Fitbit Data Reveals the Hobby That Truly Switches You Off

If your calendar looks like a bad game of Tetris, a regular hobby might be the cheapest stress-management tool you’ll ever own. Not in a vague, “live-laugh-love” way either – in a measurable, beats-per-minute, your-heart-actually-slowed-down way.

A large study commissioned by home improvement platform DIYs set out to discover which relaxing hobby really helps people unwind, and which ones secretly feel more like a fitness test. The researchers surveyed 2,379 people to identify the most popular calming pastimes, then strapped Fitbits on 357 adults aged 20 to 30 and sent them off to try 20 different activities.

What came back was a league table of heart rates that turns the stereotype of the “boring” hobby completely on its head.

The calm champion: knitting leaves everything else in a tangle

Top of the table – and by some distance – was knitting. The hobby most often associated with nans, armchairs and aggressively patterned jumpers turned out to be the ultimate chill pill.

Participants knitting away clocked an average heart rate of 65 beats per minute, the lowest of all 20 activities tested. Against a baseline resting heart rate of 80 bpm, that’s a 18.75% decrease. In other words, if stress is noise, this hobby hits the mute button.

It wasn’t just physiologically soothing either. An enormous 93% of participants said knitting was their favourite from the list, making it both the most relaxing and the most loved.

So if you’ve ever rolled your eyes at someone pulling out needles and yarn on the sofa, it might be time to apologise – they’re quietly running their own built-in stress clinic.

Second place: why fishing still feels like a day off

In second place sat a classic Father’s Day favourite: fishing.

Anglers in the study ambled along at an average of 72 beats per minute, with a 10% decrease from resting heart rate. It’s hard to be surprised. Fishing gives you long periods of stillness, gentle concentration, and the kind of silence you never get on public transport.

There’s a reason so many people will happily sit by a murky lake for hours in damp weather. On paper it looks like “doing nothing”; inside, your nervous system is quietly taking the day off.

Joint third: when your hobby lives on paper or a screen

Third place turned into a tie between two activities you’d rarely see mentioned in the same sentence: blogging and calligraphy.

Blogging – the keyboard-heavy hobby of the online diarist – brought participants’ average heart rate down to 74 beats per minute, a 7.5% reduction from resting. It also proved quietly popular, with 72% of people naming it as a favourite, placing it sixth in the popularity rankings.

Calligraphy matched blogging at 74 beats per minute and the same 7.5% decrease. Watching ink glide across a page, forming clean, precise lines, clearly taps into the same focused calm you get from doodling in a textbook margin – just with better penmanship. Yet only 16% chose it as their favourite hobby, suggesting it’s still more Instagram reel than mainstream ritual.

What links both? A mix of light concentration and low physical effort. Enough engagement to distract a busy brain, not so much that you feel you’re at work.

Painting, pottery and the art of slowing down

Just behind the frontrunners sat painting, with an average heart rate of 77 beats per minute and a 3.75% decrease from resting. It didn’t dominate the popularity vote – 39% picked it as their favourite – but physiologically, it still nudged the needle in the right direction.

Pottery landed mid-pack with a heart rate of 101 beats per minute and a 6.25% increase, more active but still far from the red zone. It also ranked tenth on the “most popular” list.

These creative hobbies share a theme: repetitive, tactile movements, a single task to focus on, and permission to make a mess. It’s mindfulness, just without the app and subscription fee.

Where golf, yoga and gardening sit on the stress scale

If your idea of a relaxing hobby involves fresh air and a bit of movement, the data still has something to say.

• Golf recorded an average heart rate of 120 beats per minute, a 50% increase from resting. That sounds high until you remember golf is part walk, part swing, part quietly seething about missing a three-footer. It sits in the “active but manageable” zone – you’re moving, thinking, and occasionally muttering, but not red-lining.
• Yoga came in at 129 beats per minute with a 61.25% increase, and Tai Chi at 128 bpm with a 60% increase. Both are technically workouts – your muscles are working, your balance is tested – but the slow, controlled nature of the movement means many still experience them as a relaxing hobby, mentally if not strictly cardiologically.
• Gardening sat at 135 beats per minute, a 68.75% increase, placing it 16th for relaxation but third on the “most popular” list. Hands in soil, plants in need, and the gentle satisfaction of keeping something alive – it’s exercise smuggled in under the banner of pottering.

For anyone who struggles to sit still, these active hobbies might be the sweet spot: your body gets a workout, your brain gets a breather.

The ‘pedal to the metal’ outlier: biking blows up the curve

At the other end of the spectrum, biking finished stone last in the relaxation stakes.

Cyclists in the study averaged a heart rate of 175 beats per minute – more than three times the rate recorded for knitting. That translates to a 118.75% increase from resting, making it the clear outlier on the chart.

Despite the endorphin rush, biking only collected 29% of votes from participants, ranking 15th on the popularity list. It’s a brilliant way to build fitness, but if you’re looking for something that feels like a warm bath for your nervous system, this particular hobby is more cold shower.

The popularity table: relaxing isn’t the only metric

The researchers also looked at how much people actually liked each hobby, not just what it did to their heart rate. The “most popular” relaxing hobby list shuffled the deck in interesting ways:

It’s a reminder that a hobby doesn’t have to be physiologically “calm” to earn its place in your life. Running, for example, sends the heart racing at 164 bpm with a 105% increase, yet it still ranked seventh in popularity. For many, the emotional release matters more than the raw numbers.

How the study actually worked

To build their relaxation rankings, diys.com followed a simple process:

Your resting heart rate is measured by counting the number of beats per minute of your heart while you’re sitting still. A normal resting heart rate range is between 60 and 100 bpm.

First, they surveyed 2,379 people to identify which relaxing hobbies were actually popular. That produced a list of 20 activities, from knitting and baking to gardening, golf and biking.

They then recruited 357 adults aged 20–30 and asked each participant to complete all 20 hobbies over several weeks, wearing a Fitbit for every session. For each hobby, the team calculated the average heart rate and how much it increased or decreased against a baseline resting rate of 80 bpm.

The result: a data-driven snapshot of how different leisure activities affect the body, not just how we think they make us feel.

If you’re wired and anxious, low-intensity, hands-busy hobbies like knitting, calligraphy, painting or blogging look like strong options. If you crave movement, gardening, yoga, Tai Chi or golf may suit you better, even if the heart-rate numbers edge into workout territory.

So Is it worth making time for a hobby?

In a word, yes – but not because a chart says knitting beats biking. The real value lies in knowing that your favourite hobby isn’t just “a bit of fun”; it’s shaping your physiology in real time.

If you need calm, go for activities that slow your heart and occupy your hands without demanding too much of your brain. If you need release, pick the ones that get you puffing, sweating and forgetting you own a phone.

The data from DIYs doesn’t tell you which hobby you should love. It simply proves that what you do with your spare half-hour has a measurable impact on the most important muscle you own.

The only bad option? Having no hobby at all.