Creativity builds well-being

Some key lessons from creativity research

Certain times of year we tend to think of our goals. At the start of the year, many of us put together resolutions filled with strivings for the months to come. As we enter summer and think of breaks and vacations, thoughts of well-being come to mind.

There are no magic bullets to contentment and psychological well-being. However, the science of creativity documents the relationship between being creative and being well, and it offers guides to boost both creativity and well-being.

Being creative to be well

Creativity can boost our well-being both in the short term and in the longer term. In the short-term, creative thinking can help us solve problems and improve mood by providing a welcome distraction.

Imagine you are facing a problem in everyday life. You thought about it, but don’t see a solution. A few years ago, my husband and had a difficult set of constraints for the summer. We wanted our son to spend much of his school vacation with grandparents, we wanted to have a little grown up only vacation, and had some work-related travel. There didn’t seem to be a solution how to make it all happen. And the more I thought of it, the more stressed and anxious I got.

Then, my husband said, “How about we approach this creatively?” Yes, I am the creativity expert in the family (he’s an oceanographer), but the stress got the best of me. As soon as he said that, the problem seemed transformed. Instead of being an inscrutable conundrum, it became a puzzle. We both could now think in much broader and less conventional or obvious ways. And we realized that this puzzle indeed was solvable. (If you are dying to know, one of us took our son to the grandparents, and the other one picked him up and brought him home. One parent flew to our vacation destination at the beginning of the travel and one at the end).

At other times, we might not have a specific problem to solve, but are coping with difficult feelings, such as sadness or grief. At these times, creative activities that we use to distract ourselves temporarily from the unpleasant feelings make us feel better. Researchers have explicitly compared how people feel after drawing, when they either focus on something unrelated to their feelings or try to express their feelings in what they draw. Contrary to what they expected, scientists found that distraction (not expression!) helps in the short-term. Creative activities that distract us provide a bit of distance to the immediacy of the feeling and can thus alleviate it.

Creative activities help our well-being in the long-run too. Professor James Kaufman at the University of Connecticut has documented how in his book The Creativity Advantage. Our creative hobbies or other everyday creative activities, contribute to our sense of personal growth and meaning. Small things we do in our relationships to enliven and enrich them, increase our own well-being and strengthen our relationships. My teenage son recently made a card for a friend by printing three of his photographs and writing a piece of the birthday message on each of them. Small gesture, but delightful to him when he thought of it and to a friend when he received it.

As we consider creativity over a lifetime, it can contribute to a sense of personal meaning and purpose and have a generative function in our lives – it contributes to something greater than ourselves and can become part of our legacy. This is the kind of creativity of educators who devise creative ways to teach and engage their students, creativity of those who contribute to building new knowledge through their research and scholarship, or creativity of those who build new products that improve our lives or make them more convenient.

Strategies for creativity, strategies for well-being

Creativity can boost our well-being and well-being can in turn make creative work easier and more successful. This connection extends to some strategies that can help both creativity and our experience of wellness.

1.     Pursue new experiences

I have been asked by journalists and friends and family alike what is most important for creativity. A question of this magnitude usually does not have an answer (there are always many important influences when we try to understand thinking and behavior!), but in a rather surprising twist, there is a real answer when it comes to creativity.

The most important thing for creativity is being open to new experiences. Those who are open to new experiences are curious about the world, they value aesthetic experiences, they are interested in trying new foods, traveling to new places and they tend to go off the beaten paths. Being open to experience is not all you need to be creative – but without it, creativity is not likely.

You don’t have to go halfway across the world to have new experiences (even if you might wish to). You can be open to new experiences all around you and in whatever here and now you are. The key is not in what experiences you pursue, but that you actively pursue them. Explore your neighborhood or town and notice what you have not noticed before. Pretend you are seeing it from the first time with a tourist’s eyes, or cook, bake, or make something new. Discovering hidden gems brings surprise and joy. And some ideas lead to more ideas.

2.     Reach out

Contrary to the myth of the lone creative genius toiling in isolation, creativity needs social contact. Not all creativity is a collaborative endeavor like making a feature movie (did you ever notice how long is the list of credits?), but it is safe to say that all creativity is social at some point.

Artists and writers might find inspiration in observing others, scientists come up with ideas based on others’ research, and designers start with observing what users need and want. And all creators need feedback to fully develop their products, even if at times they take it grudgingly or improve their work in opposition to the feedback. If you want to build your creativity, you should reach out and talk about your ideas and your work.

As you create your life, reach out too. Similar to bouncing your ideas for a work or hobby project off of someone, bounce your thoughts and ideas about potential life changes off of someone. You might be surprised how willing to help your friends and family are. Creative ideas usually come from having a different perspective (perhaps different from the one in your head where you can get lonely and stuck; sounds familiar?).

3.     When all else fails, improvise

When you're out of ideas and experiencing a creative block, it can help to simply do. Do what? It does not matter. If you are writing (or attempting to write), it helps to write thoughts or journal to fill the page that would otherwise be empty. When writing down thoughts, the first ones that come to mind often give way to less obvious ones and allow new ideas to emerge.

Creation — of an artwork or life — is to some extent a matter of trial and error. In a classic study, Jacob Getzels and Mihalyi Cisikszentmihalyi asked art students to create a still life drawing and gave them a large set of potential props to use. Those artists who made the most creative drawings explored these props for a long time. Ideas for their still lives did not “come” at once. Rather, they handled the objects, weighed them, compared their sizes, and explored their textures. We should expect no less in creating the ideas for our life.

Make creativity a habit

Educators know that doing something once (or once in a long while) does not result in long lasting learning. This is also why even the best motivational speeches or keynote lectures can feel inspirational in the moment, but are not inspirational in these sense of creating active change in what we do. Change is hard. Doing something new is difficult to both start and sustain.

If you would like to add more creativity into your life to improve your work and boost your well-being, it helps to start small. When you challenge yourself to do something creative daily (or close to that), you will not only experience benefits of little bursts of well-being in the moments you are doing it, but you might in time come to see creativity as a way to approach problems in everyday interactions and activities and in what you do professionally.

I had a good fortune to serve as a scientific advisor for a new app that helps with this goal of infusing a little creativity in our lives. Messier brings daily creative challenges to your phone. You can start your day with a five minute creativity shot, or you can go to it in those times that you need a little distraction and distance from the heaviness of the moment. A creative alternative to our usual endless scrolling. For me, opening my focus and taking a photo of something surprising and delightful works best. You might discover something new about yourself.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Getzels, J. W. (1971). Discovery-oriented behavior and the originality of creative products: A study with artists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 19(1), 47–52. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0031106

Drake, J. E., Hastedt, I., & James, C. (2016). Drawing to distract: Examining the psychological benefits of drawing over time. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10(3), 325–331. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000064

Kaufman, J. C. (2023). The Creativity Advantage. Cambridge University Press.

Oleynick, V.C., DeYoung, C.G., Hyde, E., Kaufman, S.B., Beaty, R.E., & Silvia, P.J. (2017). Openness/intellect: The core of the creative personality. In G.J. Feist, R. Reiter-Palmon, & J.C. Kaufman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity and personality research (p. 9–27). Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781316228036.002

Parts of this article were published previously in Psychology Today