How creativity is good for health and well being

As you may have seen art and creativity is something I am extremely passionate about. It’s my life’s work. I would happily live my life tucked away making art and expressing myself creatively all day every day. You can check out the types of art I dabble in here.

There is a lot of benefits that come with tapping into your creativity. It is a common belief that people think they are not good at art or that they are not creative. But this is not true. It’s quite likely that you had some kind of experience when you were younger that stifled your creativity. 

It may have been a comment from a teacher, a friend or a parent that stopped you in your tracks and from then on in you have had the belief that you aren’t creative. 

Well let me be your inspiration. I had that exact same experience too. Growing up I was surrounded by lots of friends who seemed to be able to draw, dance, make music or sing with total ease and to me it just looked like they were naturally talented in those particular art forms. Which they were. My experience was quite different. I found that I have to put a lot of time and effort into my art and creativity. It’s been an ongoing journey of developing my skills. 

The by-product of diving into the learning and commitment to creativity is that along the way I have found that actually it’s not about the finished product, it’s about the process and how it can boost your health and well being.

When you express yourself through different artistic mediums whether it be writing, art journaling, dancing, drawing, painting the list goes on, you will often enter a kind of meditative state. It’s a blissful state of flow. Where you loose all sense of time and completely absorb yourself into the moment of your expression. You become totally present and let go of all expectations, thoughts and simply create. 

Being able to express yourself often without words is such a cathartic and therapeutic process. 

Sounds lovely doesn’t it. 

And it is that lovely, just think about the benefits being in that state of bliss, flow and presence can have on your mental health!

It might sound too good to be true, but simply engaging in creative projects like adult colouring in books does improve brain function and mental health.

Have you ever heard of being in flow? Being in flow is a state you enter into when you’re completely absorbed into something. Have you ever been reading a book or working on a project and all sense of self and time disappears? That’s flow. It helps reduce anxiety, boost your mood and even slows your heart rate!

Repetitive creative motions like drawing, knitting, or writing are all tasks that create a result. When you succeed at creating a result, no matter what it is, your brain is flooded with the feel good chemical that helps to motivate you called dopamine!

Did you know that creative acts have been compared to meditation due to their calming effects on the brain and body? Creating helps focus the mind which is very helpful considering the average person has about 60,000 thoughts in a day!

Did you know that creativity can boost your immune system?Its time to take a good look at how journaling a form of expressing writing  can benefit you. Lots of people don’t keep a journal because they see it as childish or silly.  Studies show people who write about their experiences daily actually have stronger immune system function. Although experts are still unsure how it works, writing increases your CD4+ lymphocyte count, the key to your immune system. Listening to music can also rejuvenate function in your immune system.

Another way in which creativity can benefit you is that it has also been found to help process trauma. I am a huge journaling junkie and have many many journals from the last 5 years. I know for sure that journaling and drawing definitely helped me process through my traumatic birth of my son! Studies have found that the process of writing helps people to manage negative emotions that they have in a productive way. Journaling helps to be able to integrate negative and traumatic experiences into your life’s story, creating meaning for events that left indelible marks. After my birth experienced I wrote and wrote and wrote about what I was feeling and what had happened. I even drew the theatre where I had my c section, it allowed me to express my experience with and without words!

How good is all this! It just shows how vital the creative arts are for all of us both young and old. Why not take your own health and wellbeing into your own hands and welcome in more art and creativity.