Color Your World to Save Your Life

This entire election cycle has had us under a ton of stress — the past few weeks in particular. More than half of all Americans, both Democrat and Republican, report feeling frazzled with the endless campaigning, arguments among friends, enraging social media posts, scandals, and nonstop media coverage.

Today could prove the most stressful of all, regardless of outcome. So, to help you reclaim some calm in your heart and your head — if you can believe it — all you have to do is color. Yes, color.

“Repetitive activities both focus and calm the mind, but recent research studies have specifically shown the value of coloring books for adults,” said one psychiatrist.

Adult coloring has taken off as the new self-help fad. Celebrities such as Zooey Deschanel and Justin Bieber post their colorful pages on social media. Big retailers such as Barnes and Noble, Target, Michael’s, and Wal-Mart have all opened up adult coloring sections in their stores.

If you check the best-selling books on Amazon, you’re sure to find an assortment of coloring books for grown-ups.

Do these coloring books actually have therapeutic benefits — or are they just another step in the infantilization of American adults?

“Adult coloring is a legitimate psychosocial treatment for [post-traumatic stress disorder] and anxiety,” said Dr. Scott Carroll, professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. “We’ve long known that repetitive activities both focus and calm the mind, but recent research studies have shown the value of coloring books for adults. Similarly to woodworking, puzzles, crossword puzzles, knitting, and counted cross-stitch, coloring is a calming activity that adults with anxiety and depression find helpful. Of course, in excess it can be problematic, but the benefits are clear.”

Related: How Stressed Moms Fight Back

A Winq poll of millennials showed that 55 percent of users have bought adult coloring books, and 84 percent of those customers find it a relaxing way to relieve stress. Perhaps they’re onto something.

“I often recommend coloring to adults as a stress-reduction tool,” said Gretchen Kubacky, a health psychologist in Los Angeles, California. “Coloring has a rhythmic, meditative quality to it, and may indeed be a moving meditation. It’s also something removed from electronic media. You can’t be texting and coloring simultaneously. That slowdown is beneficial to the brain — which needs rest from the pace of today’s nanosecond world.”

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Coloring also helps people place their focus temporarily on something outside the stress of their mind or body, Kubacky told LifeZette. She also said coloring can even support habit alteration, such as an addiction to smoking, eating, or internet shopping.