisitor blog

Pick up a pencil

Have you picked up the colouring bug yet?  The adult colouring craze has been slowly growing over the last couple of years, with colouring books appearing on shelves of many high street stores.

In case you were worried, adult colouring doesn’t mean the content of the colouring books is only suitable for over 18s! It simply means colouring books that are slightly more challenging and interesting than those aimed at toddlers and small children.

So instead of pictures of apples or trucks, you can colour in intricate patterns or very detailed pictures from your favourite films such as Harry Potter or Star Wars.

The idea behind the fad is that it is relaxing and therapeutic.

For anyone who is critical of this, let me say – it does make a lot more sense than spending hours sitting on your phone or tablet moving pictures of little sweets or pieces of fruit around so that they match up with other little sweets or pieces of fruit!

In fact researchers have now said there is proof that a spot of colouring can reduce depression and anxiety.

The study, published in the Creativity Research Journal, said: “Participants completed an inventory of psychological measures (depressive symptoms, stress, anxiety, flourishing, resilience, mindfulness) and then participated in a one-week intervention of either daily colouring or logic-puzzles.

“Colouring participants showed significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety after the intervention, but control participants did not. We conclude that daily colouring can improve some negative psychological outcomes and that it may provide an effective, inexpensive, and highly accessible self-help tool for nonclinical samples.”

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2017.1376505

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