This Coloring Book Belongs to an Adult

   Most of the coloring you have done in your life was likely during your childhood. If not, then.......I'm sorry. Even if you haven't, you probably have in some point of your life and realized how fun coloring can be! Many people have different objectives when coloring but most people go for how nicely they can color the page without having any of the color go outside the lines. No matter how you color it, we can all agree that coloring is fun and even though we don't do it as much anymore, we believe that coloring should only occur when we are children. Well, not exactly.
   The coloring books you had as a child were simple (or at least I hope they were), where they had either princesses, flowers, or superheros. No matter what they had, it was still fun to color. It really helps to go back to those "childhood days" where people can be themselves because they can color the way they want to. It gives people the freedom to be creative in their own way.
  This may be one of the reasons a lot of therapists/psychologists consider coloring to better their patients. For example, Ben Michaelis, a clinical psychologist, recommended coloring because it relaxes the amygdala which is the fear center of the brain which allows the brain to rest. Carl Jung another famed psychologist suggested coloring for his patients as well because it reduces stress and cause for them to become calmer. He suggests for his patients to color mandalas which are geometric figures that are often representations of the universe in Hindu or Buddhism.

   The image above shows an example of a mandala. You can tell that they look complex and very detailed. This may be one of the reasons they take awhile to completely color.

   When I explained about how drawing can help with multitasking with the brain and the fingers in my later post, multitasking can also apply in coloring. Psychologist Gloria Martinez Ayala says that the "action involves both logic, by which we color forms, and creativity, when mixing and matching colors." In other words, coloring can help with both logic and creativity. When you color a dog you won't obviously color the dog purple, because logically a dog will not have purple fur (unless you freely want to color a dog purple, no one is stopping you). Logically people would color the dog either brown, black, white, or any color that a dogs fur normally would be. This helps with the brain to logically choose the right choice, while also giving it creativity of mixing colors together to see how the page will come out. In a coloring page filled with farm animals in a meadow with trees and flowers, people can color it with any colors they want. This builds their creativity of choosing any colors they would want and see the outcome of their choices.

   Peoples focus can also become better with coloring. It secretly helps with the brain by focusing on constantly trying to make sure that non of the color passes through the lines. This may also be the reason that children's coloring books are much simpler than adult coloring books in which adult coloring books include mandalas and detailed pages.

   So even if it's just for fun or just to get your mind off things. Coloring can be both for children and adults. Adults have many benefits to it and children do too! It's not fair for children to only have the advantage.