Why Creativity is a Vital Measure of Health and Fulfillment (Part 1)
May 02, 2024Season 1Episode 10
Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC
This episode is all about the exploration and connection between creativity, health, and overall fulfillment in life.
We'll talk about how our nervous system regulation influences creativity and can either constrict or expand our ability for expansive thinking.
I'll also guide you through practical strategies that not only amplify your creativity but can also drastically improve your well-being and overall sense of fulfillment.
Chapters: 0:03 Creativity as a Measure of Wellness
And for those eager to continue this journey, our upcoming mental wellness training, Ignite, is crafted to deepen your holistic mental wellness practice even further.
Join Calibrate 🧬 Become Your Own Medicine by Harnessing the Power of Your DNA & Daily Choices for Optimal Health & Mental Wellness (50% off on pre-sale now!!)
✨ Book Your Mental Wellness Breakthrough session! This is for courageous folks who are ready to ditch the physical and mental health symptoms, take their life back, and embody their most flavorful, fulfilled life. (New Client Session)
This episode is all about the exploration and connection between creativity, health, and overall fulfillment in life.
We'll talk about how our nervous system regulation influences creativity and can either constrict or expand our ability for expansive thinking.
I'll also guide you through practical strategies that not only amplify your creativity but can also drastically improve your well-being and overall sense of fulfillment.
Chapters: 0:03 Creativity as a Measure of Wellness
And for those eager to continue this journey, our upcoming mental wellness training, Ignite, is crafted to deepen your holistic mental wellness practice even further.
Join Calibrate 🧬 Become Your Own Medicine by Harnessing the Power of Your DNA & Daily Choices for Optimal Health & Mental Wellness (50% off on pre-sale now!!)
✨ Book Your Mental Wellness Breakthrough session! This is for courageous folks who are ready to ditch the physical and mental health symptoms, take their life back, and embody their most flavorful, fulfilled life. (New Client Session)
Howdy friend. Welcome to Unforged, an unfiltered holistic nutrition and mental wellness podcast for evolving folks that crave a delicious life of fulfillment. Haley, here I am, your host, a trauma-informed functional medicine, dietitian, holistic mental wellness coach and the founder of the Fulfilled Fork. On this show, we dish up insights and activations while learning about sustainable mind, body, soul lifestyle practices. It's sweet, it's savory and it'll spice up your life. To stay connected, make sure you sign up for our unforked email list at thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Welcome back to the Unporked. I'm leaving that in there. Welcome back to the Unporked podcast, my friend. Oh, that was a good one, okay. So if you are new here, I am so grateful that you have found us and joined us. If you are returning, I am super grateful that you are here as well. I just keep talking. I keep thinking about how. I just said unporked, oh, my god.
Speaker 1:
Okay, today we're going to be talking about creativity and how creativity is a measure of health, wellness and, ultimately, fulfillment. It's a fucking incredible episode, might I add. I'm really excited to talk about this. We are going to dive into that in a second, but first, but first I want to invite you to the Ignite your Holistic Mental Wellness Transformation. It is a free training that I have created, of course, to help you confidently step into your next level of health. If you're here, I know that's something that you desire and I want to help you ignite that transformation through this training. So, when you watch the free holistic mental wellness training yes, it is free. It is free and it is going to teach you those three foundational strategies to sustainably step into your next level of health with confidence, clarity, and we're doing this so that you can claim that next level you in your most flavorful, fulfilled life. Oh, my god, it's juicy. I'm really excited for this one. When you sign up, you are officially signing up to ditch the confusion, the stress, all of the overwhelm that comes with health changes, implementing new health habits, improving your mental health and overall wellness, like nutrition, all the things like holistic. Holistic is what we're doing. I'm so excited for this training. Please go to either my website. You can't miss it. It's a big free training button up at the top and it's all over the website. You will also be able to find the link in the show notes. So if you'd like to sign up, click there and get a piece of the action, my friend. Okay, so we are going to on this Unporked podcast, just kidding, on the Unporked podcast. Today we are talking about that creativity as a measure of health and fulfillment. So why are we even talking about this?
