How Hobbies Can Help Distract Us From Worry and Anxiety

Art Grows Your Soul: Hobbies and How They Can Help Distract Us From Worry and Anxiety

I don’t know about you, but when I am stressed or behind in mindfulness and self-care practice, my worrying can take over. Thought after thought takes my mind for a spin, and pretty soon anxiety and depression take turns in the driver seat. Sometimes this happens to me even when I’m not particularly stressed, but simply enjoying life enough to forget the habits that keep me balanced. Life is good, so why not horde the happiness? Or, life is stressful, so why stop to spend time on hobbies?

If you’re like me, that worrying voice might have you exhausting yourself in an attempt to play whack-a-mole with life’s problems. Whether things are running smooth, or stressful, I have found (sometimes the hard way) that my hobbies are practically a necessity for my overall wellbeing.

One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, once wrote something that changed the way I saw all creative acts. He was 84 years old when five highschool students wrote to him as part of an assignment for class, and asked him to visit. Of all the authors students wrote to for this assignment, Vonnegut was the only one to write back. He said at age 84, he was too old to make public appearances, but wanted to give some priceless advice to the students. He said:

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow…Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives.”

He went on to add an assignment for the students:

“Write a six line poem about anything, but rhymed…Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody.”

“Then tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals [sic]. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.”

I wanted to use this reference to illustrate how incredibly powerful hobbies can be. Whether life is going well, or causing you stress, hobbies truly do make your soul grow. When I am coasting along and caught up in work and social life without taking the time to enjoy my hobbies, it’s as if I stop becoming, stop growing.

I could add many hobbies to Vonnegut’s list, for example: gaming, reading, hiking, gardening, and so on, but I think it is important to keep it fresh. Recently I got very into an online game. Anyone who has played MMO’s (massive, multiplayer online games) knows that they can become addictive. Pretty soon a few months had passed and I realized that I had barely managed to make one journal entry a week, if that! My soul had stopped growing. I had become an MMO player, and that was about it. Work was going great, I had a new social outlet, and couldn’t wait to get off work and play the game every day. I firmly believe gaming as a hobby can be great for keeping us from worrying and being anxious, but I definitely believe the more hands-on and creative the hobby, the better. I had not been doing yoga, meditating, drawing, painting, or writing poetry. I had not been keeping up with a lot of things. I believe that the more creative the hobby, the more good it does for you.

Even journaling can take you deep into yourself and distract you from worries in a way that takes the power out of your inner critic, or inner worries. If you are inspired by Vonnegut’s advise and write a poem, I’d definitely encourage you to share it here on 7 Cups, instead of throwing it away, though! Otherwise I believe he had one of life’s secret ingredients for happiness and resilience defined perfectly.

To borrow from another great source, I’d like to share the following from Utah State University:

Some mental health benefits of hobbies

• Reduced stress: participating in activities during leisure or spare time has been shown to reduce stress levels. For instance, one study showed approximately 75% of participants’ cortisol levels (one of the most widely studied hormonal markers of stress) were lowered after making art. Don’t consider yourself to be an artistic person? That’s okay! This study also showed that prior experience wasn’t needed to reduce stress.

• Enhanced well-being: a study in New Zealand found that engaging in creative activities can lead to an improved sense of well-being that may have long-lasting effects. Participants felt a higher positive affect or mood and a sense of flourishing after days when they engaged in a creative activity.

• Improved social connection, decreases in depression and anxiety: while there are many mental health benefits related to hobbies on your own, group or ‘team’ hobbies have also been shown to provide important opportunities for social connection, friendship and support. Research also shows that adults who regularly participate in some kind of team sport are less likely to experience symptoms of depression, anxiety, or stress.

• Improved mental health: hobbies that include physical activity have been linked to many health benefits including reduced stress, reduced blood pressure, and a lower heart rate. But if you take physical activity outside, there are many additional positive benefits. Experts agree that spending as little as 10 minutes in nature can lead to improved mood, focus, and overall well-being.

