Woodworking can improve hand-eye coordination.

What is hand-eye coordination?
Hand-eye coordination is simple, isn’t it? It’s just about being able to use our hands and our eyes at the same time. Although the truth of the matter is that hand-eye coordination is a pretty complex physical and cognitive ability that allows us to position ourselves in space, and complete complicated tasks based on the information that our eyes provide.

Why is hand-eye coordination important?
Hand-eye coordination is vital to most people’s everyday lives because we use it all the time. We use it to navigate around our home and when walking outside. We also use it to feed ourselves with knives, and forks, and get washed and dressed in the morning and the list goes on!

How woodworking can help improve hand-eye coordination
The good news is that woodworking is a great activity for those of us wanting to improve our hand-eye coordination. It does of course make sense that a task that includes using a sharp tool close to the hands and body would naturally focus our coordination, and this is precisely what woodworking provides.

Indeed, it can be said that woodworking is all about the relationship between the eyes and the hands and you use one, other or both to judge the pressure and direction of the tools you are using to get the desired result.

The best way to approach woodworking for improving hand-eye coordination is to start off simple, and slowly build up the complexity of the projects you work on. In this way, you will get plenty of regular praise as well as some time for your body and mind to consolidate what is learned and apply it to areas in wider life.

Woodworking can improve fine motor skills

What are fine motor skills?
Common examples of fine motor skills include typing on a keyboard, folding clothes, turning a door knob or tying your shoe. All of these activities require that you effectively use the small muscles in your wrists and hands.

If you can effectively use the small muscles in your wrists and hands, then you may just have excellent fine motor skills. The good news is that if this is something you struggle with, taking up woodworking may help.

Why fine motor skills important
Fine motor skills are important because we need them to function with independence in our everyday lives. If we can’t do things like open doors on our own, or tie our own shoes it can limit our ability to live autonomously.

How woodworking can help fine motor skills?
In particular, woodwork is good for building fine motor skills because it requires that the individual holds onto things with accuracy. For example, a person will need to hold a nail with one hand, using fine motor skills in their hand, fingers, and wrist, while wielding the hammer to hammer the nail in (a more gross motor skill) in their other hand.

Woodworking provides opportunities for standing, moving and being less sedentary.

What is being sedentary?
A sedentary life is one where we do not move around a lot. Think couch potato rather than gym goer, or a person that sits behind a desk rather than lifting boxes all day. If you are sedentary you are mostly inactive.

Unfortunately with modern technology, the sedentary life is becoming more and more common and this can lead to some major health issues.

Why is having a sedentary life harmful?
Sedentary lifestyles can be quite harmful for those who have them. Indeed, many studies show that being sedentary is linked to poor lung and heart health.

Other studies show that inactive lifestyles can lead to major medical issues like cancer, type 2 diabetes, and even early death. Experts suggest that the mechanism behind this is that sitting for long periods slows the metabolism and blood pressure leading to health problems further down the line.

How woodworking can help you be less sedentary
The good news is that there is no better hobby to take up than woodworking if you want to live a less sedentary lifestyle. There are many physical advantages to woodworking including that it can include vigorous physical activity such as sawing, sanding and moving large pieces of wood around which can burn calories.

However, those with mobility issues, and those who wish to make some of the harder physical parts of woodworking a little easier may invest in some power tools for this purpose. Indeed, effective equipment like this oscillating tool sander can make finishing a project much easier, and faster. All while you can still reap all the other physical benefits of woodworking.

Woodworking can also be great for building muscle strength, especially in the hands, arms and back because you will be working them a great deal.

Lastly, woodworking can be good for joint health, and you will need to use joints like your shoulders, elbows and knees during a project. This continuous use helps to keep them limber and lubricated avoiding long-term stiffness.

Woodworking can provide a break from digital screens.

What are digital screens?
We all have devices with digital screens from smartphones, to laptops, to tablets. In fact, in modern society digital screens dominate our lives.

How can using a digital screen be harmful?
The problem is that digital screens can be harmful if used too much, and they can cause several issues like back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain and even eye strain. Then there are the issues with the blue light that most screens emit which is believed to cause disruptions in sleep and waking patterns.

Also, how you use a digital screen can have an impact on your overall health and well-being. With social media believed to be damaging, and addictive, if you are using your screen time for this, then you could be impacting the physical nature of your body in terms of dopamine pathways.

How woodworking can help give you a break from digital screens?
Happily, as a very much physical activity woodworking can provide a much-needed break from using a digital screen. It can also encourage more presence and mindfulness in our lives as we work with real tangible materials and our hands.

Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. Mr. Kiron is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.

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