Unlock the wellbeing benefits of everyday creativity

Science based facts on how small creative acts can book your overall wellbeing

Today, we’ll examine the well-being benefits of creativity and art-making and, for the sceptical among you, the research evidence to support these ideas.

5 Wellbeing Benefits of Everyday Creativity

As long as your chosen art-making activity is easily accessible to you and your circumstances, art-making and everyday creativity can potentially:

1. Everyday creativity nurtures your overall wellbeing.

2. Helps regulate emotions, leading to better mental health.

3. It reduces stress and makes you more resilient when facing life's challenges.

4. Creativity opens your mind and makes you more innovative.

5. Creative thinking can prolong your life! (Yup - there’s research to prove it!)

Your everyday creative activities are personal to you. It doesn’t matter what you choose to create as long as you feel connected to it. It could include drawing, painting, pottery, sculpture, handicrafts, singing, photography, filmmaking, cooking, or gardening. 

Let’s get on and explore those wellbeing benefits…

Doodle your way to wellbeing

1. Creativity Nurtures Your Overall Wellbeing

When done with purpose, everyday creative activities have the power to nurture psychological health. Let’s take a look at our first piece of research-backed evidence.

Researcher Tamlin Conner and her team at the University of Otago in New Zealand asked 650 young adults to fill out a daily online diary for 13 days. The researchers examined how much time the participants spent on creative activities each day. They also analysed positive and negative emotions and what the researchers called 'flourishing'—an overall sense of meaning, purpose, engagement, and social connection in the participants' lives.

The results were conclusive. People who engaged in creative activities on one day reported increased positive emotions and 'flourishing' the next, suggesting that everyday creativity leads to more well-being.

“Doing creative things today predicts improvements in wellbeing tomorrow. Full stop.”

— Tamlin Conner

These results surprised Conner, who didn't think the findings would be so definitive:

"Research often yields complex, murky, or weak findings," she says. "But these patterns were strong and straightforward: Doing creative things today predicts improvements in wellbeing tomorrow. Full stop."

Even more significant, the results showed that this wasn't the case only for the 'creative type personalities.' These results were found across the board. Whether you consider yourself creative or not, everyday creativity influences wellbeing.

"We can add creativity to the list of 'actionable things' people can do to take charge of their wellbeing," Conner says.

2. Helps Regulate Emotions For Better Mental Health

In a study commissioned by BBC Arts, 50,000 participants took the Great British Creativity Test, in partnership with University College London (UCL). Led by Dr Daisy Fancourt, UCL Senior Research Fellow and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Thinker, the study explored how everyday creative activities boost wellbeing and mood.

This massive survey found that trying new creative activities is particularly good for our wellbeing. Regardless of your level of skill, taking part in creative activity is important. Researchers revealed that we get emotional benefits from just one session of creative activity, which are cumulative.

According to the report, here are the 3 ways that creativity can be used as a coping mechanism to manage emotions:

1. As a distraction tool: Art-making can give us something else to focus on for a while, avoiding stress and patterns of overthinking.

2. As a contemplation tool: As we create, we give our minds the space to assess and perhaps reassess problems that arise, giving us a sense of plan, purpose, and hope.

3. As a means of self-development, a simple art-making activity, such as figuring out how to do something, staying with the process, and following through to completion, helps build up self-esteem and confidence.

“This study is the first to show the cognitive strategies the brain uses to regulate our emotions when we’re taking part in creative activities.”

— Dr Daisy Fancourt

Interestingly, the research revealed that participating in live creative activities involving face-to-face social interaction, such as singing in a choir or taking a group drawing or painting class, is particularly beneficial.

Don't despair, though. Virtual creative group experiences also have benefits, although slightly less beneficial than face-to-face experiences. We are social creatures, after all, so that makes sense.

3. Everyday Creativity Reduces Stress & Increases Resilience

If you need yet more reasons to participate in everyday creative activities, here's an excellent excuse: it can reduce stress.

Researchers at Drexel University in Philadelphia, US, found that creativity and art-making can significantly reduce the stress-related hormone cortisol in your body.

Participants, which included 39 adults ranging from 18 to 59 years old with varied creative experience, were invited to a 45-minute art-making session. Cortisol levels were taken before and after the session.

The participants were given various mediums such as markers and paper, modelling clay, and collage materials. Significantly, they weren't given any direction, and they were free to use the materials as they wished. 

The results?

75% of the participants' cortisol levels lowered during their 45 minutes of making art.

Isn't that brilliant!

Their written responses, taken after the session, were equally positive. Participants found the art-making session relaxing, enjoyable, and helpful for learning about new aspects of self. They felt freed from constraints, enjoyed the evolution of the process from initial struggle to resolution, and talked about ‘flow’ and losing themselves to the creative process. Even more importantly, the session evoked a desire to make art in the future. 

