Mental Wellness/ Positivity Series
Tip By Shantana Deka Dutta
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Crocheting improves mental health.
Benefits of Crocheting for Mental Health:
Crafting can be a way to escape our troubles, helping us to be creative and feel beautiful from within. This is truly healing and restorative and actually very therapeutic. In fact, the healing benefits of crocheting are numerous.
- Crocheting reduces stress and anxiety.
There are many times we feel stressed, anxious or overwhelmed in our daily lives. That’s the perfect time to take out some time for ourselves and do what we love. When we do something we like, our brains release dopamine, a chemical that affects our emotions and functions as a natural antidepressant.
Taking our mind off of chronic pain can help it seem like it goes away, adding to the natural pain-relief properties of the craft’s serotonin release. Breaking the ruminating cycles of the mind with crochet adds to the reduction of depression. Hence I would suggest you pick up some yarn, a crochet hook and spend some time being creative. This makes us feel happier and better about ourselves taking our mind off whatever has been nagging us.
2. There are proven benefits to colour therapy and yarn is colourful.
Happy colours are bright, warm colours like yellow, orange, pink and red. Pastel colours like peach, light pink or lilac can also have an uplifting effect on your mood. Green being a quiet and restful soothing colour can invite harmony and diffuse anxiety.
Blue being a highly peaceful colour can be especially helpful for stress management because it
can encourage a powerful sense of calm.
The brighter and lighter a colour, the more happy and optimistic it will make you feel. Looking to relax? Take out a few skeins of yarn, one at a time, and gaze at them long enough to see what noticeable changes there are in your mood. Trust your gut and pick up the colour that you feel best about. You will feel the uplifting effect on your mood.
- Crochet is a tactile craft.
When you crochet you are working with fibre, which can have such a great impact on your skin. Different yarns have different textures. The soft touch of a yarn can soothe your soul on the darkest of days or try a rougher fibre like jute to get yourself grounded back into your body. In addition to the feeling of the fibre itself, pay attention to the benefits of the motion of the craft. By focusing on the repetitive motions of individual stitches and counting rows, your mind is able to be more relaxed and free from anxious ideas and thoughts. It offers a meditative sensation that helps lull you out of anxiety and into ease.
- Crocheting puts you in control.
When we choose to craft we are in full control of everything we do. From choosing the type of project, the colour and type of yarn, type of crochet hooks to work with in fact we decide everything! This itself gives us a powerful feeling of being able to make our own decisions and builds confidence.
- Crochet builds your self-esteem.
I can speak for myself here. There are many days when my aches and pains leave me feeling worthless. This frustrating feeling of not being able to do anything productive is overwhelming. What I love about crochet is that I do not need much space and can be comfortably settled even in my bed with less energy creating beautiful items. What a great way to battle the blues! By working up a project to give as a gift or sell at a craft fair we feel useful. Though we don’t craft just for the compliments, a little bit of external validation by someone buying our finished item or our gift recipient wearing our creation definitely boosts our self-esteem making us feel worthy.
With much love,
Shantana
For more of my crochet work please feel free to check out my pages.
Thanks Shantana for participating in our Mental Wellness/ Positivity initiative. You too can participate using the hashtag #positivitywithempowerednsakhi
https://empoweredbwb.com/2021/05/05/mental-wellness-positivity-series/
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