While sitting at my elementary school lunch table waiting for my mom to pick me up, I spent lots of time coloring, making rainbow loom bracelets, or learning how to hand-knit on a toilet paper roll with popsicle sticks attached. I would get engulfed by the repetitive loops of yarn around the toilet paper roll, into what felt like a meditative state and before I knew it, my name would be called to go home.Â
Whatever type of crafting someone chooses to engage in, it has been scientifically proven that crafting can have many positive benefits to your mental health and wellbeing. According to CNN, a psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the feeling of being engulfed or losing yourself as a phenomenon of “Flow: a few moments in time when you are so completely absorbed by an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Flow, Csikszentmihalyi says, is the secret to happiness–a statement he supports with decades of research.”
 Crafting not only reduces stress and anxiety but also helps to reduce brain damage and delays dementia as you get older. It is shown to improve neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to change and adapt its structure and function to its environment.
With aging, according to Psychology Today, “Through the cumulative detrimental effects of stress on neuroplasticity. The dynamic capacity of the brain to rewire itself in response to experience makes a case for lifelong stimulation as a way to maintain optimal brain health and to decrease the risk of dementia and degenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.”Â
Engaging in crafts have many positive effects from benefiting your mental health, to improving your mental abilities as you age. Crafting can also help you develop a new skill, engaging in intellectual stimulation. It can also help you make better social connections, finding people in your community who like to engage in similar crafts and activities as you.Â
Whatever craft you engage in, it will impact your brain in a positive way, and your general well-being. If you aren’t a crafter, I highly suggest integrating it into your routine. Pick up a coloring book, some yarn, or knitting needles today.