Are you feeling anxious or stressed out? You are not alone. According to the American Psychological Association, anxiety is the most common mental health issue in the United States, affecting over 40 million adults. While there are many treatments available for anxiety, some people have found relief in an unexpected place - coloring books. In this post, we will explore 10 ways that coloring can help reduce anxiety.
Relaxation: Coloring can be a relaxing activity that can calm the nervous system and reduce feelings of stress.
Creativity: Engaging in creative activities like coloring can help reduce anxiety by giving the mind a break from negative thoughts and allowing for self-expression.
Sense of accomplishment: Finishing a coloring page can give a sense of accomplishment and boost self-esteem, which can help combat anxiety.
Social activity: Coloring can be a social activity, which can help reduce anxiety by providing a sense of connection and support.
Color therapy: Color therapy is a type of alternative therapy that uses colors to improve mental and physical health. Coloring can be a form of color therapy and can help reduce anxiety.
Repetitive motion: Coloring can involve repetitive motions, which can have a calming effect on the body and mind.
Visualization: Coloring can involve visualizing colors and patterns, which can be a form of meditation and can help reduce anxiety.
Playfulness: Coloring can be a playful activity, which can help reduce anxiety by promoting a sense of fun and joy.
In conclusion, coloring can be a helpful tool in reducing anxiety. By providing distraction, mindfulness, relaxation, creativity, a sense of accomplishment, social connection, color therapy, repetitive motion, visualization, and playfulness, coloring can help calm the nervous system and ease feelings of anxiety. If you are struggling with anxiety, consider picking up a coloring book and giving it a try. Remember, there are many treatments available for anxiety, and it is important to seek professional help if you are struggling.
]]>Coloring is an excellent way to manage anxiety and stress.
For adults, coloring has recently become a popular "therapy" because it has been shown to improve mood and lower blood pressure.
Whether you are looking for a distraction or time to think, these benefits help manage your feelings about the world around you. For some people , coloring has become a form of relaxation or meditation.
Coloring can help you get in touch with your creativity and imagination, while also providing structure to calm your mind. Because it is enjoyable, it can be therapeutic without forcing you into an unfamiliar situation that may only bring anxiety. This makes coloring perfect for if you are feeling stressed or overwhelmed in your normal life.
In fact, coloring books that were originally marketed to children have begun being adapted for adults because of the benefits that have been observed in this population. Many adults use either adult-oriented coloring books or they color in a child's coloring book.
There is a wide range of free printable pages available online and it's easy to start coloring.
All you need is a pencil and colored pencils, crayons or markers — whichever you prefer — and a quiet place to color that won't be disrupted by the demands of everyday life. Within this setting, it's possible to turn off your phone and just let go for a while! Coloring can reduce the negative impacts of stress and anxiety, which is a benefit everyone can enjoy.
Coloring for adults has been shown to be effective in mental health situations including:
- Anxiety and Panic Attacks
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (Sad)
- Mood disorders
- ADHD
- Autism spectrum disorder
It's time to pick up that pencil!
]]>Feeling stressed? Do you have worries about the election or the heath of your loved ones? It has been proven that adults who color find themselves to be a bit less anxious and more relaxed during stressful times. At coloringbookzone.com, we understand the power of coloring and know that you too will experience the benefits coloring offers.
We just replenished several of our exclusive books including Calming Patterns for Adults Who Color, Flowers and Plants for Adults Who Color, and Break Free From Anxiety. We also have two great books recognizing the upcoming celebration of Dia De Los Muertos. Finally, we have a lot of new inventory for those looking for something else.
Creative Haven Day of the Dead Coloring Book
Limited Edition Sugar Skulls Spooky Collection
Don’t allow stress to get you down. Come visit us at www.coloringbookzone.com!
]]>Coloring may sound like a simple activity to ward off boredom, but for kids with learning differences it can actually improve health by engaging the mind and sharpening fine motor skills and mental acuity. Research supports coloring activities for children with learning differences*:
Working with the IDA, Dyslexia consultants and experts around the country, we developed this coloring and activity book to help children focus in class and build their skills in the following areas:
Each book consists of 65 pages designed to help build different skills in children with learning differences. There is an answer key at the back of the book for your convenience.
Two versions are available:
Our goal with this book is to help children sharpen their skills as they grow and develop. Have fun coloring!
* ADDitude Magazine: Art Therapy: Controlling Symptoms with Creativity
]]>If you are anything like us, you typically browse through Jo-Ann's, Walmart and Michaels looking for a good deal. Sometimes its hard to find that hard-to-locate coloring book in the retail outlets. That's where Coloring Book Zone comes in.
