Anushka Attri

Jun 30, 2019

Art as a stress relieve

In this fast-paced life of ours, we often find ourselves surrounded by a number of events that causes stress to us. Stress is any uneasy circumstance that causes emotional, behavioural change. Stressful situations vary for person to person and the coping mechanism for it also differs in degree from individual to individual. Some person may completely deny the situation whereas some may vent out to their friends. Generally speaking, every individual responds distinctively to a stressful situation.

It is the process of doing art that reduces stress and puts us in that 'zone' of spiritual connection.

(Diana S. Boehner)

How "Venting Out" can help You !


Art reduces Cortisol Levels

One of the common things that we all did in childhood was indulging in art through one way or the other I.e. it may be playing with colours, clay modelling, creating crafts from waste materials, filling colours in the colouring book. And these all activities of art gave us immense pleasure and joy. Art is anything that is created through imagination and expressed through various means. As an adult, we forget the joys of art. Art can be used as one of the means to cope with stress. It can be seen as one of the most creative ways to relieve stress.

A recent study suggests that doing any kind of art for 45 minutes reduces the cortisol level (the stress hormone) in the human body.

HOW TO WIN OVER STRESS AND MAKE IT YOUR FRIEND


The various reasons that art may act a stress reliever are:

  • It provides a hobby to the person which helps in maintaining a well-balanced lifestyle.
  • It provides a medium of expression without actually putting the issues in words or any verbal form that needs to communicate to others.
  • It gives an opportunity for a person to explore the world of his/her imagination through creative ways.
  • It provides a non-judgemental environment to a person.
  • It distracts an individual from the current stressful situation.
  • It provides a state of flow to the person, meaning the individual is fully immersed and involves in the current task while enjoying it.

Words won’t ever define you enough.

Therefore, next time when one is feeling surrounded by a stressful situation and nothing seems to work, pick up a blank paper and pen or colours to fill in those colouring books. One needs not to be a prodigy in the art to use it as stress reliever the doodling on the blank page while getting through a boring meeting and lecture is also an act of art. Art therapy also works on this principle that every individual is creative and provides an expressive medium.