Instant Genius - Healthy Start: How taking up new hobbies can boost your mental health

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Whether it’s a sport, painting or spending hours buried in puzzles, there is a clear link between our experience of hobbies and our mental health. Part of our Healthy Start series, we spoke to Karen Mak, a senior research fellow at UCL about how hobbies can bolster our mental health. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Focus magazine, where we interview some of the biggest names. in science and tech. Many people battle their mental health on a daily basis. While there are a number of ways we can improve, there is one surprisingly simple way, hobbies. Part of our Healthy Start series, I spoke to Karen Mack, a senior research fellow in epidemiology and statistics at UCL.

Her research focuses on how social, cultural, and community engagement could improve mental health and well-being. She explains the uplifting effect hobbies can have on our mental health and why they're so important to explore. So hobbies are often considered a good tool to de-stress. When we exercise or draw, why does that have a positive effect on our mental health? Yeah. So the reasons why hobbies can have such a powerful protective mental health benefits is what lies within an activity. And so this is what we're often called an active ingredients. So an active ingredients are components that make up an activity. So things like social

interactions, cognitive stimulation, physical activity, deep breathing or good posture. And very recently, researchers have identified over 130 active ingredients across different hobbies and leisure activities. And then these active ingredients work together to activate multiple various mechanisms that's drive health benefits. So to give an example, let's say we're doing painting. It involves creativity or imagination as you visualize what the finished product is like. It can also involve social interaction one of the key active ingredients when you share your work with others or you can think about the time where you listen to music. It can spark emotions like your happiness or nostalgia. And so these active ingredients then activates mechanisms such as things like improvements in our self-esteem

sense of accomplishment or reduce loneliness or social interactions. And this is how they then leads to and drive health benefits. But I have to say that hobbies are wonderfully complex and there's no single ingredient or mechanism that would make them work. It's really about the interactions of all these elements coming to to improve mental health benefits. So obviously you said it's a complex mix of lots of different things, but when you take up a new hobby or you find something that is boosting all these things,

what is it that's happening in your brain in that process? When we start taking up a hobby, such engagement, you will start activating different mechanisms and systems in our brain. So, for example, from a neuropsychology perspective, which looks at the functioning between the brain and our nervous system, Research have shown that how the hobbies or lecture activities can improve our immune function, which is our stress hormones like cortisol, and it can also increase the oxytocin, which is a hormone that encourage social bonding. Hobbies can also calm our nervous system,

so make us more calm through reducing the breathing rays and the heart rates. But if your hobbies involve things like learning new things, such as learning a new language, that can really supports brain health, especially the cognitive functioning. So things like memory or attention or focus or problem-solving, and this can then lead to reducing the risk of dementia as we get older. And in fact, a lot of research that use observational and longitudinal studies, which track people 10 to 20 years, have shown how hobbies can have such a long-term impact in our brain and cognitive function. But there are also some studies that look at very specific hobby activities. So, for example, there is research showing how artistic activities can reduce the cognitive

dissonance, which is the conflicts between the attitudes and the behaviours that often cause distress, whereas creative writing allows us to engage in creative thinking and reduce these challenges about the inconsistency between the expectation and realities. whereas hobbies that are related to musical activities can improve young people's numeracy and literacy and also the academic outcomes. So really when we engage in these hobbies and leisure activities, not just that they make us feel good, but they also start activating different processes in our brains that leads to positive mental health and supporting our overall wellbeing. And obviously that's a huge wealth of benefits, not just in terms of health, but in growth of

yourself and all of these different other areas. But is that only seen with hobbies that we enjoy if you, you know, try something out that you just don't get on with or it's not for you, does that affect not happen in the same way? That is a really interesting question. So I think when we're engaged in hobbies, it's very important that we try out different types of hobbies to see what works for you and what really matters for you. And even if you engage in hobbies that you don't enjoy as much, the active ingredients within the hobby can still have the positive impact. So, for example, you may try out volunteering and then later on you don't feel like it, but when you do the volunteering, those experience already has involved some of physical activity,

it allows you to interact with people from different backgrounds, with different experiences, and all of these active ingredients have already allowed you to enjoy the benefits that you can gain from volunteering. So I would say like not just that even though you're engaging in hobbies that you don't really enjoy, that you find out it's not working for you, but you can still receiving this reward. So it's not just the hobby itself. It's the socializing. It's the mental reward of it. It's all the other parts that come with that kind of experience. Absolutely. Yeah. So social interactions is one of the very key elements in the social hobbies because it allows us to build what we called a social capital, which is important to us, especially we as humans are social animals.

