Coloring my Blues
These past few months have been the weirdest that anyone of us has seen. Like almost any student, my life seemed to end in the middle of march seemingly out of nowhere. One moment I was waiting to go home from university and finally see my family again and the next, I was. Happy and bewildered, I landed on Indira Gandhi International Airport before the reality hit me. After waiting 12 hours at the airport and reassuring the officials that I would quarantine myself in one room with barely any contact with my family, I was let out.
It was disconcerting. Being finally able to see my family but not allowed to hug them or sit with them. As promised, when I reached my hometown, I was quarantined in one room at the corner of my house. The abstract feeling that I might be infected became a very real threat in my head. Just the thought seemed to paralyze me with fear. I felt isolated and afraid. On top of that I had to keep up with my university work and the pressure of writing my final research papers was stressful enough to make me freeze at times..
Consumed in Colours
One of the nights when I was trying to distract my negative thoughts with playing games, I saw an advertisement for an adult coloring app. I had heard of its merits before but not having a single artistic bone in my body I had dismissed it as something for creative people. On an impulse I decided to download the app and see if it actually had any benefits.
Very soon I found myself lost in the world of detailed designs and the symmetry of mandalas and geometric patterns. It didn’t matter that I was a person who couldn’t draw to save her own life. While coloring my mind seemed to enter a meditative state. It made my anxiety and stress bleed away; it fully immersed my brain in the art of colouring rather than the things that worried me. Every time I felt overwhelmed, I would take a break and start colouring. Apart from calming my brain, I also felt more refreshed afterwards and better able to reason out my negative thinking. I could finally back the claims of psychology journals that stated the therapeutic effects of coloring.
Naturally since it was an app that I was spending a lot of time on, my dad was bound to comment on it, starting his usual lecture on the negative effects of spending too much time on mobile phones. However, soon I got even him hooked on colouring. I am proud to say that nowadays it’s mostly me trying to give dad a mock scolding on spending too much time on his phone. Although the most surprising person in my family to start using this app is my grandma. A person who hardly ever touches her phone but now says that it passes her time and reminds her of her childhood.
The pandemic is still not over and everyday there seems to be some or the other news on social media that sinks our heart. It is almost impossible to not feel the stress of these times and the uncertainty of our future as students. That is why I really recommend giving this activity a try so that in our hectic days we can have a few hours to give our brain a rest and remember our simpler childhood days.
What “They” Say
Dr Scott M. Bea Psy.D.’s research explains that the psychology behind the effectiveness of coloring is that, “when thoughts are focused on a simple activity, your brain tends to relax…we are not disturbed by our own thoughts and appraisals. The difficulties of life evaporate from our awareness, and both our bodies and our brains may find this rewarding.” Furthermore, Piedmont Healthcare reveals that it lowers the brain “activity in the amygdala, which is responsible for our fight-or-flight stress response that can lead to inflammation.” On the meditative effects of coloring, neuropsychologist Dr.Rodski told on Australian Broadcasting Corporation that upon research “the most amazing things occurred — we started seeing changes in heart rate, changes in brainwaves… there are three key elements—repetition, pattern, and detail—that prompt positive neurological responses in participants. When you have things that you can predict will happen in a certain way, it's calming for us.”