Why Hobbies Are Great for Your Mental Health
Many people find it difficult to create any sort of free time for themselves. With hectic schedules that last the entire day and heavy responsibilities to take care of, it’s not easy trying to balance everything in your life. However, those precious free hours that you do have can easily be ruined if you don’t have a kind of plan or way of using them effectively. In fact, many of us can wind up wasting our free time because we’re tired from work or feeling depressed and stressed from various life issues.
One way to overcome this is to have a hobby. Giving yourself an interest and something to do is a fantastic way to overcome mental health issues and also optimize your free time.
I learnt this the hard way when I started working as a freelancer full-time for the first time in the last few months, especially when I first started out. I realised I was taking on a lot of work and wasn’t leaving enough time for myself and the free time I did have ended up sort of being wasted. Not having enough time did end up effecting my mental health and that’s when I took some time off blogging to try to get my schedule together. Thankfully, I was able to get myself together and find it much easier to balance everything now. One thing that really helped me relax was finding hobbies I enjoyed.
So in this post, I’ll be sharing three reasons why hobbies are such a huge help for your mental health.
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Hobbies can help you engage in different ways
Engagement can mean a lot of things, but in the context of a hobby, it really does cover any potential case where you could interact with somebody else. For instance, keeping up with the latest sports on websites like https://sportnews.in/ can help create conversation topics for your friends and family members. Sports can also be a great hobby because it encourages you to get out and engage in physical activity. Whether you’re playing in a semi-professional team in your spare time, or if you’re just having a few casual matches with friends and family, sports is one of the best examples of a healthy hobby that encourages you to engage in different ways.
Other than sports, there are lots of other hobbies that can help you engage with other like-minded people. You could take a class in something you are interested in such as art, music, cooking, dancing etc. It’s a great way to learn something new as well as do some socialising.
Hobbies can reduce stress by giving you something to look forward to
Many of us go through depressive episodes because we feel like there’s nothing to really look forward to. This can affect more people than you might imagine. After long and stressful hours at work, the last thing we want to do is feel like there’s nothing for us to do. What we really need is something to look forward to at the end of the day.
Hobbies can be the kind of motivation that everyone needs to power through a tough workday. Instead of feeling like the workday will never end and that there’s nothing interesting to do later on, you’ll feel like you have something exciting and interesting to look forward to.
Hobbies can help create social connections
Lastly, we can’t forget the power that hobbies have in creating social connections. Whether you’re directly engaging with people in team or group activities, or just speaking to people and making new friends on the internet, there are plenty of ways for you to network when you pick up a hobby. This can help remove feelings of isolation and will encourage you to participate in more activities that involve other people.
After spending so much time on our own during the pandemic/lockdowns I think it’s important to remind ourselves how to socialise and make social connections. Social connections are great for mental health because it helps us have people who are there for you when you need them. It’s important to have a support system for times when you are feeling low and it’s always nice to have someone there to celebrate the good times with you too.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed this post. I feel like I have been slacking a little on writing mental health posts even though they are probably some of my most requested and engaged with posts. I also hope this post helped to encourage you to get some hobbies and maybe try something new in your free time. Yes, working is important but it’s just as important to have time to ourselves to do things we enjoy.
Do you have any hobbies? If so, what are some of your favourite hobbies? Do these hobbies help you relax? Let me know in the comments below because I would love to hear your thoughts!
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