8 Ways To Boost Your Mental Health with Creative Writing
Creative writing is the ultimate free way to boost your mental health naturally. It provides a creative outlet and offers you insights into your emotions. Here are tips to start creative writing.
Everyone’s responsible for their own well-being. Everything we decide, do, eat, say, or think influences the quality of our life. These form our “diet, and that’s why it’s imperative to take equal care of your physical and mental health. We’re all quick to work out our abs but not our minds. One of the best ways to boost your mental health is to work out your brain through creative writing.
How Creative Writing Can Boost Your Mental Health
There are many different strategies for improving your mental health. One of the most effective options is creative writing.
Creative writing allows you to access subconscious realizations about yourself. You can come to conclusions you didn’t know existed. That way, you can work on bettering yourself as a person.
This outlet can also help you explore your creativity. Create your own escape from reality without being sucked into more screen time.
Creative writing can also be cathartic. It’s a way to get all of your emotions out in the open. That way, you can let it go.
When you boost your mental health, it creates less stress. Stress can trigger inflammation.
One analysis on stress and inflammation stated,
“Evidence suggests that acute and chronic stress is associated with increased inflammatory activity and enhanced attentional processing of negative information. Both are predictive of negative mood and depression symptoms that, in turn, increase inflammatory and cognitive stress reactivity 1.”
Over the long term, chronic stress destroys healthy gut bacteria. That’s why tending to your mental health is essential for improving your gut health.
Tips to Boost Your Mental Health Through Creative Writing
Now that you know why creative writing can boost your mental health, let’s get down to the how. Here are eight ways you can achieve a better headspace while creating some captivating content!
Find Your Writing Spot
When it comes to exercising creative writing for improving your mental health, establishing a routine is a good thing. There’ll be times when you’ll feel like you don’t want to write and simply want to give up on the process. This scenario is precisely why you need to create or find your writing spot.
Having a ready-to-go writing spot will make it so much easier to sit down and start your writing. There’ll be no barriers or distractions.
You can choose to create a writing spot in your home:
- A simple set-up
- A desk
- A comfortable chair
- Decorative details you like
You can add a plant, a lamp, or some inspiring quotes to the area. These will help set the mood for your writing session.
Naturally, you can choose some spot outside of your home, such as:
- A bench in the park
- A spot by the river
- A quiet coffee shop
Choose whatever works best for you. However, you’ll never know just when creativity will strike. So, make sure that your sanctuary is within a short distance!
Commit to Writing
When you’re struggling with mental health issues, you never know how the next day will look. You can’t be sure what to expect, or how you’re going to feel. Even in your worst days, you must commit to creative writing.
Commit to yourself by doing some of the following things:
- Promise you’ll show up every day
- Set minimum daily writing goals
- Include one more person you trust in the process
Tell yourself you’ll do the writing even if you don’t feel like doing it. Consistency is key, even if you only write several lines.
Also, consider confiding in a close friend or someone from your family. Give them a chance to read what you’ve written each day and perhaps even discuss it with you.
These interactions will boost the feeling of commitment. Plus, talking to loved ones naturally boosts your mental health.
Write Freely
If you’re reading this and thinking something like “What would I even write?”, take a step back. It doesn’t matter what you write, as long as it’s honest and unfiltered.
That means that while you’re doing your daily writing, you should:
- Avoid overthinking
- Write freely
- Avoid looking back at previous lines
Just sit down and go with your gut. Ombre user, Garrott, uses probiotics to help spark their creativity.
As Garrott explained,
“I believe in what Ombre is doing because, for the last year, I’ve been taking an essential oil vitamin pack as well as probiotics that have vastly increased my energy levels, concentration, and optimism as well as boosted my immune system. The results have directly improved my creativity and productivity 2.”
Don’t filter your thoughts, and don’t pause to think whether or not you should really write something down.
Instead, remind yourself that you have the liberty to write whatever comes to your mind and practice writing from your heart.
Focus on Your Emotions
Creative writing is a great way to improve your mental health because it will help you express all those emotions you may have suppressed deep within you. Instead of suppressing, you should focus on processing what you feel.
That’s why you should focus your creative writing on:
- your feelings
- what caused those feelings
- people who influence how you feel
- the positive and negative things that have happened
Be open about the way you feel and track down the reason why you feel that way. Use creative writing to process everything that’s happening to you.
It will be like opening up to your best friend who you absolutely trust. You’ll feel relieved and less stressed out.
Stop Being Judgmental
At any given moment in your life, you are your own biggest supporter. If you fail to love and support yourself, everything else won’t even matter.
Therefore, start working on losing those judgmental thoughts and apply them to your writing.
That includes the following:
- don’t edit your work
- perform positive self-talk while you’re writing
- don’t grade your writing sessions
- be kind to yourself
Focus on the process and not the result. If you showed up and written any lines, you’ve accomplished your goal for the day.
Being less judgmental and more self-appreciating is something that takes time and practice. Luckily, you can start practicing it in your creative writing sessions.
Take Baby Steps
Boosting your mental health is worth every praise. Just the fact you decided to take things into your own hands says a lot about you. That’s why you need to start showing more self-love and appreciation.
That means:
- awarding yourself with a theatre ticket or your favorite chocolate bar
- acknowledging your effort
- praising your determination
Positive self-talk and self-encouragement are crucial for this entire process. Pat yourself on the back whenever you take a step towards improving your mental health.
Learn About Yourself
Creative writing is not only meant to reduce your daily stress or help you figure out why you’re feeling the way you are in a certain moment. It actually has a wider, deeper purpose.
By committing to your creative writing tasks every day, you’ll keep track of your daily struggles and be able to look back at it after a specific time.
This practice will help you:
- Find your patterns of behavior
- Learn what triggers certain emotions
- Realize why you’re responding to things a certain way
You’ll be able to learn from your previous experiences and focus on finding the right way to overcome potential obstacles and issues.
If you ever decide to share your experience with creative writing with others, check out the best paper writing site for helping writing a blog post or social media post. Learning about your mental health is crucial for your progress, and that’s exactly what creative writing will allow you to do.
Boost Your Mental Health Today
What are you waiting for you? Be proactive with your mental health and start working on the mental and physical. Don’t delay and get writing today.
In the meantime, opt for a gut test. Figure out which bacteria are negatively influencing your gut-brain-axis. These microbes might be behind some of your anxiety.
Ombre also helps you diversify you microbiome. Diversity is key to keeping you r mental wellness in balance. In fact, having a diverse microbiome improves your metabolism, which can only boost the brainpower you need to keep meeting your writing goals.
Hey, you can even write a review of our program as part of your creative writing. This practice will help you get even more of your insights. Plus, we’ll share your work with the world!
Resources
- 1 Maydych V. (2019). The Interplay Between Stress, Inflammation, and Emotional Attention: Relevance for Depression. Frontiers in neuroscience, 13, 384. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.00384.
- 2 Johnson, Garrott. “Thryve in the Creative Lifestyle- Go with Your Gut.” Garrott Designs, 14 Mar. 2018, www.garrottdesigns.com/2018/03/14/thryve-creative-lifestyle-gut-health-probiotics-gut-health-probiotic-microbiome/.