Adult coloring can relax the fear center in your brain known as the amygdala, reducing stress, and helping improve your sleep and focus. It's also fun.

To get as many as people involved in arts—and the joys of coloring—as possible, the New York Academy of Medicine Library has been hosting an annual #ColorOurCollections project since 2016, with global museums, libraries, archives, and academic institutions participating in the creation of completely free, downloadable coloring pages inspired by their collections.

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A post shared by UBC Library (@ubclibrary)

The coloring books from 2021 and the five years prior remain accessible year-round for free download. You can check out the different options here (note that the website is a little tricky to navigate: To get to the PDF you'd like to download, you'll want to click on a title, for example ‘Eton College Library Coloring Book 2021'. On the new page that click takes you to, click on the hyperlink with the same title, and that's your PDF).

You could draw over vintage motorcycle posters from the archives at Harley-Davidson. You could color in ancient book pages from Barcelona. Victorian flora and fauna illustrations, old medical sketches—it's all available, so just take your pick.

And if none of these printable PDFs are really striking you?

Over the past year, everyone from West Elm to illustrator Johanna Bashford—who popularized adult coloring with her books like Secret Garden and The Enchanted Forest—have been creating free books for anyone to download and color in. And they're wonderful.

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