Knitting: Crafting And Stitching With Yarn Good For Mental Health, Studies Say (PHOTOS)

Famous people like Sarah Jessica Parker, Julia Roberts, One Direction's Harry Styles and Ryan Gosling have revealed their love for knitting. In a 2013 interview with Vanity Fair, Gosling described learning to knit as "one of the most relaxing days of my life," while Styles supposedly knits as a way to unwind and relax after facing a throng of screaming fans, according to Belfast Telegraph.

They're not completely far off about the positive effects that knitting does to one's psyche. A clinical psychologist calls knitting — and other forms of needlework like crocheting and weaving — Textile Therapy.

"Textile handcraft making was associated with the greatest mood repair, increases in positive, decreases in negative mood," said Ann Futterman-Collier during a KNAU radio interview, according to Yahoo. "People who were given the task to make something actually had less of an inflammatory response in the face of a 'stressor.'"

In one survey, it was revealed that 81.5 percent of knitters felt happier after knitting, according to the Washington Post. Another survey said that knitting works as a coping strategy for many adults, giving them affirmation, confidence and purpose, according to the University of Sydney.

Experts said that knitting delivers the same effects as meditation via "flow."

"When we are involved in [creativity], we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life," said psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi during a TED talk, according to CNN. "You know that what you need to do is possible to do, even though difficult, and sense of time disappears. You forget yourself. You feel part of something larger."

"Flow could potentially help patients to dampen internal chaos," said occupational therapist Victoria Schindler in a study. The repetitiveness of knitting helps calm the nervous system, tempering down its response when agitated, irritated or frustrated.

Knitting clubs have been around for many decades and there are occasional festivals and knitting classes one can join, according to the New York Times. The craft continues to attract the interest of younger people even today. In the Internet age, these young knitters have taken to sharing their work online and have pushed design creations into radical works of art, according to the Guardian.