When I feel overwhelmed with stress, suddenly my whole life seems too chaotic to tackle.
My body tenses up and I can’t seem to silence the endless chatter circling around in my mind.
I know that I need to prioritize my mental health and doing so through the arts offers a unique outlet for self expression and rejuvenation.
In fact, being creative puts our brains in a meditative state, distracting us from feelings of stress, and releases dopamine.
Adding these 5 creativity habits are specifically made with destress reducing techniques in mind.
1. AROMATHERAPY
Research tells us that aromatherapy is effective in reducing the perception of stress, increasing contentment, and decreasing levels of cortisol by altering brain waves and behavior.
- Relaxation: Lavender.
- Sleep: Chamomile.
- Anxiety: Sandalwood.
- Stress: Clary sage.
- Mood lifter: Lemon.
2. COLOR PYSCHOLOGY
Colors can greatly impact psychological, physical and emotional effects.
And just like some colors can trigger that “alert” response like a flashing red light, other’s can produce a calming effect.
Surrounding yourself with appropriate colors can help you harness their unique benefits, such as stress reduction.
Here are some great colors that trigger the relaxation response:
- Blue: Has post-stress relaxation three times as quickly. Ease you during cognitive tasks since it “enhances performance” on these activities.
- Pink – A soft and tranquil color, pink can inspire a calming sense of peace and balance. Psychologists conducting experiments on prison populations in the early 1980s found that bubblegum-pink hues calmed aggressive prisoners. Alter also notes that these studies’ findings extended beyond prisons into society: Charities saw donations increase when using pink in their promotional materials, and buses with seats painted pink were vandalized less often.
- Green- Helps promote sleep as it reacts strongly with melanopsin ( 2016 Oxford study)
3. Give your mind a break
I’m definitely guilty of having ( at least)10 tabs open…each being way too important to close. Somehow I end up getting nothing done plus more stress that I got nothing done, PLUS having all those tabs open tells my brain I have a million things to do and no time, which of course adds to my stress.
Start looking at that to do list as ” top 3, or top 5″ to get done that day, and forget about the rest. You’ll be more productive, and less overwhelmed each day.
4. MANDALA
“When using our bodies, such as in dance, or our hands, as in drawing or coloring, our mind makes space for the activity we’re doing in place of the stress we felt before.” Sarah Pace
Coloring a mandala is a great way to destress since it’s acts a form of art therapy, that offers a ton of amazing benefits like:
- Reduce anxiety
- Stabilizing blood pressure
- Increased self-awareness
Coloring a mandala has a therapeutic effect due to the symbols representing the obstacles you’re facing in life, things you’ve overcome.
Mandalas give you the power to take your creativity back into your own hands, and putting yourself in the mindful state.
5. GET IN YOUR FEELS WITH MUSIC
You never hear anyone listening to slow sad music to go for a run, or upbeat dance tunes when trying to relax.
Music will always be the quickest and easiest way to destress from a crazy day.
Slow tempos relaxes muscles and quiets those chattering thoughts.
Several benefits coming from tuning into your favorite relaxing tunes:
- lower heart rate and cortisol
- improve well-being
- great distraction from our daily routine
THE TAKEAWAY?
When your head feels like it’s about to explode from the workload, and all the other requests life asks of us, pushing it under the rug hoping it will go away never works out ( trust me..) It’s your mind’s brain of saying time to destress:
- aromatherapy ( lavender + chamomile are the best for relaxation)
- color psychology ( embracing colors that promote a sense of calmness / room lights / clothes/ etc)
- taking mind breaks ( guilty of 10 tabs anyone?)
- mandala coloring ( embrace your inner creativity / child)
- turning on relaxing music