And hobbies give us another way that we can connect with people. And not only that we connect with people with similar backgrounds, the hobbies allow us to also bridging the gap with people that may have different experience in backgrounds. And this is really exciting because you can get to like expand your social networking and also build your sense of belongings, which we know are beneficial to our health. And if there was, I guess, a chart, if you spend six years doing a hobby, something that you really build, become passionate about, is there a point where it is best for your mental health, or is it just a constant, you know, it's exactly the same the whole way? Is it while you're building the neural pathways in the early stages or does it not really matter at any point?

I believe that it doesn't really matter. You can start doing hobbies at any point as long as you find things that you enjoy doing. Obviously, starting a new hobby can stimulate your brain growth, improve your memory and support your mental health. But sticking with it consistently allows these benefits to grow. And so curating the opportunities for these benefits to really have a long-lasting impact and a greater impact. And also, if you engage with different activities, you're allowing yourself to be exposed to different active ingredients, which we know are good for our mental health and well-being. So I would say, like, keep on doing it, consistency and try out different things, variety is key here. I think what's an interesting question here is who might

potentially receive greater mental health benefits from hobbies. So recent research have started to show that some people might actually benefit greater, and that's particularly for people who live in deprived areas who usually engage less in these activities might indeed receive greater benefits from doing the latter activities. So this really highlights how it is important that to know different people might have different experiences with hobbies and mental health and that it is important to make sure that everyone has equal opportunities to access to different types of hobbies and lesser activities. No one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza.

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I just want to go back to a little bit of what we were talking about earlier around the more social side of hobbies. A lot of people talk about this idea of getting outside their comfort zones and how important that is for their mental health and this idea of building up more confidence. Is that, I guess, another part of the process? Yeah. So it really depends on the nature of the hobbies itself. So for example, some social hobbies, for example, group learning or going to painting classes or doing volunteering or choir, they can really boost our mental health through the social interactions and connections. It allows us to like build our

social identity. I remember a couple years ago, like I did Salsa Dancing, and part of the reasons why I really love it, because it happens outside my daily work and school environment, and allows me to meet different people from different backgrounds and with different experiences. But there are also hobbies that focus more on the individual accomplishments, for example, finishing a book or doing a painting. This can really boost our self-esteem and our confidence because we are producing something unique. And a couple years ago, my colleague and I have conducted a research that analyzed data of over 6,000 children in the UK. And we use a technique where we try to find the respondents, their potential twins. And so they will then, these twins will

then share very similar personal backgrounds, socio-demographic characteristics. But the only difference is that they have different creative engagement pattern. And what we found in our study is that children who engage in these creative activities reported greater self-esteem experiences than those who rarely engage. And in particular, if they engage with their parents, they reported even greater self-esteem later. But another really exciting finding that we found is that children don't actually have to be good at doing these creative activities in order to receive the benefits. they just put themselves in doing the activity, then they will start receiving the reward.

And the reason why this is exciting is because when young people feel like they're not good at doing creative activities, they don't do it. So this is one of the biggest barriers that they don't engage in these activities. But our study shows that, you know, you don't worry about it, just put yourself doing it. You will then start receiving the rewards. But apart from boosting our mental health through the social interactions and increase our confidence, hobbies can also allow us to manage stress and to cope with and to regulate our emotions. And I think the COVID-19 pandemic is a great example because there was a time when we were really socially isolated. And so the research team that I work with conducted this marvelous COVID-19 social study in the

