Students Need More Than Extracurriculars:
The Case for Restorative Hobbies
by Emma Zande
Fall 2025 Intern
Between Kindergarten and 12th grade, students are exposed to an incredible array of experiences—subjects, activities, and organizations—which help them develop interests, skills, and life plans. But with the pressure of deciding what they want to do with their lives, students often gravitate towards activities that they think will be useful for college applications or resume building.
Sports teams, service clubs, and academic competitions are praised, rightfully, for the skills they build. However, these activities place a lot of pressure on students—they come with high expectations and intense structure, and they shouldn’t be mistaken as “free time”. During these activities, a huge amount of learning and growth is taking place, and students are pushing themselves physically, mentally, and socially to meet goals, impress their mentors, and stay competitive.
At the same time, students are learning how to balance all their different activities, schoolwork, and social life—creating time management habits that they’ll carry on through their lifetime. And for students, it’s especially easy to fall into the habit of scrolling on a phone or excessively consuming digital content to find that “brain break” that they’re craving.
This endless, stimulating content disrupts focus, drains mental energy, and can worsen mood, leading to brain fog, and studies have linked heavy use to poorer attention, sleep, and emotional regulation, especially in developing brains. This period of life is incredibly beneficial for developing healthier time management and self-care practices, and if students learn to fill their rest time with digital content or social media, they may miss the chance to build truly restorative habits, which can have long-term consequences.
Of course, most students likely don’t feel super excited about spending their free time staring at a wall or practicing breathing techniques to truly let their brain rest. But they can benefit from something far more enjoyable and sustainable: meaningful, low-pressure hobbies. These restorative hobbies give the mind space to reset without demanding performance or productivity and dial down our urge to reach for our phones.
What Counts as a Hobby?
Many students already think they have plenty of hobbies—after all, all those extracurriculars must count, right? Well…sometimes. But psychologists define hobbies as regular, ongoing activities people pursue for personal enjoyment, in their own time, without professional or financial pressure (or in students’ case, the pressure of college applications and resumes).
Extracurriculars can overlap with hobbies, but they often function differently. A student who participates in an art club may love art, but club time is typically focused on deadlines, teamwork, leadership, and performance. The hobby part is the time they spend creating art simply because they enjoy it. On the other hand, hobbies are more structured and intentional than pure leisure. They involve sustained practice, gradually building knowledge or mastery over time.
What Counts as a Restorative Hobby?
So, while extracurricular activities may qualify as hobbies, they typically don’t function as restorative hobbies—the kind that allow you to decompress, turn off your mind, and recover between structured commitments. Restorative hobbies are those that students choose purely for enjoyment, without the pressure to perform or compete. Developing these kinds of hobbies isn’t just important for forming long-term downtime habits; they also have incredible mental health benefits.
How to Develop a Restorative Hobby
- Choose something that you enjoy doing. This could be knitting, coloring, poetry, collaging, reading, working with clay, learning an instrument, dancing, singing, or pretty much anything! You’ll want to pick something that you could see yourself gravitating towards in your downtime and could become relaxing and fun after a little practice, meaning that you could give your brain a break.
- Start with short sessions and small projects: Oftentimes, we can get dissatisfied with these more creative hobbies because the progress can be slow and the learning curve steep. Remember, you’re in this for the love of the game. Choose something you’ll enjoy making, without putting too much pressure on your end product!
- Set a regular time: When starting a restorative hobby, it can be helpful to set a time that you expect to work on it, which can help you to create a habit. Maybe you know that you usually spend an hour on your phone decompressing after school. You could block that time for hobby learning. That way, when you do find yourself with extra time, you’ll be able to pick up on where you left off.
- Use what you have: You don’t need expensive supplies. A pen and paper, or basic craft tools, are enough to start. Many libraries also have craft supplies, online classes teaching about a range of different hobbies, and even physical instruments for checking out!
- Rotate hobbies: Developing a couple of different hobbies might be super beneficial. Maybe you’d like to learn an instrument, but you know that some days you’ll be too tired or have too little free time. You could supplement your instrument learning with something more relaxing, like coloring or clay!
Developing Restorative Hobbies Has Great Mental Health Benefits
Research has shown that restorative hobbies are more than just nice to have in your back pocket. They actually play a pretty big role in improving mental health and overall well-being—very important at a time when students are struggling with their mental health worldwide. Research has consistently shown that dedicating time to these low-pressure, enjoyable activities can lead to meaningful, long-lasting benefits.
Reduced Stress and Emotional Relief
Engaging in hobbies can significantly lower stress levels by giving the brain a chance to reset. One study found that nearly 75% of participants had reduced cortisol levels after just one session of making art. Even short bursts—10 to 15 minutes—of a chosen hobby can help regulate emotions, calm the nervous system, and create a sense of mental spaciousness that high-achieving students often lack.
Enhanced Well-Being and Positivity
Regular, creative activity has been linked to increased life satisfaction and improved mood. A New Zealand study found that people experienced a higher positive affect and sense of flourishing on days when they engaged in a creative hobby. These benefits can accumulate, creating lasting improvements in emotional resilience and overall mental wellness.
Social Connection and Support
While many restorative hobbies are individual, group or team-based hobbies offer an additional layer of mental health protection. Students involved in group hobbies or community activities report lower rates of depression, anxiety, and stress thanks to increased social connection, friendship, and belonging. These shared experiences create supportive environments that buffer against academic and social pressures.
Cognitive and Academic Benefits
Restorative hobbies provide a diversion from academic demands, allowing the brain to recover from continuous problem-solving, focus, and performance. This downtime can actually enhance productivity and creativity when students return to their schoolwork. Improved mood, reduced stress, and better emotional regulation all contribute to clearer thinking, improved concentration, and more sustainable learning habits.
Physical and Outdoor Benefits
For hobbies that involve movement, the benefits extend to physical health: reduced blood pressure, lower resting heart rate, and decreased physiological stress. When these hobbies take place outdoors, even better—experts note that just 10 minutes in nature can improve mood, sharpen focus, and boost overall well-being.
Putting Down the Phone
Importantly, a natural side-effect of spending free time on restorative hobbies is that there’s less time to spend on screens. This shift can have powerful effects on mental clarity:
- Improved focus and attention: less overstimulation from rapid digital content.
- Better mood regulation: fewer dopamine spikes from endless feeds.
- Higher mental clarity: reduced “brain fog” associated with constant multitasking.
- Improved sleep quality: less blue-light exposure and late-night scrolling.
- Greater sense of presence: hobbies engage the mind in a slow, intentional way that counteracts the fragmentation of digital consumption.
Building Sustainable Habits
As students move through the most formative years of their lives, the goal isn’t to eliminate extracurriculars or abandon ambition; it’s to create balance. Restorative hobbies offer a counterweight to the performance pressure students face every day. They provide space to breathe, reset, and reconnect with themselves outside of achievement and expectation.
When students build these hobby habits, they’re not simply strengthening their mental health today—they’re gaining tools they can carry into adulthood: healthier downtime, stronger emotional regulation, and a more grounded relationship with productivity. In a world that constantly pushes us to do more, restorative hobbies help students remember that it’s equally important to simply be.
Photo by Madalyn Cox for Unsplash
