Can Coloring Help Deal with Stress?

The best selling books on Amazon are not crime thrillers or self-help books, but coloring books for adults. Apparently, they are all the rage now as adults look for means to reduce their stress levels in a world where uncertainty has become a way of life.

There was a time when we thought that coloring was an activity to keep children busy, but researchers now say that coloring has immense potential to reduce anxiety and create focus.

Coloring can help people to zone out so that at least for a while, they do not brood about the major issues that might be worrying them. You do not need to be an artist to color within lines and for people who are not particularly creative, this could be an outlet that could help them destress.

How do you go about coloring? While children prefer to color with brightly colored crayons, it is recommended that adults use colored pencils. Some of the most popular books for coloring on Amazon are books by Johanna Basford. She has published two collections of black-and-white drawings named Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book and Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book, which have sold millions of copies.

Many adults find that coloring these books is highly relaxing. There are anecdotes about coloring to cope with anxiety and helping to lower high blood pressure when adopted along with other lifestyle changes. It is quite likely that coloring takes adults back to an age when all they had to worry about was getting their homework done and making it to school on time. Coloring also does not call for much logical thought. Coloring is also a way to step away from smartphones and tablets and find a way to unwind.

So, if you are in a spot where there is no Wifi and you need to entertain yourself, turning to a coloring book might just be the ticket.