Speaker 1:
I was deeply inspired to write this and write it as in I journal, and I think and stew over the things I've been saying stew a lot today, by the way, but I really think through all of the things that pop into my awareness, right, so I was writing about it. I was thinking about it as I was laying in bed. I was feeling so inspired and creative last night that I had a hard time falling asleep. We had to turn that brain off. So it was inspired, though, by a conversation that I had with someone close to me, and they mentioned that they were hoping that their creativity would return someday. This person is a photographer a fucking brilliant photographer, might I add, and someone who I would consider as a highly creative person. Now, for context, this person has not been feeling creative, and for probably three to four years at this point, like it's been a while.
Speaker 1:
This conversation came up because they decided to quit a position that has been burning them out and is no longer in alignment with what they desire in life, and thus the hope was that, well, I hope the creativity comes back after I'm out of this position. Right, and my response was you're probably not surprised. Your creativity is absolutely coming back because you won't be in that stress response and burnout anymore, like it's inevitable that your creativity come back after you've moved out of this position. And how do I know that? How do I know that happens? Because I've experienced it and I personally use creativity as a measure of my health and how I'm doing. It is one of those pillars for me to see if I am on the right track and in alignment with my values, desires, goals, vision, all the things. So what this is bringing up for me right now is the recent like they're pretty recent changes.
Speaker 1:
I have stepped into the fulfilled oh my gosh, today words guys, the fulfilled fork. It's my fault for making my brand name a tongue twister, but I stepped out of a full-time position as a clinical dietitian, slash diabetes educator, slash nutrition therapy manager, like it was a full-on position that was basically three, four positions wrapped in one and I was the only dietitian at this hospital and so, as you can imagine, that is quite a lot. And after almost four years of doing that, I was fucking tired, burnt out. I had already started the business and I just noticed't have the capacity. And it's no wonder, because I was so burnt out. So burnt out, just depleted, my creative juices were not there.
Speaker 1:
So then, when I resigned from that position and stepped into the fulfilled fork full time, it took a little while. I needed some rest. Right, we'll talk more about rest later. I needed some rest and I needed to take care of my body and start moving a little bit more than I had been moving and do all the things that I value and know move the needle, not only for me but for health and wellness in general, for everybody. Right, there's not saying that things aren't personalized, because absolutely they are, and that's what we do here. But there are the broad categories that move the needle, like movement, nutrition, all those things, sleep, rest, and so once I started doing those things more regularly, in more alignment, like how I was doing those things, my creativity just skyrocketed. It came back in full force, and not even just came back, but like it came back, came back, but like it came back with a whole new level that I didn't even realize was possible for my brain and body.
Speaker 1:
I didn't know that I could be this creative. I knew I was creative. I've always been like a highly artistic and creative person. If you don't know, I'm also a photographer and, like I used to paint a lot, I haven't painted in in a while, at least regularly. Yeah, I journal, I read, I write, I do a bunch of creative things, photography for me being the main one. I'm also a very creative thinker, and so creativity doesn't just have to be the artistic pieces that we. We tend to only think of creativity as that first and foremost.
Speaker 1:
But creativity is also the ability to generate those new ideas. Ability to generate those new ideas, out-of-the-box concepts. It is a channel for expressing our thoughts, emotions and offering insights into our worlds, into our emotional well-being, our mental well-being, our dreams, desires, values, visions. Creativity also encompasses those problem-solving skills, our adaptability to change and just having a unique ability, basically resilience. So we're approaching our daily challenges in a resilient way. What used to knock us down or throw us off or whatever, is no longer such a big deal or we're able to handle it with more grace and ease and personal power. Creativity is an incredible measure of health and fulfillment.
Speaker 1:
Let's dive in to the nervous system regulation and creativity. That's where I want to take this episode. We could go a lot of different ways, but I want to keep it focused on the nervous system regulation and creativity. That's where I want to take this episode. We could go a lot of different ways, but I want to keep it focused on the nervous system regulation for this go-around. If you would like to hear more about creativity and fulfillment and goals and that side of creativity, let me know. We can certainly go there. I would love to go there and I might go there anyway. Even if you don't tell me you want to go there, I probably will. Okay, I digress.
Speaker 1:
So nervous system regulation and creativity are absolutely connected, as we have established. How, though? How are they connected? We're going to talk about the different, a couple of different parts of the nervous system. We're not going to go into depth in the whole thing, yeah, but we will talk about the parts of the autonomic nervous system, and those parts of the autonomic nervous system are the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. So the autonomic. I like to remember it always from, like, high school, from college, it was beaten into my brain that the autonomic is like our automatic reactions. It's how our body reacts and responds to our environment and all the things. The autonomic nervous system regulates our body's response to the stress and to the relaxation, and this does play an incredible role in how our bodies and minds respond to stress and relaxation, which plays a huge role in how our bodies are able to respond to our environment and thoughts creatively.
