Adult coloring books have become quite popular today. In fact, bookstores claim these books are flying off the shelf faster than they are published. Researchers claim the growing interest in stress relief coloring books is mainly because of the calming benefits these books provide to stressed-out adults in today’s fast-paced life.
We're going to talk a little bit about why adult coloring books are so awesome, and take a look at some of the best stress relief coloring books we recommend checking out!
What Makes Stress Relief Coloring Books so Special?
These are coloring books meant to be used by adults unlike the average coloring book you are likely to buy for your child. Stress coloring books are designed using a higher quality of paper and feature intricate designs covering a wider selection of themes. There is actually a coloring book on almost every topic from Harry Potter and world cities to animals, flowers, and mandalas.
As coloring enthusiasts claim, these books are special because they make you feel calmer, happier, more relaxed, and mentally clearer as you color the pictures they feature.
Most of the people who use anti-stress coloring books to de-stress claim their worries and anxiety fade away when they start coloring. Just like other arts and crafts hobbies, coloring has the power to focus your brain in the same way meditation does.



Benefits of Art Therapy Coloring Books For Stress Management
The American Art Therapy Association claims that art therapy, which includes coloring pictures, helps you to explore feelings, reconcile with your emotional conflicts, promote self-awareness, develop better social skills, and help you to manage behavioral and addiction problems.
Many psychologists and occupational therapists even prescribe art and other coloring activities to their patients.
Coloring books for stress help to alleviate common triggers to mental or emotional problems caused by boredom and stress. For instance, stress coloring books can greatly benefit people suffering from:
- Stress disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorders
- Anxiety disorders
- Eating and binging disorders
- Substance abuse
- Anger management issues
The time and effort spent coloring intricate pictures helps you transfer focus from negative issues or habits to the coloring task at hand.
The best stress coloring books also help people with PTSD and stress issues to calm down their Amygdala. This is the part of the brain responsible for fight or flight responses. It is the same part of your brain that keeps you in a heightened sense of panic and worry when it is highly activated.
Coloring helps to calm down this part of the brain as you shift your focus from worries and anxieties to the gratifying task of creating beautiful pictures.

Coloring helps to improve sleep. You need high quality to sleep to improve your mood, ability to cope with daily stress, and your productivity. However, our daily activities make it hard to get quality sleep.
We often have to answer emails, send text messages, catch up on football games or favorite shows on TV, and basically do lots of things before light emitting electronic screens just before we sleep.
The blue light emitted by electronic devices contributes to insomnia as it reduces levels of the sleep-inducing hormone known as melatonin.
Coloring, on the other hand, provides a safe electronic-free way to relax just before you sleep without interfering with your melatonin levels.
Best Stress Relief Coloring Books on the Market Today
With the abundance of adult coloring books on the market today, you are bound to get confused on what to buy. We decided to make things easier for you and selected the top coloring books that will not only help to calm your nerves but give you a few laughs too.
Here are our top picks for the best stress coloring books.
Calm the F*ck Down: An Irreverent Adult Coloring Book
This is one of the best stress coloring books from the Irrelevant Book Series. It's a bestselling coloring book that provides you with a unique way to unwind after a hard day, especially if you have a subversive sense of humor.
Basically it lets you color things you can’t say but the book’s 21 single sided pages with two extra test pages will leave you feeling totally amused.
It comes in different levels from moderate to complex. You’ll find a wide range of images to color in the book from cute abstract doodles and animals to people and even fairies! Each image is accompanied by a witty quip such as “Suck it up buttercup” or “Dance like no one attractive is watching.” You get plenty of humorous, and often subversive, sayings in this book.
THE PROS
- Helps calm yo udown
- One image per page so you don't have to worry about bleeding markers ruining the picture on the other side
- Comes with test pages
- It's hilarious
- Can also make a great gift
THE CONS
- You'll want to keep it away from children
Adult Coloring Book Designs: Stress Relief Coloring Book
This stress coloring book includes 48 awesome images from garden designs, animals, paisley patterns and mandalas. Each page helps you relax, relieve stress and is meant to give you a little splash of inspiration to make it through the day. With all the different designs, you don't have to be an expert artist, there's something for every skill level.
This is a coloring book filled with all types of illustrations to keep your mind occupied and at peace. It has circular mandala patterns ranging from simple to complex levels, birds and animals illustrations, floral patterns, and much more.
THE PROS
- It's a little square book that lets you color on the go
- Most of the patterns are fairly easy to color
- Works well with markers, crayons, pens and pencils
THE CONS
- A lot of the images are already pre-colored in black and white. It would've been nice to have them all blank.
Adult Coloring Book: Stress Relieving Animal Designs
This anti stress coloring book has more than 50 animal patterns that will give you hours of fun activity and stress relief as you engage in creative expression. It has small and large creatures and land features including forests, deserts, oceans, and grasslands.
Its designs complexity ranges from beginner to advanced levels. It has single sided pages which means you can use felt tip markers and crayons without fear of messing up the picture on the other side of the page.
THE PROS
- It has every creature or animal imaginable
- Helps take your focus from stressful situations and put it towards the wonderful world of colorful animals
- A majority of the pictures come uncolored (no black or white shadowing)
THE CONS
- The pages aren't perforated so if you plan on framing your artwork, you'll need to use your scissor skills
Release Your Anger: An Adult Coloring Book with 40 Swear Words to Color and Relax, Midnight Edition
This is a global bestseller featuring 40 creative designs incorporating the most wonderfully original swear words, insults, and exclamations designed to vent your emotions and relax.
Each page has a mandala or nature-inspired image accompanied by an appropriate aggression-relieving swear words. It is a perfect gift for someone with a wild sense of humor.
THE PROS
- A perfect coloring book to vent your stress in a humorous way
- It has 40 classic swear words for you to color
- Each word is printed on dark paper (the midnight edition)
- You also get a free PDF bonus inside the book
THE CONS
- Definitely need to keep this one away from kids
Creatively Calm Studios Adult Coloring Books Set
This is one of the best stress relief coloring book sets on the market today. Designed by Creatively Calm Studios’ artists, this coloring book features a wide range of animal, scenery, and geo-shape images to relieve your stress after a hard day at work (over 120 designs!)
The designs come from all over the world, and you get three different books to match your skill level—basic, intermediate and advanced.
THE PROS
- Over 120 images to color
- Uses the thickest drawing paper in the industry to prevent markers from bleeding through
- Includes a bonus of weekly drawings for a year!
THE CONS
- I still feel one-sided pictures would've been better
Note: Niutop 72-color Premier Soft Core Art Colored Drawing Pencils
There is one thing that accompanies every stress coloring book – a set of colored pencils to color the pictures with. Our top recommendation for colored pencils is the Niutop 72-color Premier Soft Core Art Colored Drawing Pencils.
This is a set of 72 pre-sharpened Marco Raffine colored pencils that provide vibrant buildable colors for your pictures. The entire set is available at $21.99 but provides great value for money.
Conclusion
All the stress relieving coloring books reviewed above provide relief from stress and anxieties of life. Most of them are quite humorous too. Someone once referred to laughter as the best medicine.
They all provide the necessary relaxation you need from the tensions and frustrations of our daily lives. Check them out and let us know which one attracted you most.