There’s a growing awareness that making things with our hands provides psychological benefits and woodworking, as a creative activity, helps to stimulate the brain and relax the body.  

Research demonstrates that woodworking is useful for decreasing stress, relieving anxiety and helping with depression. Therefore, by allocating time for woodworking, our pleasure and achievement centres of the brain can be activated.

“It is creative apperception more than anything else that makes the individual feel that life is worth living.” -D.W. Winnicott psychoanalyst, paediatrician and creativity expert

Making things with our hands promotes creativity and mental wellbeing whilst also providing a sense of fulfilment, but the benefits aren’t just based around the act of making.

We’ve always been drawn to the warmth, comfort and relaxation that wood provides to our surroundings and studies show that using wood inside buildings helps improve our emotional state and level of self-expression, as well as lowers blood pressure, heart rate and stress levels!

Using wood inside the home, office, building or classroom mimics the effect and therefore psychological and physiological benefits of spending time outside in nature!

So, if you haven’t been in your workshop enough lately, it may be time to prioritise making some wood dust!