Many of us love the aesthetic of baking something delicious during the weekend or showing off our amazing cooking skills on a romantic date.
Realistically this could go two ways: an actual therapeutic activity that helps us disconnect from the stressful reality or a major stress factor.
According to counsellor Helena Ahern, it all depends on our mindsets. For some folk, it’s just another job they have to do and for others, it’s actually the opposite.
“For another person, when they engage with cooking and baking, they find the experience actually very relaxing,” explains Helena.
“Whenever I get really stressed or overwhelmed I love to use baking to calm myself,” says Jane, 22. “I love the sensory feedback that you get when kneading the bread and how the process itself can be both very melodic and repetitive.”
“I find cooking so relaxing,” says Chloe, 19. “I find cutting things up very therapeutic.”
Ruth McMahon, a TCD counsellor, has an explanation for this: “It steadies the voluntary and involuntary nervous system, by bringing the attention to the now.”
This also has a biological explanation. “If they enjoy it,” says Helena, “a little bit of serotonin gets into the system, a little bit of dopamine in there.”
There’s a downside, however – it’s very easy to switch between relaxed mode and stressed out mode while cooking or baking.
You could start making red velvet cupcakes and feel like the greatest baker but then discover, at a critical point, that you’ve forgotten an ingredient. And you have to go to the shop and see if they have it there.
You’ll probably flip back into a stress mode again.
“Personally I only enjoy cooking if I have time for it, says Justyna, 23, “which never happens. It’s stressful most of the time but I feel like if I was to have time I would probably feel like it could be de-stressing.”
She is not the only student struggling with finding time for this.
“It depends on my schedule for that day,” confesses Jane. “Some days I could be feeling very stressed and simply don’t have enough time to spend on baking.”
But fear not, Helena has advice on how to make time for cooking, baking and other enjoyable activities that help us relax. “The whole thing feels like an overwhelming list of things to do,” she says. “If you go at it from a template of this is another thing to do, then the mindset is ‘working’. So if we could support ourselves to kind of move gear and say ‘What is it that that would be nice for me to do?’”
Ruth explains how we could make cooking and baking into an activity we could really look forward to. “Creating possibilities around cooking and baking such as social gatherings to cook together, share recipes, invent and explore,” she says, “can enhance social connection and reduce hyperarousal.”
For some, this can actually be the highlight of their day.
“I have to cook every second night, I used to hate it but now I really look forward to it!” admits Chloe. “I enjoy baking in my spare time and love giving gifts of baked goods to friends as presents.”
At the end of the day, it’s important that we do the things that we really enjoy, the things that actually nourish our souls. According to Helena, this is actually going to help us be more effective not only with our exams and assignments but our relationships and everything else as well.
“But you can’t run a car on very low fuel,” she says. “You can for a time but you’ll burn out the engine.”