Why Coloring Book for Adults?

Adult Coloring Books

Coloring books are all the rage. This page will explore the Why coloring book for adults? Adult coloring books have been around for a few years. Starting in mid 2015, stories about them were all over the news.

The Number 1 Reason People get Adult Coloring Books: They can save your life. They can prevent you from dying of boredom.

--Jonathan Steele

There are numerous reasons why people get pleasure and find them stress reducing. Here is one psychological reason people get pleasure from coloring books.

There are also physiological reasons people like to color. There is even science as you will discover here.

here is no right or wrong way to color an adult coloring book

Coloring is inexpensive

White space in the lines or not coloring a space entirely can yield dramatic results

Everything you create will be a unique one of a kind

There is no hurry. Color at your own pace

Adult coloring books are for young and old alike

Coloring can lift your spirit and calm your stress

Coloring can bring out the 6 year old in you

Coloring can be done in solitude or in groups of two or many

It allows you to tap into the right side of your brain

One of the biggest reasons I am told people love coloring relates to stress relief.

Stress Relief: Why Coloring Book for Adults

The first reason most will tell you that they enjoy coloring books for adults is that they are so soothing. They are stress relief in a book. A few moments of escape from the pressures of daily life and the ability to enter a domain of creation.

Adult Coloring Books and Dementia

We may remember when coloring books captured our imagination when we were children. They were one of our early opportunities for creative expression. Then we put our coloring books in the closet never to color again. When the coloring books are put away, so is our creativity.

Punch 2 from the Ulterior Art Adult Coloring Book
Why Coloring Book For Adult: Why Not

What happens when adult dementia patients in a nursing home are allowed to color again?

For 15-months (February 2010 and April 2011) people with dementia were observed in an integrated arts activity program called Opening Minds through Art (OMA) at three long-term care facilities in Ohio.

Some OMA participants were observed during traditional visual arts activities (e.g. coloring books, scrapbooking). Observation was for well-being (i.e. social interest, engagement, and pleasure) and ill-being (i.e. disengagement, negative affect, sadness, and confusion).

The results results indicate moderate to high levels of wellbeing during OMA sessions with little to no ill-being. OMA was compared with traditional visual arts activities. The scores for OMA were higher in areas of engagement and pleasure, as well as significantly lower intensity scores for disengagement. This shows an impact of person-centered, creative-expressive arts activities on people with dementia.

This was written in Dementia, 2014 Jul 21. pii: 1471301214543958. The Title: "It makes me feel like myself": Person-centered versus traditional visual arts activities for people with dementia.

Read the abstract.

This has some incredible implications. We know so little about dementia. Yet here is a simple way we can improve the lives of our loved ones, helping them make the shift from ill bing to well being.

Additionally, this is a way we can share life with them. Coloring can be shared with others, even though we individually color, we can do it in someone company.

So, on answer to the question, 'Why Coloring Book for Adults' is that it improves our well being.

And this is true, even if we are not all there.

After all, we are all here because we are not all there.

While we may not have given much thought to creating coloring books until they made the news, they have always been changing, even morphing.

Here is an article from The Journal of Emergency Nursing, June, 1991.

It was published under the heading...

Emergency nurse develops coloring book and encourages others to "try their wings"

In 1991, a coloring book called Color Me Safe was created by a hospital emergency room nurse. It was designed to for children ages four to seven. The purpose of the book to make child safety education fun. Children could spend time coloring the pictures and visually learning about the being safe as a family.

This book also opened the door for parents to talk with their children about home and travel safety! Likewise, teachers using the book could integrate the story and messages into their Pre-K and early grade school curriculum.

Ironically, 24 years later, coloring books open the door to do that all over again. Only this time, rather than using the coloring book to open the door to teach, coloring books can be used to open conversations. People are getting together to color. It creates a very cathartic atmosphere.

For Healing: Why Coloring Book for Adult

Another reason why coloring books for adults provides a need is related to health, healing and coping with illness.

The most obvious health benefit is stress relief. Science has shown there are additional health benefits. These benefits come from healing when we are ill.

Wild from the Ulterior Art Adult Coloring Book

Why Coloring Book For Adult: Why Not

The medical sciences have an increased interest in the connection between art and healing. Over three hundred professional organizations are researching how creativity can impact the development of disease and recovery.

Artists are likewise jumping on this band wagon as they have experienced the power of art in their life, illness and health. Artists know first hand the healing power of art. Most patients are not exposed to the power that art can have in their healing and in their existence in general. Many people, ill or healthy do not even have an appreciation of the power of art, until they are exposed to it. Unfortunately, this is even with art all around them.

Note the comments of a bank manager who allowed art to be hung in her bank for the first time.

I walked by your painting every day and it was not until I stopped and looked at it that I realized there was so much more to see than could be taken in with a glance. Now I start looking at art everywhere and I am amazed that it is all incredible. It is all rich in beauty that cannot be seen with a passing look. This experience has changed my life. I will never not look at art the same way again.

This was a healthy person. Art changed her life. What can it do for those dealing with chronic illness and even terminal illness.

The emergence of art therapy has created inroads to providing a ways and means for patients to get access to art. Yet it is not universally available to all patients....until now.

Adult coloring books are readily available and require no training. Anyone can start benefiting from them almost instantly. All most all of us have several years of experience in using the coloring books. Now, making the switch to an adult coloring book, like riding a bike, it is easy to start once again.

The coloring book for adults topic is still emerging and as new information arises, we will share it here.

Cancer Therapy: Why Adult Coloring Books

Art and Identity

Eur J Cancer Care (Engl). 2006 Sep;15(4):333-41

The role of art-making in identity maintenance: case studies of people living with cancer.

Abstract

The goal of the research was to understand why some people with cancer take up art as a leisure activity. Additionally, there was interest in how art-making in daily life might support identity maintenance/reconstruction.

The study forms part of a larger project with people who view art-making as a resource for living with chronic illness. The study followed two women (47 and 59 years) both with breast cancer, and a man (51 years) with stomach and lung cancer.

The participants did not reject their pre-illness lifestyles or selves, rather, they turned to art art-making as an opportunity to retain personal and social identities. Thus, eliminating being defined by their illness.

This provides a meaningful activity that can be added to the mental and emotional support. Thus, it is another resource for coping.

Want to see more of my art? Go to my Facebook page to see more.

Another Why Coloring Book for Adult: More Research Science

Beyond Adult Coloring Books Why: The Steele Yard

Go to the Steele Yard (Home Page)

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