Speaker 1:
First let's go into the sympathetic nervous system, which is also known as the fight or flight portion of the nervous system. So if we're in a stress, a stress, a state of stress or anxiety, the sympathetic nervous system is going to activate. It is going to increase our heart rate and get us in our bodies in a state to focus on our bodies in a state to focus on on the threat. Right, and this doesn't even like I. I always use the the grizzly bear example. Um, I live in Wyoming, so here's grizzly bears here. Um, if I see a grizzly bear, my body's gonna be like, ah, I am in the state now it's's yeah, my body's going to mobilize into this state.
Speaker 1:
Where I can, I can react and respond to this, this immediate danger. This also happens when we are thinking of stressful events, stressful situations, things that like we can think of certain situations and I'm thinking of me being really, really negative, like if I expect an incredibly negative outcome and it's just so horrible my body's gonna be in like ready for me to react. Right, it's not going to be rested and more calm. And so, while the response is incredibly beneficial in those acute stress situations, the prolonged sympathetic nervous system activation leads to that stress, it leads to the anxiety, it leads to burnout and that negatively affects our creative thinking, not to mention all of the incredibly negative effects that being in this prolonged, chronic state of stress does on our health. Oh my gosh, it just breaks down our bodies.
Speaker 1:
You can see how it negatively affects creative thinking and if we are in that continuous state of high alert stress, our brain's focus also narrows. It's convergent thinking, it narrows to deal with the immediate threat. So then we aren't able to think broadly and abstractly, which are essential qualities of creativity and creative thinking, which brings us into the parasympathetic nervous system. So that is the branch of the nervous system that is activated during states of calmness, relaxation, which you will also hear as the rest and digest state. So this rest and digest state promotes divergent rather than the convergent thinking that we just talked about. So divergent is the expansive, out-of-the-box thinking, and the parasympathetic nervous system allows us to have wandering minds, which fosters creativity. So when your mind wanders, you can see how you get new ideas and you're able to solve problems creatively. So we want our bodies to have appropriate responses and have that sympathetic nervous system activation be acute, which means we don't want it to be a really long, drawn-out process Not saying that that doesn't happen, because it absolutely does.
Speaker 1:
I have been there definitely many times, but if we can be in the rest and digest state a majority of the time, that is going to foster not only creative thinking but also health. I want to talk about a quick caveat here. I felt that this was important to mention because, as someone who has previously been an incredibly depressed, incredibly anxious, incredibly stressed and burnt out person, I was using creativity negatively. And I say I was using it negatively because I was isolating myself and using creativity almost as an excuse. It was my coping mechanism, or one of them anyway, but it was a major one for me. I was a constant checked-out daydreamer Like I'm going to go be creative. I'm going to go paint in my dark basement room, the candle lit, and some really depressing music Beautiful music, but really depressing nonetheless. And so we, yeah, and other people use it in different ways. But I know that I was isolating myself and it got to the point where my creative practice was actually not super healthy for me. So I just want us to be aware that this can be a thing that we can use creativity and creative activities. For me, it was like painting and writing um can use it as a, as a coping strategy, and not in a positive way. So this is also similar.
Speaker 1:
Any of these like harm more harmful coping mechanisms. I I relate it to when people just check out and binge, watch TV or play video games and like barely move to pee. Mind you, I also have done that. I used the Sims when I was and, yeah, so I would use video games, I wouldn't computer games, I would use computer games as a coping mechanism and like I barely, barely, left the computer all day, right, and we, yeah, we can see that it's just like using drugs as a coping mechanism, alcohol, it doesn't matter. Like pick your, pick your poison.
Speaker 1:
Right, we can turn anything. We. Basically we can turn anything into a negative expression. There's always the shadow expressions of behaviors and then we've got the more positive expressions on the other end of the spectrum. That's how I like to think of certain things, because everything is it's not all black and white. It is not all black and white. It is not all black and white. It's no different than when healthy eating can become an eating disorder Orthorexia. When you take it too far, it can become unhealthy. So keep that in mind as you're thinking about creativity. I'm not saying go be depressed in your basement and like that's not what I want for you.
