Waking up to the alarm clock in the morning, being swept along by the crowd on the commute, chased by endless to-do lists at work, and reviewing the day's gains and losses in bed at night—this is the normal life for many people today. The "2024 National Mental Health Development Report" shows that more than 60% of adults believe that "excessively fast pace of life" is the main cause of anxiety, and the anxiety detection rate among the 35-45 age group is as high as 58.7%. When our lives are filled with the logic of "efficiency first", and when our hands have gradually degraded into tools for instinctively swiping screens, a sense of "loss of control" quietly breeds. DIY (Do It Yourself), the process of creating things with your own hands, is becoming an important way to combat anxiety and heal yourself. It is not simply "manual labor", but an "emotional regulation tool" proven by psychological and sociological research, which allows us to regain control of our lives and obtain in-depth psychological satisfaction in a fast-paced world.
The core healing value of DIY lies first in its ability to break the cycle of anxious thinking through "focused immersion". The "Flow Theory" in psychology, proposed by positive psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, holds that when a person is fully engaged in an activity that balances challenge and skill level, they enter a "flow state"—a state where attention is highly concentrated, time perception is blurred, and negative emotions such as anxiety and irritability are temporarily blocked. DIY perfectly meets the conditions for flow to occur: whether it's sewing a piece of clothing, sanding a wooden piece, or assembling a storage box, it requires the coordination of hands and brain, and attention to the density of stitches, precision of dimensions, and texture of materials. This characteristic of "needing to focus to do well" forces us to withdraw from "worries about the future" and "regrets about the past" and return to every action in the present moment.
In a 2023 study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, a psychology research team from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) conducted an 8-week follow-up experiment on 120 subjects with long-term anxiety: the experimental group participated in DIY activities (such as knitting and pottery) twice a week for 90 minutes each time, while the control group engaged in passive leisure (such as watching dramas and swiping short videos) for the same duration. The results showed that the average score of the Anxiety Scale (SAS) in the experimental group decreased by 23.6%, while that in the control group only decreased by 5.2%. Researchers explained that the "active creation" and "immediate feedback" in the DIY process can activate the reward circuit in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and promote the secretion of dopamine—dopamine not only brings a sense of pleasure, but also enhances self-efficacy, making people believe that "I have the ability to complete something". This belief is the core psychological resource to combat anxiety.
Secondly, DIY can fill the "sense of meaninglessness" in fast-paced life by "creating tangible value". In today's highly industrialized and digitalized world, most of us engage in "fragmented" work: we may spend the whole day dealing with emails, revising documents, and attending meetings, but it is difficult to see the "final result" of our work. This state of "disconnection between effort and visible value" is likely to cause confusion about "blurred self-worth", which in turn exacerbates anxiety. The essence of DIY is creation "from scratch": a piece of fabric is cut and sewn into a unique shirt; a pile of scattered parts is assembled and adjusted into a practical bookshelf; even a cup of ordinary flour is kneaded, fermented, and baked into fragrant bread. Richard Sennett, a sociologist, emphasized in his book "The Craftsman" that "the process of manual creation is a process of establishing a deep connection between people and the world". When we make something with our own hands, we invest time, energy and emotion, and this "emotional projection" makes the object an extension of ourselves. Japan's "object healing" concept also holds that using items made by yourself can make you feel the warmth of "being gently treated by yourself". More importantly, the results of DIY are "touchable and usable". This "visible and tangible" value feedback can clearly tell us: "My efforts are meaningful". A survey by the University of Essex in the UK shows that people who often engage in DIY have a 31% higher score on "sense of life meaning" than those who do not, and "sense of life meaning" is significantly negatively correlated with anxiety levels. To learn more about the in-depth healing value of DIY, such as how it helps us regain the rhythm of life and enhance psychological resilience in a fast-paced world, please continue reading the next article "Anchoring Yourself in a Fast-Paced Anxious World: The Healing Power of DIY and Scientific Evidence (Part 2)".
