Mindful coloring is a calming and enjoyable activity with several benefits. When you color mindfully, you focus on coloring intricate designs and being in the present moment. It’s like a meditation that helps reduce stress and anxiety by calming your mind.
It also makes you more aware of your feelings and what’s happening around you. Coloring can improve your concentration and how well you use your hands.
Plus, it’s a way to express yourself and manage your emotions. In a busy world, mindful coloring is a simple and helpful practice to clear your mind and find emotional balance.
What Are the Benefits Of Coloring?
Acts as a social activity
Coloring is a great social activity not only for children but also for the elderly. Coloring can provide enjoyment even at an older age and is also a great means of experiencing social fulfillment.
The elderly people can participate in coloring events as groups and perform together. It can be a great way of communicating with others and learning new things. They can even help their grandchildren with their art and crafts and enjoy a fun time with the little ones.
An outlet for the creative
Once again, not limited to children, coloring is a great creative outlet for elderly people who want to express their artistic abilities and skills. With the vast multitude of colors available, elderly people can do anything they want with it and express their talent.
Ranging from sceneries to portraits, from mandalas to digital art, and everything in between, there are no boundaries to painting, and it is a great way to engage with the process of creativity.
Brings people of all age groups
Just not restrict it to the elderly; coloring has the power to bring people from all age groups and backgrounds together.
A sit-and-draw competition or anything as such, without any age limitations, can see a vast majority of senior people painting together with the younger mass.
If allowed to participate in groups, such competitions can be a valuable social gathering for the aged people, who can express their creativity and share their inputs with the much younger community.
Relieves stress and depression
A good storybook can be really helpful in easing the stress out, especially for the elderly, but a good coloring book is definitely going to be rejuvenating for them. It can be really pleasing to the eyes and the perfect way to relax.
A good coloring book with different intricate patterns and shapes, or portraits and landscapes, with their repetition and color schemes, can be soothing to the mind and a great way to ease out the stress.
Related: Best Ways Grow Gratitude Everyday
Promotes a healthy lifestyle
For elderly people, there is nothing more important than their age. At such an elderly age suffering from various health issues is quite common but not at all pleasing.
Coloring is scientifically proven to grant them a healthier lifestyle by reducing stress levels significantly, improving concentration, helping them out with dexterity and problem-solving skills. It is also proven to curb various diseases, and partaking in coloring activities can enable them to engage their mind in a much more creative way.
Reduces stress related to Dementia
Elderly people often suffer from Dementia and experience the agitation accompanying it. Coloring is seen to provide therapeutic benefits which can ease the stress related to Dementia.
As you all know, coloring does not rely on memory. It neither has any specific steps or processes that need to be followed. People can impart their own creativity and do it the way they want, which in turn helps to lessen the stress accompanying Dementia and open up a new route for expressing oneself.
Relieves Anxiety
Anxiety associated with age is quite common. Elderly people often suffer from anxiety-related issues like panic attacks, traumas, excessive worrying, thoughts of dying, and so on.
Scientists have taken a close look at the therapeutic benefits of coloring and have assured that coloring indeed helps to curb the effects of anxiety. Coloring pages can soothe the persistent surge of swirling anxiety and negative thoughts.
Makes them self-aware
Self-awareness or mindfulness is the process of purposely focusing all the attention towards your current circumstance or anything that you are doing at that particular moment.
Mindfulness is key if you want to achieve happiness at an elderly age.
When elderly people are coloring the more complex patterns or shapes in their coloring books, they need to shut the entire world around them and forget about everything else, just focus on coloring. They unknowingly practice mindfulness this way.
Related: Benefits Of Self Control
Useful therapy against Epilepsy
Scientists have shown that coloring books, and coloring therapy, can be an effective remedy against Epilepsy. Just like Dementia, Epilepsy is also quite common at an old age and not something which they can easily live with.
When elderly people use coloring activities as a therapeutic aid against stress and anxiety, they induce calmness, concentration, and creativity in themselves. The motor control work of coloring for adults is seen to decrease the occurrence of Epilepsy.
