Over the holidays, I will take more time to sit and sew.
Over-the-Arm Pincushion – instructions from Alabama Stitch Book – on the back porch swing.
Did you know that sewing, cooking and all acts of hands-on making stimulate happiness and over-all well being?
“Lambert shows how when you knit a sweater or plant a garden, when you prepare a meal or simply repair a lamp, you are bathing your brain in feel-good chemicals and creating a kind of mental vitamin. Our grandparents and great grandparents, who had to work hard for basic resources, developed more resilience against depression; even those who suffered great hardships had much lower rates of this mood disorder. But with today’s overly-mechanized lifestyle we have forgotten that our brains crave the well-being that comes from meaningful effort.”
Thanks to Catherine Newman for sharing Kelly’s work:
Lifting Depression: A Neuroscientist’s Hands-On Approach to Activating Your Brain’s Healing Power
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I rushed right over to the library website and put this book on hold. This is so interesting. Can’t wait to read the whole thing.
This is so true. It doesn’t matter whether I’m working in the garden, canning, baking bread, or creating a painting, the feel-good chemicals work the same. I’m a believer that they work to keep us physically healthy as well.
Happy to report that when my children have a bad day they always want to come home and bake. How did they already know how to repair themselves?
thank you for sharing this. i love Marie’s comment. ‘how did they know how to repair themselves.”
maybe this is part of our inherent knowledge, but i think it is a part of our well-being that can end up getting neglected, especially with the rise of technology to keep us otherwise engaged.
additionally, as an occupational therapist, my profession is based upon this idea. working with more science based professionals and sometimes skeptical parents, it is good to have scientific data and evidence to support my work… and what we seem to already know in our souls, so i look forward to adding this book to my library.
believe it or not, there used to be crafts rooms in hospitals all over the country!
http://www.danyelle.org/2010/12/occupational-therapy.html
Jill,
Thanks so much for sharing your work and the history behind this… your post is lovely.
I, too, LOVE Marie’s comment below!
Natalie
Goodness. The comment about crafts rooms in all the hospitals reminded me of something of which I had not thought in many years.
My father, in the early 1970s, was injured in an industrial accident and was admitted to a rehab hospital in Toronto for the better part of a year.
While he was there learning to walk again he learned how to do some leather work. I’m not sure if this was part of his rehab, but it sure passed the time while he was away from his family. And that year for Christmas, he presented my mother with the most beautiful embossed handbag. She still has it, carefully put away. Dad still has, and wears, a belt he made for himself. And for years, my sister and I carried little change purses he had made for us that year. I used mine until it fell to little pieces in the bottom of my purse.
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