For most people who feel very overwhelmed by the endless demands of the digital world, making handicrafts is considered an anti-stress activity.

In the words of renowned psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, making crafts allows us to enter a state of “flow”, namely a state of a perfect balance between skill and challenge.

Arts and crafts activities were a core part of occupational therapy which emerged as a distinct health field at the end of the First World War to respond to the needs of soldiers after the war. This therapy is also aimed at many sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder, aka shell shock.