Why It's Important To Nurture Your Artistic Sides!

It’s not just child’s play – making time for art can keep you on top of your mental game

- Elli Jacobs

Creativity is the art of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality – but it’s also about finding unique solutions to problems. Thinking in an original way is imperative for high level health and wellness, as it can make life’s challenges more manageable, bring order to chaos and help us gain control over our lives.

Many of us don’t see ourselves as ‘creative types’, simply because we weren’t naturally good at art, music or writing growing up. But the reality is, creativity is a developable, trainable skill and it has many positive life benefits. And Singaporeans’ interest in art is growing: 78 per cent of us acknowledge that arts and culture help to foster a sense of belonging, community and identity, as well as inspire creativity and innovation. This was a key discovery in the National Arts Council’s 2015 National Population Survey on the Arts.

Here we look at the ways in which art and creativity can benefit our health, and why it’s important to nurture our artistic sides.

WHY WE LOSE OUR ABILITY TO THINK CREATIVELY AS ADULTS

“While as children we’re naturally creative, as we mature we become very self-conscious of not getting things right, we begin to judge ourselves. If we don’t have a specific talent we feel we’re not good enough to make art, we push it aside, and this affects our capacity to think creatively in the face of life’s challenges,” explains artist and art therapist Yvonne Kiely.

“Under the increasing pressures of everyday life, we also default to a goal-oriented style of thinking, and this constrains our capacity to see possibilities,” adds associate professor Muireann Irish at the Brain and Mind Centre from the University of Sydney. This is why training ourselves to remember how to think in unconstrained ways is extremely important if we are to thrive in our lives.