How Creativity and Hobbies Make a Healthier You

This post was updated in 2022.

"Health" trends and crazes today seem to focus on things like clean eating, keto, and paleo, or kettlebells, marathons, and spin class.  Health goes beyond the physical, however, and it's easy to overlook the health and wellness of the heart and soul.  Today we'll look at two ways to improve your health--hobbies and creativity--and a great way to incorporate both in a meaningful, lasting way.

CREATIVITY
You've probably been hit with a sickness during a stressful time.  According to {Dr. Chris Gilbert}, this is--as you may have already guessed--no coincidence.  She says a full 80% of visits to a primary care physician can be traced to emotional issues.  Aside from stress, this is due in large part to keeping emotions contained instead of expressing them or cognitively working through them (which, by the way, I'm the queen of).

Dr. Gilbert takes emotional expression even further!  She says, "When internal emotions are externalized as art, ... inner conflicts that suppressed these emotions are lessened, and physiological stress responses —such as chronic over-secretion of cortisol and adrenaline — are greatly reduced.” 

Think about that!  Creativity contributes to health and well-being in very real ways.  You can find a great list of ways to creatively express your emotions at BayArt's lovely article, {"How Creativity Can Help You Be Healthier."}

HOBBIES
My friend Lori at Choosing Wisdom wrote recently about why {picking up new hobbies} is so good for you.  She explained that there are two kinds of stress:  bad stress (we all know what that is) and good stress called eustress which is the rush of excitement and joy when we're engaged in something new.  

As Lori says, "Hobbies provide a break with a purpose.  ...When we get complacent in our routines, we are neglecting to challenge our brains."  She refers to research on the mental benefits of having hobbies, including lower depression, and the physical benefits, including lower blood pressure and cortisol.  So hobbies help with the bad stress, and with the good stress, too!

TWO-FOR-ONE:  A CREATIVE HOBBY
Many people have the mistaken belief that they are not creative.  In reality, though, {trying something new stimulates the brain}, so creativity is increased!  And literally, by definition, if you create something, you are creative.  If you have an idea, create a plan, make a cake, build a fence, take a photo, you are creating something.  As {Dina Tibbs} said, "As humans, we are, by our very nature, creative.  Our entire lives are nothing but creations."

Let me encourage you to start a creative hobby that will contribute to your physical health and the health of your heart and soul WHILE AT THE SAME TIME providing {lasting benefits to your loved ones}, such as an increased ability to cope, a decrease in stress and depression, and a greater sense of gratitude, purpose, and belonging.  Start memory-keeping.  Start preserving your photos and the stories that go with them in a tactile way--a book or page that can be seen, held, and loved.

Preserving photos in print and writing down your memories and experiences is cathartic and grounding, but it also gives you the benefits of creativity (creating something) and a hobby that I just mentioned.  In addition, recording your own stories and the stories of your family has been {shown to influence children in profound ways}.

I have been memory-keeping for as long as I can remember, and helping people with theirs since 2005.  The best tool I have seen to preserve photos and memories and stories in digital photo-memory books (or with digital scrapbooking) along with permanent, private cloud storage (with no maintenance fees) is FOREVER.  

Physical health is important, but don't forget how much your heart and soul contribute to your physical well-being, too.  Start your new creative hobby, memory-keeping, today, and find out just how good for you it is!  You can get started at the {"How to Get Started"} tab at the top of this page.

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