BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Knitting Does knitting reduce or increase your stress?

Stress is produced by a some factors that tends to disrupt a person's balance. Knitting is one good way to reduce stress levels of a person. This activity tends to keep a person's thought from stressful things and relaxes muscles.

Mostly I see knitting as being like meditation. There is a very active prayer shawl ministry at my church, where knitting is definitely used for meditation.
I feel relaxed throughout most of the repetitive knitting process, although I do get a little annoyed sometimes when I find mistakes. I can relate to Marge on this one

I'm in the knitting-as-meditation camp! It's also very therapeutic for me. I've knitted through many a break-up and other depressing situations, and at least maintained my equilibrium. If I find myself making too many mistakes, I know it's time to quit instead of getting more frustrated. Hence I love having a couple of projects going at one time....!

[size:14pt][[color:#000099]b][i]I have found that knitting is definitely relaxing and a great way to relieve stress. I do quite a bit of charity knitting in the fall, so most of the knitting relatively simple. I primarily knit scarves, hats and blanket squares. I find that I can just clear my mind and escape for a while. It's a great skill to possess.[/i] [/b][/color] [font:Comic Sans MS][/font][/size]

I am going to be starting a fairly simple neck cowl in the next few days - need to finish it quick before the weather here gets much colder. It will be a nice, relaxing project like rhoknitturion is describing!

I have started swatching for a a wrap/scarf/shawl. It is in a beautiful variegated yarn in fall colors and I want to make sure the pattern works well with the yarn. The act of doing something so process oriented is very relaxing.