 Ooh, do I got a good video for you today? What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And today, as you are watching this video, I'm actually not even here right now. I am in Southern California celebrating my birthday. I'm turning 33, but I'm also celebrating six years sober. So I asked my buddy, Stephanie, from the channel, its crochet o'clock to come on over and do a guest video. So please, please, please do me a favor and watch this entire video because I can't tell you how much I love this and what she does. So quick, fun fact about me when I first got clean and sober six years ago, right? Like I was losing my mind. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how to deal with anything. And I tried so many different things to get my mind off of alcohol and drugs out of my depression, out of my past, all sorts of things. And I saw my grandma knitting and I was like, yo, can you teach me how to do that? Because she was knitting a beanie. And you know what? She did. So she taught me how to knit and I just started knitting beanies for like everybody I knew. And like it helped me so, so, so much. And like, I get a lot of you who comment down below. Like when I'm like, Hey, like, here's what you should do. You should try this. You should try that. And like therapy can be expensive. Some of you have signed up for better help. It is very affordable online therapy. There is a link in the description if you're interested, but for some of you it's still too expensive. Now, Stephanie's about to talk about the various reasons why crocheting and knitting actually helps you out with your mental health. It is a very cheap and inexpensive hobby that you can pick up and it will help in all sorts of ways with your mental health. But why am I still talking? Let me pass it on over to Stephanie. Hello everyone. My name is Stephanie and I run a channel here on YouTube called It's Crochet O'Clock. And you might be wondering, why does Chris have this lady on a mental health channel? Well, the reason is there's been many, many studies that prove that knitting and crocheting are actually good for our mental health and our health in general. So I am here to give you eight reasons why crocheting and knitting can benefit you. But before I do, I would like to point out that there is a massive misconception about crocheting and knitting that it's an old lady's hobby or craft. Well, that's not true. A couple months ago, I did a survey of my own because science and we all love science. And in that survey, I polled people all the way from the 1940s until the present to figure out when the spikes were in our hobby, when it was trending. Almost 29% of the 1500 people that responded to the survey reported that they learned to crochet or knit in the 1970s, which we all know is true because everybody was walking around wearing crocheted pants and it was not cute. But to my surprise, almost 38% of people reported that they learned how to crochet in 2010 and beyond. So that was it. It just shows me that it's coming back into vogue that it's not an old lady craft that it bounces through generations and there's lots of us all over the world making beautiful things. So it's definitely not an old lady craft or hobby. And yes, you can do it. So getting right into the eight reasons that I am here. My number one reason that crochet and knitting can benefit you is depression. It helps in so many different ways, but there was actually a study done where they worked with 3500 people that had never crocheted or knitted before, but they were all suffering with depression after the study was complete. 81% of the people said that they felt happier when they were crocheting or they were happier after they learned how to crochet and knit then before the study started. And that's pretty powerful. You know, it makes you feel happy to make something in your hands and watch it grow and you're very, very proud of it. The number two reason is anxiety. I suffer from it myself, not to the extent that a lot of people do, but I do suffer from anxiety. So anxiety, whenever it's there, it takes over you. You just can't focus on anything. If you have something in your hands and you're working on it and you're focusing on the stitches that you're making, it brings all of those levels down and helps us come back to a very calm center. Number three is that it builds self-esteem. I was just talking about, you know, you're proud whenever you create something and some of these patterns, some of these designs, we look at them and we think, oh, never, ever be able to do that. I'll never be that good. Yes, you can. And yes, you will. There's people just like me, hundreds of YouTubers just like me that are there to help you walk you through, teach you how to work the stitches and help you make something beautiful. And at the end of it, you are proud. Have you guys ever seen that meme? Everybody's seen that meme nowadays with the otter holding the little baby otter and it says, I made this. It's the exact same thing whenever you make something knitting or crocheting. Whenever you finish it, you just want to show it to everybody and look at what I made. Isn't it so beautiful? Yes, it is. And yes, you did a good job. Number four is that it actually has been shown that it may reduce or postpone the likelihood that we will get depression, not depression, dementia. The Mayo Clinic did a study on this and 50% of the people that they studied over the course of their of their experiment showed less signs of dementia and that it postponed the dementia. And that for me is huge because dementia is growing within our population and I don't know anybody in my life that that doesn't know somebody that has dementia. It's hit my family very hard. So it's very close to me and I have a high likelihood of dementia in my later years as well. So the study, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a scientist. So I don't know how everything works. But what I do know is that they said that because it keeps your mind working constantly that that somehow helps reduce or postpone the likelihood that we're going to get dementia. So hey, I'm all for postponing that because it's a horrible, horrible disease. Number five is insomnia. It may sound counterproductive that if you can't go to sleep that you would pick up your crochet and you would begin to work, but it's actually the opposite. If you're working on a simple pattern that is a very simple repeat and it's the same thing over and over and over again, the repetitive motion is just enough to shut our brains down. We have to focus on our hands moving, but we don't focus enough on it to continue to allow our brains to go over everything that happened in the day. What