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When picturing arts and crafts, one often imagines a crayon drawing of a family on a refrigerator or a hand-knitted sweater from grandma. Often it’s forgotten that adults have crafts and hobbies to occupy themselves. These things usually create joy, so it isn’t hard to suggest that crafting as a hobby could improve someone’s mental wellbeing. In reality, many modern studies have shown that crafting and the public arts are lovely tools in therapy for children and adults. They provide a safe, consistent space in which an individual can be authentic and expressive.

The Psychological Impact of Crafting

As a person participates in something they enjoy, dopamine is released. This dopamine spike leads to an increase in mood, a decrease in anxiety, and, importantly, a decrease in major depressive disorder. It seems odd that such a small thing can lead to such positive solutions, but the effectiveness speaks for itself in truth. These are some of the reasons we see crafts used in nursing, or assisted living, homes to provide its residents with a creative outlet that improves their mood and mental state. It also allows many individuals to pull forward old memories of which they could not previously recall.

We also see crafting used in rehabilitation therapies. In addition, the best way to rehabilitate the brain is to start with areas of the intangible. Creativity is not constrained to school-based knowledge. Often crafty not only provides a scientific solution but a logical solution as well. Introducing someone to a craft that they begin to love or aiding someone in finding one that brings them joy is helpful.

An Alleviation of Symptoms

Crafting allows individuals to remove themselves from the present moment and their current concerns and instead focus on something without consequence. Even further than the psychological impact of crafting, we see the psychosomatic effects. This is the impact on physical symptoms related to mental illness. The idea is that many mental illnesses give way to physical illnesses to relieve the mind. With this relief, people can use their creativity to change their outlook on life, another study suggests. Crafting allows for mental comfort to prosper, which leads to mental health.