Creative Wellness
The creatively well person values and actively participates in a diverse range of arts and cultural experiences as a means to understand and appreciate the surrounding world. Creative wellness is appreciating beauty in self, expressing your identity and using multiple perspectives to understand complex topics.
Taking an Active Role in Your Creative Wellness
Find meaningful ways to incorporate creativity into your life. You can enhance creativity through activities and hobbies like arts and crafts, dancing, or cooking, or even by focusing on your own creative self-expression. Use creativity in your academic and professional experiences by proposing new ideas, problem-solving and coming up with creative solutions.
Promoting Creative Wellness In and Outside the Classroom
Creative Wellness is more than just finding creative outlets for self-care and self-expression. As faculty and staff, we can assist students in building their creative problem-solving skills through projects, papers, presentations and extracurricular activities. Additionally, learning to recognize when students need a creative release will assist us in providing creative outlets, such as coloring pages, downtime for preferred artistic mediums, dance breaks or playing music, to support their mental and physical health.
Examples of Creative Wellness Activities and Promotion inside the classroom:
- Create a lobby art exhibit that students can contribute to
- Bulletin board decorating contest
- If class is primarily lecture, provide coloring supplies to help students focus
- Creative problem solving – post a difficult Sudoku or other puzzle for students to complete, those who finish the puzzle correctly can turn in for a prize or extra credit
- Encourage students’ creativity through creative writing assignments or self-reflections
- Playing music before or after class
Examples of Creative Wellness Activities and Promotion outside the classroom:
- Attend free music and art events happening on campus as a group
- Host an outing to an art exhibit or event
- Host a paint night or art therapy event