Color your way to peace

Color your way to peace

January 2015

We coloured away to glory as kids. We loved those giant colouring books which painted another world – that of pink trees and green clouds! Then we grew up and left the colouring books  behind. But the colours didn’t leave us. They are coming back and how! Recently, the top selling book on a popular shopping website was none other than colouring books for adults. Why, you may ask? For the simple reason that colouring  is therapeutic and adults are finding their catharsis through it.

It is scientifically proven that while coloring, we activate the logical as well as creative areas of our two cerebral hemispheres. This incorporates the areas of the cerebral cortex involved in vision and fine motor skills. Also, the relaxation it provides lowers the activity of the amygdala – a basic part of our brain involved in controlling emotion that is affected by stress.

Though colouring doesn’t gives us solutions to the problems in life, it does relieves us of the overwhelming stress. “It helps one reach a deeply relaxed state where nothing bothers us. It creates a cocoon of serenity and calmness which gives one time and space to focus within. It makes one float in timelessness,” says Deepti G Gujar, a Pune-based PLR Therapist who uses coloring as part of her inner child sessions. She moved into regular colouring seven to eight months back through creative movement therapy and swears by its sublime effectiveness. According to her coloring integrates our scattered and distracted mind. Ankita Singh, a corporate employee based in NCR, has always been a colouring enthusiast with a penchant for doodling. “I feel joyous when filling colours of my choice in a picture. It has a calming effect on my mind and I feel refreshed after completing a design. I sit down with my crayons and sketch pens almost every evening, since the last one year. I make random designs and fill them with the choicest of colours. I find this whole activity to be quite therapeutic; a very creative way to ease the tensions and frustrations of my busy life,” she says.

Long live colour therapy.