Baking is one of my favourite forms of cooking. In addition to creating something delicious to eat, and eating some of the ingredients along the way, there’s just something seemingly therapeutic about baking. Every time I bake, regardless if it’s for myself or for someone else, there’s just something special about it. It relaxes me and works as a great stress reliever. Even though I’ve been baking for many, many years, I’ve never thought about why baking makes me feel good. After deciding to look into it, this is what I found.
Turns out, there have been many studies about the benefits of baking. Studies have long shown that creative activities, such as baking and cooking, adds to a person’s sense of well-being. Stress relief is one of these benefits of baking. According to Boston University professor Donna Pincus about a type of “stress relief that people get from having some kind of an outlet and a way to express themselves.” These creative outlets can be activities such as knitting, cooking and baking.
One of the major reasons why baking can help resolve stress is routine. Cooking requires us to focus on specific directions that should be completed in a certain order. Baking is a series of tasks which acts as a form of mindfulness, since all your focus is on one specific activity. During a certain task, such as heating up milk or melting chocolate, all your focus has to be on that task. According to clinical social worker Juliana Ohana, these smaller tasks help you “balance the moment and the bigger picture.” Cooking requires you to constantly focus on smell and taste and making sure that all the pieces fit together. Baking is a series of small tasks that add up to one finished product. It allows you to visualise a successful moment in the future, when the cake, cookies or any baked product is finished.
“Baking has the benefit of allowing people creative expression,” associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University, Donna Pincus, told HuffPost. “There’s a lot of literature for connection between creative expression and overall wellbeing. Whether it’s painting or it’s making music [or baking], there is a stress relief that people get from having some kind of an outlet and a way to express themselves.”
Another study, published by The Journal of Positive Psychology, wrote about how university students dealt with their stress. This study had over 650 students record their emotional states for two weeks and write down what they did to feel better. During the days that students did something creative, they reported positive personal growth. This effect can be defined in psychology as “flourishing.” Stress relief and creative fulfillment were the top two reasons people partake in baking.
Baking has also been used as a form of therapy. Some mental health clinics in the US have used cooking and baking as treatment for depression. Baking with other people can help to improve teamwork skills as well, in addition to improving one’s mood through creativity. So why not try baking this week, and see how it affects your mood?
Here are some article links if you want to read more on this topic:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/baking-for-others-psychology
https://gawker.com/therapists-now-encourage-cooking-and-baking-as-cures-fo-1668772182