Coloring - the new anti-anxiety pill in a box

Image 1 of 2

People are stressed out and it’s showing up in their children. The majority of stress children feel is coming directly from the stress their parents carry. Experts can correlate mom’s stress level to their children’s tummy aches, headaches, and behavior. Parents don’t want to stress their children out any more than they want to feel stressed and overwhelmed themselves, but how do you deal with the demands of life and remain emotionally healthy? The newest anti-anxiety cure is as simple as your child’s box of colors.

Experts are boasting the benefits of coloring for adults to relieve stress. Adult coloring books in France, the U.K and Spain are bestsellers. Working a full-time job, coming home to hungry and tired kids, and keeping your home and relationships in order leads to nights crashing on the couch, too tired to talk to your spouse. For comfort, you turn to that fourth meal or endless snacking in front the TV. This pattern of coping with stress has led to obesity, diabetes, and feeling disconnected from your kids as well as your partner.

Coloring with your child, partner or alone helps you zone out, relax, and may help open areas of communication that you were too busy to have. Here are several more reasons to try coloring:

  1. It can help minimize conflict in your marriage and family.
  2. It can help you and your child feel connected and build on positive behaviors you both enjoy.
  3. It can lower your heart rate, your respiration, and your blood pressure, and makes you less likely to turn to food for comfort.
  4. It can help alleviate your child’s stress as well as teaching them a healthy coping mechanism, and they’ll think they have a cool mom or dad if you sit and color with them.
  5. You get immediate gratification from completing a task and seeing something pretty in your home.
  6. It’s cheap, portable, and if you wear headphones and find a cozy spot, you can tune out the world and take that very necessary “me time” necessary before a restful sleep.

Coloring is a relaxation technique that takes you back to your childhood; a time most of us did not deal with the stressors we do today. The advancement of technology takes us further into the virtual world…a box of crayons and a coloring book help bring us back to stable ground.