How Cooking Can Make Us Happy or Help Us Calm Down

Cooking Can Help Us:

Activate our senses

Avoid food allergies or risk

Be lifelong learners

Be challenged

Be comforted

Be distracted from any underlying worries that might have been eating us up

Be emotionally stronger

Be entertained

Be in a better mood

Be less apprehensive

Be more aware of how our bodies react to different foods or ingredients

Be more aware of what we're putting into our bodies

Be more confident

Be more content

Be more creative

Be more focused

Be more organized

Be more self-sufficient

Become better at it

Block out unnecessary distractions

Break up the routine of our day

Bring back feelings of joy and excitement that might have been gone from our daily life because of anxiety and depression

Bring joy and comfort and familiarity

Bring up happy memories of family meals or traditions

Build competence

Build healthy habits

Build mastery in a skill

Build up our confidence to try new things in life

Calm down

Celebrate

Channel our energy in a healthy way

Come up with our own recipes and dishes

Concentrate better

Connect with others

Control ingredients

Cook what we like to cook or eat

Cope with fears, anxieties, panic attacks, and depression by completely switching our concentration to something that will give us a positive outcome

Create a diet that will improve our mental health

Create a repertoire of signature dishes

Create appetizing sounds

Create stability

Create tasty food

Curb negative thinking

Develop our brains through using our senses

Discover different flavours

Divert our focus to someplace else, a place less intimidating and more dynamic

Divert our mind to something better, more cheerful, and less sad

Do something with our hands

Ease our mind

Ease the tension that can show up in our bodies when we feel anxious or depressed

Eat a wider variety of food

Eat better portion sizes

Eat delicious food

Eat healthier

Eat healthy nourishing food

Eat less sugar, less salt and less fat

Eat more fruits and vegetables

Eat more healthfully because we’re not eating out

Encounter unique problems and distract us from actual real-world problems

Engage in creative problem-solving

Engage more

Enjoy a meal with friends and loved ones

Ensure we have a nice meal ahead of us

Expand our knowledge of the world

Explore new ingredients and styles of cooking

Express emotions

Express our creativity in a practical and hands-on way

Express ourselves

Feel a little less frazzled throughout the week

Feel a sense of accomplishment

Feel away from work during our time off

Feel better overall

Feel comforted

Feel connected to our heritage

Feel connected to the outer world

Feel creative

Feel freer, more vulnerable, honest and ready to connect

Feel good even after we’ve cooked

Feel helpful to others

Feel less lonely

Feel less mentally exhausted after work

Feel like there is something we can do or something we have control over

Feel like we can achieve great things in life

Feel like we have more control over things

Feel like we’re taking our health into our own hands

Feel like we’ve done something good for the world

Feel more capable

Feel more grounded

Feel more upbeat and enthusiastic the following day

Feel more worthy than how our minds have made us believe

Fill a void in our life/time/day

Find more meaning in life

Find relief from stress

Focus

Focus for a while on something other than our predicament

Focus more on what we eat

Focus on our senses and the world around us

Focus on the physical world in front of us

Focus on the present

Focus on the task at hand

Focus our mind on something more positive

Focus our minds on a tangible task

Fulfil a survival need

Gain insight into our behaviour

Get ‘in the zone’, where we lose track of time

Get better

Get into the flow of the activity

Get positive feedback

Get rid of any mental exhaustion

Get rid of tension or built up stress

Give fuel

Give others a chance to experience different types of food that they might otherwise never have tasted

Have ‘me time’

Have a means for social acceptance

Have a reward for doing a task

Have a sense of normalcy in uncertain times

Have a sense of routine and be calmed when things feel out of our control

Have a sense of satisfaction from having control over something

Have a surge of confidence when we finish a dish and share the results with others

Have a tangible reward at the end

Have better communication skills

Have better memory

Have better nutrition

Have better time management

Have cadence

Have more awareness about health and nutrition

Have more awareness of food allergies and sensitivities

Have more balanced eating

Have more control over the ingredients we use

Have more empathy

Have more endorphins

Have more knowledge of food

Have more self-worth

Have sentiments other than sadness and disappointment

Have something to eat

Have something to look forward to

Have time to refresh and rejuvenate our minds

Have time to unplug

Improve food safety

Increase our feelings of wellbeing

Keep a cleaner kitchen

Keep our kitchen cooking-ready

Know that with a little effort, we can do things we were not good at to begin with

Learn behaviour that can grow to other areas of our lives

Learn life lessons

Learn more about different cultures and tastes from different countries

Learn new words in other languages

Leave our problems aside

Look at things that don’t work out as opportunities for growth

Lose ourselves in chopping, mashing, folding, and mixing

Lower anxiety

Make better nutritional choices

Make dishes that have specific tastes that others look forward to eating and that only we are able to make

Make something we all relate to and connect with

Make things up

Manage our thoughts

Manage our time

Manage stress

Mentally disconnect from work at the end of the workday

Mute out the noise of the busy world around us

Nourish our bodies with food

Pay attention and have intention

Phase out ingredients that make us feel sluggish and slow

Pick what we cook

Plan our meals

Positively impact finances

Practice self-care

Prioritise mealtime more

Prioritize our health and self

Produce nice aromas

Provide comfort

Redirect our attention

Reduce stress

Refocus our attention

Relax

Release endorphins

Release negativity

Rely on senses that go mostly untapped throughout the day

Save money we might have spent eating out

Savour accomplishment

Savour life more

Savour our food more

Send ourselves a message that we are important

Shape our approach to failure and setbacks

Share family meals on a regular basis

Share opinions on recipes or cooking with people online all over the world

Shift our focus away from our thoughts about work, bills, and responsibilities

Shift our focus to our senses of smell, taste and touch

Show that our actions have resulted in something real

Slow down

Soothe aging parents in the home if they smell or see or hear cooking

Soothe our minds and bodies

Stay focused and engaged

Step outside of certain thoughts or actions and bring relief, even if it is just for an hour or so

Stimulate our senses

Stop ruminating

Surprise others with a meal that they might have never seen coming

Switch off

Switch our brain from work mode to home mode

Tackle anxiety

Take our attention away from our phone or computer

Take our minds off day-to-today worries

Transfer principles to life experiences

Trigger our senses of smell, touch and taste

Unplug from technology

Use ingredients that our good for us

Use our brains

Use our hands, which is good for our brains

Use up time if we have too much on our hands