5 Happy Hobbies For Lockdown

5 Happy Hobbies For Lockdown. Why we should be encouraging more hobbies for lockdown stress, anxiety, and isolation. Hobbies that will help improve the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of the whole family.

Why Hobbies For Lockdown Can Help Improve Health And Wellbeing

So Why Do Hobbies Help Improve Our Health and Wellbeing? Well we know hobbies are great anxiety and stress relievers but hobbies also help boost the brain. The brain is an important muscle that needs to stay active to some extent to remain happy and healthy. Brain boosting activities such as art, crafts, crosswords, dancing, writing encourage good cognitive function and memory. It is easy during any long periods at home or isolation for apathy to set in. It can be too easy to lose motivation and purpose, to become a bit of a couch potato. To easy to just sit down and watch a box set series on Netflix or Prime when you could be doing something far more satisfying or even productive.

Hobbies Can Give Us Some Balance In Life

The reality is past time and hobbies are something most of us don’t prioritise. But hobbies are not just good at improving memory, reducing anxiety and stress, hobbies help encourage a more balanced lifestyle. All work and no play makes us not just dull and boring but increases the likelihood of depression and other mental health challenges. In our Relaxation Therapist Training, we stress the importance of hobbies as a form of stress management and relaxation.

Hobbies For Lockdown Can Help Restore Passion And Purpose

On a soul level, we all have different passions in life, we have different things that we call our bliss. It can be too easy to lose that bliss during challenging times but lockdown so far has been a great example of when people found renewed or new passion and purpose. Hobbies are great at giving us some passion and purpose in our life especially in a world where most of us have given up or forgotten about our hobbies and love’s for an addiction to technology. As a society, we have become a slave to the hypnotic effects of online social media and digital technology. Hobbies can help bring us back to ourselves ignite not just more passion and purpose but help open us up more creatively towards new hobbies, interests and purpose.

Hobbies Can Help Increase Productivity At Work

A variety of psychological research and studies around hobbies and leisure activities demonstrates that hobbies can help increase productivity at work. One includes this article in the British Psychological Journey : Benefiting from creative activity: The positive relationships between creative activity, recovery experiences, and performance‐related outcomes. In this study, they assessed the relationship between hobbies as in creative activity and performance at work. Here “Creative activity was found to have both indirect effects and direct effects on performance‐related outcomes”

With so many people working from home during the lockdown, many feeling lonely and isolated I think we should be encouraging our family and friends to try more suitable types of leisure activity and hobbies for lockdown life challenges.

5 Happy Hobbies For Lockdown Stress And Anxiety

Get Artistic: Take up some form of art, painting, upcycle old furniture or ornaments, paint the house.

Get Writing: Write some poetry, write that story, write that book, or journal your memoirs.

Get Musical: Play or learn to play a musical instrument; guitar, piano, keyboard, flute, harp..the list is endless you can learn almost anything on youtube today

Get Cooking: Learn how to cook or improve those cooking skills by trying some new healthy dishes, new recipes, try a new theme or food from a different country each week

Get Crafty: Learn how to get craft, learn how to sew or some other crafting hobby. Make birthday cards, inspirational prints for friends, table or Christmas decorations. Today you can buy some amazing craft kits, you can also learn how to make all sorts of things for things you have at home again through youtube and other online channels on Facebook.

There are so many things you can learn and do during lockdown, learn a new language, learn a new skill, even for a new career. But even better learn how to meditate and relax to let go of that stress, let go of that anxiety.

Lockdown is a time to increase our mental and emotional resilience, hobbies can help support that. Hobbies can give us some sort of refuge, some hobbies give us another interest to talk about and even share with our friends and family. Just think how happy someone would be to receive a personalised card or gift, or the joy of hearing you play your new instrument and the appreciation for your new art. Never underestimate the power of hobbies, yes sometimes it can take a little push to get motivated but go on make it a goal you are going to take up and old and or new hobbies this lockdown.