Judy writes,
“I love this project to honor Wink’s memory and raise awareness about depression.
I’d never heard of Wink (or mandalas!) until a few weeks ago. A friend is learning to crochet and stumbled upon your site and then passed it on to me. This was just before Mardi Gras, so I went with purple, green and gold in my mandalas.”
“I used one pattern from Wink, the LillaBjorn North Sea Mandala and Moogly’s Magic Spike Mandala. I made five crochet mandalas, but am only sending three. My first one went to a friend who was just diagnosed with colon cancer and required surgery ASAP. The second went to my little great niece who is having some trouble with her parents and really finding her own place in the world. Neither my friend nor my great niece are showing signs of depression, but I like to think my mandalas are increasing the harmony in their lives.”
“And working on them re-awakened my crochet skills. I also got outside of my own head and thought of others while crocheting.”
Back in 2014 I did a survey of more than 10,000 people, most crocheters, about the health benefits and quality of life benefits of crocheting. 58% of those survived said that they experienced mental health benefits only and another 37% said that they experienced both mental and physical health benefits from crochet.
Depression was among the top conditions helped through crochet. The number one condition was stress (89% of those surveyed found crochet to help with stress or offer relaxation). The second was anxiety (59%), followed closely by depression (56%). In fourth place was grief, which 27% of people used crochet to help them through.
In other words, more than half of those surveyed found that crochet helped them with the symptoms of depression and/ or anxiety. And more than one quarter used crochet to cope with grief.
Does crochet always help?
More than one fifth of respondents felt that they experienced the health benefits of crochet 100% of the time that they do the craft. More than forty percent experienced benefits at least 90% of the time. More than 60% are experiencing benefits at least 70% of the time. And more than 80% of people experienced the health benefits of crochet at least half of the times that they do the craft.
A vast majority of the people who responded to the survey said that health benefits are one of many reasons that they crochet. 13% said it was an occasional reason while 12% said it was a major reason. 160 people (nearly 2%) said that it was the #1 reason and 37 people (.43%) said that it was the only reason.
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