How does being creative make us happier? When we look at small children or look back at our own childhood we often see that being creative in play, creating art of any form, doing puzzles and enjoying fun activities results in kids experiencing joy and happiness. The same is true for teens and adults! In this BIT, our goal is to inspire you to not lose that childhood joy for creativity and play as it is linked to increasing our happiness. How? Let’s get into it.
Firstly, being creative and doing things that make our inner child happy leads us to take a step back from our daily routine and busy life and have fun just for ourselves. By stepping back and being creative, we are able to distance ourselves from our problems and better process our feelings as well as express them. We stop overthinking, and with a clearer mind we can understand why we feel what we feel. As a result, we are less likely to act impulsively, and in fact we can make better decisions about the feelings and thoughts that often are in the back of our mind. Additionally, when we pour our mind and emotions into a physical form such as art, we feel like we are in control of ourselves and our life. Adding more creativity into our daily lives not only helps us solve problems, but also gives us enjoyment from having fun and doing something we enjoy.
Another study demonstrated that when people were faced with doing a creative task before completing a thinking test, they reported higher subjective well-being scores versus their counterparts in the control group.
Creativity is also linked with problem-solving abilities. When we are creative we are more likely to think outside the box, color outside the lines and think in new ways. Through creativity we become better problem solvers, which can lower our stress. Less stress means more happiness!
Overall, being creative just feels good! When we are being creative, we do something for ourselves. This activity shouldn’t feel like a chore! In most cases this is something that brings us a small bit of happiness
Another study looked at a group of people who did creative tasks for 13 days straight. The study showed that after the days that the participants spent more time being creative, they felt more enthusiastic and energized.
As you can tell being creative, doing something for yourself, and in a way connecting with your inner child leads to more happiness on a daily basis. This doesn’t have to take a lot of time! Try being creative for 15 minutes a day, a few times per week. However, as you can tell from the above studies, being creative on the daily can give you a dose of happiness more frequently. Additionally, you do not have to have an ‘artistic personality’ to be creative. Below we share some fun activities to inspire you to be more creative.
– Try a new recipe. It could be a new twist an old classic recipe, like chocolate chip cookies or Taylor Swift’s Chai cookies. Or, look in a cookbook or online for a new dinner idea.
– Create a mood board.
– Journal or do some creative writing.
– Take time to play an instrument or try learning to play a new one.
– Turn on your favorite song or put on your headphones and dance around your room.
– Do a puzzle.
– Create a balloon decoration/installation.
– Get a coloring book or print some fun coloring pages online.
– Paint rocks. This is a wonderful way to relive some childhood nostalgia. All you need is a flat rock (that you can find outside) and some paint. You can even invite a friend over, or do it with a sibling or parent. Painting rocks is a great way to be creative, and to take a small break. Display your rocks in front of your front door and remember how much fun you had painting them.
Overall, being creative has so many benefits, and there are so many easy ways that you can incorporate creativity into your daily routine. Make sure to have fun and try out new things!
We hope that this inspires you to try doing something creative today, and that you get a small bit of happiness through creative activity.
For more happiness check out our Mood Boost page.
Featuring quick videos created for teens by teens.
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