Doodles, mandalas help beat the blues

As kids, we all loved colouring and sketching our imaginations. But today, it acts more like stress busters for adults. The hectic schedule has had most art lovers turn to doodles, mandala arts, and even zentangles to beat the stress or calm themselves down on a bad day at work.

Sangita Chandrashekher, freelance artist and art teacher found her love for mandala after she came across the 100-days doodle challenge on Instagram. “I have been doing mandalas and zentangles for almost a year now. The fact that, it is left up to the artist to interpret what he or she wants to out of a basic circle gives them ample freedom to work with their imagination. There are no hard and fast rules,” she says.

Zentangle as the name implies, helps one find their zen and calm themselves down, points out Sangita. “The repeated patterns help your mind to flow with your hand, and it naturally finds a soothing balance without much thinking. Mandalas, are satisfying to see as the colours bring life to a pattern,” says Sangita.

Sangita feels one shouldn’t restrict themselves from exploring. Go organic, she suggests. She has drawn mandalas out of alphabets and numbers.

Over the last few years, doodles and mandalas are getting popular among adults in the form of adult colouring books.

Chaitra S, Play therapist, Turning Point Centre for Psychological Assessments, Therapies and Counseling, says that art therapy forms are ways which allow creative expression that can overcome the limitations of language.

“It is considered a means of communication and healing and is of particular relevance for children and teens. Although some of the professional therapists say there is no guidance here to solve a problem but it is true that it is an activity that is therapeutic,” she says.

She says that intricate patterns and colours are therapeutic and reflect the inner self at the time of creation. “They heighten the sense of awareness in an individual. Colours such as blue and pink are considered to have a calming effect on an individual. Art forms are not about how the end product turns out, it is about the process an individual goes through while creating it,” Chaitra explains.

Sneha P, a communication professional says that, when a person is stressed out, their thoughts are untamed and all over the place. This leads to thinking about a lot of things. “Being unsure of what is going to happen next and having no control over a situation tends to stress out a person. However, when you start drawing a mandala, you bring all those thoughts together to focus on one objective — to create something. There is no question of it being right or wrong there is no pressure of judgement. You just let the patterns flow and see them fall in place. There is a sense of accomplishment from start to the end. We all look for escapism as our defense mechanism; drawing and colouring mandalas enable escapism like magic,” she sums up.