It is my most favourite thing to do in the whole world. Picture the smell of home-cooked food in your kitchen and the happiness you get when you share it with others. What is there not to love! I remember years ago, when I was living at home with my mother, I was working two stressful jobs at the time and baking cakes for people on the side. I was in the kitchen, exhausted, baking my second cake of the week, huffing and puffing because the icing wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do. She turned to me and started questioning me that if it was worth it if it made me so annoyed and frustrated. My response straight away was, yes.
When I am baking and decorating, at that time, it is all I am thinking about. I have a really active mind that is always thinking of new ideas and things that I need to do while doing other tasks. It isn’t because of my lack of attention or concentration, but while doing one thing it helps sparks something else with me for something else. So baking and when I am with a client are the two times that my brain switches off and works on one task. Also on days when things have been particularly stressful, there is nothing better than kneading out hard icing to get some of the tension out.
Everyone should partake in some form of meditation or mindfulness activity, for me it is baking. I believe that most activities can be supportive to someone therapeutically, once it is done right and is something you can connect with. If you were to tell me that to support my anxiety I needed to go running 10km every day, it would increase my anxiety. Don’t get me wrong, exercise is essential for good physical and mental health, but we all need to find our own key and ways of supporting ourselves.
I once had a friend who was going through a tough time and found it difficult to talk about it, so she would come to spend time with me. The first time she came to see me I had a cake to make for another friend’s birthday, so we had tea and chatted while I made my cake. She interacted with what I was doing, picked colours and gave opinions. At the end of our meeting, she told me how easy it was to talk about what she was feeling while also finding it relaxing to watch me bake. I realised that some times talking one on one and sharing deeply how you are feeling is so difficult. With young kids I do art, but we forget sometimes that not all adults find it easy and comfortable to express how they feel also. This was when I realised how many benefits integrating talk therapy and baking can actually have.
The benefits that baking can have for you when you bake for someone else are as follows;
- Creative expression – it can show someone a different side of you
- Expression of feelings – food can say everything you find hard to say without having to say anything at all
- Caring – it lets people know you have spent time thinking about them and care about them to prepare some baked goods
- Expression of sympathy or support – in times that are difficult it can be really comforting for someone
- Culturally universal – as long as the food doesn’t contain foods not allowed in certain cultures, food speaks every language, religion, and race, and no one is ever offended by someone baking for them
- Happiness – it makes other people smile
So there are some of the benefits for other people but now let’s look at the benefits for ourselves;
- Increases happiness
- Reduces stress
- Promotes your own mindfulness activity
- Improves concentration
- Brings people closer together
- Helps you understand your feelings and emotions and how to manage them better
- It has been known to be an effective support for people with anxiety and depression
- Behaviour management, by learning how to handle and deal with different situations
- Time management
- Increase your health and nutrition knowledge
- It can also help with developing your social skills
I can go on all day talking about baking and why I think it is great, but why don’t you try it and see what you think. You may even come up with some new points around the benefits of baking for yours and others’ well-being.
Happy Baking 🙂
