A Screen-Free Break for Frazzled Moms (Mindfulness in Disguise)

You’ve finally got five minutes to yourself, so you pick up your phone. Time for a quick scroll on Instagram or TikTok before the kids want a snack or start fighting over toys. But scrolling doesn’t exactly make you feel better. Sometimes it leaves you feeling jealous, other times it makes you feel guilty, and occasionally you come away feeling downright angry.

Yet you scroll because it doesn’t take much effort and you can easily stop when the kids inevitably call for you. So if you want to try something else, it needs to meet those same two criteria. And I’m going to suggest something that does: coloring. If you’re skeptical, I get it. But please don’t roll your eyes or close this blog post just yet. Because, unlike scrolling, coloring may help you feel a little better, rather than worse.

Why Coloring is a Mom-Friendly Activity

Let me first make good on my claims that coloring, like scrolling, is low effort and easy to stop.

Let’s start with effort. To get started, you need a coloring book or coloring sheets, plus something to color with. But, as a mom, you probably already have those raw materials in the house. So you just need to find them (or borrow them from the kids), bring them to the sofa, and you’re ready to go. Plus, once you get started, the whole experience feels easy and low-pressure. Just pick a color, fill in a shape, and repeat.

Stopping coloring is easy, too. As soon as you hear someone yell “Mooom!” you can put everything down right where you are and go deal with whatever chaos is brewing. Your pencils and coloring pages will be waiting for you when you return.

So, coloring passes the same low bar as scrolling. Now let’s look at why it’s better.

Coloring as a Mindfulness Practice

Coloring can be a way of practicing mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness means intentionally paying attention to the present moment, without judgement. Or, to put it another way, it means purposefully observing what’s happening now, without labeling the experiences as “good” or “bad.” It’s essentially the opposite of doing everything on autopilot or getting lost in your head, like when you worry about next week’s dentist appointment or ruminate about how you handled your kid’s meltdown in Target yesterday.

To practice mindfulness while you color, you just have to focus on the experience of coloring. This can mean, for example, noticing how the pencil or marker feels in your hand, observing how the color starts to fill up the page, and allowing yourself to let go of judgments about whether you’re doing it “right.” It’s natural for your mind to start to wander to other things, like what you're going to make for dinner tonight, but when that happens, you can just gently bring your attention back to coloring.

The Benefits of Mindfulness & Coloring

Practicing mindfulness can have real benefits, even if you only manage to do it for five minutes. Researchers who analyzed 85 studies on brief mindfulness exercises, such as mindful breathing, found that they had a beneficial effect on stress and anxiety, and may help reduce negative emotions like anger and sadness. And while coloring was not one of the mindfulness exercises included in that research, it seems reasonable to think it may have a similar effect.

In fact, researchers found that people may feel more present and a little less anxious after a short coloring session. Another study found coloring may lower stress and lead to a small improvement in mental well-being, too. The caveat is that these benefits seem to be short-term, rather than long-term. For example, one study found that coloring may reduce stress and increase relaxation immediately after a session, but did not find any lasting changes to mood after a week-long period of daily coloring. 

So coloring might not change your life, but it could help you feel a little better in the moment. And that's enough!

Closing Thoughts

Next time you have a few minutes and go to grab your phone, try grabbing a coloring page and some markers instead. Unlike scrolling, it may help you feel a little less stressed and a bit more relaxed, even if just for a while. If you give coloring a try, I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!

References

Ashdown, Brien, et al. “How Does Coloring Influence Mood, Stress, and Mindfulness?” Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, vol. 8, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–21, https://www.jiss.org/documents/volume_8/JISS%202018%208(1)%201-21%20Coloring%20and%20Mindfulness.pdf.

Carsley, Dana, and Nancy L. Heath. “Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Coloring for University Students’ Test Anxiety.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 68, no. 5, 25 Mar. 2019, pp. 1–10, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2019.1583239.

Cuc, Andrea. “Mindfulness through Coloring. Mayo Clinic Connect.” Mayo Clinic Connect, 25 Jan. 2022, https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/living-with-mild-cognitive-impairment-mci/newsfeed-post/mindfulness-through-coloring/.

Fong, Janet Shuk Yan, et al. “Brief Mindful Coloring for Stress Reduction in Nurses Working in a Hong Kong Hospital during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Medicine, vol. 101, no. 43, 28 Oct. 2022, p. e31253, https://doi.org/10.1097/md.0000000000031253.

Howarth, Ana, et al. “Effects of Brief Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Health-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review.” Mindfulness, vol. 10, no. 10, 31 May 2019, pp. 1957–1968, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-019-01163-1.

Mindful Staff. “What Is Mindfulness?” Mindful, 8 July 2020, www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/.

Morris, Rebecca. “Mom Rage and What to Do When You’re About to Snap.” Everyday Resets Club, 10 May 2026, https://www.everydayresetsclub.com/mom-rage-and-what-to-do-when-youre-about-to-snap/.