"It was very relaxing. After about five minutes, I felt less anxious. I was able to obsess less about things that I had not done or needed to get done. Doing art allowed me to put things into perspective."

Are you convinced that art-making and creative activities are good for you yet?!

4. Makes You More Open-Minded and Innovative

Creativity requires an open mind, which allows us to solve problems much more effectively. You don't need to be an artist to exploit this extraordinary trait of the human brain. It is in all of us, artists and non-artists alike.

An open, creative mind can think and imagine different possibilities. Isn’t this fabulous! Essentially, we create something just by imagining it. Faced with any problem, our minds beaver away, looking for the solution. The more open-minded we are, the more innovative we become.

For instance, using a recipe without the correct ingredients can be an example of creative thinking and opening one's mind to a new possibility. Substituting oregano for mixed Italian herbs is now an act of creative wonder 🤩

Anna Powers, a scientist who writes extensively about innovation, says:

“Creativity is an important facet in all areas of life because it allows us to create something from our minds, which separates a human mind from a machine…by definition, a creative mind is one that is able to think in a flexible way and imagine different possibilities.”

— Anna Powers, Scientist and first woman to be awarded the Global STEM Leadership Prize

As I was open-mindedly researching this post, I subsequently discovered that having an open mind can potentially lead to a longer life. But how?

Read on…

5. Prolong Your Life. Say What?!

This last piece of research, by Nicholas Turiano (now at the University of Rochester Medical Center), found that expanded openness to life, i.e., having an open mind, can predict longer life.

Well, this is the brilliant bit—using data from over 1,000 older men collected between 1990 and 2008, researchers found that only creativity—not intelligence or overall openness—decreased mortality risk.

Whoa, there—pass me the pencils! 

One possible reason that creativity is protective of health is that it draws on a variety of neural networks within the brain:

"Individuals high in creativity maintain the integrity of their neural networks even into old age," Turiano says.

A research study from Yale University also supported this idea. Their study correlated the quality of openness with the robustness of the participant's brain’s white matter (white matter supports the connections between neurons in different parts of the brain.) And because the brain is CEO for all bodily functions, exercising it helps all systems to continue running smoothly. 

"Keeping the brain healthy may be one of the most important aspects of ageing successfully—a fact shown by creative persons living longer in our study," Turiano adds.

Another vital factor is creative people's ability to handle stress—they tend not to get as easily flustered when faced with an emotional or physical hurdle. If we turn one of life's hurdles into a creative problem that we can find a solution to, we'll handle stress much better rather than feeling overwhelmed. As we know, stress is harmful to our health, including cardiovascular, immune, and cognitive systems.

So pick up the pencils or paintbrushes to find solutions to your problems. That's where you'll find your answers—not in a Google search, social media, or at the bottom of a wine glass 🔍🍷

"Creative people may see stressors more as challenges that they can work to overcome rather than as stressful obstacles they can't overcome," Turiano says. 

"Although studies thus far have looked at those who are naturally open-minded, the results suggest that practising creative-thinking techniques could improve anyone's health by lowering stress and exercising the brain."

Start living creatively every day and reap the benefits. 

Your Summary of the Wellbeing Benefits

Regardless of your level of skill or whether you consider yourself creative or not, everyday creative art-making and activities will:

1. Improve your overall wellbeing, not just during the art-making process but also in the days to follow.

2. It helps regulate your emotions and gives you an outlet to reassess problems, face challenges, and build up self-esteem and confidence.

3. Reduce stress and cortisol levels after just 45 minutes of art-making. By seeing solutions to problems rather than feeling overwhelmed, you will reduce stress levels and feel more in control of your life.

4. Make you more innovative and able to come up with better solutions because being creative requires an open mind. An open mind makes us more innovative when solving challenges, problems, or dilemmas.

5. Creative exercise can potentially lead to a longer life by keeping those little grey and white brain cells healthy and the neurons firing well into old age. Let’s not forget that the brain is the CEO for all bodily functions, and exercising it helps keep everything running smoothly.

Everyday creative activities can help you live more mindfully and in the present, too—because mindfulness can go hand in hand with creativity.

I want you to know that by simple art-making, you are guiding yourself to be more resilient, to have an open mind, and to see the world in new and exciting ways. You are allowing your inner voice to be heard and taking the ultimate step in self-care. 

Now go create!

Have an inspired day. Stay creative

Thanks

Claire Venus

for inspiring me to share this with the 24 Essays Club.

For simple creative exercises to play with, try a Creative Prescription!

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