With the modern generation trailing more towards artificial elements of life, today, it is more than necessary to get back to the basics. From growing your own food to trying out new skills, people have been trying their best to renovate their lifestyle. One such skill or rather art is “Pottery.” This particular art is often described as relaxing and therapeutic.
While spinning the clay, both your body and mind tend to be in a natural synergy. The art helps you develop deeper roots around the creative goals and ambitions. This thoughtful and artistic activity helps open up your mind & relieve any worries that have been ailing you for a long time.
Pottery is used in creating utensils, home décor items, and so much more. Integrating this with your daily life can help you through various means. But what exactly are those means?
Let us elaborate more on the top 10 health benefits of pottery.
Pottery: How Can You Derive Health Benefits from this Art?
1-Creative Channel:
The best thing about pottery is the fact that it provides you both mental as well as physical benefits. With this art, you get to express yourself in the best possible way by creating an interesting item. Pottery, being an art, offers the best outlet while helping you expect a release from the pressure and stress of life. While some see it as a means of livelihood, for others, it is a way to produce something new & express yourself just the way you way.
At times, it is difficult to express yourself in words. So, the best way to bring out or channel your inner self is with pottery. On the plus side, you also get to learn what tools and tech go into the making of your own earthenware. In case you have been planning to create something new at your home, you can use the Augernis Ceramic Clay Tools Set to start your journey as a pottery artist.
2-Optimism at its Best:
Pottery helps with improvement in the spontaneity and flow of your inner self. With the daily stress and issues of life, and people need to be optimistic. The right way to do this is to develop a skill that will help you remove the negative elements from your life. This art provides you the best outlet for handling grief or any stress that has been ailing you for a long time.
The art also aids you with self-expression and self-identification. As you slowly learn pottery, you will realize that you start learning more about yourself. As an individual indulged in art, you spend more time with yourself, which helps you develop a sense of optimism towards life. With time, you bolster confidence as well as self-esteem that eliminates the negative attributes making you a better person day-by-day.
As you develop optimism in your mind, you get access toa better set of traits in life. With pottery by your side to keep you busy, you will refrain from investing in fewer emotions that lead to negative life decisions.
Benefits of Optimism include:
- Confidence
- Self-Esteem
- Self-Identification
- Self-Expression
- Spontaneity
3-Improved Focus:
We all understand how important focus is in life. Pottery helps you get a quick escape from the perturbation of life. From a destructive mindset to a rapid shift towards creation, pottery is not just an art, rather a lifestyle that helps you calm down your unstable mind and aids in better focus. As you learn more about this art, outside negative influences will stop manipulating your mind, and you would experience that daily stress has a lesser and lesser toll on your life.
Regardless of your age, indulging in the art of pottery is something you should definitely do. You never know how your creative self could spring out and help you in several other ways you never realized could happen. Give yourself a chance to improve and participate in the art of pottery. Learn something new to see rapid self-improvement.
4-Exploration & Experimentation:
By now, it is established that pottery helps with the correct expression of creativity. It is essentially the expansion of our inner self and the way we connect with ourselves as well as the surroundings. Whether you are a child with endless questions to be answered or someone at the prime of your life with a busy schedule, you must find time for this art to enhance your mental productivity. You get a chance to explore and experiment with things you had no idea about the day before.
As per studies, it has also been seen that indulging in such explorations and experimentation helps with the release of the feel-good hormone named oxytocin, which has ample benefits for your body.
Here are some of the happy hormones released from the body when you do something new, along with their benefits.
Hormone Types |
Benefits |
Production Location |
| Dopamine | Motor System, Memory, and Learning Improvement | Hypothalamus (Brain) |
| Serotonin | Sleep, Digestion, Appetite, Memory, and Learning Improvement | CNS (Central Nervous System) |
| Oxytocin | Promotes Empathy, Trust, & Bonding | Hypothalamus |
| Endorphins | Helps Relieve Stress and Discomfort | Pituitary Gland |
5-Stress Reduction:
There is no doubt about the fact that stress can easily turn into depression when left unchecked. Ultimately, this psychological disease disturbs both mental as well as physical health of the sufferer. While a psychiatrist is a key to come out of such issues at a slow pace, it should be backed by other efforts being put in by the sufferer himself.
One such activity that can help with drastic stress reduction is pottery. Use your hands as an outlet that drives creativity. Although at first, this hormone rush from the touch of soil might not seem as big to you, the long-term effects are outstanding, to say the least.
We spend a long duration of our day chasing through projects and pieces at work. With our mind continually struggling to grasp the right way to execute things, you surely need something that can help detox this pressure. With pottery, this can easily be done and give it a week or two; you will surely experience a drastic reduction in your stress levels that have always been elevated for quite some time.