I still enjoy gaming very much, but it became clear during a stressful event that I had to unplug completely from the way I had been using my free time. Getting back out and walking, returning to my habit of journaling, making time for mindfulness, and my steadfast outlet of drawing and painting became much more important once my life became unexpectedly stressful. I saw how important it is to choose your hobbies wisely and be willing to try new things or keep developing skills related to different hobbies. I found that only spending my free time playing that one game, despite its social elements, was no longer distracting me from worries, easing my anxieties, or helping me grow in life.

When I am drawing, it is almost impossible to worry. Idle time spent worrying simply makes me exhausted and unproductive. If you are dealing with a crisis, it may almost seem counterintuitive to stop everything to sit down and draw, write a poem, go for a walk, read a book, or even (yes, within reason) play a game that helps you calm down and feel good. Hobbies in this way are, like Vonnegut implied, their own reward!

Another article that profoundly helped me spoke to the power of reading as a means of increasing empathy. When we are engaged in empathizing with others, we can free ourselves from our personal worries.

From Discover Magazine:

The Link Between Fiction and Empathy

In 2006, Oatley and his colleagues published a study that drew a strong connection between reading fiction and better performance on widely used empathy and social acumen tests. They tested participants on their ability to recognize author names, which helped them gauge how much fiction they read. Then, participants completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which scores people across different dimensions of empathy.

Participants also took the “Mind of the Eyes” assessment, which tested people on their ability to detect and understand visual cues of other people’s thoughts and emotions. In this test, participants matched words of emotions to photos of people’s eyes. (You can take a version of the test here.) The team found that the more names of fiction authors that participants knew — and the more fiction they presumably read — the higher they scored on empathy tests.

Empathy has been called the glue that holds society together, and I believe hobbies might just be the glue that holds individuals together. On the simplest level, a hobby can relieve stress and anxiety by taking our minds off whatever negative factors are at work in our lives and giving us something enjoyable to focus on. In a broader sense, hobbies might just make us more empathetic and grow our very souls in our journey of becoming.

Finding Time to Grow Your Soul

I have learned it is best to avoid the pitfalls of a stagnant life of mindless routine and empty escapism. Finding the time may be difficult, but it is worth it. Whether life is stressing you out, or you’ve found yourself complacent in your leisure time, it’s never too late to start a new hobby or grow inside an old one.

I would like to encourage anyone who knows the cat-and-mouse game of worry and anxiety to keep growing and even try new hobbies. Whether you are innately gifted or have to work hard to get good at the hobby, it’s going to teach you patience and give you new knowledge to share with others. It might just be the solution to some of the problems you worry about, because when it’s time to turn back to the tasks at hand, you will have better focus and clarity thanks to these ever-so-helpful distractions. In my case, it makes me far more balanced and able to take on the world and its many requirements.

As Web MD advises:

A common reason given by many for the inability to take up hobbies is a lack of time. Most people are inclined to prioritize their work over hobbies whenever there’s a choice between the two. It’s important to make time for activities that you love, though, by keeping the following things in mind:

• Instead of trying to take out time every day to do an activity that you like, it’s better to take a long-term approach and find gaps in your schedule that you can fill. Even if you’re unable to do it every day, allocate a few hours every week or every month for such activities.

• There’s increasing research that supports taking multiple small breaks during your work to improve productivity. You can indulge in activities that you enjoy, such as reading, tending to your garden, or listening to your favorite podcast during these breaks.

• Many times, when you work, the hours tick along without you noticing, or you spend a lot of time on social media or television. Understand what’s taking up most of your time and whether you can utilize some of it to do things that you truly enjoy doing.

Have you, like me, noticed that in times of stress, depression, worry or anxiety, that you find you’ve lost touch with your hobbies? If so, I hope you will make time to relax and learn, grow and give, share and create. It’s never too late to take up a new hobby, or lose yourself in familiar ones—whatever it is that gives you that much-needed distraction. I would love to hear your thoughts, and how your hobbies help you stay balanced.

🌟Which hobbies relieve stress the most for you?

✨Which new hobbies would you like to try?

🎀How have hobbies helped your mental health?

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