Can help to fight cancer
Yes, you might ask how can simple coloring pages cure cancer. Well, the answer is that it doesn’t directly curb cancer but can slowly and surely reduce its effects.
Cancer treatments and chemotherapy can make people extremely depressed, ill, and distressed. Studies conducted on art therapy have shown that coloring pages significantly positively impact the morale and health of the patient and can help decrease the side effects of cancer treatments.
Helps in treating Alzheimer’s disease
One of the diseases like Dementia which eats you up mentally. There are very few diseases that can be considered worse than this. People tend to lose their minds and memory slowly. It is devastating indeed.
Adult coloring won’t reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s, but it is surely one of the very effective therapies that are available and can be used. Coloring activities help you in exercising essential synapses, and the smell of crayons lets you recall your childhood.
Substitutes negative emotions and feelings
In this present age, it is very difficult not to be stressed regarding issues like finances, health, job, family, and so on, especially if you are an adult. Most elderly people experience these fears and get angry, feel dejected, and resentful.
These negative emotions don’t help them in improving their lives. All they do is make them more tense.
When the absolute focus is on coloring, they tend to forget all the negative stuff and replace negativity with positive emotions.
Coloring is a form of meditation
Coloring can actually enable elderly people to find a higher state of consciousness. The color schemes in the coloring books, aesthetically pleasing designs, and patterns draw you into them. This allows you to curb anxiety, stress, and depression very subtly.
The sub-hypnotic state you are led into while coloring the complex patterns and shapes can, in turn, help you better understand yourself and the place you hold in this world. This is exactly how meditation works for you.
Exercises the whole brain
Coloring activities not only cater to the left part of the brain but also to the right one. It is a workout for both the hemispheres of the brain.
When adults take on coloring activities, they make the most of the creative side of their brain when they choose colors from the color palette and provide balance to the overall art. The frontal lobe of the brain is also used to focus the entire attention on the coloring process.
Brings back childhood memories
When you were children, coloring was a fun activity. You could spend hours painting and coloring stuff and never get bored. It used to distract you from the other things happening around you.
The same stands true for adults also. When you are doing some adult coloring, you recall those happy memories of your childhood. You begin to have the same sort of excitement and unbridled fun you used to have as a child.
Imparts self-regulation
Self-regulation, commonly known as self-control, is a skill that people of all age groups must acquire. Researchers suggest that most health and mental issues occur in individuals because of their inability to control different aspects of themselves.
The kinesthetic-sensory qualities that coloring possesses can enhance self-regulation among people of all ages. Moreover, art requires patience, which is, again a self-regulation skill.
Related: Benefits Of Self Decipline
Gives you a much needed “Adult time-out”
When you were kid, having 5 minutes of inactivity felt like a hard time in prison. Nowadays, when you are all adults or even elderly people, the idea of taking a time-out can be really soothing and calming.
Adult coloring can be a perfect time-out for you. It is a complete workout for your brain, but it doesn’t take mental gymnastics to accomplish something beautiful while coloring. It requires your full attention, which means that other stressful thoughts just vanish.
Can be done anytime and anywhere
One of the best things about coloring activities and adult coloring is that it can be done anywhere and anytime. It doesn’t have any special requirements as such. For elderly people whose mobility is restricted, coloring can still be enjoyed, making it so great.
For the elders who tend to be more tech-savvy, there are numerous applications available nowadays on your mobile phones. These are a great alternative to coloring on paper.
Conclusion
From the above points, it is clear that there are numerous ways adult coloring can benefit elderly people. With its scientifically proven therapeutic qualities and the creativity it oozes out from you, coloring can be a great way to let go of the stress and anxiety that has been bothering you.
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“Mindfulness, meditation, and positivity – these three words describe me the best. I founded “BeHappyHuman” blog dedicated to spreading happiness and inner peace through mindfulness and meditation techniques. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been exploring these practices for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing their benefits with others. My mission is to help individuals achieve greater happiness.