Speaker 1:
Okay, how do we balance our sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system for optimal creativity? In other words, I don't I don't really like the word balance, I probably shouldn't use that word, but I do want to talk about how we can regulate, how we can regulate and better regulate our nervous system for optimal creativity. So we need to have these regulation skills so that we can move from the high levels of stress when we're in that sympathetic, dominant state where creativity is super stifled, and move in back into that relaxed state which is the parasympathetic state, so that we can foster that creativity and it becomes a more regular occurrence for us. I believe it's important for everybody, not just for highly creative people. Creativity is for everyone, everyone. If you're not a creative person or you think you're not a creative person, I mean maybe you're just super stressed out, maybe you're just really stressed, maybe you're anxious, maybe you're incredibly depressed.
Speaker 1:
Let's talk about a couple of the strategies to regulate our nervous system. Mindfulness and meditation are really really helpful tools to practice. Nervous system regulation Reduces stress, promotes relaxation, not to mention the. Mindfulness also fosters creativity, because then we can see what creative ideas are actually in alignment for us, because I am a person who has so many ideas, an incredible amount of ideas. I have so many ideas. Are they all for me? Will they all benefit me? Absolutely not. Maybe my creative idea is for a friend oh, that's not for me, but it is certainly for them. Or interesting idea, haley. Let's just write that down. Maybe it'll come in handy someday, I don't know. So, yeah, when we're engaging in mindfulness, we can also connect our creative ideas and our ideas in general back into our values.
Speaker 1:
The next piece of nervous system regulation is healthy eating. So, holy cow, does your gut microbiome and your body's three brains, which we'll talk about in the free Ignite training, if you're interested in that, are three brains, which includes our gut. They influence our mental health tremendously, and nutrition is a key player in the health of those systems. Nutrition influences your body's responses and reaction to stress on a cellular level, so we are directly influencing your nervous system and response to stress by nourishing your body with the foods and building blocks that it needs, not to mention hydration, because, oh my god, is water so important for our mental health and just health in general.
Speaker 1:
Of course, the next one is regular exercise, and I say regular because it's not enough to just do it every once in a while, like healthy eating. It's not enough to just have one healthy meal a week. While that is incredible and I love that, that is a great place to start, it's not. The end goal is just oh, I had one healthy meal this week, right, great place to start. Same thing with exercise. I exercised once this week, or I moved my body in an intentional way, such as going for a walk once this week. Amazing, fucking love that for you. Now, how do we make that a more consistent part of your routine and a thing that you no longer have to think about and really try hard for, like my morning walks, I just do them, I just do, I don't even think about it, I just go out and I walk. Exercise, of course, helps manage our stress and I find that a lot of the times I am having incredibly creative ideas when I move, creative ideas when I move, moving my body is incredibly helpful for generating creative ideas.
Speaker 1:
The next part, which we've already alluded to early in the episode, is that adequate quality sleep. And then also I'm going to add in brain rest. Of course, adequate sleep helps literally everything in our body oh my gosh, everything, especially brain health, cognition. It reduces, if we get adequate sleep. It reduces our stress, it reduces our anxiety, influences the foods that we are choosing to eat. So therefore it can influence your gut health, which influences your nervous system. It's all connected, folks. It's all connected. And so when you get quality sleep, so are you waking up feeling well rested in the morning or do you feel like you got hit by a bus? That's a good place to check. And then, are you getting enough hours of sleep? Are you getting enough sleep? That's really, really important. And then I also say brain rest, because if you are somebody who is loves learning, loves music, podcasts, books. Maybe you love social media and like seeing what everybody else is up to. I like seeing other people's photography.
Speaker 1:
When we consume so much I'm saying this also from experience when we consume so much, there's not enough room for us to be thought leaders of our own lives. We don't have the ability to formulate our own opinions and to contemplate different perspectives and ideas and really get creative with. You know the things that we do choose to consume. So I want to emphasize moving towards mindful consumption rather than mindless, like when you're on your social media, on your phone and you're just scrolling and scrolling Like. I know that it's so easy to get trapped in that because it's literally designed for you to get stuck in the scroll, right. But when we are not taking breaks from that consumption, it can create a sense of anxiety, comparison stress, it can activate our stress response and it can hinder our ability to have that out-of-the-box open thinking. So if we help our bodies and minds rest and become, then they become more receptive to creative thoughts, creative projects, all the creative things.
