“This Is Your Brain On Knitting”

In case you missed it (like I did), CNN recently featured an article by Jacque Wilson about the effects of knitting and crafting on the brain.

Crafting can help those who suffer from anxiety, depression or chronic pain, experts say. It may also ease stress, increase happiness and protect the brain from damage caused by aging.

The story describes a woman who was able to overcome the debilitating symptoms of her post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety when she learned to knit and “seriously started crafting.”

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first described this phenomenon as flow: a few moments in time when you are so completely absorbed by an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Flow, Csikszentmihalyi says, is the secret to happiness — a statement he supports with decades of research.

These findings may not be news to followers of the Craft feed here at Make, but it’s nice to have scientific evidence to support the benefits of activities that might otherwise be seen as frivolous in our fast-paced contemporary culture.

[via FYeah Geek Knits]