What is the first step you take to improve your health? Some of you prefer to go to the gym while the rest of you may find walking around the neighborhood rejuvenating. Regardless of the activity that you choose, it is important to put in the same amount of effort regularly so you can enjoy the different benefits of each of the activities that you complete. If you have always wanted to try knitting, find out the benefits of knitting and how it can improve your health and well-being.
Reduces Stress
Knitting involves repetitive motions such as those found in yoga and other meditation exercises. As such, knitting offers many of the same relaxing benefits. Learning the stitching process can be difficult at first, but people who have gone past the learning curve have managed to find that knitting helps stabilize their heart rate, reduce the amount of cortisol, and decrease their blood pressure. These factors eventually lead to a decline in stress.
Boost Self-Esteem
There is nothing quite like creating something new from scratch. It helps you feel good about yourself to offer you with a deep sense of self-fulfillment. Yoga and meditation provide the same relaxing benefits that knitting offers but the only difference is that with knitting, you receive a tangible result at the end. For individuals with low self-esteem, seeing things come together from nothing provides them with a rewarding experience. This can help to boost their self-esteem for that dose of happiness.
Replace Addictive Habits
For individuals who are struggling to quit a bad habit such as drinking or smoking, knitting can get their minds off the negative harmful activities. Craft-making is a great avenue to help calm people who are struggling with an addiction. The repetitive and relaxing process of knitting can go a long way toward substituting their addictive habits.
Maintaining Weight
Many people everywhere resort to eating to kill their boredom. Others eat when they are feeling lonely or stressed. In time, these emotional eating habits can lead to critical weight gain which can implicate your health and affect your quality of life. Fortunately, knitting or any other crafting activities can help keep these urges at bay. By investing your time into something positive, you get to focus on something constructive to help clear your mind from any negative things like food cravings. This is a simple payoff that can also help improve your health and quality of life.
Improve Arthritis
If your hands have started to develop arthritis, knitting can help. The activity requires small, repetitive hand movements which can help your joints and fingers to remain dexterous as you age.
Reduce Eating Disorders
This may seem like an unusual benefit but studies have shown that people who were suffering from anorexia found that they can better manage their eating disorder through knitting. The activity decreases their anxiety and helps mitigate their fears. Due to this reason, knitting is often one of the many activities that are encouraged in treatment programs for eating disorders.
