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Cooking, like many other hobbies or passions, can provide great therapeutic value. It can be relaxing (as long as someone else is there to clean up). Like gardening, golf, sewing and the like, cooking can help calm your nerves if it something you truly enjoy doing. The kitchen can be your own personal domain where you are in control. It can allow you to use your creativity and skills to try something new. Or maybe you just want to make that “comfort food” recipe that you remember your mom or grandma making when you were little.
Cooking can also provide little mental exercises when working with measurements and portions that can keep your mind sharp. Doubling, tripling or even cutting a recipe in half can keep your mind working. You may have to work in measurements of both volume and weight. How many pints in a gallon? How many tablespoons in a cup? Now if you really want a challenge, find a recipe with the ingredients specified using metric measurements! Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
One of the main ways that cooking can be beneficial for your good mental health is by providing a sense of accomplishment and pride in knowing that you are giving of yourself in service to others. When I am feeling a little down and depressed, one of the best pieces of advice I have ever received is to “do something good for someone else.” So if cooking is one of your talents or just something you enjoy, cook something for someone else. It may help you even more than them.
So you see healthy cooking doesn’t have to relate to just physical health. It can relax you, keep your mind sharp, and give you a warm fuzzy feeling deep inside too.
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