The Best Hobbies To Pick Up In Your 20s — THE PROGRESS CO (2024)

It's so important to try new things in your 20s as it will help you get to know yourself better and ultimately shape your future. Trying out new hobbies is the perfect way to stimulate and challenge yourself, so you don't get caught up in the tedious parts of life.

There are also many more benefits to picking up a hobby beyond just exploring your interests. Hobbies are extremely beneficial to your mental (and often physical) health, especially in a society that is heavily influenced by technology. You will also most likely gain skills that can help you in all aspects of your life, including your career.

So if you're finding yourself bored, glued to your phone or stressed out, then taking up a new hobby may be the cure you have been searching for. Hobbies encourage you to take a break whether that be from boredom, technology or work, and you will quickly find it to be a great stress reliever.

In order for hobbies to educate and enlighten you, it's important to learn and practice whatever captures your interest and imagination. Just because your friend loves running in her downtime, doesn't mean you have to go down that path too. In fact, doing something you don't enjoy might stress you out even more. Luckily, there are endless options of hobbies to try out and we have collated some of the most useful and beneficial ones to pick up in your 20s!

Pottery

Pottery is quickly becoming the next biggest thing, particularly because of how great it can be for your mental health. Just 45 minutes of clay play can reduce cortisol levels, otherwise known as the stress hormone. Since pottery relies on your fingertips to mould the clay, an area with some of the densest nerve endings on the body, just the act of working with clay stimulates these pressure points and provides us with a multitude of therapeutic benefits.

So it doesn't matter how perfect or imperfect your clay ends up, the health benefits are embedded within the process, not the final product. If you're interested in taking up pottery then find a local ceramics studio that offers classes. While it might be a monetary investment in classes at first, you will soon pick up new skills and might even want to sell your finished ceramics or give them as gifts to your friends!

Sewing

Sewing is a skilful hobby that is super useful in everyday life. Being able to sew means you can alter and repair your clothes, or revamp second-hand clothing or soft furnishings, ultimately saving you money and helping the environment as you learn to upcycle. Fast fashion not only has a devastating impact on our planet, but it's also costly and often supports unethical labour practices.

There are also some health benefits of sewing too. Physically, it helps improve hand-eye coordination, encourages you to maintain proper posture, keeps your fingers nimble and lowers blood pressure since it's a stress reliever. Sewing can be challenging but that is actually great for our mental health because it helps us learn to improvise and improves our focus and attention.

Unfortunately, anyone in their 20s has always been subject to fast fashion, which means sewing has become a less required skill than a few decades ago when almost every woman had the ability to sew. Picking up sewing as a hobby in your 20s is impressive, environmentally-friendly and a great creative outlet.

Hiking

Taking up hiking as a hobby is a perfect way to reconnect with nature. A lot of the time we have our heads down in our phones and forget to look up at the outside world. Or perhaps living in the city makes it harder to get out in nature. Fortunately, hiking is a fun, free and beneficial hobby to take up in your 20s! It's great for both your mind and body, as its both a powerful cardio workout and an opportunity to clear your mind.

Research in a study Creativity in the Wild found that spending time outdoors increases your ability to focus, your attention span and problem-solving skills by up to 50 per cent. Our attention spans suffer in today's society, as in a job you are often inundated with emails and notifications that demand your attention which has conditioned us to become distracted. This hinders our creativity, so hiking can also inspire creative progress as well.

The fresh air, Vitamin D, and a few hours away from technology makes hiking the perfect hobby, especially in your 20s when your phone and smart devices demand your attention 24/7. Your career will likely see a great improvement too!

Reading

Reading paperback books feels somewhat primitive in this day and age, but it is definitely worth spending your time on. Reading is super relaxing, and when you pick up a good book it's so easy to get lost for a few hours in the storyline and forget all the worries or stresses in your life. Sleep studies have also proven that you will fall asleep easier after reading a book, experiencing a deeper sleep and consequently waking up feeling more refreshed and energised.

Of course, reading also improves your knowledge and vocabulary immensely which is beneficial in both your career and everyday life. It also improves your memory and concentration because reading requires more attention and for a longer period as opposed to reading something on your phone.

And the best part about reading is you can do it any time, anywhere, so it's great for people who have short spaces of free time, or commute to work and could fill their time with something better than scrolling social media. It's also a cheap hobby since you can pick up second-hand books for just a few dollars, share books (and costs) around with your friends or buy e-books for often half the price of hard copies.

