Mental Health Moment: 3 Ways Creativity Can Help Us Cope

21 Aug Mental Health Moment: 3 Ways Creativity Can Help Us Cope

For further information about the pandemic in the Telluride region, go to tellmed.org/coronavirus.  For San Miguel County updates, go here.

If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, call The Center for Mental Health’s crisis line at 970.252.6220. For help with deep stress, Lindsay Wright can be reached by calling the Telluride Medical Center at 970-728-3848 or, if you are a patient, by messaging her through the Telluride Medical Center portal.

In this week’s Mental Health Moment, Lindsay talks about “3 Ways Creativity Helps Us Cope.”

Lindsay Wright, LMFT, of the Telluride Medical Center talks about tools for coping with anger in the Age of Corona.

And in Spanish:

Creativity is a human-specific characteristic and much research has been done in regards to how engaging in creative pursuits can benefit our well-being. Creativity can help us to practice focus, express our emotions and decrease anxiety.

One such study, conducted by BBC Arts, found that even engaging in creative activities for a short period of time can help improve our mood. in addition, it was determined that creativity can help us in three other ways.

First, engaging in creative practices can be a distraction technique, refocusing our attention from stressful situations.

Second, creativity can work as a means of contemplation, helping us problem-solve and create new ways of addressing our concerns.

Third, using our creativity can help us build feelings of confidence and self-worth.

It’s important to note that it is simply the act of engaging a creative project that helps us to feel good; we can be absolute beginners and still gain great benefit from engagement in such activities.

For many of us, now may be a good time to put our creativity into practice. Creative projects can take many different forms from cooking to painting, knitting, planting a garden, and sculpting to at home organization, playing with a child, writing short stories… There are myriad possibilities!

Creative activities should provide room for experimentation, imagination and flexibility. Whether the activity is something you are trying for the first time, or something you have practiced for decades, be sure to keep judgmental thoughts about what you create to a minimum, and allow yourself to experience joy and pride for whatever it is you choose to make or do.