232601
232884
The Happiness Connection  

Find happiness in creativity

Are you feeling bored, frustrated, or tired of being in lockdown? If so, perhaps this is the time to increase your creativity. 

I don’t say that simply to help you fill your days. Being creative has benefits you may not be aware of. They include:

  • Becoming a better problem solver
  • Improving your physical and mental health
  • Developing your confidence
  • Living longer
  • Boosting emotional well-being
  • Reducing dementia
  • Improving your immune system

If you aren’t consciously making time to be creative, then perhaps this list will give you incentive. 

Creativity flows easily when you are feeling positive and open to possibility. It is shut down when you are in fight or flight response. This is the state you are in when you are feeling emotions like anger, stress, or anxiety.

This makes sense when you think about it. When you are threatened, your brain relies on the things that have saved you in the past, to save you this time. Stopping to consider a new survival strategy, would take your focus away from staying alive.

Positive human emotions encourage creativity, increasing connection with others, and procreation. These are also things that help individuals and our species to survive.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait to feel happy before you can tap into your creative powers. If you are feeling bored, depressed, or some other negative emotion, engaging in a creative activity can make you feel better.

When I was in elementary school, I used to think creativity was the same as being artistic. I believed I wasn’t creative because I struggled to write stories and poems and was a disappointing copier in art.

How wrong I was. Creativity spans every area of your life. 

Dictionary.com defines creativity as:

The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.

Every novel idea is unlikely to be completely new. It’s usually an old idea or set of ideas that are linked together in a new way or given a new twist.

You can be creative with music, art, gardening, building, cooking, dancing, programming, writing, design and so much more. 

Everyone has the ability to create. 

You did it all the time when you were young. Think about children in sandboxes, or in baths full of bubbles and toys. They switch effortlessly into creator mode and let their imaginations take flight.

Don’t limit your creativity to the areas you feel comfortable with. Try something new. It is just as much about the process as the finished product. Don’t judge, just enjoy. 

Challenge invites creativity. 

We are certainly in a time of challenge. You may have found new ways to cut expenses or create income. Perhaps you have discovered novel ways to use up the groceries you have on hand. 

It’s easy to see the link between creativity and problem solving with those examples. But even if you are creative simply for the enjoyment of it, your ability to solve problems in the future will have expanded.

If you aren’t sure how to get started, here are some simple suggestions.

  • Get equipment like balls or bean bags and challenge each family member to make up a new game you can play together.
  • Print or buy some colouring books and start colouring.
  • Gather art or craft supplies and see what you can create.
  • Take photographs while you are on your walk.
  • Put on some music and dance.
  • Organize your garage.
  • Sing a well-known song like a nursery rhyme but change the words.
  • Look to see what ingredients you have and put them together in a new way without a recipe.
  • Rearrange your furniture.
  • Write about your COVID-19 experience in a journal, story, poem, or song.

The possibilities are endless. All you need to do is carve out some time and get started.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.



More The Happiness Connection articles

232645
About the Author

Reen Rose is an experienced, informative, and engaging speaker, author, and educator. She has worked for over three decades in the world of education, teaching children and adults in Canada and England.

Research shows that happy people are better leaders, more successful, and healthier than their unhappy counterparts, and yet so many people still believe that happiness is a result of their circumstances.

Happiness is a choice. Reen’s presentations and workshops are designed to help you become robustly happy. This is her term for happiness that can withstand challenge and change.

Reen blends research-based expertise, storytelling, humour, and practical strategies to both inform and inspire. She is a Myers Briggs certified practitioner, a Microsoft Office certified trainer and a qualified and experienced teacher.

Email Reen at [email protected]

Check out her websites at www.ReenRose.com, or www.ModellingHappiness.com



226105
The views expressed are strictly those of the author and not necessarily those of Castanet. Castanet does not warrant the contents.

Previous Stories



228921
227490


231011