Speaker 1:
The last piece that I want to talk about today that helps regulate our nervous system is breathwork. Oh my gosh, do I enjoy a good breathwork session. It's wonderful when we are controlling our breathing. We are depending on how we do it because we can. Okay. Are depending on how we do it because we can okay. There's different purposes to different breathwork techniques, and so if we are engaging in a breathwork technique that is designed to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, bring us into the calm state that is going to promote our relaxation and therefore it is going to enhance our creative abilities.
Speaker 1:
So, to wrap all of this up, we talked about what is creativity. We talked about how creative expression is not just an artistic practice endeavor. Creativity encompasses those problem-solving skills, resilience, and it also provides us a pathway to introspection, self-discovery, emotional regulation and can lead us to fulfillment. We also talked about our nervous system regulation and creativity. So how are those two things connected? We talked about the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system in that, and how, when we are in the sympathetic nervous system response. So if we're stressed, burnt out, really anxious, all of those things, if we are in that response, we are not going to be able to think creatively, at least to the degree slash as often as we probably desire. On the flip side of that. When we're in that rest and digest state of the parasympathetic nervous system, we have that expansive, out-of-the-box divergent thinking and our minds wander freely so that we can be creative. We also talked about how creativity can also be used as a coping mechanism. In a negative sense, it can be used as bull, but we want to be sure that we are mindful of how we are engaging in creativity. And then, lastly, today we talked about how to use nervous system regulation for optimal creativity and overall wellness, because all of these things like mindfulness, meditation, healthy eating, regular exercise, brain rest, sleep and then breath work all of those things are going to enhance our health and overall sense of well-being from a holistic perspective, and that is going to enhance our creative abilities.
Speaker 1:
I talked about also how I use creativity as a measure of health and wellness in myself and am I on the right path? Because creativity is something that I highly value. It feels good for me to be creative. I love it. Those are like some of my favorite days or moments of my day when I am just so lit up. So many ideas, things are flowing to me. It's incredible, and I know that I have to do those nervous system regulation activities. I have to incorporate those things into my day-to-day and live my life through my own values and make mindful decisions that bring me towards my most fucking delicious, fulfilled life. All of it interacts, all of it connects to one another. All of it is very important, and so I know this can feel like a lot.
Speaker 1:
I encourage you to reflect on your own creative interests. When have you felt creative in your life? When have you felt the least creative? Creative in your life? When have you felt the least creative? What activities are you most interested in engaging in? So like for me, I mentioned photography, writing, it could also be cooking, gardening, it could be a lot of things. What activities do you find bring joy into your life? Because even engaging in these activities, making time to engage in these activities, can reduce stress. It brings play into our lives.
Speaker 1:
I told you that creativity, for me, feels really good, and so I know that there are biochemical things happening, such as I'm probably getting a good dopamine hit. I'm probably feeling the oxytocin and the serotonin, depending on what I'm engaging in. So how can you potentially bring creativity into your life on a more regular basis, and or where would you like to step up and take it to the next level as far as taking care of yourself, so that you can have incredible creativity in your life. This is a huge piece of wellness. We're thinking about all the aspects of wellness. This is a really huge piece. Take some time with those questions. I know that when you nurture your creative spark, your creative self, your quality of life is absolutely going to enhance. You're going to connect with yourself on an even deeper level and, for me at least, I always feel much more powerful in myself, and especially my self-expression, when I am creative. It feels true, it feels very authentic for me. So I will leave you with that.
Speaker 1:
My friend, I again am so grateful that you are here. You might get sick of me saying that, but it just comes out a lot. I am so grateful. If you are interested in that, ignite your Mental Wellness training. Go sign up.
Speaker 1:
Link is in the show notes and or on my website. I would absolutely love to see you there. Until next time, I will see you on the next episode. Please don't forget to send in your thoughts, questions. I would absolutely love to hear from you. Link is also in the show notes. If you'd like to respond to me, send me an email let me know how the episodes land for you. Let me know if you have any insights. Breakthroughs Cannot wait. Cannot wait. Wonderful, I hope you have a fucking phenomenal day, my friend. Thank you for listening to Unforged. You can find all resources and links from this episode in the show notes at thefulfilledforkcom forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love if you'd send it to a friend and rate and review the show on either Apple podcasts or Spotify. Then email us a screenshot of your review to howdy at the fulfilled forkcom for a one-time credit to use towards our wellness services at the fulfilled fork chat soon.