Knit for Brains

There are many ways to improve your quality of living. Meditation is well known as a reconditioner of the human heart, mind and spirit, and knitting is apparently a pretty powerful mode of meditation. There are books and articles on knitting as a therapeutic, meditative and even spiritual tool. Many find knitting as a way to get through tough times, but apparently it has benefits that can help keep tough times away by soothing are training our minds and perhaps healing our bodies.

The rows to enlight-knit-ment?

As I’ve mentioned before, one of the reasons I got into knitting is to improve my powers of concentration. Delving into the craft I’ve been surprised at the degree of detail involved in producing a knitted item. I had done some basic crochet in years past, but I’ve found knitting is a good bit more complex. But don’t let that scare you away if you are new to it. I’ve enjoyed the structure and discipline called for in knitting. That’s what I want and need anyway.

So this post is supposed to be about knitting as meditation. Why am I writing about the degree of detail and mental demands in knitting? I think part of what’s calming and meditative about it is that it absorbs your attention and in such a way that it draws you away from other mental activity that either contributes to stress or which scatters your mental energy. Because knitting demands a certain kind and degree of attention on one thing it functions to order or comb out the jangles and tangles of your mind, both consciously and non-consciously.

Knitting is both creative and organized. In this way it occupies the left brain to maintain the structure needed to follow the pattern, but also stimulates the right brain as a creative activity. So a part of the soothing, meditative effect could be a result of this as a possibly balancing activity, along with occupying the left brain which often is a source of stressful mental activity.

In my own experience I find myself sighing in relief even as I cast on, as if my inner being is getting the signal that some good knitting time is coming, and this relaxation response continues as I knit, with a few more sighs as I get into it. Part of this is also the satisfaction I get from allowing myself a creative outlet, something I have tended to neglect in my life. That alone is very satisfying. When you are deficient in creative self-expression you will feel stressed.

I believe additional soothing effects come from the feeling of the soft yarn on your finger tips and pressure on the needle shafts. Your fingertips are loaded with nerve receptors and you have acupressure points near each finger tip. The tactile stimulation with both your needles and the yarn is likely to be very supportive of mental function and overall body health in some way. Most of us know how soothing it is to pet a cat, dog or other animal – any soft, smooth or furry material. And while you aren’t directly stimulating the acupressure points they receive some from the movement of the tissues as you handle the needles. Your mind is focused and soothed, which takes stress off the body as well.

Practitioners of meditation receive long lasting benefit when they have been doing it for a while, so it’s not like you will have to knit to relax. As in any activity, what happens is that you train your brain, actually reconfiguring and growing the new neural connections between your brain cells, that knitting requires. Thus your ability to concentrate and to enter the soothed state outside of knitting grows and grows the more you knit. You could even just imagine knitting to help yourself shift closer to that state.

So knitting isn’t just a nice little needlecraft. It helps you develop a quality of mind and consciousness and even condition of body through the direct and indirect effects of the activity of the mind and hands. Considering this you look differently at knitting as an activity.

You may have seen the tshirt that reads, “I knit because I’m smarter than you.” Or maybe you are smarter because you knit. Or both!

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