Sometimes taking the time and spending the money on hobbies can seem frivelous. It is easy to underestimate the value of a hobby. But what hobbies do for us can really affect our quality of life and our emotional well-being.
The main benefit of a hobby is to reduce stress. Having creative hobbies will help lower your cortisol levels which is our stress hormone.
Hobbies can help create connection with other people and when we connect with other people (different than having a patient in the chair), we have higher life satisfaction. If we tend to have feelings of loneliness, connecting through our hobbies will be invaluable.
Hobbies also help distract us from the monotony of our day in and day out. Having a creative outlet allows us a chance to make frivelous choices that really don't matter, but yet give us a sense of freedom. It doesn't matter if you choose to paint the flower yellow or orange. It's normal to get in a rut with our emotional and psychological patterns where we get used to feeling and thinking the same way over and over again.
As a kid, you probably had many hobbies and were involved in a lot of extracurricular activities like school sports teams, academic groups or hobby clubs.
Now as an adult, your time is likely consumed with work and family responsibilities. Free time might involve scrolling through social media or watching Netflix. This is an easy trap to fall into. You can learn to turn your brain on and relax at the same time.
Finding hobbies that you enjoy and love takes curiosity and discipline.
The best way to find a hobby that you will enjoy as an adult, is to look for activities that you enjoyed as a child. Were you involved in 4-H, did you play an instrument, or participate in any competitive sports? Did you enjoy painting or writing stories? Did you have a collection of some kind?
Here are a few ideas of some hobbies if you are looking but are still stumped: beekeeping, puzzles, journaling, mushroom hunting, family history, thrifting, birdwatching, emergency preparedness, the dog park or maybe a water sport.
Hopefully I've inspired you to evaluate your hobbies and assess if you need more hobbies or different ones, or maybe a bigger variety. Or you could be feeling good about what you have?!
Practice some curiosity and be tenacious about finding your next hobby. Find something that you will look forward to, something that brings you joy and a sense of freedom.
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