Color is an activity that children worldwide have long enjoyed. With a picture already made for them. Kids simply choose a crayon. Pencil or marker of their favorite color and fill it in. Today, it also becomes more and more popular among teenagers and even adults, who are enjoying relaxing hours of coloring. In December, five of the top ten best-selling books in the United States were coloring books.

They’re fun but are coloring books good for you?

The positive feedback from customers is encouraging. Trina Lucido, a popular artist creating coloring books, says that many of her customers are buying the coloring books for others who are sick or going through a rough time. She adds that the “big idea” behind her latest book is to encourage people to do something creative.

Lucido is right, according to Allan Rohan, a psychology professor. “Many customers appreciate coloring books as a new creative stage,” he said in an interview, “but what’s more important is that people spend time coloring in order to reduce (减少) stress after a long day.” Research shows that coloring can reduce stress by guiding people to focus on one simple task. When a person is filling in a flower with a light purple color, he focuses on the flower and forgets about all his troubles in life.

Experts add that coloring may relieve people from a certain king of pain. Doing the coloring helps people ease their mind and calm down. Also, coloring influences people’s brain in a healthy way. The shape of the drawing makes one side of the brain active, while the color of the drawing improves the other, Coloring can bring out your imagination and can take you back to your childhood. Interesting, isn’t it?

“It is very relaxing,” said Susan Jackson, a big fan of Lucido’s coloring books. “Any street just sort of falls away, Coloring frees my mind. And it’s not just try to fill blank pages. The pictures make me feel happy…and there is just something about them. So I’m saving the pictures I like best to the very end.”

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