From writing to watercolour, gardening to glassmaking, in a world that often places our lives in the digital sphere, working with our hands for the sheer joy of it is a grounding antidote to productivity culture.

I pick up the needles. On them are 300 stitches in bright red yarn. My hands begin to work, threading yarn through loops, passing stitches between needles. I’m making myself a cardigan, and eventually I will sew on clay buttons in the shape of fish that I bought from a market stall by the sea. As I work, my mind wanders, quietly picking apart the day and then moving into a daydream about something or other.

For most of human history, nearly everyone worked with their hands. Around 1900, most workers in developed countries were employed in agriculture, manufacturing, or other physically intensive occupations. Today, employment is largely dominated by services, administration, health, technology, education, finance, and ‘professional occupations’.

Yet, even fairly recent milestones have happened because of handwork. Take the Apollo spacesuits, worn on the Apollo moon missions, for example. They were made of elements that were hand-sewn by highly skilled seamstresses (all women), whose precision outdid what machines of the era could reliably do. Astronauts were helped to reach the moon by extraordinary hand craftsmanship.

This story feels astonishing because we often assume machinery or data is behind major modern achievements. But this social shift hasn’t meant that we’ve forgotten the value of working with our hands.

The Apollo spacesuits, September 1967 Read on NASA's official website

The Apollo spacesuits, September 1967 Read on NASA's official website

In fact, the opposite is true. Woodworking, pottery, gardening, sewing, baking, home DIY, leatherwork, and blacksmithing are all hobbies with a notable revival in the last decade.

There could be many reasons for this blossoming interest, including personal ones like picking up crafts as a way to connect with loved ones, but there’s also something to say for digital saturation. So many of us spend a chunk of our lives looking at screens – either because we have to at work, or because we are spending time on the phone or watching TV. For some, then, knitting a hat or repairing a bicycle is a welcome escape – and one with a tangible outcome.

It’s a trend identified by Rebecca McMillan, co-founder of the Sunday Letter Project thesundayletterproject.com.

“With so much talk in recent years of how dependent we have all become on technology, it occurred to us that letters may well pose the perfect antidote. In a busy, tiring world full of screens, writing a letter can take you right back to basics. And it can remind you of what is really important.”

The concept is simple: pledge to write one letter every Sunday. Write it to a loved one, yourself, or a pen pal through the ‘Letter-Keeper network’. The important thing is the commitment to putting pen to paper every week.

“We hope that we might be able to help thousands more people fall in love with the ritual of letter writing. The way that handwriting holds emotion and feeling within its distinctive lines. The way it freezes time and provides a portal into a moment that can never otherwise be revisited. The enormous, unique feeling of delight when you spot an envelope on your doormat with scrawled ink and know that someone has decided to set aside that time, thought, and energy just for you.”

When we work with our hands, things come together before our eyes. Seams are sewn, bread rises, flowers bloom. And, in a time of AI and mass production, things that are handmade, repaired, unique, or personal have even more value to us.

With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that there are tangible, measurable mental health benefits to be found in working with our hands. In a 2025 systematic review of 19 studies, published in the Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, it was found that craft-based activities (such as pottery, knitting, embroidery, papercraft, and woodworking) were consistently associated with short-term improvements in mood, wellbeing, self-esteem, stress, and anxiety. Beyond that, the ‘coming together’ or visible progress of creating things before our eyes is something that’s often a source of satisfaction and motivation.

Merri Mayers is an integrative counsellor, specialising in complex emotional needs, and bringing in craft and handwork into her sessions was something that happened organically.

“When it might be supportive, and always with client agreement, we could explore felt difficulties by working with playdough or making marks on paper with crayons, coloured pencils, or paints. Sometimes the challenging connections that we can’t quite ‘see’ can be engaged with by making them with our hands. By creating, ourselves, a symbolic representation of how we are feeling, or of a difficult relational dynamic, we might be more able to be with those challenges because we’re more involved with how and where they sit with us, because we’ve created them and they aren’t ambushing us. In the making of them, they might become literally and metaphorically more holdable and containable in a manageable awareness where we can then work with them.”

Outside of work, Merri does linocut relief printing and finds the process deeply immersive.

“I’m not a technically skilled artist, and this isn’t about accurately representing a scene or an object that I might see. For me, it’s about the creation of symbols that are links to the more deeply-held emotional memories that integrate the past into the present. This fosters a space where the rhythmical movement of carving a design in the lino and a real depth of focus hold hands, and the chatter of social demands evaporates. This immersive engagement, based on the design my imagination has created, connects my heart, mind, and body in a way that generates a much-needed sense of peace in a world that can feel quite chaotic.”

Despite its growing popularity, choosing to spend our time working with our hands can still feel quietly revolutionary. Against a culture that asks us to optimise our time for productivity, choosing to work slowly but purposefully with our hands – not just for the end result, but for the love of what you’re doing in the moment – is a protest of sorts. My red cardigan grows slowly, row by row, not because of a deadline or a side-hustle or because anything told me I should, but because it brings me joy. And that alone is enough.

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