Regular crafting helps undo damage from screentime

If you’re like most people today, you spend hours a day in front of a screen. Americans now spend at least half their lives in front of a screen, five times as long compared to 50 years ago. This excessive screen time has been linked with neurodevelopmental issues in children and “digital dementia” in adults, not to mention depression, isolation, sleep disorders, and anxiety.

While the answer is to spend less time using screens, the problem is screen time also appears to be uniquely addictive for us all.

Is there an antidote? Studies show spending time working with your hands crafting, building, gardening, etc. can provide unique qualities that boost your physical and neurological health. If you’re working to manage a chronic condition such as autoimmune disease of gastrointestinal disease, regular craft time can be a fun and beneficial tool in your health toolbox.

For instance, knitting, crocheting, sewing, and other textile crafts have been shown to have the same neurological benefits as meditation and mindfulness.

Regular knitters have reported knitting makes them feel happy and they are drawn to the craft for its stress relief and anti-anxiety effects. People who knit three or more times a week reported more benefit than those who knitted less frequently.

What’s more, people who knitted in a group or did some other type of group craft activity were even happier than those who knitted solo, thanks to the proven health benefits of socialization.

About three quarters of patients with anorexia nervosa reported knitting distracted them from obsessive, ruminating thoughts about food and weight and helped them feel more relaxed.

Oncology nurses reported knitting reduced compassion fatigue and stress in one study, and another found people with chronic fatigue, depression, and other chronic health disorders experienced increased positivity and well being engaging in textile crafts.

While these crafts are associated primarily with women, research has also found traditionally male crafts, such as woodworking, repair jobs, and “tinkering” impart the same benefits.

The benefits of crafting are believed to be derived from the “flow state” of repetitive mindful action crafts require.

Working with your hands is good for the brain

Although crafting delivers psychological benefits that translate into biochemical mood boosts, there is another important aspect of crafting — working with your hands is great for the brain.

In an era when many of us use our hands primarily for texting, typing, and swiping, handiwork and crafting can activate long dormant areas of the brain. And healthy brain activity in one area, such as the “hands” area, will help improve activity throughout the rest of the brain, contributing to overall improved brain health.

Working with your hands on something physical boosts reward circuits in the brain in ways working abstractly only with your brain doesn’t. This in turn triggers a cascade of neurochemical reactions that improve motivation and self-esteem and relieve depression.

The repetition, memory, and learning required when engaging in a task keeps the brain engaged in a mindful manner while freeing up the “thinking” centers of the brain that are engaged for knowledge tasks. This is not only calming and therapeutic for anxiety and obsessive thoughts, but many people report that this cognitive brain break allows problem solving and creative solutions to spontaneously arrive while crafting.

Knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, and other crafts may seem like an odd recovery tool when you’re working to manage autoimmunity, gastrointestinal disease, or other chronic health disorders, but once you understand their physical and mental benefits, it makes perfect sense to ditch the screen for some handiwork on a frequent basis.

Autism presents much differently in girls than boys

The popular perception of autism is a very male version — girls and women with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) can have very different symptoms than males. This not only leads to many girls and women never being diagnosed, but it also creates a life filled with confusion, mystery, and frustration over an inability to function like most people. In fact, a recent study showed that people who were diagnosed with autism in their 50s spent their lives thinking they were bad people because of how their brains worked.

ASD appears to affect primarily males, however, many girls are not receiving diagnoses because their symptoms have not been studied to the same degree. As it turns out, girls have very different than boys. In fact, girls with autism often behave more like neurotypical boys than boys with autism.

Girls and women with ASD are frequently diagnosed with depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, or ADHD. Female ASD also more easily lends itself to eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The intense focus associated with autism is believed to be behind anorexia, dieting, and body obsession. Researchers estimate about 20 percent of women with anorexia also have autism.

There are many reasons why so many girls go undiagnosed. One reason is girls are much better at “masking,” or hiding their symptoms and mimicking neurotypical behavior. This is believed to be due to girls’ greater desire and ability to connect socially. However, masking takes an enormous mental and physical toll in the way of chronic stress and exhaustion. This can lead to the sensory overloads and “meltdowns” typical of the disorder.

The diagnostic criteria for autism were derived from studies on boys. Primary symptoms in boys include difficulties with socialization and communication and repetitive, inflexible behavior patterns. Girls with ASD do not typically exhibit these behaviors to the same degree.

Studies also show that only girls with more extreme ASD symptoms received a diagnosis, leaving many girls on the milder side of the ASD spectrum undiagnosed but still struggling.

Some studies show girls with autism are more like neurotypical boys

Brain scans show girls with ASD process social information much differently than neurotypical girls and more like neurotypical boys. In tests assessing friendship quality and empathy, ASD girls scored closer to neurotypical boys than to neurotypical girls or boys with ASD.

In the book Aspergirls, the author explains how most girls and women with ASD feel they are sometimes more like boys than girls, or half and half.

Girls and women with ASD often labeled as “too intense”

The book Aspergirls goes through a number of symptoms that girls and women diagnosed with ASD commonly share. One of the most common underlying ones, and one that has so many growing up with shame, is always being described as too sensitive, too intense, and so forth.

This stems in part from the hypersensitivity and sensory overload associated with the disorder.

Autism can make girls more vulnerable to bullies, depression, and isolation

Unfortunately, symptoms of autism, such as not understanding social cues and being very literal, can make girls more vulnerable to bullies and predators.

Social discomfort and awkwardness also make girls and women with ASD more prone to isolation.

ASD girls are also more likely to suffer from anxiety, low self-esteem, social isolation, and depression. In fact, mild autism is associated with a significantly higher risk of suicide. Two-thirds of women with milder forms of ASD report suicidal thoughts.

The role of brain inflammation in autism

Diagnosis is extremely important in girls and women with ASD. This is because it can relieve years or decades of shame and anxiety around feeling like such an outsider to the rest of the world. Knowing why they feel and act the way they do can bring enormous relief from feeling like they are constantly failing.

Autism is increasingly being linked with inflammation and autoimmunity in the brain that began in infancy and affected brain development. Studies show maternal autoimmunity, high blood sugar, or infections are linked with an increased risk of giving birth to a child who will develop ASD. When the developing child’s brain is fighting inflammation, it does not have the resources to appropriately “prune” synaptic pathways.

Strategies to dampen autoimmunity and brain inflammation have helped many people tame the symptoms of autism that can cause suffering, such as being too easily overwhelmed. Ask my office for ways to dampen brain autoimmunity and inflammation.