Self Care For Fiber Crafters

This week I wanted to do a focus on taking care of yourself while you enjoy your knitting and crochet. There have been multiple studies done to sing the praises of our crafting when it comes to our emotional well-being. As anyone who has done any deadline crafting (*cough* holidays *cough*) can attest to, these crafts that we love can take their toll on our physical well-being. I don't know about you guys, but I tend to want to sit and work on my projects as much as I can and as fast as I can before I loose interest and want to move onto the next thing. This usually results in a sore back/neck, arm and hand pains and sometimes even pains in my legs (depending on the chair that I'm sitting in).

One thing that I've been trying to do on my heavy knitting days is to set a Pomodoro Timer (you can find an app online). The concept behind using the Pomodoro system is that if you focus really hard and work on something for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break. When you go back to work after the break, you will be more focused and will, therefore, accomplish more during your work day. This seems to work extremely well for me for cleaning the house, but 25 minutes seems a bit too quick for knitting. I can make a small dent in my project during that time, but the timer always seems to go off just when I'm starting to get into a rhythm. So, I've started using 50 minutes as my knitting timer with a 10 min break in between and this seems to be going really well.

It is important to keep in mind that when you take your breaks, you actually need to take a break. This means that you need to get up, stretch, walk around, look at something out the window or across the room. This is very important for your eye health as well as your full body health. When we knit, our projects are fairly close to us so it's good to give your eyes a break and a stretch by looking at something far away. (If you're at your LYS for knit night, this is the perfect excuse to look around for that new yarn that needs to come home with you!)

One of my favorite sites for relieving any sorts of body pain is : www.drscottamills.com
One of the biggest fears that fiber crafters have in regards to body damage from crafting is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome so here is Dr. Scott's fix for this common ailment:

Have a great week with your crafting and don't forget to take some breaks!

Shaina  ^_^