Taking up baking should bring you more than a useful skill and some yummy treats. Doing it regularly can be a great mental exercise and reap you some substantial benefits. Here is what you can expect when you start firing up that oven.
It Can Fire Up Your Creativity
When you bake, you are making something. While you are following a recipe, you also have some freedom to add your personal touches. You might want something sweeter or to have a particular fruit taste. Thinking about how you will make your newest creation exercises your mind. When it is done, there is a sense of achievement. This positive feeling adds up after every successful baking project. Unlike painting or other creative activities, you will know when your work is excellent. All you have to do is to take a bite. The immediate reward of baking is a significant boost to your self-esteem.
An Excellent Therapeutic Experience
People experience traumatic things. It can be a disease or an accident, but you will always need time to recover. Therapy is the best way to handle trauma, but it can be hard in which therapeutic approach will work best for you. Some people have found baking as a solution. For example, after treatment from scoliosis experts, 2019 Great British Bake Off contestant Alice Fevronia started her baking hobby to deal with the recovery.
The reason why many people find baking so reassuring is because of how it bombards the senses. Four of your senses are active when you are baking. You are molding the dough with your bare hands or mixing the batter. You can smell the baking as it happens and see as it becomes the final product. In the end, you will be tasting the baked good. All the sensory input can make you remember all the good things associated with the baking experience. Your body also releases the natural neurochemicals serotonin and dopamine, both of which can relax you.
Baking Movements Are Meditative
People will notice that there is a sense of rhythm when it comes to baking. That is especially so when you do it as a habit. Doing it every day will familiarise you with the routine of baking. Once you are good enough at it, the movements and the directions can deliver you to a mindful state. Mindfulness is when you are aware of things around you and have full engagement with your actions. That is necessary since a mistake can quickly result in ruining whatever it is you are baking. This mindful state is also usual for meditation. If you do it right, then baking can become a form of meditation for you, where you can clear your head.
The Joys of Sharing
Though some people are happy to enjoy their baked goods alone or for later, sharing and giving out your food can be very fulfilling. When you see someone enjoy a bit of your cake, you feel better about it. It can even be more special if you baked it for a special occasion. Seeing other people eat your baked goods can boost your self-esteem.
Baking as a hobby sounds fun. But it has a more serious side. Consider taking it up to improve your mental health as the stress piles up in your life.