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How can you use sewing for boosting mental health? All you have to do is sew! It’s that simple and effective. The rest you can leave up to your creativity!
Most of you don’t know this but sewing can help you stay positive. Practicing sewing consistently doesn’t only make you an expert at it. But it also boosts happiness, reduces stress, and makes you emotionally stronger. So how about it?
The following are the 5 reasons why sewing benefits your mental health.
[YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysPcw4PCU-c]
The Mental Health Benefits of Sewing
#1 Hand-To-Eye Coordination
Sewing is the number one activity which encourages hand-to-eye coordination. It is a neurological process. Cognitive scientists have identified what it can do for the brain. Apart from improving speed and concentration, it does have emotional benefits too.
Have you ever disoriented under pressure? You don’t know how to respond or how to place your thoughts in a clear light. While this may seem natural in every one of us, you can ease the stress.
There is a key component between navigating through emotional instability. And it’s simply connecting the dots between what is happening and what’s in your mind.
Sewing boosts your concentration in many ways. But what it also does is avoid errors in performing various tasks. These tasks may be mental as much as physical.
In hindsight, you can communicate your thoughts better with the help of sewing. Along with improving cognitive skills such as learning, movement, and speed.
[YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaK5dFGuMNA]#2 Dopamine
We all know the effects of increased dopamine in the body. We all come up with coping techniques to boost dopamine in the brain. This helps reduce stress, anxiety, and nervousness.
What scientists call “the dopamine advantage” can be seen in practicing sewing as well. Sewing requires complete focus and consistent speed. If you let your mind wander to a non-sewing topic, you mess up your sewing project.
Sewing is a healthy strategy to engage in a creative and challenging craft. As soon as you finish a project, you feel good about it which has a direct effect on your dopamine. So you can say that sewing is a natural anti-depressant for everyone.
#3 Mindfulness
Are you neglecting to be mindful throughout the day? Practicing mindfulness is not easy as it sounds. And there’s a possibility that you don’t even know how to become mindful.
Mindfulness allows you to stay present and calm. This is nothing but a sensory reaction in the brain. And here’s how sewing helps.
Research suggests that sensory overload can cause mental damage. That is when you’re multitasking while thinking about multiple things. You can text on the phone and still think about something else while doing it.
Sewing, or any other challenging craft, forces you to focus on a single task at hand. This means all energy goes into one creative pursuit. You keep the rest of your thoughts aside. In this case, distractions can be a good thing.
#4 Self-Esteem
An effect similar to running a marathon, who doesn’t feel good after completing a goal? Sewing can feel something like this. Once you finish a project, no matter how small, it releases happy thoughts.
You feel good about finishing a creative task. This boosts confidence and self-esteem. Sewing involves navigating through intricate patterns. You can lose yourself for hours in a tricky project. And once you’re at the end of it, you feel relieved.
The secret to boosting mental health is boosting self-esteem. Even though the project is difficult, you’re confident that you will finish it.
#5 Boosting Mood
What do you know about art therapy? Art therapy is a common practice to reduce stress. Research suggests that people who work with lots of colors feel happier and calmer than those who don’t. And sewing encourages the use of color into trick patterns and designs.
Colors can influence the way a person feels as well as their physical state. The color blue, for example, draws out feelings of calm, stability, and hope.
The surprising effect of such colors can boost mental health. Once you understand the basics of sewing, you’re playing with many colors at once. This can stimulate a better emotional response in most people.
Now you know more about the 5 reasons why sewing benefits your mental health than the average sewist!
[YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1muwy1vQ5Q]
Final Thoughts
These are the 5 essential reasons why sewing is important for the brain. You can overcome stress, communicate well, and boost your mood. Sewing consists of tools you can use to make a creative and challenging design. It involves the use of colors and patterns to achieve that.
But what if I tell you sewing goes beyond its artistic needs? It has the powers to improve your social skills, emotional intelligence, and confidence. Maybe then you’d prefer buying the best sewing machine for beginners. There’s more to sewing than asking what is the best sewing machine for beginners.
And these 5 reasons why sewing benefits your mental health is what you need to know. Its benefits are the most underappreciated skills by hobbyists. And it’s time you are the first one to stand out from the crowd!
About the author
Laura Cooper is a passionate blogger and enthusiastic reviewer that doesn’t like to mince words. She would like to think of Top Picks for Her as a go-to platform for all women. She puts down interesting and practical tips and views on everything woman you could ever find on the web. Her expertise in the field has given rise to an influencer platform that women all over the world can relate to in every possible way. Her style of writing is not only personal but also quite professional. Laura’s work is all about making the life of expectant or first-time mothers much more comfortable than imagined.
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Definitely want to learn this skill. The benefits for mental health are a bonus and plus it’s a really great and useful skill to have. It does however seem to look tedious at times. However once the skill is mastered it can be a lucrative way to make extra money from home so there’s that added bonus. No need to spend money on classes, the youtube videos seem pretty simple to follow.