Do you have your favourite pastime like redoing an existing flower bed in the garden, painting on those beautiful terracotta pots, splashing walls with graffiti or simply walking down the street capturing amazing moments on your camera? And does it make you feel happy?

Welcome to the world of health with hobbies. If you have a hobby and you have the discipline of pursuing it periodically, it may be benefitting your health and mental wellness, more than you realise.

Whether you love signing, strumming your guitar, knitting, giving a makeover to old knick-knacks, hobbies can be deeply fulfilling and soul-nurturing.

Several studies reveal that pursuing favourite hobbies will provide a person with alternative space to spend time and energy and feel rejuvenated.

5 Reasons To Have A Hobby:

Enhances Creativity:

Most number of hobbies need creativity and coming up with new ideas gives a positive feeling. Creative hobbies are not just for fun as it provides us with an insight into our own personality, creativity and passion.

Builds Confidence:

Being good at something increases levels of confidence and learning new things is quite a rewarding experience. While pursuing a hobby seriously, we are not under pressure to perform but enjoy making the job perfect. It helps us to challenge ourselves, push the envelope following which you can also prepare for learning new things and make ideas work at a professional level.

Stress Buster:

Hobbies help us to refocus our mind and energies on something which we enjoy doing. If you love pursuing a hobby that involves some physical exercise like skating, cycling, it will release good hormones and can reduce levels of stress. Activities like painting, doing a garden help in calming the mind and prepare you for challenges at the workplace.

Improves Self Esteem:

Believe it or not, hobbies could be quite challenging as intend to do it perfectly. In the process, you may think creatively, get the mind ignited and can transfer your skills in making the activity work. Do you know, His Holiness Dalai Lama likes to fix old wristwatches and repair cars as a part of favourite pastimes? It improves self-esteem and will help us in including problem-solving techniques in real-life challenges.

Beats Boredom:

Hobbies clear you of boredom. A daily routine without any fun or productive activity can be very depressing, unexciting. A serious hobby practice can make you look forward to the day and fulfilling.

With the COVID-19 lockdown closing the doors of all means of outdoor recreation, people are looking for various means for keeping them busy and entertained at home. While most of our lives during this home isolation is spinning around the binge-watching TV show, movies online and in OTT platforms or stress eating, it is the right time to develop a meaningful activity. Hobbies facilitates a person to enhance a sense of well-being and usefulness, beat stress and improve mental and physical health.

Here are a few ideas for making this lockdown period most enjoyable and productive
1. Learn A New Language

The right time has come to master a new language like French, Spanish or any other foreign language of your choice. Learning a new language helps to boost cognitive skills, multitasking and listening abilities. Many online platforms offer free classes which are quite interesting and even fun to learn. Check out on Duolingo, Open culture, Live Mocha to mention a few.

2. Yoga

With gyms and fitness centre closed you can build a daily yoga session in your living room. YouTube platforms offers classes for all levels from beginners to advanced sessions. Practising yoga helps you to improve your flexibility, balance and beat stress. Moreover, it is especially good if you are confined to binge sitting.

3. House Makeover

It is a good time to alter the décor and give your home a modern and fresh look. Change the window curtains, move tables, chairs and sofas around the house to stab out new arrangements. Apart from burning calories, this activity may help you to hit the reset mode and allow you to get away the same–old chore.

4. Revive Your Childhood

As kids, all of us enjoyed playing board games like Ludo, snake and ladder or chess. Once you are done with WFH, you can spend quality time with family every evening and recreate your childhood with your children.

5. Host Online Antakshari

Plan on with family member across the globe and connect with them on Zoom or Skype on a weekend to have a fun filling and entertaining antakshari sessions. It is an amusing and interesting musical event that can be played with any number of people.