By Adult colouring books are the new trend and they have been taking over Amazon and bookstores. Adult colouring books have become increasingly popular because allegedly they help increase mindfulness and significantly reduce anxiety. I studied psychology as my bachelor’s degree and while colouring Disney images sounds really fun, I was a bit skeptical. Now I couldn’t really form an opinion without at least trying it first so I went out to WH Smith and purchased this Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland colouring book. I tried to pick something that would make me happy, which of course meant something Disney, and something associated with being a little weird and creative. If any colouring book was going to reduce my stress levels, it would be this one.
The book itself is really nice because it is a colouring book of original Sir John Tenniel Illustrations and the artwork is really great. I bought myself some markers and coloured pencils and I was all ready to colour over the weekend. I started colouring away and initially I thought it was really fun because it reminded me of my childhood when I would colour away in my DIsney colouring books, but after a while the fun started dwindling away. While this may not be the most popular opinion, I didn’t find it very relaxing colouring in someone else’s creation. Rather than reducing my stress, my anxiety and stress only went up because I was worried about not doing justice to the images and was getting frustrated with my lack of artistic skills. Rather than reducing my stress levels, the colouring book just became another project I had to finish because I started it. I felt the colours of the two of the pages I started were just going in the wrong direction and had to start again. I did manage to finish this one and make it all colourful: (it reminded me of Rainbow Road in Mario Kart hehe)
Now because the colouring did not help me reduce stress, that doesn’t mean it won’t help the next individual. For some people it may do nothing but increase stress and for others it may be euphoric. This is exactly why I was skeptical about colouring books being an effective mechanism for reducing stress for everyone because every single person is different and will cope with stress in different ways. Some people reduce stress by colouring, while others may reduce stress by exercising, reading, playing games, cooking, fishing, collecting toys, gardening, the list is absolutely endless. After doing some further research, I found have found plenty of skeptical psychologists about the effectiveness of colouring as a stress-reducing mechanism and the people who tend to push the idea the hardest are those who are responsible for creating and selling the books.
Now if you’re an artistic individual and enjoy colouring, drawing, painting, etc., adult colouring books may be very relaxing and fun. However, even if you are an artistic individual, I encourage you to create your own designs and images and colour those in. I think letting your mind completely free to create whatever it wants to create without any restrictions or pressure is something that would really get your juices going and would be very liberating and relaxing. No one would have to see what you come up with except you. On the other hand, if you’re like me and can only draw stick people, you don’t need a colouring book, you just need to find that passion you have and run with it because that is what will bring you joy and relaxation. While I may not be able to draw or paint, I absolutely love toys and writing about toys. Coming home after a long day of work and organising my toy collection and sharing my toy collection is what helps me wind down and bring my mind a little peace. And that’s just it, only you will know what helps you relax and de-stress.
So I may not be hopping on the colouring book bandwagon, but I do really like this book for the artwork. I love the illustrations and I think it’s a nice book to have as it is. I don’t think I will do any more colouring in this book, but I will definitely be holding on to it and maybe even using the pages to create some other artwork that doesn’t involve me colouring or painting. If you enjoy colouring and expressing yourself through art/drawing, this may be the book for you. Even if you’re not, this book does have really nice illustrations for all the Alice in Wonderland fans out there <3