Divorce and separation can bring a host of problems – financial, emotional and practical. One of the biggest difficulties faced by the newly-single is how to fill the time they used to spend snuggled up on the sofa or chatting over the dinner table with their other half.

These days, that void can be filled by social networking sites such as Facebook, but research suggests that far from helping to ease people’s loneliness and isolation, time spent tapping away on a keyboard or iPhone can depress rather than elevate the mood. A study reported this month in the journal Psychopathology suggests a strong link between heavy internet use and depression: the research found that 1.2 per cent of people surveyed were “internet addicts” and many of these were depressed.

A typical piece of well-meaning advice given to those coping with relationship breakdown is to find a new hobby or interest to provide a new focus and to take their mind off what’s happened. This is all very well, but many leisure pursuits involve socialising – and a lot of people simply don’t feel up to doing this in the first weeks and months after separation.

What, then, can you do at home that will not only engross you but also afford a sense of satisfaction?

The answer – for women at least – could be in pursuits learned as a child but long forgotten, such as jigsaws and knitting. In fact, the “knit one, purl one” hobby has become rather fashionable again in the past few years. Here is what one woman, Rin Simpson, wrote in a newspaper column last week about the time her marriage was starting to unravel (no pun intended!): “Not one to mope about, I threw myself into socialising, started no end of projects, made lists of chores to get through so that the house would be a haven for (my husband) to come home to. But there was always a moment when the friends were gone and the carpets vacuumed, when the silence would descend. I’d pour myself a glass of wine, shut myself in the living room and stick on a DVD. I got through hundreds of DVDs in those last few months of so-called married life.

“And then one night, I decided I would start to knit. And something strange happened. As I cast on and began the repetitive process of laying up row upon row of stitches, I began to relax. My ears on the TV, my hands on my work and my eyes flicking between the two, I found that I could pass hours in this way without dwelling on why my husband hadn’t called, or whether we’d manage to get through the coming weekend without a row.”

Rin, whose marriage broke up soon afterwards, continues: “The feeling of control over even this small thing, the satisfaction of creating something, was captivating.”

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have found that knitting can delay memory loss, while a study at the Mind/Body Centre for Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School showed that the repetitive motion of knitting elicits a relaxation response, lowering blood pressure by creating a feeling of serenity.

Taking up a hobby that gives you a new focus and provides a feel of self-satisfaction as well as serenity has to be a good thing – and if that hobby is knitting then you’ll have a new post-divorce wardrobe as well!