The average life of a college student is filled with constant and consistent stress. We tend to analyze and then analyze the reason for why we are analyzing to the point of absolute over-stressing about the things that we do even in our everyday lives.

Students max out their stress levels to their brink likely because they simply do not know how to stop the stress from piling on. Have you ever heard someone state that they wish they could just go back to the simplicity of their childhood? Perhaps they were not that far off of a solution.

A book that I read recently entitled “Colors For Life” by Martha Soria Sears delves into the concept of coloring. Yes, coloring, one of childhood’s most treasured activities, can actually help interpret and relieve stress among any age group. Sears goes on about a psychological study that she did on a group of women undergoing daily stress in which was able to determine where their stress was coming from and how she was able to relieve it for them by simply allowing them to color.

I also embarked on coloring the pages given in this workbook and then reading the interpretation. The concept that certain colors are drawn to certain emotions should come as no shock to most, but few recognize that the instinctive color that one chooses from a box of crayons can also interpret their stress levels, feelings and life challenges at the time of coloring.

This book analyzes everything from the need for forgiveness in relationships and the way one can interact with another to the chance that they may thrive in financial situations. You can determine all of these things given your level of stress and then solve them by coloring with a different color.

Though this book had many interesting facts about the way one can interact with the stress around them through color, I felt that it almost lacked more substantial differences or specifics for given pictures. Like many psychological evaluation type materials, it was very general about life events and stereotypes and lacked a lot of substance to the reasons behind the meaning of a given color.

However, if you can look past that portion of the book and through to what is there it can be very informative and a neat learning experience about the insight into your own and others lives and stress.

If only we would have known years ago that the stress relief is as simply as choosing a crayon. Perhaps we still can ‘go back to the simplicities of childhood.’