Exploring New Interests: Beginning a Hobby When You’re an Adult
Have you ever spent hours when you aren’t doing anything? Long periods where you do nothing but watch television or fiddle on your phone? Although the boredom you feel during these times may seem normal, repeated stretches where you don’t engage in any activity can be bad for your mental health.
Research shows boredom can affect your brain and how it feels when exposed to negative emotions. Boredom enhances your feelings of anxiousness.
To avoid feeling bored all the time, you could explore new hobbies and learn new skills. Recent research shows 74 percent of Americans read how-to magazines, take new courses, and attend meetings to develop new hobbies.
Below are a few ways you can explore new hobbies and expand your skills.
1. Begin Crafting
Crafts have long been a great way to fill in hours and learn new skills at the same time. These range from using paper to create new works of art or even painting miniature models. The field of crafts is huge but usually, they focus on a single medium and require a plethora of tools to truly master and enjoy.
For example, the art of origami may seem simple and only need paper but true origami enthusiasts will tell you different papers will have different purposes and you may need tools to help fold creases and tweak delicate pieces. Explore crafting by subscribing to monthly craft kits for adults, researching the right tools for beginners, or talking to masters of the craft so you could have a tutor.
2. Start Art
If crafts aren’t to your liking, you could explore your artistic inclinations. You could explore many artistic fields, and they range from technical difficulty and required skills.
For example, sketching is considered a great first step to other artistic disciplines because a lot of the skills you develop when sketching is necessary. Painting is often the skill most associated with art but even this field is divided into different kinds.
Watercolor painting is vastly different from using acrylic paints or oil paints, not to mention the various techniques within these disciplines. If you want to explore artistic talents, you should try as many as possible to see which one suits your temperament and interests the best.
3. Pay Attention to Your Garden
Hobbies don’t need to be restrained within the confines of your home. You could spend more time outdoors by taking up hobbies like landscaping and gardening. Landscaping refers to altering the appearance and utility of your yard or garden through various techniques. This includes using hardscaping such as patios, restructuring the way the plants are laid down, and strategically choosing the type of plants you’re going to grow.
On the other hand, you can grow a crop garden instead of a purely decorative one. If you have the room and the soil for it, you can grow simple crops like tomatoes, carrots, and radishes in your yard. If you like, you could grow exotic plants such as avocado trees, persimmon trees and even pineapples.
4. Volunteer
Sometimes the best way to stave off boredom is to help other people. Volunteerism isn’t a hobby but it can be a useful skill to develop, especially if you are socially conscious and would like to give back to your community. There are so many issues you can choose to advocate for and devote your time to, the trick is to define your boundaries and just how much you can do in this regard.
For example, if you are passionate about animal well-being, you can volunteer a few hours a week at a local shelter. Or you can start donation drives, volunteer your premises for meetings, and the like. Volunteering could be rewarding not just because it keeps you busy but also because you get the feeling of giving back.
5. Explore Collection
Finally, you can explore collecting different items. While collecting might not seem so mentally stimulating, bit is anything but boring. All the items on the list of most popular things to collect, each one can come with rich histories not just of the items in general but specific pieces.
For example, stamp collecting is often derided as boring but it has fascinating stories to tell. From the intricacies of its inception to the stories of some of the most famous stamps in the world, you may find stamp collecting engaging and interesting
Discover which items you would like to learn more about and collect so you can determine your new hobby.
Hobbies are more than just ways to pass the time. They teach you new things about the world, ingrain appreciation of various crafts and even help you gain new skills. Learn a new hobby today and enrich your life.
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