First Day

Today I did 40 mins of colouring-in. At first it was irritating and I was being overly critical at the colours I was picking, but once I got "in the zone" I really enjoyed the process and end result. Getting "in the zone" relates to flow, specifically the Action-Awareness Merging aspect. Jackson and Marsh explain Action-Awareness Merging as being involved in the flow activity so deeply that it becomes spontaneous or automatic (1996, p. 18).

I wanted to finish colouring-in but thought I would keep to the time-limit I set myself so I didn't become bored or fatigued. I measured my positive and negative affect before and after the activity (PANAS; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). My results are as follows:

Before:
Positive Affect = 24
Negative Affect = 27

After:
Positive Affect = 25
Negative Affect = 15

My results show nearly no difference in positive affect, however my negative affect reduced by 12 points. I really do feel that these scores relate to how the colouring-in affected me. I had a stressful day and I think colouring-in helped ease my negative affect. It is interesting to note the almost no difference in positive affect. Perhaps colouring-in eases negative affect rather than enhancing positive affect? I wonder if this will be a pattern in the weeks to come.

My First Colouring-in Session.