Making Pottery at Your WPL Offers Health Benefits

The library MakeIT Place Pottery studio has been a labor of love for me over the past year. Our pottery studio has 3 Brent B potter's wheels, an L&L E23S-3 Easy-Fire Kiln, and space for hand-building. Beth and I have learned a lot about clay, glaze, pottery tools, and techniques from some excellent pottery experts. I have also discovered the incredible health benefits of making pottery through my research.

Ceramic making can help relieve stress. When making pottery, the tactile sense is engaged, which promotes a profoundly meditative state, mimicking the simplistic childhood state of exploration through touch. As the rest of the world fades away, your blood pressure reduces, and your breathing regulates itself.

Making ceramics can be a natural pain killer. Because of its stress relief qualities, making pottery can also be a natural pain killer for stress-related pain.

Making pottery with others can increase happiness. Engaging in social activities, such as taking a pottery workshop or class, can increase the level of dopamine in your bloodstream, causing you to feel happier.

Making pottery can reduce symptoms of certain mental disorders. Forty-five minutes of working with the clay can significantly reduce these cortisol levels and minimize symptoms associated with certain mental disorders.

Pottery making can reduce arthritis symptoms. One good, low-impact exercise for the hands — a common area for joint pain — is clay throwing on a pottery wheel or hand-building ceramics. An indirect benefit of ceramic-making for arthritis sufferers is the stress relief component, which can also contribute to less inflammation in the joints.

We offer fun and educational pottery programs in the MakeIT Place pottery studio, so you can reap all the pottery health benefits! You can register for the classes on the library website here: https://www.washington.lib.ia.us/events.