Today, millions of people around the world take up knitting (编织). "It is connected with our mental health," says Janine Smith. Along with David, she co-owns a store in Sydney, Australia, that sells supplies for knitting. "I know that if I haven't knitted for a few days, I really miss it."
Research supports Smith's statement. Professor Corkhill and professor Riley were part of a team from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom that, 10 years ago, surveyed more than 3, 500 knitters and found that the more frequently people knitted, the calmer and happier they felt. Or, as David puts it, "That rhythm (节奏) of knitting is like deep breathing. It's a flow where you don't have to stress about it, you've got the rhythm happening."
"Flow" is a concept first named by expert Mihaly. As he wrote in his book, "The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. The best moments usually occur if a person's body or mind is pulled to its limits in a voluntary effort to achieve something difficult and worthwhile."
The Cardiff research team found that even though most of the people surveyed were employed, three-quarters of those who knitted three or more times a week felt significantly more able to organize their thoughts and forget their problems.
Many respondents (调查对象) described feeling calmer and in a better mood after knitting, and the majority of respondents who suffered from stress "thought that knitting made them feel happier." For respondents who suffered from pain, almost nine out of ten said that knitting gave them a means of dealing with their pain.
Interestingly, more than half of those surveyed said that knitting pushed them to develop other skills, like building furniture. Because knitting is so accessible — at its heart it's two sticks — it enables people to have belief in their abilities. After all, if you make a mistake, you can just pull it all out and start again.
