Keep calm and colour: 8 designs to melt your stress away
Getting creative with colours can help you tackle stress and battle boredom - which can help you stay on track with your healthy habits.
If you're seeking tranquillity amidst the chaos of the outside world, dig out some felt tips (or swipe them from your kids) and try colouring. It's a great digital detox (how long have you spent looking at a screen today?) and can also help you maintain your healthy habits.
Here's how colouring can keep you on the right side of your Points® Budget.
Bust boredom eating
When our routines get disrupted and our time isn’t structured the way it usually is, it can be extra challenging to maintain the healthy habits we’ve put time and effort into building. You might find yourself wandering into the kitchen “just to see what’s there” or eating more frequently due to boredom.
When an urge to snack strikes, pause, and wait for five minutes before deciding whether or not to eat. What should you do with that time? Anything! Colouring could be a great distraction. The key is to put some distance between that first urge to eat and your next move. When those five minutes are up, check in with yourself. Has the urge disappeared? Or are you genuinely hungry?
Fend off stress
When you're living under a raft of ever-changing restrictions and being bombarded with depressing headlines, it's easy to feel stressed out. When we're stressed, we're more likely to overeat1,2and eat foods higher in sugar and fat. Studies have shown that weight gain can result from stress.3
Even when you can’t eliminate a stressful event from your life, you can control how you respond to it. When we respond to stress in unhelpful ways, like by emotionally eating, it can lead to even more stress because it interferes with our healthy habits and long-term goals.
The next time you're stressed, take a moment to notice how you’re feeling. Then, find a new and helpful way to respond. This could be going for a walk, calling a friend or doing something creative, like writing or colouring.
Since it compels you to focus, be still and root yourself in the present moment, colouring is similar to meditation. It gives our minds - which are being constantly overloaded with new information at the moment - the opportunity to switch off and temporarily forget about what's happening in the outside world.
Colouring templates
Click the links below to download and print your favourite colouring template (the images are just sneak previews). Please note, if you're viewing this on an iPhone, you'll need to press and hold the link, and it will open in a new window.
Show off your work in Connect, or tag @ww.uk in your colourful Instagram posts!
Toucan
Under the sea
Trees
Colour yourself happy
References
1. Greeno CG & Wing RR. Stress-induced eating. Psychological Bulletin, 1994; 115, 444–464.
2. Walls DJ & Hetherington MM. Stress and eating: the effects of ego-threat and cognitive demon on food intake in restrained and emotional eaters. Appetite. 2004; 43(1):39-46.
3. Moore, C. & Cunningham, S. Social position, psychological stress and obesity: A systematic review. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 2012; 112(4), 518-526.