Experts Reveal That Art Therapies May Be Potentially Helpful Against Anxiety

(Newswire.net — April 17, 2017) Wilmington, DELAWARE — There are many ways to deal with anxiety. There are those who take pharmaceutical drugs while others change their diet and lifestyle. There are also activities that could be helpful to sufferers.

Experts reveal that art therapies may be potentially helpful against anxiety. Art therapy may be a healthy tool to determine if the anxiety one is suffering from is chronic or occasional. One of the possible benefits of art therapy is its ability to calm the nervous system.

According to Doreen Meister, MA, MFT, a mindfulness-based, expressive art and depth psychotherapist in Oakland, CA, the nervous system starts to regulate when one’s attention is shifted.

This allows people to increase their access to the rest of their brain, emotions, empathy, compassion, and thoughts. Art therapy is also believed to be helpful in expressing oneself nonverbally.

Through nonverbal communication, people are given the opportunity to distance themselves away from their thoughts for the purpose of seeing a visual expression of a certain situation.

Anxiety sufferers should first prepare their art materials, such as a paper and coloring or drawing tools. What they need to do is tape the paper to a surface and then close their eyes.

The next step is to determine the feeling of anxiety in the body. Sufferers should see exactly where they feel anxiety, as well as, how they would know it is anxiety. They may then open their eyes and choose a coloring tool, such as a color pen.

Sufferers may close their eyes again and draw a continuous squiggle without lifting the pen from the paper. This must be done as if anxiety is actually expressing itself on the page. Sufferers may stop when they feel that the expression of movement is complete.

Once their mind directs them to control or judgment, then may use their non-dominant hand. They may then look at the squiggle and turn the paper to see the image. While this won’t actually make sense, sufferers should not worry about this.

Sufferers may utilize other colors to develop an image. They may then free-write for about five minutes, such as writing about the process of drawing their anxiety. They may even ask themselves some questions, such as “What do you want me to know?” or “Why are you here?”

Anxiety usually acts as a protector, so the proper response should be “I’m keeping you safe.” Achieving a sense of calmness and safety may be achieved by doing this exercise.

In choosing coloring materials, one of the most notable available in the market is the Tadkin Ultimate Gel Pen Collection. This set contains one hundred pens in one hundred different colors.

(http://www.amazon.com/Gel-Pens-Set-Coloring/dp/B01HSGWY1Q)