I get it. Life can be crappy. And when that happens, I don’t know about you, but I either want to curl into a ball and hide from the world or I want to scream and shout and throw things. A brief burst of letting it all out helps release some of that energy, but it does nothing to help me stay creative. Before long, I’m exhausted. I can’t think. I feel dull and uncreative. So when the world around you seems to be a s#$t show, what do you do?
Take Care of Yourself
Take a Breathing Break
No, seriously. Take five minutes at the beginning of your day and the end of your day and as many times as you need to in between. Relax your shoulders. Unglue your tongue from the top of your mouth. Take a deep breath in through your nose. Hold it for 3-10 seconds, then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Repeat this at least five times during each session.
Move Your Body
Honestly. Your body needs to move. You don’t have to get sweaty. You don’t even have to get out of your chair. There are tons of videos on YouTube and Reels on Facebook that offer a variety of chair exercises or exercises you can do at a counter (kitchen or bathroom, no one’s looking).
Play chase or fetch with your pet. Take your furry friend for a walk.
Go to a gym for five minutes.
Walk around the block once.
Climb up and down the stairs in your home.
Whatever exercise you choose to do, five minutes is better than none. As you feel better and get stronger, go a minute longer each week. In an amazingly short time, you’ll move and feel much better.
Eat Healthy Foods
Yeah. Whenever I’m stressed, I reach for the junk food, too. But—junk food lacks nutrients your body needs. Nutrients your body desperately needs during times of stress. So add one more vegetable or fruit to your diet each day. Eat protein at every meal. Protein helps slow the processing of carbs into fat.
Cut down on simple carbs (refined grains like white bread, white rice, sugary drinks, pastries, and candy), caffeine and alcohol. They may make you feel better temporarily, but they lead to blood sugar spikes and crashes, making you feel worse.
Flex Your Mental Muscles
Protect yourself from a constant bombardment of stress. Your circumstances may not allow you to take long breaks from the source of your stress, but just five minutes can help. Step away from the screen and any other stressful situations. Take this time to do one or more of the activities listed below:
- Make a gratitude list. Even if the list only has one thing on it.
- Listen to your favorite relaxation or uplifting music.
- Repeat affirmations, mantras, or rituals that help calm and center you.
- Meditate.
- Play a game that makes you think.
- Memorize and recite all the states in the U.S. in alphabetical order (providences or regions or whatever is appropriate for your country). If you’re ambitious, memorize all the countries in the world and recite them in alphabetical order.
Practice Emotional Wellness
Be kind to yourself. Use kind, positive words in your self-talk.
Be with supportive friends or family members. If you’re a hugger, hug each other. Hold hands. Be with them 100%.
Be Mindful
Ground yourself by being mindful. Sit with your feet on the ground. Take in the surrounding environment. What is it you’re touching? What do you smell? Hear? Taste?
Journal
If you journal your frustrations, the angry or negative things you wish you could do, remember to end your session with at least one calming, positive thing.
Get Quality Sleep
You’ve probably noticed that when you are sleep deprived, your emotions are all over the place. You get angry at things that normally you could blow off. Maybe you cry more easily or you get more strung out with anxiety.
Our brains need sleep. The way our brains (and our organs) function changes when we sleep. Sleep allows our brain and organs to reset, to remove wastes from the system, and to repair and rebuild some things. School-age children need at least nine hours of sleep a night. Teens need between eight to ten hours. And most adults need at least seven or more hours per night. If you don’t get enough sleep, your body cannot fix itself, so you feel worse and worse. But how do you get enough sleep when there’s so much going on?
Go to bed and get up about the same time every day of the week. Your body will respond to the habit by winding down about the same time of day. And you’ll wake up more easily about the same time every morning.
Follow a bedtime ritual. What do I mean by ritual? A ritual is a routine with an emotional component to it. It’s adding something that you look forward to everyday, a payoff of sorts. Besides getting ready for bed, do some small activity that adds something you enjoy or value to the routine. That could mean you take a warm bubble bath, light a scented candle or essential oils, listen to music, or read a book. Take a moment and think about what might make you look forward to going to bed.
Make your bedroom a sleep sanctuary. Remove all screens. Have the most comfortable bed and bedding you can afford. Make the room dark. Use blackout curtains if you can and shut the door. Silence your phone or put it on the charger in another room. Set your thermostat at a lower temperature during the night. Use a white noise device or relaxing music.
Creative Play
If you find it difficult to be creative when life is stressing you out, try creative play. Forget about any rules. Choose a different type of creativity if you like.
Color with crayons.
Act out the next scene with paper dolls, toy soldiers, or barbie dolls.
Build something with play doh, popsicle sticks, or legos.
Try a new-to-you musical instrument.
Experiment with origami using whatever paper you have on had.
Mud pies, snow forts, anything that you can create is game. Let your creative side have fun. Even silly fun can help build your creative resilience and skills.
Even doodling for a while might help relax your creative side.
Creative Rituals
I hear you groaning. There she goes with rituals again. But rituals actually help in some situations. You never know until you try. Your ritual will be unique to what you need at this time, but I’ll share a few.
One ritual can be to clear off your workspace. Light a scented candle while you repeat a mantra to yourself. “I am tuning into my creativity with the lighting of this candle.”
A more elaborate ritual might be to mute your phone, brew a cup of tea, pour it into your favorite mug and place it and your favorite snack next to your workspace. Then turn on a specific lamp, put on noise-cancelling headphones, set the timer for ten minutes and write a “brain dump” (every to-do item, thought, or concern that comes to mind during that time). Then reset the timer and create.
Playing a specific piece of music may be all the ritual your muse needs.
I’ve used different rituals at different times in my life. Right now, journaling at the end of my day is the ritual that’s working for me. I check in with what I’d hoped to accomplish, what I actually accomplished, what obstacles I faced, how I did or didn’t overcome those obstacles, and I make a quick plan for the next day. These are the things I want to accomplish and what obstacles might interfere and a plan of things I can do to overcome those obstacles. The last thing I journal about is a quick description of the scene or chapter I want to write the next day. It’s kind of like priming the pump. My muse works on the idea overnight and is ready to go when I sit at my desk the next day.
A creativity ritual can literally be anything that gets you ready to create. It’s a signal to your brain, to your muse, that now is the time for creativity.
Give Yourself a Break
If you’ve sat and tried to play, tried to create for twenty minutes and you still can’t. Remind yourself it’s okay. You might not be able to do it this minute, but you’ll do it again. Be kind to yourself. Literally, as if you’re speaking to your best friend, tell yourself (aloud or silently) that you’re all right and give yourself the encouragement that you need to hear.
Then make a promise to yourself. Set a specific date and time that you’ll sit down to create again.
Celebrate Your Creativity
That’s right. You need to celebrate your creativity however much or little you’re able to do during stressful times more than ever.
Record what you accomplish, no matter how small. Measure what you’ve done — word counts, time spent, chapters written, images sketched, rows knitted. Make a record of that accomplishment. Take a photo of what you’ve achieved and put it on a real or virtual wall of pride. Put it on a spreadsheet or a daily list or give yourself a gold star on your calendar.
Even that small gold star will help remind you that you are a creative being. You create even in difficult situations.
Do What You Can Do
Sometimes life sucks. It hands us more trouble and trauma than we can bear at that moment. It’s okay to knuckle under. But remember: you’ve got more strength and more creativity in you than you can feel in the moment. Know that creativity and strength will carry you through even the darkest of times. If you remember who you are, no one can stop you. You are creative.