We created Coloring Book Zone to just focus on our passion - adult coloring books and the joy and serenity they can bring. Do us a favor and look through our selection of books on sale for 35% off. We've brought together some of the most popular titles in coloring, along with some of our hidden favorites and gems. And everything in the sale is 35% off.
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Jon Stewart (formerly of The Daily Show, now being blamed for Hillary losing) has somewhat sarcastically taken to coloring ... apparently.
And Universities are now handing out kleenex and coloring books for students to color their fears for their future away. Not sure if that's sarcastic or not, but looks like lots of news publications are reading it that way.
Which ever way you take it, we are happy to see that coloring is helping folks deal with their depression & anxiety. If there's one thing that both sides of the country should be able to agree on, coloring helps keep the blues away!
]]>Water-Soluble (Watercolor) Pencils: It is hard to deny the versatility of watercolor pencils. They can be used as a regular colored pencil but when used with a bit of water the overall feel of the image changes.
The Pros:
The Cons:
Wax-Based Colored Pencils: Wax-based pencils have a softer core creating greater flexibility on several levels. Although wax-based pencils range in quality, I suggest buying the best set you can afford. The higher grades really make a difference in the overall appearance of the image.
The Pros:
Cons:
Choosing between watercolor and wax-based colored pencils can be a challenge but we hope this has helped clarify things a little. Also check out this link which reviews 50 different colored pencil brands. http://www.bestcoloredpencils.com/colored-pencil-comparison-chart
Happy coloring…
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Then, Mary, one of CBZ’s co-founders, went on vacation to China with friends. While she was there in Guangzhou, China, she found the Art Supply market and she tried out every one of the markers that were available for sale. It was here that she found the SignMe watercolor markers and she loved them!
Here are the great things about these dual-tipped watercolor markers:
And…they are affordable for everyone and easy to take with you for coloring on the go! Check out these markers on our site – we are having a site-wide sale through Sep 15th. Get them now for just $10.49 https://coloringbookzone.com/collections/coloring-accessories/products/m-g-signme-aquarelle-markers
]]>Scientists have found that coloring quiets the amygdala, the part of the brain that gets activated when we are distressed by our pain.
For people with chronic pain or illness, the great thing about adult coloring is that it can be done just about anywhere. You can color laying down, standing up or sitting. You can be in bed, at a desk, in the waiting room of your doctor’s office or my favorite place to color, at the beach.
Is coloring going to heal your pain or illness vanish…no, but at least for brief periods of time you can hopefully forget about your health and feel a sense of peace and calm…a state of mind that is a welcome respite from the stress of living with chronic pain/illness.
Have you found coloring to be helpful when living with chronic pain or illness? If so, I would love to hear about your experience!
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When we first started coloring, Alexis and I were hesitant. At first we didn’t get it. Coloring for adults? Seriously? But we picked up the coloring books and began coloring for separate reasons. Alexis was recovering from rotator cuff and coloring helped me deal with the loss of my mother. In fact, it turned out to be a great hobby for both of us.
One day, we sat down and talked about today’s coloring books. There were four things that bothered us with the typical coloring books on the market today.
With this list in front of us, we decided to reinvent how coloring books were made, so we created our own coloring book series that took away the problems listed above. The series Live Your Life in Color, has 11 volumes and each book is made to ensure that our customers have the best coloring experience. Let me explain:
Putting together our Live Your Life in Color series has been a wonderful journey. We love them and we hope you do too! Click here to see for yourself.
Use the code LYLIC15 to get 15% any of our LYLIC series through August.
And if you've never had the pleasure of binding 100 copies of a coloring book, you can see the latest Coloring Book Zone binding party that we held with Mary, Alexis, David & Ted.
]]>The explosion in popularity of adult coloring books caught us all off guard. Originally thought of as a passing fad, the adult coloring craze has kept busy publishers struggling to keep up with increasing demand. Amazon currently boasts over 3,000 adult coloring book titles – some of which claim regular spots on their bestseller lists. Have people around the world suddenly become artistic or overly nostalgic? Maybe some, but for most of us, coloring is therapeutic and gives us respite from worries, pain, grief and even depression.
Carl Jung, arguably one of the most important psychiatrists of the 20th century, became fascinated with the mandala, a graphic symbolic image, typically circular in shape.
