Are you planning to revive your long lost hobby of drawing and painting? Has the lockdown period taken a toll on your mental well-being? Are you looking for a way to escape negative feelings? If yes, then we are here to help—drawing and painting help de-stress and bring back focus and concentration.
In today’s era, everyone is living a hectic lifestyle. We come home at the end of the day with thousands of worries at the back of our minds. Living under such stress shortens one’s lifespan. But with a little effort, drawing can help relieve stress and take you away from these worries.
This article talks about the psychological benefits of drawing. We will give you an idea of the damage that stress can cause and how drawing can help.
Contents
Why Is Drawing Important for the Brain?
Before discussing this question, it’s essential to discuss whether you like to draw or not. We don’t mean to ask you if you are good at it or an artist. Can you draw a straight line? That means you can draw! You can turn your imagination into real images using your fingers.
How precisely your hand cooperates with your brain while drawing is not ‘congenital.’ You have to practice and practice! The adage of practice makes perfect has never been more accurate when spoken about drawing.
Drawing affects your brain just like all recreational activities. It is the same as music, reading, singing, and even watching movies.
Warning: Technical stuff ahead!
When you draw, synapses get added to your brain’s neurotransmitters. This refreshes memories and experiences hidden in your brain. This phenomenon makes memories stronger, more vivid, and more accessible.
Drawing thickens your brain stems and induces serotonin, endorphins, dopamine, and norepinephrine. These neurotransmitters play vital roles in the way you think and plan. They also decide your levels of stress. These hormones make you feel happy and motivated.
Benefits Of Drawing
There are many benefits of drawing, but we have tried to cover the most important ones below.
Improves Creativity
Have you ever imagined that holding a paintbrush could do wonders for o your mind? Yes, it does! Holding a paintbrush is not a simple task. You come across vivid colors, people, striking places, and many ideas.
Drawing is the purest form of representing emotions through art. Not only drawing, but any creative work can also calm down temper and reduce stress.
Improved Memory
It may sound repetitive but praising a benefit is never bad! If you can create art with colors, you add to the finest tradition of humankind. You enrich many lives, not with money but with great memories.
Those involved in the arts are less at risk of memory-related diseases that strike in old age.
Increased Self Confidence
Drawing boosts your self-confidence too! People who draw are more conscious of their abilities than those who don’t. Practicing drawing and getting good at it is a major confidence booster!
More Vivid Communication
You might think that drawing and communication are disconnected. Surprisingly, they are not.
If you make drawing and painting your habit, it improves your communication skills. The science behind this is, art is a way to express feelings without any verbal communication.
If you hold your unexpressed thoughts for very long, unfortunately, you are damaging your well being. If you have emotions that you cannot voice, you can project them onto a canvas by painting them out.
Turning a photo into a portrait is again similar. It gives you a sense of freedom from boundaries. You can surpass all your weaknesses.
If you have autism, dementia, shyness, or other psychological disabilities, you can draw out your thoughts. And it’s a lot cheaper than regular visits to the doctor, isn’t it?
Enhances Optimism
You don’t have to listen to lectures from so-called ‘Gurus’ and “motivational speakers” to be optimistic in your life. It indeed comes from within.
Art is all about the perfect blend of colors and creativity. It enhances positive emotions, and there is no place for negativity in the world of art. And if there is some negativity present, it gets replaced with strong positive ones.
As you start drawing, you want to make it better. With each improvement, you get a sense of satisfaction and pride. It helps you to witness the capabilities that you couldn’t see before. Your self-esteem improves. You get inspired. You get a dose of positive energy.
Self-esteem and inspiration are building blocks of achievements. When you experience them, you start to grow! You feel proud of yourself. Your mind and body come together in complete harmony.
Problem-solving ability
It isn’t easy to believe that sketching and painting can improve your problem-solving capacity. It isn’t easy only if you haven’t tried it on your own!
You will understand how if you believe that one problem has many solutions. Problem-solving depends on how you approach the problem rather than the actual solution. Stepping back after one solution fails is a common symptom of fear of failure.
The smart person will try hard to dig more! Academicians tell individuals with below-average IQ to include arts in their course. You start with a blank sketchpad but end up creating some art on it. Your brain becomes more active.
Ready to do your own Drawing with Graphite
Final Thoughts
It’s never too late to start a hobby! If you are taking up drawing, you must have learned that there are many benefits of it.
Today we have just listed the psychological advantages of drawing. But, there are many other benefits of drawing.
If you are looking to start somewhere, some great ideas for drawing that de-stress include Zentangle, Scribble, Abstract drawings, and 3D painting.
The more you draw, the more you think. It helps you to learn creative solutions against challenging situations. These benefits may sound real or unreal until you try them on your own.
But drawing pays back in the long run! And if nothing else, it is sure to bring a smile on your face and the face of others around you!