This relaxing practice isn’t just for kids.
The day-to-day pressures of parenting can be particularly overwhelming, so finding the time each day to decompress and reconnect with yourself can be difficult. While it can be appealing to spend your moments of downtime watching television or mindlessly scrolling through social media, why not try incorporating a calming and centring activity such as mindfulness colouring into your day. It’s been proven to have a significant positive impact on both the mental and physical health of parents.
Read on to discover how this fun activity can help reduce stress and boost your outlook on life and your role as a parent.
What is mindfulness colouring?
Mindfulness colouring is the practice of colouring in to become focused on one activity which allows you to relax and pay deliberate attention to your thoughts and sensations in that moment. Mindfulness colouring is a grounding practice that helps to encourage creativity, self-expression, and a sense of achievement which can help boost self-esteem, confidence and overall wellbeing.
How can mindfulness colouring benefit parents?
Not only is mindfulness colouring for parents a fun, simple and inexpensive way of adding calm into your daily routine, but taking the time to colour in can have a significant positive impact on your mental, physical and emotional health too. By simply setting aside twenty minutes or half an hour each day or on the weekend to do some mindfulness colouring, you’ll begin to notice that your mind and body feel calmer and relaxed, and it’s a great opportunity to involve the kids, too!
Below we outline the many ways that mindfulness colouring can help to improve the health and wellbeing of parents…
Reduces feelings of anxiety and stress. Colouring in helps to relax the amygdala – the fear centre of your brain – which helps to calm a stressed mind and generate a quiet mindset which is especially beneficial after a day of caring for your children and keeping the house in order.
Helps you to enter a meditative state of mind. Mindfulness colouring helps direct your attention away from other sensory stimuli and brings your attention to being fully present in the moment by focusing only on colouring.
Boosts your positive outlook on life. Thanks to the therapeutic nature of mindfulness colouring, it can help to ease negative thoughts and replace them with happier, more positive thoughts which boosts your overall feelings towards yourself, your environment, and your loved ones.
Reduces your heart rate and blood pressure. Studies have shown that colouring in mandala designs can help to decrease your heart rate and blood pressure, which in turn improves feelings of anxiety and stress and can boost your mood.
Boosts creativity and flexible thinking. Studies have shown that by colouring in the intricate details of a mindfulness colouring page, it can help to improve cognitive performance and boost creative thinking.
Download our free mindful colouring PDF
Ready to try mindfulness colouring? Our sister publication, Lovatts Inklings, is a mindfulness colouring magazine for people of all ages. Turn each page to discover beautifully detailed illustrations waiting to be awakened with colour. Inklings features puzzles woven into the pages to tickle your intellect, and hand-picked quotes to inspire and entertain.
To download your free Lovatts Inklings mindful colouring PDF sample, click here.
To purchase a copy of Lovatts Inklings to start your mindfulness colouring journey, click here.
