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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Adult coloring books hit best-seller lists

Brandon Blaine colors in his Mansfield, Texas, home on July 8.
Emma Court Tribune News Service

When Brandon Blaine’s teenage daughter was in the hospital, the 43-year-old from Mansfield, Texas, didn’t turn to meditation, yoga or therapy for comfort.

Instead, he picked up coloring pencils and his daughter’s coloring book.

“There was some real therapy in doing that while she was in for over a week,” says Blaine.

Now, one of his creations from that fraught time - a teal mehndi-style peacock with a vibrant red-and-pink tail - reminds him of what it was like. And that his daughter got better.

Adult coloring books have been flying off the presses over the past few months, regularly appearing on best-seller lists for Amazon and Publishers Weekly.

Coloring books are for kids, you say? Think again. These feature intricate designs of places real and fictional, from streetscapes of Paris, to secret gardens, to mandalas, a Buddhist symbol.

Adults who color say the blank templates are an easy and accessible creative outlet - a way to do art, even if they aren’t the next Monet. It’s a way to relax, unplug and return to carefree childhood, they say. Call it coloring books doubling as cultural criticism.

“Coloring is one of those activities that I didn’t know how much I enjoyed it when I was little until I did it again,” says Sophie Soueid, 17, of Arlington, Texas, who picked up a coloring book from the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

The book, full of designs like “a rabbit made from flowers and vines, a man with a beard made up of buildings, or even a skull made up of vegetables, was probably one of the stranger coloring books I found, but that’s probably why I like it,” Soueid says. “It’s stuff I wish I could draw myself.”

Many of the adults Jane Avila, a licensed clinical social worker and art therapist, works with tell her they gave up on art after negative experiences as children. But because the structure is already set and all the artist has to do is choose a color, coloring books can reopen that world.

“It allows you to go into the process without having to make all those detailed decisions,” Avila says. “What are the chances of screwing up, anyway? It’s a very low-risk activity that’s very rewarding.”

Blaine, who says he can’t draw well freehand, picked it up for that very reason. It’s turned into a family activity. Each family member has their own preferred tools, and even their own coloring kits. As the rest of his household caught what Blaine calls “the coloring bug,” it turned out the person least interested in coloring was the person you’d least expect: Blaine’s 7-year-old.

Even beyond his daughter’s hospital stay, Blaine says he’s found the hobby therapeutic when dealing with normal, everyday stressors. After 9-to-5 staring at computer screens at work, followed by 1 1/2 hours of traffic to get home and then helping his children with homework, the last thing he wants to do is watch TV or play computer games.

The process of choosing a page to color, a color to use and how to use it is likely relaxing for the same reasons as more traditional stress-relieving tactics, says Shayla Holub, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

“Just like meditation, yoga, prayer, if you focus on something repetitive and soothing, it can hold your attention and allows you that time to relax,” Holub says, adding that coloring could reduce muscle tension, heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure and cortisol, the stress-related hormone, in the bloodstream.

According to Holub, there isn’t much empirical research supporting the stress-relieving role of coloring books. But Avila says she has plenty of anecdotal proof. The process of coloring, or focusing and directing one’s energy, Avila says, can clear your brain of routine mental chatter, or what she calls “monkey mind.”

The back-and-forth movement of a pencil or crayon, Avila believes, engages both spheres of the brain, reinforcing the connection between the two lobes and turning off the front lobe, which controls your organization and regulation of your surroundings. That’s why losing yourself in coloring can make you feel more relaxed and balanced.

“I feel like society kind of expects adults to be a lot more accomplished in whatever they do. So if an adult wants to color something, they have to take it a step further and create a whole picture on their own, not just the coloring,” Soueid says. “I don’t think there’s any shame in wanting to be artsy even if you’ve never had any training in it, so I don’t see why coloring books shouldn’t be available for adults too.”

If the publishing trend is pushing that you’re never too old to color, that’s especially true for older adults, Holub says. Coloring could help lessen some of the declines that come with age by keeping the mind and body active, and in the process possibly improving people’s fine motor skills, coordination and perceptual skills, she says.

That’s not to say everyone will find coloring beneficial. Holub says it may not prove stress-relieving for those who have no interest in the activity, if the thought of staying inside the lines makes them tense or if coloring just causes them to think about chores they should be doing instead. Still, it’s been shown that creativity in and of itself has health benefits: It makes people happier, lessens anxiety levels and stress, and because of reduced stress levels can help prevent weight gain, upper respiratory infections and cardiovascular disease.

She also says that for some, it could turn into a regressive coping mechanism – used to repress things they need to do or should be dealing with. There’s greater empirical evidence supporting the cathartic value of free-writing about thoughts and feelings, Holub says, citing a study that showed students who wrote about their days went to the health center less, used less aspirin and got better grades.

Colorers and psychologists alike cite the activity as a way to unplug. Blaine, who works as an IT software developer, calls it an “analog experience.” And any activity that takes you away from screens is helpful, Holub says.

But in this digital age, you’re never away from the screen for long. Online communities have formed around the activity on places like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest. Johanna Basford, the author of “Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book,” one of the most popular adult coloring books – and who, according to Publishers Weekly, is credited with starting the trend’s popularity – is just one of several artists who have Facebook pages and websites where people can share their works.