Could your hobby of creating art or crafting have a far more positive impact on your mental wellbeing than what you do for a living? According to a new study, people’s engagement with creating art and crafting for at least a year gave them a greater sense of life being worthwhile and better life satisfaction than employment.
In a press release, lead author of the study, Helen Keyes of Anglia Ruskin University said: “Not only does crafting give us a sense of achievement, it is also a meaningful route to self-expression. This is not always the case with employment.”
“There is certainly something immensely satisfying about seeing the results of your work appear before your eyes,” added Keyes, who enjoys creative activities like painting and decorating. “It feels great to focus on one task and engage your mind creatively.”
“For the first time, our paper demonstrates that engaging in general (rather than specific) crafting and arts activities may be beneficial in improving subjective well-being, over and above one’s gender, health, age, employment status, and affluence. Importantly, we show that this pattern holds for the general (rather than clinical) population,” Keyes and colleagues explained in the study published in Frontiers in Public Health.
Creating arts and crafting refers to a wide range of activities like pottery, drawing, painting, knitting, sewing, crochet, embroidery, printmaking, sculpture, photography or making films or videos as an artistic activity, calligraphy, wood carvings, and even furniture or jewelry making.
“Engagement with arts and crafts is not a new intervention to improve mental health and wellbeing in clinical populations. Indeed, creating art and crafting has been found to help with mental health issues, enhance subjective well-being, and reportedly reduce suicidal tendencies. Therefore, not only is engagement with arts and crafting of public interest, but it may also bring profound well-being benefits. As such, it has the potential to be an optimal wellbeing intervention,” the authors added.
In England, around 20% of the general population engages in arts and crafts. The arts and crafts industry contributes approximately $4.34 billion to the UK economy alone. Globally, it is forecast to be worth $50.91 billion by the end of 2024.
Keyes and team observed 7,182 adults who had participated in an annual survey conducted by the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport in the UK — which records the country’s engagement with art and cultural and sporting activities.
Through a series of questionnaires, the researchers measured each participant’s well-being by asking them to rate their levels of happiness, anxiety, loneliness, life satisfaction, and a sense that life is worthwhile. Overall, 37.4% of participants in the survey had engaged in at least one craft activity within the last 12 months. However, 62.6% of participants had not.
The team found that 37.4% of participants who engaged in hobbies related to one craft activity reported higher life satisfaction and happiness scores.
“Crafting and creating arts is an accessible and relatively affordable pastime, and a popular pursuit among the general population,” the authors explained. “This is in contrast to attending live sporting events, which has also been demonstrated to positively predict subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample, though attending live sporting events predicted lower loneliness, whereas engagement with crafting and creating arts did not.”
Because arts and crafts activities like drawing, painting, knitting, sewing, and crocheting are relatively solitary activities, the researchers noted they did not observe reductions in loneliness among participants with creative hobbies.
“Higher well-being predicts health and longevity, with some evidence pointing to positive effects on those with certain illnesses,” they added. “Engagement with crafting and creating arts is related to three of the four subjective well-being measures assessed in this study (happiness, anxiety, loneliness, and sense of life being worthwhile). So, while the effects may be small, the contribution to wellbeing as measured by life satisfaction, happiness, and life being worthwhile may provide a meaningful influence across society as a whole.”
