Experts argue that getting into a state of flow can produce substantial happiness, the kind that lasts longer than the pleasure we get from eating a good cookie.
According to Matthew Swan, MA, Registered Art Therapist, “Through creativity, we often find answers to our problems.” He says when we’re stuck, it helps if we can step outside the box and find another way of doing something. To be successful at this, we need to do things outside of our normal, everyday routine and to make connections between things that we had not thought about before. In fact, the creative process is the act of making these new connections.
The link between creativity and better mental and physical health is well established by research. So, while if you consider yourself someone who is creative naturally, chances are you are happier and that means better at work.
Robert Epstein explained in a Psychology Today article how challenging situations can bring out our creativity. Even if you don’t succeed at whatever you’re doing, you’ll wake up the creative areas of your brain and they’ll perform better after the failed task, to compensate.
In 1954 the first flotation method was created by John C. Lilly, a neuro-psychiatrist, as a way to create sensory-deprived control groups for his experiments. Being inside the flotation tank takes your brain from highly conscious alpha and beta waves to solid theta waves—the kind you would normally have right before falling asleep and just after waking up. Normally we only experience these theta waves for a few minutes, but having extended theta periods helps us to visualize better, often giving us vivid mental images. Sensory deprivation helps in reducing anxiety, stress and even chronic pain.
So, like everything else, creativity can bring you happiness and in return give you the much soughted after peace or grounding of you self that can actually help you catapult your career forward.
If there’s one thing you should focus on this year, it definitely has to be making yourself happier and the rest will happen automatically. If you are looking for more ways to make your brain happier, read this.
