How Creative Pursuits Can Quiet the Noise of Stress

Last year, I lost my best friend to cancer, which left a gaping hole in my life. The grief is real, we talked every day for years; he knew me better than anyone. A few months after his death, I signed up for piano lessons, not only to distract myself from the grief but also to explore a form of creativity that had always appealed to me. When I practice piano, my attention is completely absorbed by the notes on the page, the movement of my fingers across the keys, and the music I'm creating. I have never been able to achieve a state of being wholly submerged in the present with mindfulness meditation practices like I can playing piano. Now it is a state I crave to return to each day. In those moments, I feel emancipated from grief. Even more, I feel pride in creating something beautiful.

Creative expression can be part of a healing journey, one consistent with the behavioral theory of depression, which suggests that negative moods manifest when our lives lack sufficient opportunities for mastery and or pleasure.¹ We thrive when we feel productive and have ample sources of pleasure in our lives. Creative pursuits check both boxes and have the bonus of silencing mind noise, or rumination, which is fuel for negative moods. Brain imaging studies show that creative pursuits such as playing music, crafting, art, and other practices activate reward pathways in the brain.² This means that by engaging in creative activities, we can hack our brain chemistry.

The goal of behavior therapy for depression³ is to help a person get on the path to well-being by examining the degree to which they experience mastery and or pleasure in five key domains of life, which I refer to as Roots: Relationships, occupation, ongoing growth, tasks, and self-care. Relationship refers to our most important human connections, including our partner, children, extended family, friends, and co-workers. Occupation refers to work or school. Ongoing growth refers to hobbies and other creative forms of self-expression. Tasks refers to the daily business of taking care of our home, belongings, and finances; and finally, self-care refers to the things we do to tend to our physical, emotional, and or spiritual health.

ROOTS of Life

Source: Sherry Pagoto

A grounded, meaningful life has deep roots in all five domains. Think of your life like this pie chart. Only when we have ample experiences of mastery and pleasure in all five domains can we achieve harmony and peace.

In my case, the loss of my friend created disharmony, especially in the relationship domain. I can’t replace a friendship like that overnight, so I invested in ongoing growth by learning a creative pursuit to help me cope with my grief. By providing experiences of mastery and pleasure while shutting down rumination, learning piano has been truly helpful on my healing journey.

An important question, though, is whether investment in one domain can fully compensate for something lacking in another domain. Unfortunately, the answer is no. I could pour myself into becoming a virtuoso, but it won’t fully compensate for the loss of my friend, because each life domain fulfills a different human need. Relationships fulfill our need for human connection and love. A creative pursuit can’t meet those needs, no matter how much pleasure or mastery we experience from it. The five life domains are like the food pyramid. We can’t subsist on one nutrient; we need all of them and in the right doses for a healthy life.

Taking this a step further, when we pour too much energy into one domain, we risk compromising the others, which pushes us further away from harmony. Even a healthy coping skill like a creative pursuit can become unhealthy when it throws our Roots out of balance. Consider the case of workaholics who put the lion’s share of their time into their job. They achieve career success, wealth, and recognition. But if maxing out on one domain was enough to feel whole, workaholics would be the happiest people on earth. On the contrary, study after study shows that workaholism is associated with depression, anxiety, and health problems, simply because it leaves people with too many unmet needs.⁴

The second problem with spending too much energy on one domain is that, whether we realize it or not, we may be doing so to avoid problems in other domains. Even the most uplifting activities can serve the function of avoidance, and it is precisely because those activities are so uplifting that we fail to notice when they are functioning as avoidance. The problem with avoidance is that it is kindling for depression and anxiety. Bill Gates recently expressed regret over the dissolution of his marriage to Melinda French Gates, which leaves one to wonder if some of the time he poured into work was rescuing him from the discomfort of tackling problems at home.⁵ Society rewards men especially for being high achievers at work, but this can come at a steep price. The largest longitudinal study on men’s health, the Harvard Grant Study, followed 724 men from their teenage years into their 90s and found that the strongest predictor of healthy longevity was not genes, IQ, wealth, or fame—it was relationship satisfaction.⁶ This suggests that the one life domain we can’t afford to neglect is our relationships.

In the end, the answer is yes, delving into a creative pursuit is profoundly helpful in coping with stress, as it brings with it creativity, mastery, and purpose, while silencing mind noise. However, there is no substitute for taking inventory of all five life domains, identifying those that could use a tune-up, and putting energy into bringing all of them into balance. In my case, while learning piano has eased my grief, I must remember that it is the time and attention I put into my relationships that will deliver me a harmonious and peaceful life.