Art to Lift Your Emotional Wellbeing

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Art to Lift Your Emotional Wellbeing

Artwork 2 Love Breezy BloomsNowadays stress, anxiety and depression have become more common than ever. People take more stress in almost every aspect of their life from the littlest things, this could be work stress, family stress, financial stress and the list just don’t end. Although it may sound funny, art is, in fact, a great way to reduce stress and relax your brain. Art is known to be a great stress relief tool, not just for someone who is good at art but also for people who are not that very artistic.

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Art can help you express your feelings and also reveals your creative side that you probably never knew about yourself! But that’s not the point, art can also help you have an intimate relationship with your feelings, helping you understand yourself better. Remember doodling around on a paper as a child? Sad thing is, as you age, you stop expressing yourself with art like you did as a child. So why not bring that back?

Let’s take a look at some of the ways art helps us mentally and psychologically:

 

1. Distraction

Drawing and art can help us momentarily forget about our worries and stresses. It helps to filter out any negativity from our mind and focuses itself on the drawing. This distraction is necessary because you’ll never be able to tackle a stressful situation without having a fresh mind. This is exactly where art helps you – it distracts your mind and refreshes you.

2. Creating a meditative state

Art creates what can be referred to as a ‘near-meditative state’. It includes much of the benefits of meditation leaving you less stressed out once you are done creating your masterpiece. When you engage yourself in other creative activities, for instance, gardening, writing, drawing, you can experience ‘flow’, which soothes and relaxes your brain.

3. Self-care

Often times, with the burden of responsibilities that are towed upon us, it may be almost impossible to make time for ourselves. Art is one way for you to escape the harsh realities of life and spend some time with yourself. Making time for yourself is important for you as it helps you reflect on your thoughts.

4. Record the beauty of life

One of the best parts about art is its only limit is your imagination. You can draw what you like or even what you don’t like and the paper would never complain. Draw more of what makes you happy, the good times in your life. This will help you revive those memories and in a way, relive them. Draw what you think is beautiful in life. Even while you are drawing, it will pin a smile to your face.

5. Draw your old stress

Drawing more of the stress that you overcame will help you realize your self-worth. It will get you wondering, “If I overcame this worry, then I can overcome this too”. This will also give you a push to get up and face your stress and deal with them maturely. It will make you feel stronger and clear your mind of negative thoughts and ideas.

6. Creating your own happiness

Research shows that when we see something that we find beautiful, the neurotransmitter dopamine is released, which is located in the pleasure centres in the brain. The brain activity, when dopamine is released, is, in fact, comparable to the brain activity that represents love. Thus, when we create our own art, it instills feelings of happiness in us.

7. Capacity to feel alive again

When you are depressed or under deep stress, you might start feeling numb and ‘incapable’ of feeling. Creating art is the best way to express yourself and your emotions. Once you have created and acknowledged the fact that you are something concrete and tangible, you will be able to overcome your worries slowly. When words fail, art does the job of speaking.

Depression, anxiety and stress can be challenging to overcome. These feelings can drain our will power and stall us in achieving our full potential. Art therapy is one strategy to assist in these challenges, and of course, if your situation is severe, contact a therapist and work with them. Sometimes opening up to a stranger can be daunting. Art does not demand you to speak. Words are not necessary. A lump of clay or a canvas to throw some colours in is all you really need. Something as mere as scribbling on a paper can sometimes be the way you can release your anger or frustration. It could be something as simple as that, which could bring light to your world of darkness. When words fail, art speaks.