Self Care for Creatives (my 8 pillars for artistic wellness)
There’s no debate, taking care of yourself is crucial. It’s easy for this topic to get pretty nuanced pretty quick, but the ideas here are what work for me. These are my core pillars of self care for creatives.
But please note – I’m not a specialist, I’m not a doctor and I have no formal training on these topics.
These are the things that have worked (and continue to work) for me.
So please speak with your doctor or a professional if you’re struggling in any health-related area. No blog can replace the importance of that.
OK, now that we’ve got the disclaimers out of the way, let’s skip the small talk and just jump right in.
Let’s start with some definitions.
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What Is Self Care? (+ why’s it matter?)
So what is self care? This is a reasonable starting point.
There are a few definitions out there, and while the meanings can vary slightly, they essentially say the same things.
Self care is what we do and the actions we take to support our physical, mental and emotional well-being. It’s like a holistic understanding of our personal health.
Basically, self care encompasses how our daily habits and routine support our overall health and well-being.
And it’s incredibly important – especially for creatives.
So here are some of my top reasons why I take self care so seriously as a musician, artist and content creator:
Reduce creative anxiety and stress
More able to adapt to changes and challenges
Boost clarity and mental sharpness for better work and focus
Self care may help you live longer
Self care boosts confidence and self image
A self care routine can improve discipline and consistency
Self Care for Creatives (my 8 pillars)
The pillars below reflect my biggest priorities.
These are the parts of my well-being and health that make me happier, healthier and, yep, more creative.
So I hope these tips and ideas help inspire your own self care routine. But of course, let me know in the comments below of anything else you do!
1. Nutritional Self Care
Nutrition was the first thing I did for my self care.
I had always erred on the side of health, but my choices were based on clever marketing and incomplete information.
Luckily, one of my closest friends is a registered dietitian, so she was able to help me in creating a nutritional profile and diet that works with me, my preferences and goals and my creative pursuits.
If you’re interested in learning more about customized nutrition, you can check out my friend’s website here!
But why is nutrition one of my core pillars?
Simply put, the food we eat can either make us feel tired or alert and alive. Our diets can boost mental clarity, focus and energy – or deplete them.
These things have a dramatic impact on creativity and artistic quality.
So nutrition will always remain one of my core self care pillars.
2. Physical Self Care
Physical health is a logical next step after nutrition.
We all know “eating your greens” is good. Similarly, we all know exercise generally improves our health and well-being.
But I have a pretty flexible and fluid definition of exercise. For me, it’s just remaining active and moving (if you’re able to), and reducing too much sitting and doing things that support heart health, muscle strengths and agility and balance.
My main physical self care routine looks like this:
I aim to walk or ride a bike rather than driving
I do push ups and situps
I do yoga
I snowboard in the winter
I want to add more activities – like surfing for example – but this is my current routine.
It works for me. Coupled with a nutrition plan that works for me, I’m usually full of energy and creativity flows much easier because of this.
Another creative benefit of physical exercise (or movement) is creative ideation.
I always have small epiphanies or some level of artistic clarity and project ideas when I’m walking or coming down from some physical exercise.
It’s sort of like meditation.
While doing the activity, I’m completely in the moment. But after, I have some level of objective clarity. This is perfect for creativity.
3. Mental Self Care
I thought about moving this pillar to number one, because it’s probably my biggest priority.
I used to shove mental care aside, believing that my diet and physical routines can fix most issues.
But no, that’s just not the case. In fact, without a healthy mental state, everything else tends to fall apart.
I need to be in the right mindset to take action, maintain my routines and truly appreciate their benefits.
It’s also important to unwind and enjoy life. Mental health requires a balance — we can’t be 100% on 100% of the time.
As for mindset, having a creative mindset is crucial for making new things, believing in yourself, taking artistic risks and not falling into negative cycles (like comparison culture).
Also, the more we believe in the effectiveness of some action – and visualize it using strong emotions – the more effective that thing can be.
For example, research has shown that mental practicing musical instruments (not physically practicing them) actually has a significant impact on improving your performance, memory and creative abilities.
