Art: An Antidote to Stress

Stress makes our blood flow & body alert while the immune system & sleep ability slow way down So We Can Run or Fight.

I read about a Doctor who rushed her friend to the ER, and stayed with him in ICU through the night and next day, until he was stable. She knew her body was madly creating adrenaline and cortisol to react quickly to the event at hand. When she went home, she weighed herself, and found she had put on 3 lbs.

Stress is twofold: the perception we have of dangerous situations, and the hormones let loose in the body for protection. It’s meant to be short term. We really run into problems when we keep ourselves in this heightened state of affairs reacting to every challenge as life or death. What we think affects our health in every way. Stress blocks everything good from Flowing.

For me, doing Art brings balance. I recently had to endure 5 stressful days, filled with gnawing obsessing thoughts, before I could deal with the issue. I painted through it all. Not typical ‘therapy’ art filled with black, blood, and bodies, instead I gave myself ‘color’ problems to focus my thinking. This immersed me into solving a challenge in a way that worked, looked good, and that can possibly be added to my  new classes, The Sensual Artist. How can I make orange & blue look good, and not just the colors of football players? Or how to make a spontaneous painting with a story really work? The result was I had some interesting paintings to show, only gained 1 lb, and just a bit of a rash that cleared up quickly. Success!

Really getting into the whole body doing of art, trying to make something new look good, and losing track of time, puts each of us into another world. It’s a world of healing, allowing the body some down time to pull itself together. It’s creative distraction while doing good that also comes from creating a meal from scratch, getting out into Nature with awareness, or exercising by dancing/walking/running. So switch your thoughts about things into positive ones. See everything as an opportunity to try something new, making it a game in life instead of a burden of overwhelm. This is a precious day in your life, so make it good.

Some more thoughts about Stress & Prevention…