Learn Arts & Crafts
Portadown Wellness places a lot of emphasis on providing classes in arts and crafts to help participants engage with their creativity and freely express themselves through drawing, painting and woodburning.
Arts & crafts possess several health benefits. There are not many things that are both enjoyable and healthy, but arts & crafts fall firmly within both categories. A study carried out by researchers concluded that arts & crafts aid emotional well-being to an extent that more active pursuits such as sports cannot, especially amongst older people.
Crafts provide an avenue for people to take part in activities that are both engaging and enjoyable, which can help to reduce stress. Certain arts & crafts activities also offer maths and geometry challenges, which help to keep the brain sharp.
A recent report also states that arts & crafts can have a positive influence upon recovering drug addicts.
The therapeutic power of arts & crafts is well documented. Making things by hand can bring about profound changes in emotions, sensory experiences, actions, behaviours and patterns of thought, which means that it can effectively alter the way in which the person perceives the world.
Psychologist Claudia Hammond also points out that crafts can be “all-absorbing” and help people to attain a state that psychologists call “flow” in which all worries are discarded, and the hours fly by.
She says that one of the main benefits of arts and crafts is that those doing them have complete control over the difficulty level of the tasks that they choose to take on. Research has demonstrated that the goals that people set themselves tend to be the most satisfying for them to achieve, meaning that creating something that you are proud of can improve your levels of mental wellbeing.
Taking part in arts and crafts activities can help to stave off depression. Partaking in these activities bathes your brain in “feel-good” chemicals and creates a “kind of mental vitamin.”
The effects of arts and crafts are more complex than taking antidepressants and activate multiple brain areas, meaning that they can sometime be just as effective as prescription medication when it comes to coping with mental illness.
A recent article published in Psychologies magazine suggests that the role played by arts & crafts is underestimated. The magazine points out that making things is an accessible means of asserting control with an uncertain environment.
The article concluded that those who devote time to creative activities experience a growth in mental agility.
It appears that as well as being an enjoyable way to while away the hours, arts and crafts activities can also help to maintain your mental health and improve your adaptability. They can improve your confidence, make you happier during your everyday life and even help to fight against depression and addiction. It is perhaps little wonder artistic and crafts-based pursuits are such popular hobbies.
The main benefit of partaking in them is that they are fun to do though. They enable artistically minded people to hone their skills whilst partaking in activities that are both relaxing and rewarding.
Everything else is just a bonus.