A growing number of Danes are choosing to unwind after a day’s work with colouring books for adults, reports TV2.

Danish bookstores such as Arnold Busck and Bog & Ide have recorded increased sales of these books over the past few months.

Playful and creative
“We sell a crazy many of them,” Charlotte Thyberg, the purchasing manager at Bog & Ide, told TV2.

“We started selling the books in the late summer of 2015 and since then many more different variations have become available.”

Adult colouring books are much more detailed than similar books for children, but still allow adults to be playful, creative and practise being present in the moment.

Being in the moment
Some of these books are therefore also marketed as ‘mindfulness books’ because they require high levels of concentration and presence.

“When you sit and colour, you practise mindfulness because you have to be present in what you are doing in the moment,” Anne Mette North, a teacher at the Centre for Mindfulness at Aarhus University, told TV2.

According to neuropsychologist Christian Gaden Jensen, when people sit down to colour the patterns and totally immerse themselves in the process, it is like a meditation.

The bookstores estimate that last year’s great interest in the books will continue.

“We expect their popularity will continue because when people get hooked on something, they come back for more,” said Thyberg.