This craze has taken over the world. Adults are no longer ashamed to admit that they spend hours on coloring books. As it turns out, this activity is also useful.
Until recently, coloring books were reserved exclusively for children. Adults, of course, could show the child how to do it. But who would have thought to paint for their own pleasure … Why did this activity suddenly turn into the most popular hobby for adults?
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Is it creativity?
Art therapy cannot cure the disease, but helps to cope with it. In particular, it gives cancer patients the opportunity to express those feelings that they are unable to put into words. And this greatly facilitates their condition.
For example, a 2006 study showed that art therapy for cancer patients significantly reduced the symptoms of physical and emotional discomfort during treatment. Another study of the same year showed that even one hour of art therapy helped adult cancer patients of all ages — the vast majority of them felt calmer and expressed a desire to continue art therapy.
“Patients often feel like their bodies have cancer, they feel defeated,” says Joke Bradt, a music therapist at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “By engaging in the creative process, they take on an active role as opposed to the passive role of the patient being treated.”
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Visual arts also help with other serious conditions: depression, dementia, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder. Art therapy uses art as a tool to work with a specific patient problem. However, even at school drawing lessons, it turns out that the artistic abilities of all of us are too different. Those who have considered themselves mediocre since childhood are less likely to resort to art therapy in cases where it could help them. Therefore, coloring pages for them can be a way out, because, without requiring talent, they still provide an opportunity to show some creativity.
However, some experts believe that since coloring pages do not require real creativity, they cannot be considered art therapy in the full sense. “The difference here is about the same as between listening to music and learning to play an instrument,” says Donna Betts, president of the executive board of the American Art Therapy Association. — Listening to music is a fairly simple activity, accessible to everyone. Playing an instrument requires certain skills.
This opinion is shared by Drena Fagen, an art therapist at the Scheinhardt School (New York University): “I don’t think that coloring can be considered art therapy.” Nevertheless, she does not deny that this activity can have a therapeutic effect.
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What happens when we are busy coloring
According to Theresa Citirella, a student at Leslie University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a future art therapist, more students are using coloring books both in the classroom and in therapy, as coloring helps focus. And teachers only welcome it. “In addition, during my graduation practice, I noticed that clients who find it difficult to keep their attention and sit still ask for coloring books to help them concentrate during group classes,” Teresa says. “That’s why we always have coloring books in stock.”
Since difficulty concentrating is often a symptom of anxiety or stress, it’s understandable that coloring pages can help with these issues as well. Melbourne-based neuropsychologist Stan Rodski, author of «anti-stress» coloring books for adults, says the process of coloring puts our minds in a relaxed state, similar to that achieved with meditation. We discard extraneous thoughts and focus on the present moment.
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Completing tasks with predictable outcomes, whether it’s knitting or coloring, has a calming effect, research has found. “Amazing things were happening: our equipment recorded a change in heart rate, as well as brain waves,” Rodsky said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He adds that a large part of these neurological responses are due to the fact that when coloring, we perform repetitive actions and focus on the proposed pattern of the drawing and the details associated with it.
Dr. Joel Pearson, a neuroscientist at the University of New South Wales in Australia, offers another explanation for the therapeutic effect: “By focusing on coloring an image, we can more easily replace negative thoughts and images with pleasant ones. We need to pay attention to the shape and size of the fragment being painted, to not go beyond the edges, to choose a color … — all this activates those parts of the brain that inhibit disturbing fantasies.
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