Why Making Stuff Helps You Feel Less Anxious
I recently came across an article in The Atlantic by Arthur C. Brooks called The Tchaikovsky Cure for Worry. It reminded me of something I talk about often with my clients: creativity as an antidote to anxiety.
Brooks calls creativity a kind of “counterweight” to worry. I think of it as a gentle tug away from fear and control, toward curiosity and discovery. When you make something with your hands, you interrupt anxious chatter and give your mind something else to chew on. It’s not about fixing problems but about carving out space where your brain can breathe.
When Art Becomes Therapy
Here’s an example: When psychiatrist and author, Dr. Frank Clark, was in medical school, he wrote his first poem. At the time, he was struggling with depression. Running, therapy, medication and spirituality helped—but poetry was the missing ingredient in his recipe for wellness.
“All that chatter that is in my head, everything that I’ve been feeling, I can now just put it on paper and my pen can do the talking,” he recalled. Writing gave him another outlet. Another way through the anxiety stranglehold.
I see the same thing in real-time with my clients. When I ask someone to draw a stick figure of themselves with and without their stressors, or to create a map of their anxious mind, I’m inviting their right brain, the side that notices shapes, colors and feelings without words, into the conversation. That shift alone does wonders.
What the Science Says
This isn’t just therapist woo. A recent NIH review found that even brief creative sessions activate brain networks linked to emotional regulation. They quiet the amygdala (your brain’s alarm system), slow the heart rate and deepen the breath.
Other studies show similar effects. In 2015, researchers compared creativity levels in people walking outside versus sitting indoors. The walkers had 65 percent more ideas, and their ideas were more unique and higher quality. Nature, it turns out, primes the mind for openness, yet another reason to spend time walking outdoors.
And then there’s music as medicine, in particular, singing, which has been shown to reduce cortisol, the stress hormone. Reminds me of a song I learned as a child:
"Sing your way home at the close of the day. Sing your way home, drive the shadows away. Smile every mile, for wherever you roam. It will brighten your road, it will lighten your load. If you sing your way home."
Everyone is Creative
If after reading this post, you say to yourself, “but I’m not creative,” here are a few ideas to try:
The three-drawing technique. Draw yourself. Then draw yourself with your biggest problem. Then draw yourself after the problem is solved. Stick figures are fine. The point isn’t skill, it’s self-discovery.
Color something intricate. Research shows coloring mandalas reduces anxiety more than free-form doodling. Apparently, the repetitive patterns and symmetry in mandalas encourage a meditative or mindful state.
Write a haiku. Three lines. Five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Simple, short, stress reducing.
Cook or bake something new. Notice the rhythm of chopping, the sizzle in the pan or the scent of baking something sweet. The sensory immersion quiets the brain.
Savor the sound of music. Put on a song you love and focus on one layer at a time: the lyrics, the rhythm, the bass line. Music is textural.
The Power of Presence
Think about the smooth glide of ink across a page, the feeling of piano keys beneath your fingers—or the rhythm of whisking batter and smoothing frosting across a cake. These small sensory details pull you back into the moment. Anxiety lives in the future; creativity lives right here.
When I make space for these things in my own life, I notice that the knot in my stomach has loosened. My breath is deeper. The noise is quieter.
Creativity doesn’t erase anxiety or solve all problems. But it changes the conversation your brain is having with itself. Sometimes it’s with words, sometimes with paint or clay and sometimes with flour, sugar and a little buttercream.