The first annual Cannon Falls High School coloring contest is a wonderful opportunity for students throughout middle school and high school to submit pumpkin coloring sheets for the chance to win a wonderful prize. The top three submissions will be awarded and congratulated on the coloring sheets they submitted.  With the coloring contest on students’ minds, it gives some an urge to start coloring once again. Allowing them to think of something else other than the text or Snapchat they have just received, coloring creates a wonderful and imaginative atmosphere. Coloring can help many students.  Vienna Qualey, an 8th grader, explains how she feels about it by saying,“Well, it kind of helps me relieve stress, and I think that it should be more readily available in the high school. It just makes people happier, more open minded, and ready to put more effort and quality into their work.”

Many students and adults are unaware that coloring can be a very good therapeutic technique,  filling a somewhat chaotic day with an escape to another realm in the form of colors. The Huffington Post states that the practice of coloring can be used for “wellness, quietness, and also stimulates the brain areas related to motor skills”.  In several other countries, mostly around Europe, adult coloring books often attain a best seller status.  In America, citizens everywhere have tended to leave the coloring to the kids, most adults having the mindset that coloring is childish and simply a waste of time. Instead of this ignorance to the idea of coloring, teens and adults everywhere could be practicing this impeccable method of therapy, especially in times of great distress.

 This therapy that could perhaps give an escape from an otherwise stressful world full of tests,  study guides, and mean teens.  The Atlantic created an article on this exact topic; it stated  “A 2012 study in the journal Art Therapy found that art activities such as coloring mandalas significantly reduced anxiety”.  Coloring creates an outlet which would most likely be otherwise filled with  stressful thoughts and unneeded worry.  Instead of sitting with this stress, pick up a marker or crayon and just start coloring.