People come up with a wide variety of ways to help themselves overcome their stress. Some people work out, some people eat, but some people make art. Art therapy revolves around the idea of using your stress and emotions and visualizing them in something artistic – helping you not only feel a sense of accomplishment, but also allowing you to gain a better sense of what’s going on that’s making you feel so stressed out.
There are no specific guidelines as to how you should utilize art therapy. A good, easy place to start would probably be drawing. A simple sketchpad with a pencil can last a long time, and you can do quite a bit with it.
Drawing for the sake of drawing can be very therapeutic and relaxing. Don’t try too hard to get something drawn as accurately as possible – just draw whatever you want to. It can be anything from a series of lines or doodles to a detailed animal.
If you wanted to start off even less intimidating, there are coloring books out there for adults that are known to be good stress relievers. Drawing isn’t the only option available.
Many people have turned to sculpting and messing around with clay. Clay is fairly inexpensive and as long as it’s stored properly, it should keep for awhile. With clay, you can get a bit more out there, building anything from a little bowl to a model of a person.
Some people even go out and do some photography to relieve stress. You don’t even need a high quality expensive DSLR camera – your phone will likely work fine. Going out to a park and just sitting there in nature, capturing pictures of what you think is interesting, is what art therapy is about.
Art therapy like this helps you relieve stress because while you’re in the middle of it, you don’t have to focus on anything else but what you’re doing right then. We often find ourselves trying to multitask, focusing on multiple projects at once instead of just getting things done one by one.
By relaxing and focusing on fewer things, your heart rate will likely lower, reducing your cortisol levels and making you feel less stressed out. Art therapy is very cost efficient as well, because all you need is a sketchpad and a pencil, which should be pretty cheap and will last you a long time.
