Studies show . . .

While checking my Facebook page this morning I noticed a posting from WEBS. I don't usually click on the many links that surface overnight on Facebook . . . but this one mentioned 'Knit for Health and Wellness'. I had to investigate further!

I clicked and there it was - a post from Canadian Living by Kate Daley with four benefits of knitting.
   
1. Knitting can make you feel calm and happy.
"In a study published in the British Journal of Occupational Therapy researchers state there is a significant relationship between knitting frequency and feeling calm and happy. 'More frequent knitters also reported higher cognitive functioning.' 'Knitting in a group impacted significantly on perceived happiness, improved social contact and communication with others'."

Look at this group. Are they happy or what?!

   

 Well, hello. How can you not be happy if you have the yarn of your choice flowing through your fingers? I mean what could be better? Oh, I know. Knitting with others. Just ask anyone attending a knitting guild meeting or a class in a yarn shop. Better yet, ask anyone  in the library's Monday Night Group.






2. Knitting works as a sort of meditation.
"Doctors at Mass-General Hospital Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine found that meditation-like activities reduced blood pressure."

  


My husband has border-line high blood pressure.
I told him about this study and pointed out that 
my doctor always comments on my nice low 
blood-pressure. I offered to teach him to knit but he said he would pass. I think he also mumbled something about it would probably make it spike.





3. Knitting can help manage anxiety in those with eating disorders.

 Well I don't have an eating disorder (unless there is Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked in the freezer), but I have spent many a late night with a teen-age son out driving. Sometimes I was amazed that I didn't break my bamboo needles in half.


4. Knitting can help delay memory loss.
 

"A Mayo Clinic study has shown that activities such as knitting, reading and quilting along with other activities in mid-life can help reduce the risk that people would develop memory loss in their 70s or 80s by more than one third."

   

OMG, all that time I've been using all those knitting graphs with all those symbols . . . and thinking so hard my head hurt . . . well I was probably making more brain cells!!







So of course I agree. With everything in the article. And more. People have knit their way back from grief, forged lasting friendships in the comfort of a local yarn shop, relieved boredom and given flight to creativity with nothing more than string and sticks. 

But if you are a knitter, you already know all that. You know why you knit and what it means to you.

I wonder when they will include us in a study?? 

Until next time, keep your nose in a book or your fingers in fiber.