{"id":39076,"date":"2015-09-25T09:39:19","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T16:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=39076"},"modified":"2015-09-27T20:51:44","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T03:51:44","slug":"the-therapeutic-value-of-do-it-yourself-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/the-therapeutic-value-of-do-it-yourself-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"The therapeutic value of do-it-yourself activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ann Collier,\u00a0assistant professor of psychological sciences<\/em><\/p>\n

After having three children in little more than a year, I turned to my textile hobby for stress relief.\u00a0 It worked\u2013 when I needed a break and made fiber arts, I was rejuvenated with my family.<\/p>\n

For centuries, people have been making textile arts. Like me, they probably experienced improved mood after \u201cmaking\u201d things.\u00a0 Whether it was knitting, quilting, weaving, sewing or making rugs.<\/p>\n

As a psychologist, I began questioning “why.” What was the therapeutic value of making art?\u00a0 What I found was surprising, yet validating.<\/p>\n

We recently finished a laboratory study with women textile enthusiasts. \u00a0We took a series of saliva samples before, during and after the experiment, which included having the participants reminisce about an anger-provoking situation.\u00a0 We then had them start a textile project. The women who made art after remembering the upsetting experience had better outcomes, that is, they returned to a happier, less angry place more quickly. What surprised me was that their inflammatory immune response also showed improvement, especially compared to the control group.\u00a0The difficult emotional memory had less of a biological impact on their bodies because they made handcrafts.<\/p>\n

Our theory is that activities that are stimulating, arousing and engaging, so much so that they block worry or rumination, are the best types of activities to fix a bad mood and deflect the potential health impact of that mood.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just textile arts. My newer research shows that for men and women, crafting, do-it-yourself activities, home arts (like baking and gardening) and even hunting all work.\u00a0 As long as the activity is so engaging that you can\u2019t think about your problems and it makes you feel happy.<\/p>\n

We frequently abandon what \u201cworks\u201d for us when faced with too must stress.\u00a0 My research validates the need to keep doing it!<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: The above blog first appeared on Academic Minute<\/a> on Sept. 24.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ann Collier,\u00a0assistant professor of psychological sciences After having three children in little more than a year, I turned to my textile hobby for stress relief.\u00a0 It worked\u2013 when I needed a break and made fiber arts, I was rejuvenated with my family. For centuries, people have been making textile arts. Like me, they probably…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":39077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-views-from-nau"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}