Is Getting Lost in a Hobby Good for Your Mental Health?

I often say I have too many creative hobbies. I enjoy writing, I like video editing, among others. My hobbies are an integral part of how I keep my mental health in check; so, for this blog, I want to go into a bit of detail with regards to how I make sure my hobbies help my mental health instead of harming it.

How I Approach My Hobbies to Help My Mental Health

First, I want to take a bit of time to explain how I approach my hobbies because I think there can be an unhealthy way to approach them, and I don’t want anyone to develop an unhealthy relationship with their hobbies.

The advent of websites such as YouTube has, I think, inspired people to put an unhealthy amount of time and energy into any creative project. Produce as much as you can, as quickly as you can. This can lead to burnout and cause you to look at whatever you consider a hobby as something more than that, which I would argue effectively kills it as something that can improve your mental health.

I do not approach my hobbies as things that can make me money. They are things that are there to make me happy. For that reason, I do not work on my creative projects every day, all day. I work on them when I want to, and I take breaks. I know some may scoff at that, but if a hobby stops feeling like a hobby, if it starts impacting my mental health in a negative way, then why even bother having that hobby to begin with.

Why Hobbies Help with My Mental Health

To me, my creative hobbies are a way to impose order upon chaos. Anxiety generally makes me feel like my life is chaotic even when 99% of the time it isn’t, so to have the ability to impose a sense of order is valuable. Writing allows me to craft art out of random words – video editing allows me to craft a narrative out of what would otherwise be a random assortment of clips.

As I mentioned above, I tend to take my time with my creative projects. I enjoy working on things slowly and methodically – not only does that give me more control with regards to how the final product turns out, but I also enjoy seeing my projects slowly take shape from nothing. Also, it gives me more time to get lost in whatever I am doing, which to me is valuable in itself.