Hobbies: How Getting Lost in Your Favorite Hobby Lowers Stress and Anxiety

Hobbies are enjoyable activities we do in our leisure time for enjoyment.  The type of hobby can vary widely from one person to another, but what matters most is that the activity is done for relaxation and is not our main “job”.  Some hobbies do bring in income, but usually the income is not something needed to pay living expenses and is only an added bonus to the joy of the hobby itself, which would most likely be done whether it made money or not.

The interesting thing about hobbies is that they are activities we actually want to go do because they are fun, and what makes them fun is really the key to why they are so relaxing.

Hobbies typically are done in our spare time, when we don’t have to be anywhere or on any type of time schedule.  Many hobbies are relaxing because they remove the pressure to be somewhere on time, finish something on time, or organize our time in any manner.  In fact, our hobbies are things we can plug into and unplug from at our leisure and like a good friend; they are always there for us when we return. 

Hobbies also decrease the pressure for production that jobs have.  We can unravel the scarf just knitted, crash our train set, fiddle with the telescope knobs, spend hours sorting our used book collection, or tie and un-tie the knots to our stunt-kite line, and no one will suffer from our idleness unless the hobby is disproportionally taking more of our time than it should.

Finding a hobby could be the key to finding balance in your life for the daily grind that is required to get by in life.  Making time for a hobby is also a great way to give the mind a break from the worries of basic every day survivals and responsibilities. 

Thanks to A. Davey for the photo Master Wood Carver at Work from Elstner Hilton's album of photos he took in Japan, Sept 1914.