Color Your Stress Away

Greetings from Chilly Iowa,

You see them just about everywhere.   Walmart, Kmart, Lowe’s, your local grocery store, they are among the top sellers on amazon,  you even find them on ebay & chances are you’ll find one under your tree or in your stocking this year.

What am I talking about?  Adult coloring books

As a merchandiser, I put out hundreds of these every week in 3 separate Walmarts in Central Iowa & a Lowe’s.    I can’t keep them on the shelf.  I think it is absolutely amazing how this has caught on.  I’ve picked up a few myself and my daughter has gotten into them as well.

But what are the health benefits of coloring?   Truthfully, there are quite a few benefits.

First off, think back to when you were a kid.  You would color and your frustrations with life would magically disappear.  The frustrations would appear on the paper in front of you.   Either as mad scribbles or a meticulously colored picture.

Studies has shown that coloring is a great stress reliever.  In group discussions it helps people focus, if they fidget quite a bit coloring helps reduce fidgeting and the best part of coloring is that it changes your brainwaves by replacing negative thoughts with something positive.

Coloring also offers an alternative to meditation.  A way to change your world for a time.  I’m sure some of us moms who are stressed by life, work, family and all of the extra curricular activities enjoy a temporary get away from life & escape into a world of color.

Also by coloring, we use both of our cerebral hemispheres to mix and match colors, to use our vision and fine motor skills  .

Psychologist Antoni Martínez  recommends a quiet environment and chill music while coloring.  Personally, I prefer to have 80’s music in the background.

Ok, you have your adult coloring books in front of you & the largest box of colored pencils that you can find on the shelf.  You look at the colorless picture in front of you.   Where do you start, what colors do you choose.

This color psychology page gives you a pretty good idea on your personality based on the colors they choose –

(Color titles are active links)

Red

• Associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as we ll as passion, desire, and love.
• Enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.
• It attracts attention more than any other color, at times signifying danger.

Orange

• Combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow.
• Associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics.
• Represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success,
  encouragement, and stimulation.

Yellow

• Associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy.
• Produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates
  muscle energy.
• Bright, pure yellow is an attention getter, which is the reason taxicabs are painted this color.
• When overused, yellow may have a disturbing effect.
• It is known that babies cry more in yellow rooms.
• Yellow indicates honor and loyalty. Later the meaning of yell ow was connected with cowardice.

Green

• Color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility.
• Strong emotional correspondence with safety.
• Dark green is also commonly associated with money.
• Has great healing power.
• Green suggests stability and endurance.
• Color of the sea. It is often associated with depth and stability.
• Symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.
• Considered beneficial to the mind and body.
• Slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect.
• Strongly associated with tranquility and calmness.
• Used to symbolize piety and sincerity.

Purple

• Combines the stability of blue and the energy of red.
• Associated with royalty. It symbolizes power, nobility, luxury, and ambition.
• Conveys wealth and extravagance.
• Associated with wisdom, dignity, independence, creativity, mystery, and magic.

White (obviously we can make this white)

• Associated with light, goodness, innocence, purity, and virginity.
• Considered to be the color of perfection.
• Signifies safety, purity, and cleanliness.
• Usually has a positive connotation.
• Can represent a successful beginning.
• Depicts faith and purity.

Black

• Associated with power, elegance, formality, death, evil, and mystery.
• A mysterious color associated with fear and the unknown (black holes).
• Usually has a negative connotation (blacklist, black humor, ‘black death’).
• Denotes strength and authority; it is considered to be a very formal, elegant, and    prestigious color.
• The symbol of grief.