Why Making Art is Essential for Our Wellbeing
Often, society forces us away from creative practices because they do not relate to our jobs, finances, or other responsibilities. However, making and appreciating art in our lives is almost as essential as food, water, and shelter. It can help us to process our emotions, experience joy, and engage in meaningful connections with others. Art can help us to communicate and form social bonds. Art making can truly help us live better, since the process encourages us to live a more healthy life.
It helps us to develop our imagination
When we make art, we enjoy our time creating. But we’re also training the visual and creative part of our brain that is sometimes neglected in our day-to-day life. When we’re stuck in a rut, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, unmotivated, and unable to create. Engaging in a daily ritual of art making can help us train the visual muscle, improve imagination and take a more creative approach to everyday life.
Having a strong visual mind can help us to imagine new possibilities, solve problems more easily, and more easily adapt to changes. Having a strong imagination can help us all to feel happier, since we’re more able to think about possibilities and opportunities in our lives. Engaging in art making is essential to shifting into a more positive and playful approach to life.
It lowers stress
One of the most obvious benefits of art making is that it can help us to lower stress. Engaging in mindfulness activities like drawing, painting, or sculpture can help us feel happier. It can also help us disengage from our busy lives and focus on connecting with ourselves through sensory experiences, like noticing color, shape, and texture in the art we make.
I encourage most of my clients to try to engage in making some type of art as often as they can. It helps them manage stress and disconnect from their hectic lives. Often when we are most creative, we are more at peace with ourselves and the work around us.
It helps you work towards goals
Making art can also help us engage in perseverance, which can aid us in achieving our goals. Often when we make art, we typically don’t finish a piece in just one sitting, but may continue to work on it for several days or months, which requires us to not only be committed to the process, but also to carve out time to work towards our goal of finishing our piece.
Like other goals we might set, such as improving our diet, working on financial goals, or even working on therapy goals, the skills we learn in persevering towards our creative goals can transfer into the other areas of our lives, encouraging us to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves.
We experience achievement
Creating art also helps us to feel achievement once our art making is complete. It is something easy and fun that we can cross off our to-do list in the day, and also have a product to show for the time we spent creating. When we experience and recognize achievements on a regular basis, we are more motivated to continue our work and our personal growth to further develop our lives.
For more information on our writer and Registered Art Therapist, Sam Nolan, click here.