He referred to the mandala as “the psychological expression of the totality of the self.” His basic theory was that the center of the mandala represented the psyche, or the self. The encircling patterns flowing outward make up the chaotic components of the mind. This chaos could represent passion or love or conversely, self-doubt, fears, and a whole host of other psychological issues. It is the disharmony and disorganization of these contrasting feelings that create imbalances and disorder in our brain. Jung postulated that coloring the complex and rhythmic patterns of the mandala helped restore balance and reduce internal conflict. As Jung stated, "The severe pattern imposed by a circular image of this kind compensates the disorder and confusion of the psychic state—namely, through the construction of a central point to which everything is related."
This is not an oxymoron. Once known for their “Bon Vivant” attitude, a surprising number of French citizens suffer from extreme and unrelenting stress. In fact, in a 2011 study, the World Health Organization announced that 21% of the French people (the highest percentage worldwide) have admitted to having at least one extended period of debilitating depression. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-07-26/france-u-s-have-highest-depression-rates-in-world-study-suggests
Furthermore, the French are also the largest consumers (per capita) of antidepressants, tranquilizers, antipsychotics and sleeping pills.
In 2012, French based publisher Hachette Pratique’s released “Art-thérapie: 100 coloriages anti-stress,” the first in a series of adult coloring books marketed toward the stressed out, unhappy Parisian. The books flew off the shelves and have sold in excess of three and a half million copies worldwide. In fact, adult coloring books in France are now selling faster than cookbooks!! Wine, cheese and coloring!!
Of course no one is suggesting that coloring is a magic cure for depression, but it can certainly have positive and therapeutic benefits. When someone is fighting depression, normal daily activities can suddenly seem overwhelming. The individual typically can go through the motions of living, but oftentimes the person is distracted and not mentally present. Some withdraw from society, their family and friends by staying home or in bed. One scientist notes that coloring is the opposite of depression. People who color are forced to be fully present, engaged, and mentally absorbed. It becomes almost impossible to brood over past mistakes, or worry about the future. The negative feelings start to fade away, which produces a calming and meditative-like effect and all the positives that come with it. Check our bestselling series “Color Me Happy,” “Color Me Calm,” and “Color Me Stress Free.” on our website coloringbookzone.com.
So pick up a coloring book for depression, grab some markers or pencils (yes, even the “blues”) and Live Your Life in Color!
]]>You probably go through a mental checklist before you visit your loved one with dementia. Your list may include the following questions: Is it better to visit in the morning or the afternoon? When will he/she be most lucid and will they know who I am? Will today be a “good” day or a “bad” day? Should the entire family come along – or will too many people cause confusion and frustration? How will we pass the time? Is there an activity we can do together that will be both calming and engaging?
Believe it or not, research suggests that adult coloring can be extremely beneficial to those struggling with dementia.
Most people are aware of the adult coloring craze sweeping the nation. Why would coloring help people with dementia? Coloring translates across ages. It is universal. Anyone – young or old – can do it. It is not stressful like drawing – all you need to do is add color to shapes. It is an extremely entertaining and distracting activity which can help alleviate stress, agitation and frustration in patients with dementia.
Adult coloring also helps loved ones socialize and interact with their family and peers, while at the same time improving hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. Coloring is an activity the entire family can participate in and before long your loved one will have a table full of residents hoping to join in on the fun.
Other articles and studies indicate that coloring can delay the progression of dementia while also allowing the fear center of the brain (the amygdala) to relax. One study shows that giving your amygdala periodic rests actually reduces stress and agitation. Because coloring mimics a meditative state, giving your brain that much needed “down time,” one can actually “retrain” the amygdala to respond less harshly to stress. In fact, this coloring induced meditative state has other health benefits, including a reduction of anxiety, stress, and depression - to name a few.
In a 2009 study conducted by clinical psychologist Jackie Andrade, she posited that adults who “doodled” while listening to a list of random names read aloud, would have better recall than those who didn’t “doodle.” She found that the doodling group had 29% better recall compared to the other group. Interestingly enough, the “doodling” they were doing was actually coloring.
Your choice of coloring book for a loved one with dementia is also important. For example, whimsical settings might confuse someone struggling to differentiate fantasy and reality. The book should have some retro or nostalgic images that older people can relate to. The pictures should be large enough to color – without looking childlike – yet not so intricate that they cause frustration. It is also a good idea to use colored pencils instead of markers because markers can get messy.
Because this topic is extremely close to our heart, we have worked with experts to design great adult coloring books for seniors.
]]>I think in order to understand Pinterest and how it works, it helps to be a 13 year old girl. Old folks like us simply can't understand these ideas as easily as the young do.
My 13 year old daughter just lead Alexis, Ted (my husband) and I on a extended training session on the ins and outs of Pinterest. My head is spinning.
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