‘Doing mindful colouring’: just a leisure activity or something more?

ABSTRACT

Adult colouring books have become vastly popular in recent years, and have been successfully rebranded as a therapeutic tool for improving health and wellbeing. The aim of this study was to construct an authentic insider representation of the women’s lived experiences of ‘doing colouring’. This study adopted a qualitative interview strategy and reported on the narratives of 15 women’s experiences of mindfulness colouring books. Doing colouring can achieve a distinctive form of mindfulness with therapeutic qualities. This process increased the capacity for concentration, awareness and regulation for the enhancement of spirituality and self-care practice. Spiritual meanings were attached to doing colouring, specifically spirituality as connectedness to oneself with perceived inner peace and calmness derived from the mindful meditative experience. Doing mindful colouring was identified as ‘taking time’ to practice self-reflection, self-awareness and self-care to promote physical, emotional and social wellbeing. The meanings and practices of mindfulness were examined to provide an explanatory framework for understanding doing colouring to achieve health benefits. This research contributes to the emerging literature on mindfulness colouring books, thus advancing our understanding of the diverse benefits contributing to the practitioners’ sense of wellbeing.

KEYWORDS:

• Leisure
• mindfulness
• colouring books
• self-care
• health
• wellbeing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emma Dresler

Emma Dresler is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Massey University, New Zealand. Her work focuses on consumer psychology and health education. She is particularly interested in social, cultural and political influences on consumer behaviour.

Palana Perera

Palana Perera is a post-graduate student at Massey University. Her work centres on consumers’ personal values and health, cross-cultural consumer behaviour and strategic management.