might happen tomorrow, whatever happened last week that's still bothering us. Our crochet or knitting can help us calm down enough to where we can fall asleep. True story. You should try it if you have a problem. Number six is that it fights restlessness or boredom. If you have a problem with addiction, then you know that being bored is probably one of your very worst enemies. It's right up there with somebody drinking in front of you if you're an alcoholic. It's not all that great because when we are bored, our minds have an opportunity to think about what we may be missing in our lives, what we want in our lives. When we are crocheting or knitting, our mind is on something. Even if it's a repetitive motion like I was speaking about with insomnia, our mind is still focused on something else. So it keeps us from wanting that thing that we think we want so much. This is actually the reason that I started. It's crochet o'clock. I am a huge fan of the TV show called My 600 Pound Life and I belong to a fan group on Facebook for the followers of the show. One of the admins posted a message one day that said that there was a study she linked to the study that showed that people that craft with their hands were less likely to binge eat than people who didn't. So she asked what some of our hobbies were. I said I crocheted because I do all the time and then all sorts of people said that they wish that they knew how to crochet that they'd never be able to crochet but they wanted to and I went I can show you and its crochet o'clock was born just like that just that quick. It happened because if your hands are working on something then they're not in the fridge. If your hands are working on something then you're not wanting to go to the bar. If your hands are working on something then you're not running after or thinking about whatever it is in your brain you want and that's a positive thing. I don't care what anybody says number seven is that it builds a community. I know Chris is stressed to you guys over and over and again on this channel because I've watched it how important having a supportive community around you is when you are trying to break your addiction. I'm not saying that a crochet community is the be all and all of everything but it can be just another tool and another method of support. And another system sitting over here to work with everything else that you have that will help you break your addiction. People that crochet and knit are good people and most cities have gatherings where you can go and you can sit down and you can work on whatever project it is that that you're working and fellowship with everybody around you. If you're like me and you live in the middle of nowhere I live in the desert in New Mexico and you don't have an opportunity or a place to go to gather with others there's always online communities. I don't know what I would do without my tribe of its crochet o'clock we're a very very small group still but I love those guys we talk to each other all the time and you would never be able to tell me that they're not my friend. They're very supportive community they have helped me through a lot we help each other. So community is a huge part of crochet help you learn help introduce you to new patterns answer your questions be there for you when things are crazy and your dog runs off with your yarn and choose through it all. We've seen it all my last reason is stress. That's number eight stress I work in my day job very very very stressful no matter what company I am with I have a lot of our responsibility on my shoulders and it's extremely stressful. So when I come home I'm stressed to the max every single day I'm grumpy I'm cranky but I have kids I have a family and I can't be grumpy and cranky with them because they didn't do anything wrong. So I have to find a way to relieve my stress and for so many people sitting down and crocheting or knitting it really is a feeling of just everything just leaves your body and works through that yarn into those stitches. If I didn't crochet my family might very well bury me no joke. It's good stuff it helps for all of the reasons that I have listed above if you are interested in learning how to crochet please check out my channel you can even reach out to me if you would like you can join my Facebook group at its crochet o'clock like I said there's some great supportive people there you can learn a lot start a new journey allow us to help you become part of your circle and become part of your arsenal to help you with whatever issue it is that you have going on in your life we're here for you we're excited for you and we want to help you learn and help you grow with the craft. Thank you for watching and I will see you soon in the comments somewhere below on this channel. I know all right so thank you so so much Stephanie for covering for me while I'm out of town and making that amazing video. I hope you all learn something from this and I'm going to link her channel down in the description down in the comment section it'll be up in the info card it'll be all over the place and please please please go check it out and pick up some needles and start crocheting start knitting doing something like all of the research that she talked about it makes sense so especially when it talks about like insomnia or depression or anxiety like some of you have been around for a while and you hear me talk a lot about mindfulness mindfulness is paying attention on purpose in the present moment so it helps you get out of the future out of the past and you're practicing mindfulness while you're working on this craft and like Stephanie said to like it is a great confidence builder to like a lot of people who struggle with depression or just like loving themselves a lot of it's because we're not creating anything we're not we feel like we're not accomplishing anything and even if you're just like making a scarf or a blanket or a beanie for like your your mom your dad some of your friends or like anybody like this can help build confidence and you feel great about what you've done and how it turned out so please please please go check out Stephanie's channel learn how to knitter crochet all right but if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and if you are new here I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health make sure you click that little round subscribe button and a big thank you to everybody who has signed up on patreon to help support me and what I'm doing trying to help people with mental health and if you want to be a new patron go ahead and click or tap right there all right so thank you so so much for watching go get yourself some crochet needles and I'll see you next time.