Yoga and meditation

While yoga and meditation are two different practices, both involve the practice of thinking and training the mind and this mental control has an abundance of benefits in your life. Today's world is demanding, with constant digital overload and 24/7 connectivity and it can be particularly tough when you're in your 20s. Therefore the psychological benefits of yoga and meditation, including decreased stress and anxiety, increased productivity, improved focus, a boost in confidence, enhanced presence and engagement, greater creativity and increased happiness, are more important in today's digital society now more than ever.

There is, of course, physical discipline and control to yoga as well, so if you want to roll out the mat and work on your muscle strength, flexibility and balance, as well as mental training, then yoga is right for you.

The more you partake in these practices, the more benefits you experience, so why not create this habit during your 20s and reap the rewards!

Learning languages

Learning new languages can be an insightful and beneficial experience. The world is so connected today and your 20s will most likely be filled with travel to many foreign countries, so learning a language or multiple languages will eventually come in handy. If not in travel, then maybe in your career, as being familiar with multiple languages is highly valued in many jobs.

You don't need to worry if you don't have the time or money to take formal language classes too, as free online resources are vast. Some great free self-learning apps includeDuolingo and Memrise. Once you're familiar with a foreign language it opens up so many opportunities for life like reading, writing and watching film and television in the new language you have learned!

Writing

Writing is a hobby that can take many forms. Perhaps you like to write fictional stories for fun, informative blog posts, poetry or journal writing as a form of meditation. Whatever it is, writing is bound to improve your verbal and mental skills, and its a great mental exercise. Your writing ability will likely improve as you progress in the hobby, which will be invaluable to your career, where writing engaging copy is vital to any business.

It's also really meditative. Writing down all of your thoughts, grievances, fantasies and pretty much anything that comes to mind can really help clear your head. While the end result might look chaotic, the importance of this practice is to simply vent on paper and eliminate any distractions in the back of your head.

If you want to write beyond personal journalling, like poetry, blog posts, fiction or non-fiction stories, think about topics that interest you the most. Many people dread writing because their only memories of writing consist of school essays that they had no interest in. If you're writing about something you enjoy it's hard not to take pleasure in it and perhaps you'll eventually want to make writing more than just a hobby.

Photography

Photography is one of the most useful hobbies you can pick up in your 20s. It's also super easy to do with today's smartphone technology, as the cameras on these devices are good enough and you don't need to invest in a professional camera.

It's a creative outlet that you can use to capture memories and develop your own personal style. Being able to capture the perfect shot is invaluable in many occupations now, so it may just boost your career too. Or perhaps with some practice, you could make it into a side hustle. Platforms like Instagram, 500px, Unsplash or WordPress, make it super accessible to curate your own portfolio.

A great way to start engaging with photography is to take the 365-day challenge, taking a photo every day for a year and seeing how the way you capture your shots change and how your creative style unfolds.

Gardening

You might think of gardening as a hobby for the older generations, but it is truly something that can be enjoyed by everyone! It's a hobby that's good for the mind and body and you will definitely feel a sense of accomplishment when your plants are thriving.

It's a great way to get in touch with nature, and if you decide to grow fruits, vegetables or herbs, then you can save some money and enjoy eating delicious food from the garden. You will appreciate it even more and be encouraged to include these healthy foods into your diet because you grew them yourself.

While gardening is not physically exhaustive, the lifting and shovelling will have you moving which is beneficial to the body. Just being outside in the fresh air and sunshine is also great for your mind and has been known to improve your mood and help you de-stress. It allows you to focus on a simple activity that brings joy. And you won't just be doing yourself a world of good, but also the planet too! Gardens provide great ecosystems for essential insects such as bees and also help improve air quality.

If you don't know where to get started, you might want to start with herbs or salad greens as these are easy to grow and are valuable in a range of meals. If you aren't interested in growing eatables, try creating a terrarium of succulents to keep indoors or your favourite flowers.

Surfing

It's hard not to be lured by the ocean. Surfing provides an intimate interaction to the sea and it can be really beneficial for your physical and mental health. All you need is a swimsuit and a surfboard.

In terms of physical benefits, surfing is great for cardiovascular fitness, shoulder and back strength, and leg and core strength once you are able to stand up. If you're totally unfamiliar with surfing it's worthwhile to take a few lessons with an instructor to help you get up on your feet.

Mentally, surfing is super soothing. It's a great way to connect with nature and is an outlet for any stress or tension. In fact, surfing has been used as a form of therapy with veterans to help them deal with PTSD. There is an inspiring Netflix documentary, Resurface, all about how surfing can alleviate physical and mental trauma.

The ocean is the ideal place to find peace, so riding the waves is a great mindful hobby to pick up in your 20s.