There’s a similar effect on exercise too.
Research and various studies have demonstrated that simply visualized lifting weights and muscle growth leads to real increases in muscle mass.
Crazy. And I love it.
But the key theme here is emotion. So let’s dig into that pillar next.
4. Emotional Self Care
Emotional self care is closely connected to mental well-being – a logical next step for our purposes.
So what is emotional self care?
For me, emotional self care is basically being more aware of and acknowledging your emotions. It’s sort of like aiming to boost my EQ (emotional quotient).
For me, I aim to recognize and develop a healthy relationship with my emotions – all of them.
I do this through self reflection, meditation, gratitude and practicing mindfulness.
Emotional health is so important for a lot of things in our lives. But how about creativity?
Totally.
Emotions play a huge role in creativity and artistic expression.
The songs I write are often much better when I have clarity and self reflection on the emotions I’m experiencing and how they’re translated into music and songs with compelling lyrics.
Being emotionally in-touch is an artist’s super power. Our medium may be a guitar, or a paintbrush, or maybe a blog.
But the ability to be emotionally aware is crucial for creative flow.
5. Career Self Care
Career self care is all about rejecting the concept of the starving artist.
We need to set aside the belief that you need to go through mud and struggle before you can earn some living or success.
Career self care is all about understanding finance, marketing, sales and creative entrepreneurship.
It can be a difficult leap to go from art to sales. But it’s essential for growing a creative brand and building a life that affords you more time and monetary flexibility to, well, create more art.
So take care of your career. Know your value and don’t undersell yourself.
Although freebies and adding value are great for marketing, we, as artists and creatives, should not be expected to provide works for free or at some discount.
Knowing your value is step one. Communicating your value is step two – and this is all about brand building, marketing and career self care.
So spend some time learning about business, marketing and finance.
Tie things back to your creativity. This will take you to amazing places.
6. Artistic Self Care
Artistic self care is about doing the things that are true to your creative self and vision.
It can be difficult to juggle and balance our creative projects.
It’s difficult to appease the algorithms and trends while also pursuing the unique ideas that we really want to share.
So yes, being aware of trends and social media strategy for career growth are important (circling back to #5).
But it’s also important to pause and reflect on whether you’re also doing things that make you happy and are creatively honest to your brand and your vision.
Because at the end of the day, it’s that authenticity that will last the longest and will resonate the most with people.
So try many things, learn the best practices – but also remember to do you.
7. Sleep and Rest Self Care
Sleep is essential. Despite being number seven on this list, it’s one of my top priorities.
I feel better, function more effectively and even look better after a solid night’s rest. And the cool thing is, when I pay attention to the other things in this list, my sleep tends to be way better as a result.
So really, we’re creating a positive feedback loop here. Still, that doesn’t mean I haven’t dealt with some acute insomnia before.
If you’ve ever struggled with falling asleep, you’ll know how annoying it can be. It takes a serious toll on your energy, mood and overall health. And as Fingerprint for Success points out, sleep also plays a crucial role in our mental health and wellbeing.
So while I’m far from being any sort of sleep expert, there are some things that have helped me:
The Loóna app
Meditation and visualization before bed (for 20+ minutes)
Taking a relaxing shower before bed
Not forcing sleep if I’m not ready
Going easy on myself and accepting it
Identifying the cause(s) and working to resolve them
8. Social Self Care
And last – but definitely not least – is social self care.
Admittedly, this is something I’ve unfortunately ignored in recent years (I like to blame the pandemic, but honestly, it started before then).
I’m a big supporter of focus and putting in the weekend work and late nights to build something amazing.
But it’s also crucial to take a break, avoid burnout and socialize. We need this, and I always feel better and more inspired.
One way to balance both your creative brand goals with social self care is to surround yourself with more like-minded and motivational people.
I love all of my friends and family, but I also love to network with new groups and people who are more aligned with my artistic visions and energy.
But either way, remember to take a break every once in a while and hang out with people. Try to laugh everyday and interact with the world.
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