Use of Art to Relieve Stress in Occupational Therapy
When you think nearly therapy, you lot probably imagine lying on a couch and confessing your secrets. While your treatment may sometimes take that form, it tin can also incorporate movement and other activities. 1 method with a proven runway record of success for many is fine art therapy.
What can you practice, though, if y'all don't have a therapist or the means to afford one? Don't despair! Yous can still reap the benefits of this handling in the comfort of your living room. The side by side fourth dimension you experience overwhelmed or only demand to practice some self-care, but endeavor one of the following eight ideas.
Buy adult colouring books
Colouring books are magical for many reasons. You lot don't need a lick of artistic talent to stay between the lines, and you can use color to express your mood. Are you lot feeling whimsical? Who said that you couldn't color a equus caballus purple?
Colouring also soothes the soul when emotions become overwhelming. It'll give you a centre of focus, which volition provide y'all with time for your racing thoughts to serenity down. Y'all can find coloring books that have been specifically designed for fine art therapy use, or you lot tin stop by any department shop for supplies.
When yous sit down to colour, pay attention to the manner your mental state influences everything from your choice of picture to the hues you use. Y'all can gain insight into the emotional land of your children past using this method, too.
Practise they select dark, dreary shades or angry red ones? The sometime may betoken depression and the latter intermittent rage. How much force per unit area practice they utilize—are they most ripping the paper? That as well suggests hostile feelings. Do they accept the time to stay within the lines, or practice they seem haphazard in their efforts? Chaotic colouring book pages tin can symbolize a similar internal state.
Create a self-intendance box
Y'all know cocky-care is a critical component of mental health. However, most people postpone pleasant tasks until they finish their work for the solar day. By that time, your encephalon may exist too exhausted to think of any ideas that are more creative than crashing on your couch and binging on Netflix.
As a reminder to take care of yourself, you lot can pigment and decorate a self-intendance box in accordance with your tastes. The idea is that it'll hold scraps of newspaper on which yous've written downwardly your favourite ways to treat yourself.
Y'all tin as well include pocket-size trinkets that remind y'all of your passions. For case, if you want to larn Spanish in your free time, insert a small Mexican flag from your last taco takeout box. Then, when you find yourself with 30 free minutes and nothing to do, you can reach inside and come up with the perfect thought to nurture your body and soul!
Knit an afghan
Take you put your favorite DIY project in the corner of your closet, where information technology awaits the 'right time' for you to work on it? That twenty-four hour period is hither—at that place's no time similar the nowadays to become back to crafting an item as therapy.
This projection is an platonic one to ease the symptoms of almost whatsoever disorder, simply information technology'south an absolute godsend for those who are struggling with compulsive overeating. Knitting keeps your hands busy—information technology'due south incommunicable to run up while your fingers are reaching into a bag of chips. When your mind refuses to remember of anything else merely the kitchen, pull out that chapeau or booties you started until the urge to raid the refrigerator passes.
What if yous don't know how to knit? Don't put your sewing kit away and acknowledge defeat. Nearly anyone tin can learn to cross-sew. You can besides create a healing quilt made from scraps of fabric that you find meaningful. Each square tin represent a unlike phase in your recovery journey.
Make a collage
If you have arthritis or another status that makes hand movement painful, you lot might find it more comfortable to make a collage as a form of therapy. You can tear or cut pictures out of magazines, and then in that location's no need to grip a pencil, paintbrush or needle. Plus, you won't need to spend much money on the other supplies y'all'll need—you tin find poster boards and glue at nearly any dollar store.
You lot tin design a collage around nearly whatever theme. If y'all want to cultivate more gratitude for what you have, y'all could create a board dedicated to all the things that make yous feel thankful each day. If you experience overwhelming feelings that you struggle to define, start looking through magazines for pictures that express your mood. Every bit yous add more than images, you'll begin to see a theme emerge.
You tin also use collages as a manner to remind yourself of other positive coping methods you turn to when you lot sense a meltdown coming. Perhaps y'all can add pictures of people exercising, or photos of fluffy kittens that remind you of volunteering at a nearby animal shelter.
Paint your emotions
How do yous define your emotions? According to nigh feelings charts, you should be able to pinpoint whether you're irritated, elated or disappointed. In reality, when you get the news of pending layoffs, you may feel a jumble of feet, despair, anger and fear. Your mood can shift from hopefulness at ane 2nd to melancholy the adjacent.
Painting is an ideal way to limited your emotions through fine art, but yous don't have to get Bob-Ross-style and stick to scenic landscapes total of happy little trees. You lot can embrace your inner Jackson Pollack and fling brilliant colours upon your canvas. Go abstract with shapes and swirls that represent your inner emotional storm.
Feel gratis to experiment with different types of paints, if you have the ways. For instance, if oils or watercolours on canvas aren't your thing, you lot may want to paint rocks with acrylics and make lovely paperweights. You can add glitter or pen designs, and then hide your creations effectually the neighbourhood to brand other people smiling. What a beautiful way to spread positivity!
Take photos of things that make you happy
Photography is a grade of fine art therapy, and you might have the device you need correct in your pocket. You can find workshops on how to take gorgeous pictures with your cellphone, or yous can opt for the self-taught route. Yous may become an extra boost of feel-skilful endorphins, if your endeavours lead you into nature to shoot spectacular scenery.
If you develop your talent, in that location's also the selection of turning this hobby into a lucrative side-hustle, since there are diverse websites that will buy your photos in exchange for commissions or distribution rights. If y'all've struggled to beget the copays for your therapy visits, this may requite you the ways to do so.
Write and illustrate your story
If you're a survivor of mental disease or trauma, yous have a tale to tell. Why not put it into words and include illustrations for your book? You lot don't have to make information technology a novel—a children's pic book will piece of work well, too. You can choose any medium you like to complete the artwork (fifty-fifty finger-painting!).
Once yous finish your book, you'll need to determine whether to go on information technology private or share it with your therapist. If you call up you accept a tale that others will benefit from reading, you tin can even opt to publish your recovery story to help others in like situations.
Sculpt spirit figurines
Spirit figurines tin be as big or small-scale every bit yous like—many people carve little worry stones to carry in their pockets. When panic or other overwhelming emotions strike, you can stroke a rock of this type to centre yourself.
You may want to make a sculpture for your nightstand or your work desk-bound, but it need non resemble an celestial beingness. Equally an alternative, you tin carve the word "hope" into clay and permit it harden into a paperweight.
Care for your listen and soul today
Art therapy is a fabled way to complement your sessions with your counsellor or focus on your healing independently. Use these 8 ideas, or as many of them as y'all choose, to help soothe your soul and ease your mind whenever y'all need to.
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paradigm 1: Pixabay ; paradigm ii: Pixabay
Source: https://www.themindfulword.org/2020/art-therapy-adults/
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