UK where we tracked over 700,000 people. They're really, time, social and psychological experiences to really understand how they fell at that time, particularly during the lockdowns, and how they spend their free time. And what we found is that a lot of people actually turn to hobbies to fill up their time. And they reports that they don't just use hobbies to fill up their time, but they also use it as a way to boost their self-esteem, to make them feel safe, to make them be away from the negative emotions, and also feel more empathy for others. And we did see that, you know, that these beautiful rainbow paintings in the windows to support NHS. And so this really shows how hobbies not, you know, there's so

many ways that hobbies can improve our mental health and well-being and that they can bring lots of, like, benefits that can support our health. On the topic of the mental health side of things, are there any, I guess, certain hobbies that align particularly with mental health conditions, is there are certain hobbies that work well with people that struggle with anxiety or people with depression or, you know, can you use a hobby in a targeted way against some of these? Yes. So what's really exciting about hobbies is that research has shown that hobbies in general, regardless of the types of hobbies, can improve your mental health. It can reduce your depression, anxiety, improve your life satisfaction and happiness. And we found these associations across 16

countries with different cultural settings. And what's really encouraged and exciting to see is that the mental health benefits of hobbies can also be found in countries with low national happiness index. So this is really promising to see that. But then when it comes to like really specific mental health conditions, I think it's important to consider the nature of the hobby itself. So repetitive activities like knitting, sewing, they can be really great for people with anxiety because it's like repeatedly doing something that can have this therapeutic effect. Whereas active hobbies like group dancing or team sports can really boost our mood and energy, particularly for people with depression.

But I think it's also important to consider whether the activities are solo or social. So people with the mental health conditions might find it more challenging to engage in solo activities because they might lack this motivation to engage. Whereas activities like going to the museum, art galleries, or even visiting heritage sites may be more appealing to them because it is more like a social activity and involves informal social interactions. They might be more motivated in engaging. And because of the social nature of this type of activities, it gives them the social encouragement to participate in the first place and also social confirmation to continue the participation.

Can partaking hobbies be seen as a tool, I guess, with more unique experiences of our mental health problems? For example, something like grief, which is quite a specific experience, is that that would still have that connection in terms of just improving our mood, or having us socialise, having us be out with people, and a tool in a way that we wouldn't expect for something like that? We actually have seen these hobbies that can support people with mental health conditions and also to manage the symptoms through the clinical arts therapies. So research have shown how this type of arts-based or creative therapies can support people their mental health when they're going through this mental health challenging experience.

And for example, there is a research that legs at children who have survived from the Chinese earthquakes, where they have their stress hormones to be reduced after 30 days of doing calligraphy. There are also some studies have shown how families who were in the bereavement period how these arts-based therapies can connect them with others, maintain the bonding with the disease, and also reduce the feelings of sadness. But then beyond this clinical setting, there is a very exciting public health initiative

called social prescribing, where people with mental health conditions or who are going through difficulties are being connected to community activities, so like bakery, cooking or gardening. And this is really exciting because leisure activities can, like, you know, it's not just that we find the impact of the leisure activities or hobbies in a clinical setting, but also it can be integrated easily and naturally in our everyday life setting. things. This is what the research have been showing, how it can support our well-being through in the clinical setting and also in the everyday life settings. What tips would you give for people that are, you know, looking to improve their mental health by taking up new hobbies or finding

ways to, you know, improve their experiences by finding something like sports or arts that can improve how they are in life? Yeah. So I would suggest probably exploring different types of activities to see what you really enjoy and also what really matters to you. And if you're not quite sure about committing, you could, I think, free or low cost options are great. So for example, you could go to a local classes to see if you really like it or you could look up for the Taster Sessions or online platforms like YouTube to try it out to see. And another tip that I would give is that try to integrate the hobbies or leisure activities into your daily lives. So for example, you can read a book during your commute or doing crossword puzzles. This can really like, you know, just to add a little

bit leisure activities into your everyday lives. So like activities that can distract you from the work. If you are like feeling a bit of winter blue like myself, I think this now is a great time for you to start engaging in new hobbies. And also consider like trying different types of hobbies because they can provide you different active ingredients, which can allow you to, you know, to benefit from hobbies in multiple ways. And so sometimes the more the merrier. Thank you for listening to this episode of Insent Genius. That was Karen Mack talking about hobbies and mental health. The Insengenius podcast is brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine, which can find on sale now in supermarkets and news agents, as well as on your

preferred app store. Alternatively, you can come and find us online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analog warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist focal, Name creates high-end audio systems, combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music. just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.