Here are some diseases that stem from prolonged stress. With pottery as a hobby, you can help evade stress and hence keep these diseases at bay.
Types of Stress-Induced Diseases |
Symptoms |
| Heart Disease
|
Unregulated Blood Flow, High Blood Pressure |
| Asthma
|
Trouble Breathing, Flushed Out Skin |
| Obesity | Abrupt Increase in Weight Even With No Diet Change |
| Diabetes | Excessive Thirst, Excessive Urination, Slowed Wound Healing |
| Headaches | Radiating pain in the Head or Forehead
|
| Depression/Anxiety | Social Isolation, Restlessness, Elevated Heart Rate, Trembling, Sweating, Weakness |
6-Quick Exercise for Body:
With pottery, you don’t just exercise your mind but also the body. Now, you might assume that pottery is something that only requires you to engage the upper body, such as arms, wrists, or hands. While this is true to a certain extent, you can indulge in a whole-body exercise in case you plan to create things from scratch.
In case you have all the material sourced from the online market, you get to exercise the upper body as you craft the piece. However, if you plan on sourcing the clay all by yourself, your complete body gets a good amount of exercise. It starts with you digging up and filtering the soil to obtain the right clay texture. Plus, you need to soften the clay with the help of your feet in a way similar to how wine is prepared by stomping on grapes. This feeling is highly therapeutic and helps with a full-body exercise when accompanied by the molding process that requires extensive use of your hands and arms.
7-Encourages Social Connections:
If you are someone who doesn’t find it easy to connect with people and need a topic to get started, pottery is something you could try. You can join pottery classes and learn from the experts while making friends as you indulge in something new.
Pottery is an ideal hobby for the ones that prefer to indulge in a productive environment with people that have a similar set of traits. You can share experiences with your pottery friends and socialize with confidence. In a pottery barn, you will generally share a space that is backed by a calming silence that will help you relax and take your mind of any stress that you have been dealing in the past few days or weeks.
8-Chemical-Free Pain Killer:
While most people do not know this, stress can lead to a feeling that causes pain sensations paired with discomfort. In case you have been experiencing this for quite some time and ignoring it as something you ate or a simple headache, it can be your biggest mistake.
Given the fact that pottery tends to be a hobby for the ones that need immediate stress reduction, it has attained substantial popularity in recent years. Pottery gives you an immediate boost of self-esteem while helping you prevent the onset of stress-related pain. Chronic pain & chronic stress are two stories of the same book. One is related to another in multiple ways.
To ensure you aren’t mistaking a disease-induced pain for something stemming from stress, make sure you consult your physician as soon as possible. In case it is a stress-induced issue, do take your prescribed medications while pairing it with a hobby of your choice, such as pottery. It will provide you a holistic treatment option while sticking to your medications to ensure faster results.
9-Refrains from Relapsing into Addictions:
One of the prime reasons for people falling back to their addictions is the fact that they have nothing to keep them distracted. With a hobby to keep your mind engaged, you can help keep away from the addictive trend. It is especially true for drug addicts. If you have ever visited a rehab center, you must have seen the addicts engaging in something productive or learning something new.
It is not to say that you shouldn’t ever seek medical help, but this is an additional trick you can try to ease your situation. Keep in mind that addiction isn’t always of drugs or alcohol. It could also be of negative traits or emotions. Say, for example, a person has the habit or rather addiction of eating fried food regularly. It can eventually lead to major health issues such as diabetes or heart problems.
With pottery and medical help to guide you, one can refrain from such additions and opt for healthy habits. As the mind is engaged in something productive, you get an immediate inflow of positivity that helps you adhere to the promises made. So, in case you are someone battling such issues, pottery is an art that you should definitely try.
10-Nature-Induced Healing:
It is something we often ignore, but nature surely has a healing effect not just on our mind but also on our physical self. Ever heard that walking 15 minutes on the grass with morning dew helps relieve stress and get rid of toxins from your body? The same rule applies to the art of pottery as well. As per research, people that choose hobbies related to nature are less prone to suffer from downgraded mood, stress, or depression.
Pottery is an art that comes from nature itself. The clay is acquired from the soil that is a part of Mother Nature. When you pick the soil from your own hands, you will feel a relaxing sensation that is incomparable to any other means you would have tried to heal your body and mind. Even doctors have backed the fact that choosing hobbies that stem from nature help with faster healing from injuries or diseases that would otherwise take a long time.
Conclusion
All-in-all, pottery will help you transition from a common personality to someone who knows what goes into leading a better life with positivity. With time, you will notice changes in your body and mind that becomes a permanent part of your life. You get to improve your existing communication skills while developing a fulfilling relationship with others that share your love for pottery.
