8 Fun Hobbies to Help Keep Your Mind and Body Healthy (No Matter Your Age)

Enthusiastic crafter Cherie Lynn recently picked up a new hobby: Diamond Painting, also known as Diamond Art. “It’s a craft that comes in a kit, found at craft stores and online, where you apply little faceted resin dots to a pre-printed, slightly sticky design printed on the canvas,” explains Cherie.

The kit also comes with a lightweight handheld applicator to apply the dots, and some kits even include rhinestone dots that are very sparkly. “I find this to be a relaxing craft because it’s fairly mindless and I can do it while talking or listening to music or TV,” describes Cherie.

“It requires just enough attention to keep my mind off of other things, like the news,” explains Cherie. Cherie describes how each time she applies a dot, she gets a little burst of accomplishment. “It’s exciting to see the design come to life,” and then I get to keep the little masterpiece, or give it as a gift.”

Cherie prefers to buy designs mounted on a firm, stretched canvas rather than a rolled print. Adding, “This adds convenience for the ease and enjoyment of the activity. The mounted canvas kits are just as affordable as the ones that come rolled.”

God, too, encourages us to work with our hands, as Psalm 90:17 reminds, “May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us; establish the work of our hands for us— yes, establish the work of our hands.”

For decades, people have been playing golf, bowling, walking, and, most recently, pickleball, which has seemed to take the nation by storm, growing rapidly in popularity, being named the fastest-growing sport in the United States from 2021 to 2024.

Described by some as a hybrid sport, it incorporates aspects of ping-pong, badminton, and tennis, using a net and paddles. It is played on a smaller court with a perforated plastic ball, making it overall more accessible, lower-impact, and less physically draining than tennis. Played by an estimated 19.8 million people in the U.S. in 2024, it was originally considered an older adult game, but its appeal has expanded to include and attract a variety of age groups and skill levels, with over 70% of its enthusiastic players now between 18 and 44 years old.

3. A Hobby That Digs Around

For retired Hocking College natural resources instructor Keith Kittle, who taught courses in landscape management and woodshop, his career and hobbies go hand in hand, including gardening, fishing, and woodworking.

After settling into his new home in Tennessee, Keith is “hoping to terrace the bank in my backyard and use it for vegetable and flower gardening later this year.” He also has the goal to “get back into fishing again and hopefully learn how to fly fish for trout.”

Along with Keith’s digging in the earth, since retirement, his new hobby has been digging into the Word of God, researching, studying, and writing about what he’s discovering and uncovering in the Bible, sharing his findings, insight, and wisdom with others here.

Photo credit: ©GettyImages/andreswd

Wife, mother, and grandmother, Julie Ford travels with her husband, Kenny, following in her parents’ hobby footsteps, who encouraged them to travel as they did during their retirement.

Retiring early just so they could, so far the Fords have traveled to all 50 United States and 36 countries. “We love seeing this big, beautiful world that God created for us and experiencing different cultures, food, and traditions.”

Diagnosed 16 years ago with multiple myeloma (a cancer of the bone marrow), Julie was told there was no cure, and she had only two years to live. Although there is still no cure, and she lives knowing she could relapse at any time, she’s an inspiration to countless individuals to live life daily to the fullest, enjoying every day and traveling the world.

The Fords’ favorite trip so far is to Israel, seeing all the places mentioned in the Bible and walking in the same streets and areas where Jesus walked. “Being able to touch the place where Jesus was born was priceless,” writes Julie.

5. A Hobby That Creates Community

For countless people, video games offer a fun and creative hobby that lets them experience a virtual getaway without leaving the comfort of their homes, providing a convenient way to relax, de-stress, and enjoy some downtime away from the worries and cares of daily living.

Individuals of all ages, from elementary school students to retirees, are enjoying creating their own personal paradise on a deserted island, designing spaces and communities, and interacting with the wide variety of entertaining and adorable animals in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing video game.

Gamers design rooms, homes, and landscapes, owning their own land, along with working and running their own businesses. There’s also the opportunity to visit and work together with other Animal Crossing players.

Toy collecting has also taken off, with adults as the primary purchasers, discovering the joy of attending toy shows, where many vintage toys from the past are displayed and sold to the delight of children, teenagers, and adults from their 20s to their 70s and beyond.

“Kidults” is often used to refer to adults who collect toys; it is a growing community that buys toys they may not have had the opportunity to own as children due to lack of finances, availability, or parental approval. For adults looking for the toys of their youth,

The popularity of this growing hobby is reflected in Instagram’s RetroToyland, one of countless sites that offer toy lovers heartfelt and delightful strolls down memory lane.

Toy collecting is nostalgic, emotionally connecting, and transporting us back to our childhood and the warmth various toys seemed to offer us at the time. As well, it helps us to finish out or complete sets we wished we’d had as children, along with giving us the goal and thrills of discovering long-lost, beloved toys, ones we may have lost or given up over the years because we had no choice or thought we had to as adults.

7. A Colorful Hobby

Coloring books for adults took off a few years back, helping people relax, unwind, and take their minds off daily stresses while creating colorful artwork.

As a growing hobby trend, it offers those who enjoy it an opportunity to follow Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Those who grew up loving to color can once again pick up their crayons, markers, and colored pencils to enjoy coloring in a more meaningful way, coloring Scripture verses into lovely garden scenes to encourage and inspire themselves and those around them.

Hobbies can take the form of service, being whatever warms a person’s heart, such as volunteering for local organizations, hospices, schools, ministries, and more.

Although some may not consider volunteering a hobby, the definition of the word is doing things that bring you pleasure, and for some, that is freely serving others.

As a hospice chaplain and volunteer coordinator, my husband recruits volunteers who enjoy offering support and companionship to hospice patients. They can volunteer as little or as much as they want, offering them an outlet to serve, as well as enriching their own lives. Many who volunteer for hospices do so because they have a loved one who was cared for by a hospice organization, and it’s their way of showing appreciation and giving back for the care their loved one received.

It’s biblical, too, as the Apostle Paul points out in Romans 15:1,”We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.”

Once a person or family has experienced support and care, they often want to reach out to others going through the same thing.

Some people take on extra jobs as hobbies, not because they need the income, but because they enjoy the challenges of doing new things and meeting and working with new people.

Related:

5 Biblical Habits for a Healthier Body and Mind

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