<
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/16/arts-and-crafts-give-greater-life-satisfaction-than-work-survey-suggests>
"Winston Churchill had painting, Judi Dench is famous for her rude embroidery
and Tom Daley has been known to knit at the Olympics. Now researchers say we
could all benefit from creative endeavours and that such pursuits have a bigger
influence on life satisfaction than having a job.
While arts and crafts have long been used to aid mental health, experts said
most research has looked at their effect on patients rather than the general
population, and tend to look at specific activities.
However, the researchers have now said such interests could be an important
tool for improving public health in general.
Dr Helen Keyes, a co-author of the research from Anglia Ruskin University,
said: “It’s quite an affordable, accessible and ultimately popular thing for
people to do. And that’s key. You’re not going to be shoving something down
people’s throats that they don’t want to do.”
Writing in the journal
Frontiers in Public Health, Keyes and colleagues
reported how they analysed data from more than 7,000 people aged 16 or over who
took part in the face-to-face “taking part survey” by the UK Department for
Culture, Media and Sport between April 2019 and March 2020.
As part of the survey participants were asked to rate various aspects of their
wellbeing on 10-point scales, report whether they took part in arts or crafts,
and provide demographic details.
The team found that just over 37% of participants reported taking part in at
least one art or craft activity in the past 12 months – ranging from painting
to pottery and photography.
The researchers then looked at the ratings for wellbeing.
The results revealed that people who engaged with creating arts and crafting
had greater ratings for happiness, life satisfaction and feeling that life was
worthwhile than those who did not, even after taking into account other factors
known to have an impact –including age, gender, deprivation, poor health, and
employment status.
Keyes said: “So crafting, in and of itself, is associated with bigger increase
[in wellbeing].”
Among other results the team found engaging in arts and crafts was associated
with an increase in happiness on a par with ageing by 20 years (as Keyes notes,
wellbeing goes up slightly with age), while the sense that life was worthwhile
was more strongly associated with crafting than being in employment."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
