High school can cause a lot of stress for teens. Many students lean on their hobbies to relieve themselves from stress, to bring them comfort, and to boost self-esteem. 

Senior Sidney Powell uses painting and drawing to help bring peace and calm to her life as a high school senior applying to colleges. Her newest project is a painting of her dog Rocco. “Lately I have been painting more often because of all the college applications that I have been getting done, and it’s just really nice to know that I have something that can put my mind to rest,” Powell said.  “I have painted my dog Rocco many times before, but this time I chose to put a bird on him, [because] why not.” 

A hobby is defined as an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure. However, not everyone understands some hobbies. As hobbies aren’t always something everyone can enjoy, from walking around, traveling, baking, or even building cars.

Junior Tamim Mitzad has a love for working on cars and has his own car that he’s been working on for some time now. Recently, Mitzad started building a car with his friend. “We dropped the engine, we’re putting a lot of work and time into it, hoping that we can start driving it soon,” Mitzad said. 

Mitzad enjoys working on cars and going to car shows, as he says it brings him a lot of joy, especially after seeing from a young age how his dad also enjoys cars. This hobby created a bond between the father and son that gives him motivation to continue to work on his passion and his car. 

Junior Grace Bodman believes that although her baking reduces her stress, it also can find a way to frustrate her. “When I’m baking, I [can]end up with a pretty cake, or I end up with something I don’t like which creates anger,” Bodman said. “It does also make me feel like I can’t leave the kitchen ‘til I get it right.” Bodman expressed how she got into baking by simply watching making videos, which later evolved into reading mainly baking books. 

For the physical body, doctors at Kaiser Permanente say that having a hobby tends to help you reduce stress, improve your health, and connect with others. If a hobby involves physical activities it can cut your overall risk of early death by 31%.

Even low-intensity physical activity for less than an hour each week could trim your risk by 18%. This could also lead to better mental health. Kaiser conducted a large-scale study of more than 1.2 million Americans and found that people who exercised reported 43% fewer days of poor mental health in the past month than those who didn’t exercise.

Hobbies can help create bonds with friends, family members, or random people by creating better relationships and by making a starting point for conversations and a mutual understanding of each other’s passions. Hobbies give the ability to form a deeper connection with people who might have never connected.

No, not all hobbies have to benefit physical health or mental health, though it is recommended. Hobbies may also not be as meaningful to everyone else as they could be to the person who enjoys them, but that’s really what tends to make it special. “Even though painting might not be as important or interesting to someone else as it is to me, I don’t do it for them, I do it for me,” Powell said. She doesn’t let what others may think of her hobby not being “cool” or “interesting” to them bother her. A hobby isn’t a job nor a social aspect — it’s pleasure, calmness, happiness, and stress relieving.