I’ve been saying for years that knitting saved me. When I was running on fumes (and often times before I even realized it), my knitting and crocheting was the thing that brought me back to center. What I didn’t have was an answer when people inevitably asked, “why knitting?” What was it about knitting specifically that makes it the antidote to my bluest days?
Turns out, there’s a lot of evidence for that why, and today we’re looking into it all.
Earlier this summer I spent a day teaching knitting to Girl Scouts at Camp Kaufmann, and CBS New York came to film it (you can watch the full segment there, and I posted a bit about the day on my Instagram too, if you want the behind-the-scenes version). In the piece, psychologist and young adult mental health expert Dr. Nicholas Kardaras spoke about knitting as a genuine, non-pharmaceutical tool for mild depression and isolation, and he put it better than I ever have: “the pride that comes from some kind of arts and crafts can be really healing.”
I’ve been chewing on that line ever since. So I went looking for more people who’d back it up, and, well, it turns out there are quite a few.
Start with the numbers. The Craft Yarn Council surveyed over 3,100 knitters and crocheters and found that 85% experienced reduced stress from their craft, 68% reported improved mood, and 93% said it gave them a genuine sense of accomplishment. That’s not a small, self-selecting group of people who already loved knitting before they answered the survey. That’s the vast majority of people who pick up needles at all.
Then there’s Betsan Corkhill, author of Knit for Health & Wellness, who has spent years collecting responses from knitters. Henry Ford Health cites her research showing that people managing clinical depression overwhelmingly reported the craft made them feel happy or very happy. Not distracted. Not occupied. Happy. That distinction matters. A lot of things fill time. Not many things actually shift your mood while you’re doing them.
And then there’s Betty Houtman, a nurse who’s spent her career working in neuro-developmental care and now teaches knitting and crochet as an anxiety management tool. In a piece she wrote for the Anxiety Resource Center, her explanation is the most practical one I’ve come across: the bilateral, coordinated hand movements knitting requires are genuinely hard work for your brain, hard enough that there’s less bandwidth left over for spiraling thoughts. She calls it, essentially, productive distraction. I call it the only kind of multitasking that’s ever actually worked for me.
Here’s what I keep coming back to, though. For me, it’s not just the yarn, and it’s not just the act of knitting. It’s what happens around it. A knitting circle is one of the only spaces I’ve ever been in where eye contact is optional, conversation is optional, and somehow that makes people feel more connected, not less. Nobody’s staring you down waiting for you to perform connection. You just knit, and the conversation shows up on its own, or it doesn’t, and either way you’re not alone in the room.
So the next time you’re asked “why yarn,” you can send them this way.
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