Easy things I've done for my creative health lately

A peek at how I get my vitamin c(reativity)

Jun 30, 2025

Easy Things I’ve Done For My Creative Health Lately is a peek at how I get my vitamin c(reativity) throughout the week to strengthen my creative brain 🧠💪🏼🎨.

Daydreamers

defines Creative Health as having elements of play, being spontaneous, being curious, experiencing exhilaration and fun, challenging ourselves, and/or finding our inner resilience.

A study from MIT came out recently that shows how AI use can weaken our cognitive capacity. Researchers found the mind’s muscle actually shrinks when we stop asking it to carry weight and coined a term called “cognitive debt.”

As more and more people outsource their thinking to AI, they’re setting themselves up for mental atrophy. 🫨

We’ve already experienced what happens when rigid logical, linear thinking gets prized above more new, challenging, or divergent ideas: our creative brain shuts down. And when that happens, our very capacity for human flourishing is compromised. It’s why so many of us feel disoriented, unmoored, and disconnected. And why so many of us are struggling with anxiety, endless stress loops, loneliness, and digital addictions.

Creative resourcing is how we can tend to, preserve, and fight for the parts of ourselves that can’t be automated, like our:

Imagination
Mental flexibility (our ability to adapt and respond to a changing world)
Ability to make and behold beauty + meaning

…just to name a few!

This series, Easy things I’ve done for my creative health lately, is how I’m realistically (and practically) strengthening my own creative brain in bite-sized ways. As you’ll see, I’m not doing anything crazy or extraordinary! But what I *am* doing are the very things that AI cannot replicate: making things with my own hands, playing, savoring, noticing, and connecting. As a result, I’m relating to myself, my life, and others in a more meaningful, open, and positive way ✨.

Easy things I’ve done for my creative health lately

Therapeutic Art: One of my favorite follows on IG is Ashleigh from @discoverarttherapy. She recently hosted a 7-day challenge called The Watercolour Reset and it was sooo nice to be guided through simple watercolor exercises designed to “slow down, breathe, and reconnect with your creativity.”

Playing with food: My niece had a weeklong break before her summer camp started so I was officially in charge of Aunt Camp! I love making everyday, ordinary things extra special and that includes a happy face made from chocolate chips on her morning bagel 😋.

Color walks: I also introduced my niece to color walks. Before going for a walk, we pick a color that we want to look out for, and then take a photo every time we see it. She chose pink — her favorite color — and it was fun to see all the pops of pink we would have normally never noticed 🌸.

Making paper airplanes… out of a Chipotle bag: The other day I took my niece to lunch before watching Lilo & Sitch. We had an hour to kill before the movie started and nothing to do but wait. Usually I have a pack of UNO cards in my bag, but I’d left them at home. I turned to our empty chip bag and asked her, “What can we do with this paper bag?” She immediately responded, “MAKE PAPER AIRPLANES!!!” And that we did! Afterwards I showed her how to make those folded paper fortunes from grade school, which she loved. It was so cool to see her imagination at work — and how effortlessly she accesses it.

Savoring: Katina Bajaj of

Creative Health with Daydreamers

shared that savoring something beautiful for 60 seconds biologically lowers stress and improves mood. I tried it out by taking in my gorgeous peonies and rainier cherries!

Cooking: Cooking is a creative act! You can experiment/play with plating, seasonings, complementary and contrasting ingredients, color, etc. I’ve been enjoying rediscovering some of my favorite summer recipes, like Ina Garten’s Summer Pasta, and riffing on it based on what I have on hand.

Spending time in nature: I’m an indoor cat, so I kinda avoid the outdoors at all costs, LOL. I’m trying to change that, so last week I took my lunch outdoors… to the backyard. I noticed how the palm trees sound like the ocean, tried to count how many different types of bird chirps I could hear, and saw a monarch butterfly! It was a huge deal because we never see them in our backyard. A few days later I saw an itty bitty baby monarch 🥹.

Collaging: I’m kinda obsessed with collaging right now (as evidenced by my recent therapeutic art exercises!). It all started when I wanted to collage but didn’t have very many materials, just paper and a watercolor palette. I decided to create my own “collage paper” by painting different colors all over the paper, cutting them out into different shapes, and creating a shape/figure/scene from there. It was one of those moments that made me think, “Huh, I would have never thought of that before…” and I know it’s all thanks to these acts that are building my creative brain 🧠💪🏼🎨.

Writing poetry: I think the reason I like writing poetry (and now collaging) is because they’re kinda like puzzles. I get to flex my left and right brain by arranging words or pieces of paper to create a whole piece.

“Mini-c” creativity isn’t about being an “artist.” These little moments — playing, cooking, writing, savoring — remind me that creativity is how we stay present. How we stay human!

The more I tend to my creative health, the more resourced, flexible, and adaptable I feel to meet a changing world — one that looks quite different than the one we were brought up to prepare for.

What’s something easy you could do this week that inspires play, curiosity, or spontaneity?