Good News for Writers… The Link Between Creativity and Wellbeing
At Troubador, we have three trained mental health first aiders – staff trained upon a specialist course in 2019 who are available to support the team and put mental health on the agenda in the workplace. We run wellbeing activities, team building events, general support and compile our wellbeing newsletter full of activities, research and tips for staff. Most recently we have been focussing on the links between creativity and wellbeing.
Emerging research draws links between creativity and positivity, with creative activities having a beneficial effect on our emotions and overall wellbeing, even after just one session of being creative. The BBC Arts Great British Creativity Test (2019) surveyed over 50 000 people and showed that creativity distracts us – helping us to avoid stress. It also gives us space to reassess problems. Finally, tackling a creative activity helps us to develop new skills, giving us a sense of achievement and purpose.
Writing is a great way of being creative and expressing ourselves. Our authors write and publish in so many different genres but knowing that the act of putting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, helps quiet our minds and give us headspace, is reassuring in a time when we need to be resilient.
Troubador staff embody creativity every day; cover design, text design, writing, creative thinking and problem solving, but even out of work, many of the team embrace creativity; from writing their own books, to keeping journals. In fact, gratitude journals and reflective journals are an established way of helping to deal with emotions, and writing for wellbeing is a recognised therapeutic activity that can take several forms, including:
Freewriting: set a timer for 5, 10 or 15 mins and write down everything that pops into your head, you are not judging what you are writing, you are just getting it down. Write for the full time non-stop, and when finished read it back. What themes and concerns recur? What can that tell you about how you are feeling? Freewriting is a bit like a meditation – only one that lets us get the jumble of thoughts out of our minds, to make some space for reflection!
Gratitude journal: Simply jotting down 3-5 things every day that you are grateful for. This is positive reinforcement so that even on a bad day you are thinking of the good, not focussing on the negative. Research can show that paying attention to the positive helps lift the mood and enables us to cope better with the negatives.
Keeping a diary: A simple day diary in which you write down your thoughts and feelings can be a useful reflective tool – you can look back at your general mood over a period of time and see how you change and what your mood triggers are. I kept a diary in 2020 for the first time since childhood and every time I felt that I had not achieved or done much in the year, I looked back and saw the evidence that disproved that – even with the limitations of travel and socialising. It also showed me how creative our circle had been in getting together safely, with online parties, games nights, family nights watching the same film at the same time, cheese nights, murder mysteries and theatre nights – all conducted remotely. In fact, we were far more creative in our social gatherings in 2020 than we had been for years… a positive I did not realise until I reread parts of the diary.
In terms of big changes, writing gives us a chance to stop and reflect on what we hold dear and how we want to spend our time. We’ve seen a lot more biographies being submitted, for example, as the realisation that family history lives in our grandparents, and great grandparents and should be recorded and captured. But any writing can give us an emotional boost and a feeling of achievement, no matter what genre. We don’t even have to be writing with a purpose – the act of creating something for ourselves can be enough.
While writing might be a solitary pursuit, publishing and marketing your book – both of which also call for creativity and learning new skills too – certainly are not, and in fact, require communication and networking! Many of our authors form a bond with the team working on their book – as they create the project together – which increases our safe and positive social interaction in a time when we can all get out and about less.
So next time you find yourself feeling a little bit down – can getting a little creative give you a lift?
