“Mentally, if you’re doing an activity that just absorbs your attention ... it’s getting you out of your headspace,” said Matthew Zawadzki, an associate professor of health psychology at UC Merced who has studied the effects of hobbies. “You’re not ruminating and worrying about what’s happening. You’re invested in the moment, and so that restoration from the relaxation has big effects.”
He also said that hobbies are nature’s way of fighting back against one of our more prevalent emotional states: anxiousness.
A hobby can have social benefits too. “We often do leisure with people,” Zawadzki said, “and so it’s a way to connect socially with others around things that we both like. And you wind up not just doing an activity, but sharing yourself too.”
