(Photo courtesy of Made by Man)
Article by: Jane Sandwood, Freelance Writer
Therapeutic activities and relaxation are essential to wellness—and it is vital to develop mindful habits and hobbies at home that help you unwind. After a long week at work, you should ask yourself this question: how do I like to relax? If something doesn’t immediately come to mind, it might be worthwhile to develop a new, comforting hobby—like origami.
Origami is a staple of Japanese culture, evolving over centuries from very basic, ritual folds to the variety of complex, contemporary designs that are common today. There are many unique origami patterns you can buy with simple-to-complex instructions to help you as you fold. Discovering a new hobby like origami can be a way for you to expand on what you already enjoy or for you to form a new passion that brings you a sense of ease.
Enhances Awareness and Focus
One of the benefits to practicing origami is that it has the power to be as therapeutic as other wellness activities and relaxation techniques. This is because focusing on the folds can improve spatial and perception skills. With improved spatial visualization, you can improve your attention and concentrate on the present moment.
For these reasons, origami can become a way to engage in focused attention meditation—a type of meditation that trains the mind to center on one single object. Origami experts claim that once you begin to know the folds by heart, it will become a meditative process that allows you to meditate on practice, perspective and patience. In turn, this will lead to a strengthened sense of calmness, as the mind will be stabilised.
Letting Go of Self-judgment
Another therapeutic benefit to practicing origami is its ability to help practitioners be less critical. Origami is ultimately a peaceful hobby, and it is a rewarding, beautiful art form that inspires a spirit of accomplishment. By completing the folds, you will slowly realize that you will be less critical of yourself overall, as you will be finding mini successes as you go along.
Just like other wellness practices, like yoga or meditation, the key to inner peace is always to let go of self-judgment and perfectionism. Origami can fuel this inner peace, as no origami model will ever be completely perfect—because it is made by a human and not by a machine. But in realizing this, you can let go of any pretensions and just enjoy the gradual completion of whatever you make.
Thus, origami is a great way to supplement the other wellness treatments that you adopt with a goal to achieve inner harmony and a sense of calm.
