I Coloured Every Night For A Week And This Is What Happened

Sure, it's calming, but so is (for me at least) going for a run or watching a movie or trying a new restaurant with friends. Despite everything I know about the health benefits of expressing creativity, coloring wasn't at the top of my list of me-time options.

But given it's widespread popularity, I gave it a test run with a week of devoted nightly coloring. Here's how it went. (Want to pick up some healthier habits? Sign up to get healthy living tips and more delivered straight to your inbox!)

I was pumped at first.

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Since I've always meant to color more but hardly ever get around to it, I started off the week excited to be forced to break out my pencils and dust off my books. A couple of those books were a birthday gift from way back in 2007—with an embarrassing number of uncolored pages. I was so looking forward to finding the perfect pages to decorate, I started nerding out: "Oooh, I get to color now!," I said, practically skipping to the bedroom as I left my boyfriend to watch the football alone on the couch.

I slept better…

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I figured if the goal of adult coloring is relaxation, why not make my experiment about winding down for the night? I allotted at least 15 minutes before bed for coloring before turning out the light. I'm usually a fitful sleeper—I toss and turn and wake up remembering what seems like more than my fair share of weird dreams. But throughout this week of coloring, I slept more soundly and restfully. Why bother with melatonin if 15 minutes of coloring is all it takes?!

…but I ended up staying up too late.

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However, I was also delaying my bedtime. I had hoped to cut out 15 minutes of doing something else each night, but I found several convenient excuses (There's a new season of Masterchef! My library book is almost due!). Luckily, it was only an additional few minutes—I don't think I was throwing off my sleep schedule drastically.

My hand got a workout.

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I scribble the occasional grocery shopping list on a odd scrap of paper, and I usually send a few handwritten birthday cards, but otherwise I rarely write anything by hand. As I started to approach the 10-minute mark during my nightly coloring, the muscles in my hand grew tired and a little achy. Frankly, I find that upsetting—I can play a 90-minute soccer game, but my hand can't handle 15 minutes of coloring? I'm going to have to start writing longer letters.

I stopped watching the clock.

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Once my hand started getting back in shape after a few nights of this experiment, the time passed more quickly. It became easier to get fully absorbed in the design I was coloring, and a vision for each page would set in. Rather than repeatedly glancing at the clock as I did on the first couple of nights, I found myself adding colors and venturing into new sections of the page until I'd suddenly realize 20 minutes had already gone by.

I found relief from deadlines.

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Fifteen or 20 minutes ended up being a perfectly relaxing amount of time to spend coloring for me—but it wasn't nearly enough time to finish any of the intricate designs I attempted. I wouldn't call any of the pages I colored "finished", but that was actually a good thing. Instead of worrying about completing assignments by certain deadlines (like I do every day at work), I was free to do any amount of coloring on a page that I wanted. There was zero pressure to finish anything (although I found I did usually want the page to look somewhat symmetrical; I'm Type A, what can I say?) and focused instead on enjoying the process.

By the end, it started to feel like another item on my to-do list.

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As the week came to a close, I was a little disappointed by how my feelings had shifted. "Ugh, I still have to color!" I caught myself saying as I returned to my flat on Friday night, after two glasses of wine with friends. It had only been a few nights of coloring and already the excitement from the start of the week had dwindled. I'm blaming that on the nature of the experiment, though, rather than coloring itself. I know when I'm forced to do just about anything on a daily schedule rather than when I really feel like doing it, a little bit of the joy escapes. In order to preserve the excitement, I don't think I'll be coloring every night from now on—but I'm not going to banish the colored pencils to the back of the closet anymore, either.