Stress Relief Never Tasted So Good

Stressed out? Try Baking.

People have long since practiced certain activities like yoga and meditation as stress reducing activities, but I’d like to add one more to the list — baking. As a student, daily life stresses can often feel inescapable. As finals week draws closer here at SMC, it’s more important than ever that I make the time to relax and clear my head. I’ve been able to find that escape in baking, and I think you may too.

Part of the reason I find it near difficult to relax is because anxiety-inducing thoughts seem to never go away. Thoughts of upcoming deadlines, exams, essays, and looming college applications permeate my mind at every second of every day. Embarrassing moments and failures from days long past remain imprinted in my mind, there to haunt me whenever they seem fit.

This unwanted chaos leaves my mind when I bake. I become so consumed by the baking process: carefully following instructions, meticulously measuring, all of those simple little tasks. It becomes near impossible for me to do or think about anything else.

“When you focus your attention on an activity like baking, you’re more present in the moment and less focused on the stressors of the past or future,” says Pamela Honsberger MD according to the Kaiser Permanente website.

SMC student Karina Duque has found this to be true in her own life when she bakes. “I think following instructions — just, for like, humans in general — having an order and a list to follow is pleasing… I find it a lot more therapeutic because I’m in control of everything.”

While baking with your friends and family can certainly be a good time, it doesn’t provide the same sense of self care nurtured during solitary baking. It wasn’t until this year I began to view baking as a great way to spend my alone time. While it’s certainly fun baking with my friends and family, I often find myself either relegated to the sidelines looking on or trying too hard to delegate the tasks. The result is not very relaxing.

“I think the best thing about baking by yourself is that you are in full control … it’s kind of just your ‘me time’ — same as people do yoga and workout by themselves because you get into that like super focused mode where it’s just you are so at peace and focused on what you’re doing so you don’t have time to worry about anything else,” Duque said.

When I bake, I tune others out. Sometimes I’ll put on a podcast, listen to some music, or throw on an episode of “Gilmore Girls” in the background — but my sole focus is on the baking process. I rarely even care how the finished product turns out, for me the enjoyment relies more on those little medial tasks that fill the instructions. It's like I have a blinder on, unable to see the past or present, and all that matters is that I pour exactly a half teaspoon of vanilla extract in my mixing bowl.

I’ve found it a good mentality to have, because I never said I was actually good at baking. I will never be ‘star baker’ on the “Great British Bake-Off” (nor would I ever make it on the show). The last time I made cookies, they had the consistency of putty. When I pressed down on it, it slowly rose again. You don’t have to be good at baking to experience the positive feelings that arise from it. Despite its failure, it was still well spent time that cleared my mind and left me relaxed and rejuvenated.

While there’s no alternative medical and professional help, baking can result in a less stressed self, a delicious tasting treat you can share with friends and family, and an all around good time.

“Getting to see what you made in the end, how it turned out, and then getting to share that with people close to you I think is also kinda self rewarding … not only does it provide a time to destress while you’re baking, but also at the end of if it you are satisfied,” Duque said.