For the past year and change, my mom and I have been taking weekly ceramics classes together, and what began as a fun activity to get through the doldrums of winter has become a necessary, even sacred space to both confront and soothe myself through challenging, heavy sh*t. Sure, the bud vases and salt dishes clustered around my apartment are cute, but the real takeaways are immaterial. Ceramics has deepened and revealed new layers in my relationship with my mom and, over time, taken on a much deeper meaning for me. As an overthinker, I’m chronically critical of my decisions, my indecision, my successes, and (more often) my perceived lack of success. The studio is a space for stuff I don’t allow myself to access otherwise: a place to mess up and work through the frustration of starting over again and again.
It also forces a level of focus—like, pre-smartphone focus, if you can remember those days—that distracts, for just a little while, from my intrusive thoughts and impulse to multitask. My low-grade rumbles of anxiety must be muted to pay enough attention to centering a blob of clay on the wheel so it doesn’t fly off. There’s no room to mourn what I’m nostalgic for (say, best friends living in the same city versus across the country or ocean) or nervously panic-plan for the future (to the tick-tick-tick of my fertility clock) when I’m pursuing the Goldilocks of pressure between sponge, clay, and my fingers to smooth the sides of a vase. It’s a meditative activity that requires both mental and motor skills, but especially the latter. It demands physical finesse and presentness, and that means I have to mute my overactive brain, or at least lower the volume on my mental noise, to focus on the many steps, small and big, that ceramics entails.
Turns out, there is a lot of research supporting this grounding sensation. Here’s what I learned from experts who research the mental health benefits of doing arts and crafts:
1. Immersive repetition sends you into a flow state
Flow state is reached through repetitive actions that foster focus in any autotelic (i.e. intrinsically rewarding) activity or hobby, says Kristina Niedderer, PhD, a professor of design at Manchester Metropolitan University and head of research at Manchester School of Art who’s spent two decades researching how craft fosters mindfulness. “It has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety,” she adds, and makes you feel “emotionally stable and comfortable—not necessarily terribly joyful, but balanced.” The great news about handicrafts is that “repetition is essential, both to technical proficiency and to understand a material’s inherent creative potential. And when we use our fingers, it gives the mind a focus so it doesn’t wander off quite so much.”
2. Focusing on process versus a finished product quells rumination
Clay is extremely mercurial, always teetering on too much or not enough: too wet, too dry, too gritty or too smooth, you didn’t knead it enough—it’s a perfectionist’s nightmare, a wily beast of a material, difficult if not impossible to control. So many lengthy mini-actions go into the process of making something that I have plenty in front of me to fixate on and little room in my brain for my usual spinning about things both immediate (what am I eating for lunch?) and ludicrously far in the future (how do I ensure my parents’ happiness and health in five years? Ten years?).
Giving into clay’s innate fickleness has taught me to embrace the unknown, stay the course, and learn from mistakes.
Relishing the process more than the outcome is a lot more feasible with a hobby than a job, says Kelly Lambert, PhD, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at the University of Richmond. When total mastery feels necessary for success, “you never feel like you’ve done well enough, and you’re not going to have the reward benefits.” So if you delight in the act of knitting versus the resulting hat or blanket, you’re in luck: “Process can be very valuable because it can distract cognitive thoughts that facilitate depression,” Lambert says.
3. Tactile learning is a form of somatic therapy
Somatic therapy focuses on the idea that we hold traumatic events or emotional issues in our bodies, and can therefore release them through exercises that connect the mind and body. “Trauma can really hijack us from the present moment, and clay is a phenomenal way for folks to connect with their body, and their trauma, with a sense of agency, transformation, and healing,” says Suzanne Thomson, a ceramic artist, art therapist, psychotherapist, and Zen Buddhism practitioner who teaches innovative clay mindfulness classes at Toronto’s Gardiner Museum and the Toronto Art Therapy Institute.
Clay also has an endlessly recyclable nature—you can make something, roll it back into a ball, start over, repeat, or dry or dampen it to change entirely which tools and touches create certain effects. “It’s kind of magical. People will say, ‘I can’t draw,’ but they don’t say, ‘I can’t play with clay,’” Thomson explains. “As soon as you touch it, there’s a response back; it’s like a living material.”
4. It fosters learned persistence
Giving into clay’s innate fickleness has taught me to embrace the unknown, stay the course, and learn from mistakes—redirects, not mistakes, really—instead of giving up in a fit of self-loathing and frustration. Lambert calls this “learned persistence”—the act of trying and continuing to try “even though something may look challenging.” It’s the inverse of the psychological concept of “learned helplessness,” a mentality characterized by a belief that persistence won’t lead to the desired outcome and is often associated with depression, she explains. Her research, based on animal models, has found that if you can “associate efforts with a reward eventually being there” and derive value from the journey as much, maybe more than, the final destination, it “helps build a sense of control, enhances aspects of neuroplasticity, and seems to develop a healthier stress hormone profile.”
Even better, Lambert says that learned persistence gives you “a cognitive emotional reserve” to dip into when future challenges arise, which “increases your chances of feeling like you can solve any problem.”
Ceramics is my jam, but there are lots of other ways to find stillness. “Any activity where you enjoy the process or the outcome” can support neuroplasticity and cultivate learned persistence, Lambert says. Maybe it’s crochet or needlepoint; maybe it’s music classes or something you do around the house like mending clothes, weeding the garden, or cooking.
“What is a practice that brings you into the moment, that connects you? Because a lot of things disconnect us,” Thomson notes—imagine phone-scrolling until your thumbs are numb or absentmindedly Netflix bingeing. Even something as prosaic as folding laundry can do the trick. “I don’t enjoy the process of cleaning my house, but I do enjoy the outcome,” says Lambert. “At the very least, you can acknowledge it and go, ‘Oh, I did that; it’s good. I feel good about myself!’”
