My Favourite New Way to Chill: Colouring Books

Colouring books for adults (distinctly different from adult colouring books, just so we're clear), have become hugely popular in the last year or two – check out how many of the best-selling books on Amazon right now are colouring books for grown-ups. For Christmas, Ben gifted me Lost Ocean, a beautiful "inky adventure" hand-drawn by Scottish illustrator Johanna Brasford, and I've become pretty hooked.

This great piece by Julie Beck at The Atlantic reckons that colouring books fit into the trend of meditation and mindfulness: "one response among many to the high levels of stress many adults are living with." Even more than that, for Julie (and me!) it solves the what-to-do-with-your-hands-when-watching-TV conundrum, as "a lifetime of multitasking" has left many of us "occasionally incapable of subduing the entirety of my mind with one activity".

I find the repetition and patterns soothing and relaxing. As Julie says: "There's something satisfying about seeing your thought and effort create a tangible, pretty thing at a reasonable, predictable pace. This rarely happens in life."

And since the trend has taken off, it has exploded in lots of interesting ways – IKEA have even got in on the act, with a free downloadable colouring book, so you can make that Poang chair whatever colour you want.

Have you given it a try?

Pics: The book in all pics is Lost Ocean by Johanna Brasford (who also has a lovely series of vids on YouTube). The pencils and markers are Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, Artiste dual-tip brush markers (love these) and Staedtler Ergosoft colouring pencils.