Colleges Offer Coloring Books and Crayons to De-Stress Students

United States college campuses are now offering coloring books and crayons to its students to help relieve stress.

In honor of a campuswide “Healthy Campus Week,” the American University Student Health Center & Wellness Center is providing coloring sheets for students to color on Monday. The counseling center urged students on its Facebook page to color with a nature theme, “because, in case you didn’t know, nature can have many healing powers, too.”

“The time and focus that adult coloring takes helps the individual remove the focus from the negative issues and habits, and focus them in a safe and productive way,” the Washington, D.C.- based center stated.

The College Fix points out several other colleges are doing the same.

As part of an “Art-Well” program designed to “color your stress away,” the University of Wyoming will also provide coloring pages and supplies.

“We offer scheduled Art-Well times, but if you can’t make those, come to the Wellness Center Zen Den any time on your own,” the UW website reads.

At the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, students are provided with coloring and craft supplies, games, and even a “mini massage” as part of its “StressLess Days” event spanning four Wednesday afternoons.

Other universities offering coloring books as de-stressors include classic snowflake pounds including Northcentral University, Brown University, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the University of California, San Diego, and of course, the snowflake capitol: the University of Missouri, Columbia.

According to a report by Quartz, Google searches for “adult coloring book” have skyrocketed over the past year, and approximately 12 million coloring books have been sold in the United States in 2015.

“The time and focus that adult coloring takes helps the individual remove the focus from the negative issues and habits, and focus them in a safe and productive way.”

The American University Student Health Center & Wellness Center

On the other hand, Fortune reported that sales of printed books went up by only 2% in 2015.

“It would be nice if printed book sales were growing because people were buying the kind of intellectually challenging, literary works that book lovers tend to think of when they are dreaming about a return to print,” Fortune’s Mathew Ingram wrote. “But as it turns out, that’s not really the case.”

Follow Pardes Seleh on Twitter.