COLOURING REDUCES STRESS

Stress is the body's natural defense against predators and danger. It flushes the body with
hormones to prepare systems to evade or confront danger. This is known as the "fight-or-flight"
mechanism. When we are faced with a challenge, part of our response is physical. The body
activates resources to protect us by preparing us either to stay and fight or to get away as fast as
possible. The body produces larger quantities of the chemicals cortisol, adrenaline, and
noradrenaline. These trigger an increased heart rate, heightened muscle preparedness, sweating,
and alertness. All these factors improve the ability to respond to a hazardous or challenging
situation. Factors of the environment that trigger this reaction are called stressors. Examples
include noises, aggressive behavior, a speeding car, scary moments in movies, or even going out
on a first date. The more stressors we experience, the more stressed we tend to feel. Therefore,
there are many ways to cope with stress. One of the ways that we choose is colouring.

Colouring is an activity that we tend to associate with children. As we grow older, we put aside
our crayons and colored pencils in favour of more respectable writing utensils like pens and
highlighters. However, it turns out coloring can be beneficial for adults, namely for its de-
stressing power. The practice generates wellness, quietness and also stimulates brain areas
related to motor skills, the senses and creativity. When colouring, we activate different areas of
our two cerebral hemispheres. The action involves both logic, by which we colour forms, and
creativity, when mixing and matching colours. This incorporates the areas of the cerebral cortex
involved in vision and fine motor skills. The relaxation that it provides lowers the activity of the
amygdala, a basic part of our brain involved in controlling emotion that is affected by stress.

In simplest terms, colouring has a de-stressing effect because when we focus on a particular
activity, we focus on it and not on our worries. But it also brings out our imagination and takes
us back to our childhood, a period in which we most certainly had a lot less stress.This leads us
immediately and unconsciously to welfare, exposes the specialist. Moreover, colouring is also a
type of meditation. The brain loves rhythm, and there’s a rhythmic motion with our hand when
we colour. We’re distracting our mind a bit by doing this rhythm and it takes us out of the spiral
of our problems and what we have to get done.
Colours and emotions are closely linked. Warm colours can evoke different emotions than cool
colours and bright colours can create different feelings than muted colours. It all depends on how
the psychological effects of colour are being used. Every colour creates different emotions and
feelings. Colours can make us feel happy or sad, and they can make us feel hungry or relaxed.
These reactions are rooted in psychological effects, biological conditioning and cultural
imprinting. That’s why it’s important to understand the psychological effects colours might have
on an average person as well as the fundamentals of colour theory and the meanings of colours.

The way different colours can affect emotions depends largely on a colour’s brightness, shade,
tint or tone and whether it’s cool or warm toned. Red, orange and yellow are next to each other
on the wheel and are all warm colours. Warm colours often evoke feelings of happiness,
optimism and energy. However, yellow, red and orange can also have an attention grabbing
effect and signal danger or make you take action like stop signs, hazard warnings and barrier
tape. Red can also increase a person’s appetite. Next, cool colours include green, blue, and
purple. Cool colours are usually calming and soothing but can also express sadness. Purple is
often used to help spark creativity as it’s a mixture of blue which is calm and red means intense.
If a company wants to display health, beauty or security, incorporate these colours.

In addition, happy colours are bright, warm colours like yellow, orange, pink and red. Pastel
colours like peach, light pink or lilac can also have an uplifting effect on your mood. The
brighter and lighter the colour, the more happy and optimistic it will make you feel. Another way
colours can create happy emotions is by combining multiple primary and secondary colors
together for a youthful, colourful effect. Besides that, sad colours are colours that are dark and
muted. Black and grey are the quintessential sad colours, but dark and muted cool colours like
blue, green or neutrals like brown or beige can have a similar effect on feelings and emotions
depending on how they’re used. In Western cultures black is considered the colour of mourning,
whereas in some East Asian countries it’s white to emphasize purity and rebirth.

Then, strong, bright colors and neon colours can have a powerful effect on emotions. Colours
like bright red, bright yellow and neon green can feel energizing and make you feel more alert,
but can also be irritating on the eyes. These colours will grab your attention and stand out from
their surroundings. Highly pigmented, strong colours like royal blue, turquoise, magenta and
emerald green can also have a stimulating effect and make you feel refreshed and energized.

There are several benefits of colouring too. Firstly, it reduces stress and anxieties. Secondly, it
improves motor skills and vision. Thirdly, it improves sleep and you tend to focus more. This is
why we choose colouring to reduce stress. Eventually, we will take out our stress on expressing
our feelings and emotions by colouring. There are three methods that we can colour. Firstly,
colouring with pencil colours. Secondly, painting by numbers like each number represents a
colour and we follow by that. Thirdly, the colouring app that we can download on our phones. It
is easy and portable that you can colour anywhere at anytime.

Also, when colouring, for example painting a room, we should pick colours that reduces stress
like blue, green, soft pink and white which calms your mind, lowers our blood pressure, reduces
anxieties and slows our heart rate. It is very advisable to surround yourself with these colours as
it helps you to keep calm most of the time and gives you peace in your mind.

In conclusion, colouring is relaxing and may reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. But
the benefits of colouring are not the same as art therapy or creating art. A surprising trend in
relaxation products has been the explosion of colouring books for adults.